"You sound like a good guy. Join my crew"
Luffy, after hearing about Zoro's story from the townsfolk, decides to recruit Zoro. He found Zoro helping around the tavern where Rika, the girl Luffy heard that Zoro saved, and her family worked at. After confirming what he heard, that Zoro was actually a good guy that freed the town from the tyrannical former Marine captain, his resolve to recruit him increased even more.
"Sure. But I'm gunning to become the World's Strongest Swordsman, so you better not hold me back."
"Of course, the Pirate King should have the Strongest Swordsman by his side."
Zoro then faced Rika and told her "Hey kid. I'll be going now. Thank you for taking me in and feeding me. Stay safe okay?" The girl then cried but then tried to be mature and show her savior a happy face so that he won't feel bad leaving, in which she failed miserably. Koby stayed in town to pursue becoming a marine.
Zoro then took all his stuff consisting of a few of the same plain white shirt, a few underwear, a few pairs of socks, 1 other pair of black pants, his swords, and 300,000 Berries, which was all the money he had left from his last bounty that Helmeppo used up last time, and put them in a sack. He also took food donated to him by the townsfolk because he knew what type of person Luffy was and he didn't think Luffy has much in his boat that could be used to prepare any type of meal.
He then followed to Luffy's small boat, which was more appropriate for fishing rather than housing the future Pirate King. Only after they took off did Luffy realize that Zoro was as clueless as him in sailing.
"So you're actually from the future! That's so cool! Do you guys have flying ships and laser beams in the future?"
"I'm not that far from the future...But yes, technically speaking those do exist."
While on the boat together, Zoro revealed to Luffy that he was from the future.
"Okay, but don't spoil me on all the cool exciting surprises on the Grand Line."
"I won't, don't worry about that, except for things that would make the crew stronger, or endanger the crew."
"I'm already pretty strong though."
"As you are now, not even remotely close. You'll see soon enough."
Their conversation was cut short by the sound of a bird just above them.
"Do you think we could eat that?" Luffy pointed at the bird.
"Didn't we just eat like 3 hours ago?"
"Yeah, but I could really use a snack right now."
"So you're just gonna grab it?"
"Yup" Luffy answered and slingshot his way towards the bird. Zoro was already holding the oars when the bird turned out to be much bigger than how it looked like from below, as it took Luffy by the head and flew off. Zoro rowed after them, and again came across the 3 Buggy pirate scrubs. They tried to take over the boat but Zoro made quick of them and ordered them to take him towards their crew.
'Time to introduce ourselves to Nami.'
"Get back here girl!" 3 men carrying drawn swords shouted towards a girl with a short bright orange hair.
The girl, Nami, just ignored and kept running away from them. She then heard a cannon go off and hit something somewhere above her. Then something fell right in front of her. When the dust settled, she saw a teenage kid roughly her own age with a red vest, and a straw hat with a red ribbon on it.
"Stupid bird, dragging me all the way here. Now I'd have to try and find Zoro." Luffy said as he dusted himself, with no discernable injury on him.
Nami then approached Luffy acting all familiar saying "Hey Boss, I got the map, so you can take care of these guys yeah?" Then she quickly sprinted away after saying her piece.
"Hm?"
"Ah! She got away."
"It's fine, her 'boss' is still here ain't he?"
"That's right. We got their head honcho here anyways."
"You're gonna have to pay for stealing from the Buggy Pirates!" The henchman said and punched Luffy in the head, which grazes Luffy's straw hat. Luffy counter punched the guy down into the ground. "Don't fucking mess with my hat!" Luffy shouted and proceeded to beat the crap out of the rest of them.
"Wow, you're so strong you beat those guys while unarmed"
"Ah? Who're you anyways?"
"The name's Nami, I'm a thief who steals only from pirates."
"Only from pirates?"
"Yeah, if we team up, we could get a lot of money."
"Not interested."
"Hey, wait up! So what's the deal with the hat? You got pissed at that guy when he touched it."
"It's my treasure."
"Are there jewels inside it? Or...don't tell me it's a treasure map?!"
They then moved their conversation into one of the abandoned houses where Nami tried to explain Orange town's situation to Luffy.
"Aha! So you're stealing from these houses."
