Welcome back, everyone! Now we get some details on Luffy's new Devil Fruit and we introduce the Hero of the Marines and the rest of Luffy's family!
Chapter 2: Bonds Forged and Tested! Luffy's New Brothers Ace and Sabo!
It has been a long time since the Red Force came to rest in Foosha Village, but the time was finally here. Shanks and his crew were returning to the Grand Line.
"Off to have more adventures?!"
"You bet! We can't just sit around here forever, you know? A pirate's true calling is to explore the seas."
Luffy, of course, had to see his friends off. Shanks watched his men work, his arms crossed as he no doubt imagined all the new islands they would explore. The captain looked down with a raised brow. "What, no begging to come along?"
"Nah! I'm gonna make my own crew someday and be a great pirate!"
"GAHAHAHAHAHA! Luffy, you're still way too young to be a pirate!"
"Stop laughing, you jerk! I'll show you! I'll make the best crew ever someday and become the King of the Pirates!"
Shanks and the rest of the pirates all paused at that. The sheer conviction in the kid's voice, this was no outburst. That was a fact as far as Luffy was concerned.
"King of the Pirates, huh? You know what that means?"
"Yeah! And I'll find the One Piece faster than you, just you watch!"
"Well then…" Shanks lifted the straw hat he always wore off of his bright red locks, "…Then why don't you keep this?"
Luffy gasped as the man's treasured hat was placed on his little head, tears immediately flowing from his eyes. "Luffy, there's no need to cry when you say goodbye. You just keep this hat safe for me until you become a great pirate, okay?"
"OKAY!"
And with that, the Red Force raised the anchor and sailed away from Dawn Island. Luffy may have been sad to see Shanks depart but now he had a dream. A real focus that he could put himself into mind, body and soul. Plus now he had a real treasure of his own in the straw hat. Other pirates might have had gold and jewels but the vow he and Shanks had felt infinitely more valuable.
And Luffy was so excited about his new hat that he only took it ff when he slept. That was why it took so long for Luffy to find the folded-up piece of paper placed inside.
"Huh? What's this?" Luffy opened the note and his eyes went wide, "A letter from Shanks?!"
"Hey, Luffy! I wanted to make sure I told you one important thing before I left, so I wrote this down the day before. I know your Grandpa keeps bugging you to become a Marine but only do that if you want to. You can't serve anyone if you lack conviction."
Luffy shook his head to no one. Now he was doubly sure he would never become a Marine. The point of being a pirate was freedom, and Marines were all uptight and worried about rank and orders and stuff. Where was the freedom in that?
"Anyway, there is one thing your gramps can help with. The next time you see him, ask him to teach you 'Haki.' It's a super useful skill that all the best pirates on the Grand Line know about!"
"NO WAY!" Luffy's mind was racing. What the heck was Haki, and why didn't his grandpa ever tell him about it? Whatever it was, he needed it now!
"Trust me, Luffy, Haki will be a big help if you ever decide to go out to sea. Until we meet again! – Shanks"
That night, Luffy would reread the letter over and over again and imagined what this super-special Haki thing could be that Shanks knew about. And miles away, on the open waters of the East Blue, Shanks retired to his quarters to place a call.
After a few rings, the Transponder Snail answered. "Well, what can I do for an old drinking buddy?"
"Just here to tell you that Luffy got the message."
"Excellent! Garp will leap at the chance to make Luffy a stronger Marine so he won't bother to learn why the kid knows about Haki."
"Ha, yeah, him as a Marine is even funnier to imagine than a pirate. He wouldn't last a day in any academy!"
"And you actually care about what he wants, and that's what's really important. Take care, Shanks."
The young, notorious pirate then opened a flask and poured a second glass for the infamous revolutionary. They might not have seen each other in far too long but they could both agree on one thing: Luffy was going to be a force be reckoned with in the years to come.
The sight of a Marine vessel was a great comfort to many, doubly so for the battleships that provided the greatest protection against seafaring criminals. Those casual passersby may note how odd the large dog with a bone in its mouth for its figurehead but those who knew trembled. This was the personal vessel of Monkey D. Garp, the Hero of the Marines. The man who chased the King of the Pirates himself and came within a hair's breadth of capturing him time and again.
But rather than touring the New World or tackling a risky operation, the massive, green-hulled ship was descending Reverse Mountain to enter the East Blue. Surely one of the Marines finest wasn't needed in the tamest of all seas?
But those who knew Garp knew he was an incorrigible man well into his sixties who had a particular talent for bending his few superiors to let him act as he wished. And now, he was traveling onwards towards Dawn Island on a personal mission to train his grandson Luffy to become a fine sailor like himself.
And as the feared Vice-Admiral was sitting at his desk, rereading the letters he had received from the head of Foosha Village, he wasn't sure what to be more concerned with. His grandson eating a random Devil Fruit on a whim, or that he was spending all his time with Red-Haired Shanks!
"Peru-peru-peru-peru!"
"Hm?" Garp picked up his Transponder Snail without thinking about it. "What do you want, Sengoku?"
"Hah, we finally have something in common! That's how I'd address the Fleet Admiral as well!"
"What, DRAGON?! How in the blazes did you get my private number?!"
"Because you haven't changed it in over twenty years, Garp. That makes you easier to reach than you imagine."
"Oh, sure, like you have any right to cop an attitude with me! Still running around with your Freedom Fighters?"
"No, actually, we've grown substantially. As if even someone as selectively oblivious as you don't recognize the Revolutionary Army. How are the disgusting wastes of space you work for doing, anyhow?"
Garp refused to give his son the satisfaction of an answer, or the fact that the Revolutionary Army were constantly mentioned in all top-level briefings as their greatest threat.
"What the damn hell do you want? Years of being a beatnik and only now you decide to call me?"
"I'm not happy with how you're treating my son, Garp."
The Vice Admiral had to resist the urge to put a Fist of Love straight through his desk. "Shut your mouth right now! You don't have a right to bring up parenting! At least I make time for Luffy! You're too busy being a terrorist that he doesn't even know what you look like!"
"Garp, Laura's only wish for our son was to let him decide his own life. And here you are trying to beat him into following your footsteps. Because that worked SOOOO well the first time…"
"I WILL PERSONALLY DRAG YOU TO ENIES LOBBY, YOU TRAITOR! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER WORD FROM YOU!"
"I'm trying to tell you that all you're doing is pushing Luffy away! He goes on and on about how he doesn't want to be in the Navy! Why can't you just respect that?!"
"Luffy's a little kid, little kids say dumb things! All he needs is to understand how important the Marines' work is and then he'll see reason!"
"Oh, so you discuss legal protocol and naval battle strategies? Or the importance of defending innocents from bloodthirsty pirates? Or how about the World Nobles, and all the WONDERFUL things they're responsible for? Because it seems like all you do is bash him over the head, literally, and just forcing him into it."
"What the…?! Have you been spying on my visits?!"
"I want nothing more than to be there for Luffy personally, but your employers have made that impossible. The best I can do is to keep an eye on him, which I do on a biweekly basis. If you actually care about him, listen to him for a change!"
"Bah, like you have any right to talk about commitments or loyalty! If you want to help Luffy, do him a favor and turn yourself in! Goodbye, Dragon." With that, Garp slammed the receiver off and went on deck to blow off some steam with a little light training. His ship was set to arrive at Dawn Island tomorrow and he had a lot to teach Luffy this time around.
Luffy, as per usual, was less than thrilled to see his Grandpa approaching but he did notice something new. Tucked under one arm was a humungous, brown leather-bound book almost as big as he was.
"Okay, Luffy, I heard about your Devil Fruit and did some looking around," the old Marine explained, "It took me a while but I found something…" He then opened the massive tome and flipped to a page showing a heavily muscled man with indigo skin, six arms, a third eye and holding multiple weapons.
"'Shi…Va?'" Luffy read, "Who's that?"