"NO! I just explained to you that it was the Buggy pirates terrorizing this town, and that I only stole from pirates. Don't you compare me to those robbers!" Nami vehemently disagreed being compared to pirates.
"My goal is to get 100 million Berries to buy a certain village."
"100 million is a lot of money to steal from pirates."
"That's why I took this Grand Line map from Buggy so I could sail there and steal more money from bigger pirates. So, don't you wanna join me now? If you lend me your power, I'd even give you a share."
"So you're confident in you're navigation and sailing?"
"Yeah, absolutely, I love the sea, and there aren't that many people who know more than I do."
"Cool, you wanna be a navigator for my pirate crew?"
"What?! No way!" Nami shouted, going complete 180 on her attitude. "Forget everything I said about teamin-up then, pirates are the worst things in the world."
Luffy seemed confused why Nami seemed so completely against pirates.
"You seem to be in a pickle so I'll do it under 1 condition. Go with me to where Buggy is."
"Oh, that's easy. Let's go right now" Luffy said, already leaving the house.
Nami caught up with Luffy outside, ropes in her hands.
"What's that for?" Luffy asked, but then he was immediately tied up by Nami with said rope.
"You'll find out soon enough."
"Here we are, Sir Zoro. This is Orange town. Our crew is actually currently raiding it."
Zoro arrived with the 3 Buggy pirates on the docks of Orange town.
"So what're we going to do? We can't come back to Captain empty-handed, he'll kill us."
"We don't have any other choice do we?! That bitch likely sailed far away by now, it'd be impossible for us to find her. We'll just have to come clean about it as quickly as possible so that we'd have a better chance of surviving."
"Show me to your Captain, he likely knows where Luffy is."
"Of course Sir. Hurry up you guys, we already fucked up, we don't want him to also keep waiting."
The 3 ignorant mooks then lead Zoro towards where the Buggy pirates were staying at. But a few moment later, it appeared that wouldn't be necessary. Zoro saw a huge explosion a few blocks away from where they were headed, and went ahead of them to find his captain. He climbed the building just on the other side of where the Buggy pirates were staying at and saw the scene of the Buggy pirates pressuring Nami to blast Luffy with a canon. But she does not bend, and stops them from blowing his captain up. Before they could hurt her, Zoro stepped in and easily cut through the attackers.
"How pathetic are you guys to gang up on 1 girl?"
"Zoro!"
"Huh?"
Luffy beamed at Zoro's presence, and Nami was just awed by his power.
"You ok?"
"Y-yeah I'm ok."
"Zoro! You found me! Hurry and lemme outta here."
"Luffy, you're so much stronger than everyone else here, how careless do you have to be to end up there?"
"Did he just say Zoro? As in the bounty hunter Zoro, the guy with 3 swords who took in Thorn Blade Thane's 13 mill bounty a month ago."
"You here to take my bounty Roronoa?"
"Not really, but you've caged my Captain so, sucks to be you."
"Once I take you down I'll become the most famous pirate in East Blue." Buggy said while juggling his knives around.
"That's not really saying much." Zoro immediately cut Buggy down with his hardened swords.
"He He He..."
...
"EH! Why isn't the captain getting back up?!" The entire Buggy pirates were dumbfounded as they were used to their Captain tricking opponents by letting them get a seemingly fatal hit in, but then sneakily shanking them. It's the first time any of them even saw their captain bleed.
"Hahaha! That guy's so weak."
"You guys aren't worth my time." Zoro said, and he immediately blasted Conqueror's haki around him which caused the rest of the Buggy pirates to go down, and Nami to stagger a little bit. He then walked towards Luffy's cage and cut both the cage and the ropes holding Luffy.
"Oh yeah, Zoro, the girl's name is Nami, and she promised to be our navigator from now on."
"Welcome aboard, Nami." Zoro helped Nami gain her footing as she's still feeling a bit light-headed from rapid escalation of events that just happened and Zoro's haki's lingering effects on her.
"Can't believe you left half my gold to them!"
"Nami, they needed the money more than us anyways, and the money we left is probably not even enough to cover their damages from Buggy."
"That's still 5 million you left you moron!"
"You get it back!"
While Nami and Luffy argued about the money, Zoro just freely laughed in the background, knowing peaceful times like these become less frequent in the future.