"According to this, he was an ancient god of destruction that was once worshipped in the West Blue. But going by what the mayor told me, it looks like we have a match for your Devil Fruit; the Human-Human Fruit: Model – Shiva."
And with a proper reference in front of him, Luffy understood everything his new fruit could do. First of all, as usual with all Zoan Devil Fruits, Luffy gained an enormous boost to his physical attributes. According to Garp and his decades of training Marines, these fruits didn't grant a particular ability or give them an element to control and become but were intertwined with the user's power. In other words, Luffy not only gained a huge increase in his strength, speed, stamina, agility and reflexes but they would only grow exponentially as he was trained further.
Also like other Zoans, Luffy could cycle between a human form, the half Shiva form he used when he flattened Higuma and a supposed full Shiva form that would be even stronger. Garp was curious to see it but decided to keep that on hold until Luffy learned everything else.
The book detailed how Shiva was an unparalleled martial artist, being unmatched in hand to hand combat. All it took was Garp asking him to throw some punches that it was clear that Luffy was the same. Every blow was clean, elegant, designed to deliver maximum power with minimal energy needed. And when asked to punch rock, his fist went clean through.
The real surprise ended up being Luffy's weapons. They discovered that the trident that Luffy summoned was called a trishula and was Shiva's signature weapon. Luffy could will one into his hands by just thinking it and proved just as proficient with the weapon as with martial arts, able to twirl and stab at blinding speed.
After that they discovered the parashu, a double-edged battle axe that Luffy could use to chop down a tree in a few strokes. Just like with the trident, the handle was solid black while the blades were glimmering gold. There was also the pinaka, a tall bow that Luffy knew exactly how to aim and hit a target over fifty feet away. The golden-tipped arrows even appeared automatically when he pulled back the bowstring.
The surprise came from the astra, something the book only described as a "celestial missile." Garp scratched his head at what that was supposed to mean. The only picture showed Shiva holding a golden ball of light in his palm. Luffy tried picturing the same and was shocked to find a glowing sphere about the size of a tennis ball appear.
"WHOA, it worked!" The boy threw the ball several feet away and it detonated against the ground with a deafening kaboom and left an inch-deep crater in the ground.
"Well, I'll be damned!" Garp whistled, "Between the weapons and your fighting skills, you'll be amazing!"
"And that's not all! I can do this!" Luffy summoned his extra pair of arms, just as he'd practiced in the days since he first ate the fruit. Now he could bring them out or send them away with barely a thought. And with them, Luffy's combat prowess only shot up with twice as many hands to work with. He could even use multiple weapons or fire several astral missiles at once.
"All of that in your base form?! You'll give Sengoku a run for his money, HAHAHAHA!"
Luffy's face immediately soured at yet another reminder of being in the Navy but he bit back his usual retort. Garp was here, and in a good mood, so now it was time to focus on Shanks's letter.
"Hey Gramps, what's Haki?"
The Vice-Admiral blinked in surprise. "Where did you hear about that?"
"Shanks told me it was something all the best pirates on the Grand Line know about."
"That is true, and I can just see him blabbing about it."
"Well, what is it? Is it dangerous?"
"Not necessarily to use, it just takes effort. It also happens to be used by all the Marines, you actually need it to become a Vice-Admiral."
"Really?!"
The excitement in Luffy's voice made Garp think. Could this be it, the thing that would change Luffy's mind? Observation Haki was all about mental focus and Armament Haki could make his ludicrously enhanced strength and defenses even tougher. It would make him a shoo-in for a promotion straight out of the academy, too!"
"Alright, Luffy, we'll add that to all your training going forward!"
"YES!" Luffy cheered, remembering to thank Shanks whenever he saw him again. His letter worked like a charm and now he'd have Haki to help him become King of the Pirates!
Now that the full extent of Luffy's Devil Fruit was revealed, Garp then revealed the other reason he was here on such short notice. According to him, Luffy needs a "good influence" to get Shanks out of his head and so the Marine had called up a connection he had to give Luffy a more proper place to stay than the backroom of Makino's bar.
He was led out of Foosha Village and into the beast-infested forests of Mt. Corvo up to a dilapidated wooden house with a white flag waving above. Waiting outside was an overweight older woman with frizzy red hair and an obvious grimace and a ten-year-old boy with black hair who was staring up at the sky waiting for this to be over.
"Luffy, this is Curly Dadan, she'll be looking after you from now on."
"Yeah, great, another mouth to feed," she openly griped, not caring at all that Luffy was in earshot, "It's bad enough you tossed Ace onto me!"
"Well, you can either do this or I can turn you in."
"Grrrrrr… Fine."
"Great! Luffy, this boy here is Ace. He's been under my care for some time, so be sure to treat him well."
"Hiya!"
"Get lost," Ace snapped before shoving past him. Luffy could only stand dumbfounded for a second before growling.
"HEY! What was that for?!"
"I don't have time for a runt like you. Stay out of my way." Ace continued to walk off into the forest only for Luffy to grab him by the arm. "Hey, let go!"
"Oi, you two play nice!" Garp ordered before walking off towards his ship, "Luffy, I'll be checking in with Dadan whenever I visit from now on so I want you to not make any trouble for her."
"Okaaaaay…" he sighed, already hating this whole arrangement. Once the Marine was out of sight, Ace pulled himself free and once again plodded off on his own before Dadan rapped Luffy on the head.
"Alright, brat, here's the rules. We'll give you water to drink, but you want any food? You've gotta go and hunt it yourself. And it'll be split between you and the rest of the Dadan Family. You try pilfering anything or causing trouble and you'll be in deep shit. Got it?"
"What did Gramps mean when he said 'turn you in?'"
"It means we're bandits. Got a problem with that?"
"Nope!" Luffy was confused, though. Why was Shanks, a pirate, so awful and yet this woman, a bandit, was good enough to be Luffy's caretaker? And something told him that this whole thing wasn't exactly "legal" but that never bothered him before. There wasn't any reason to argue with Garp since that would just mean a Fist of Love to the head. He was feeling hungry, though, so he figured now would be a good time to get a lay of the land and test out his powers.
Luffy didn't have to wait long for the opportunity. Five minutes later, a black bear as tall as his grandpa stomped up to him with its fanged maw drooling.
"Heh, perfect!" Luffy cracked his knuckles, "Let's see how strong I am!"
The bear slammed its forelegs down to squash him but Luffy summoned his trishula and caught the blow easily. With a swift spin, he broke the animal's stance before ramming the metal prongs into its chest. The bear could barely call out before its heart was pierced, falling to the forest floor with a thud.
"Wow, that was easy! Guess I gotta bring it back now!" Luffy summoned his extra arms and quite easily lifted the massive ursine over his shoulders. Dadan's eyes all but popped out seeing her newest charge return so fast, and with a such a huge kill.
"When did you get extra arms?!"
"From my Devil Fruit! I can do lots of cool things, like this!" Luffy summoned an astra ball and threw it at a nearby tree. As the timber promptly burst into shrapnel, Dadan gained a new glimmer in her eye.
"Not bad, kid. You might just fit in real well here."
"Great! I'm hungry!"
The bandit leader just rolled her eyes. She did say Luffy had to hunt his own food, plus it was getting close to sundown. Ace knew better than to stay out too late so Dadan told her men to get out here and help prepare the meat. The older boy would return with an impressively size deer not long after, only to be stunned when he heard that the "runt" he dismissed earlier bagged a far more dangerous game.
"HOW?! How did a pipsqueak like you kill a bear?!" he demanded as they both sat around waiting for their meal.
"I may be small, but I'm way stronger than I look!"
"Oh yeah?! Prove it!"
"Okay!" Luffy grabbed Ace by the hair and slammed him face-first into the floor hard enough to make the house tremble. The bandits all yelled in shock as Ace pulled himself up with his face red.
"OWWW! That hurt!"
"Sorry, but you did ask for it."
Ace stared at the kid next to him and realized it was no fluke. This boy was easily his equal, if not stronger than him despite being at least two years his junior. The young delinquent got a glimmer of his own that would make Dadan proud.
"Yeah, you're right, no big deal. Say, how about I make it up to you tomorrow? There's a real fun place I wanna show you."
"Okay!" Luffy agreed without another word. Ace almost had to laugh at how easy that was. Guess his dear caretaker was right, there really was a sucker born every minute! That night, as the two ate freshly roasted bear with venison on the menu afterward, Luffy went to sleep on the cot he was provided unaware that his new roommate was planning something less than kid friendly.
"What is this place?" Luffy asked, staring down the cliffs at the mounds of discarded furniture, demolished buildings and ships ran aground surrounding a huge walled city. Ace stood next to him, as cocksure as usual.
"This is Gray Terminal, it's a huge junkyard made from all the crap the nobles in Goa Kingdom over there throw out. Come on, I want you to meet somebody." Ace slid down the slope with his feet with Luffy following behind with a bit more uneasiness. He was led past towering piles of rubbish where people in rags gave him wary glances until they approached another boy Ace's age. The other kid was dressed in a black shirt, a white cravat wrapped around his neck, and a blue jacket around his shoulders and back. He also wore a large black top hat over his short blonde hair with metal goggles wrapped around the band and quirked an eyebrow when he spotted Luffy.
"Who's the brat?"
"HEY!"
"This is Luffy. Luffy, this is my friend Sabo. We're planning on have some fun today and I want you to come along."
"You're kidding, right?" Sabo said before Ace pulled him in close and whispered something in his ear. The blonde then gave his friend a coy smile before looking down at Luffy. "Alright then, kid. Follow us and keep quiet."
"Okay!" Luffy had never really had friends his own age before, and Ace was doing all this to make up for being a jerk yesterday. So he followed behind the older kids, weaving through the terminal until they came out back towards a forest where a huge ship resting on a series of logs like it was set to be rolled out to port.
Luffy then looked up and spotted the black flag flying from its mast. "Huh?! A pirate ship?!"
"SHHH!" Sabo and Ace both clamped a hand over Luffy's mouth.
"Yeah, you see these guys? They're the Bluejam Pirates, and they've got a whole bunch of stolen money we're gonna take for ourselves," Sabo told him honestly, "We were gonna risk it with just the two of us, but we could really use a third person to help. You want in?"
"Are they pirates like Shanks or jerks?"
"Oh, huge jerks!" Ace assured him, "They bully the people around here all the time!"
Luffy nodded in understanding, now on board. As Sabo and Ace walked ahead of him, he failed to notice the sly look they gave to each other. The three boys all approached the galleon, carefully watching for any of the crew that could be lurking around. Seeing no one, Ace found an infiltration point by the ship's stern. Sabo grabbed some vines from nearby trees and the three all hustled themselves up and onto the deck of the Blood Batako.
They soon spotted their first pirate, a humungous goliath of a man with long periwinkle hair, tattoos over one burly arm and currently asleep with several bottles of rum littering the deck around his ten-foot-tall frame.
Sabo led the way around the loose glass containers, carefully tiptoeing around them out of fear that the slightest noise could wake him up. They peeked around to see that the deck was otherwise abandoned. They even found the door into the ship was unlocked, the three kids slipping in and finding the sacks full of beris just lying out.
"Hold it," Ace warned them, "This seems way too easy…"
Luffy didn't bother listening and started slinging cash over his shoulders. Ace and Sabo waited for any sort of trap or guard to run up but none came. Seeing as the coast was clear, the older boys followed suit and soon they were hightailing it away with millions of beris between them.
And Luffy was so excited that he ended up stomping down on one of the stray bottles and the cracking glass snapped the pirate awake in an instant.
"Huh?! HEY!"
"Uh oh," Ace groaned before turning to Sabo, "Now?"
"NOW!"
Luffy turned to see both boys double-time it away only to wave back at him, thanking him for being their "diversion."
"What the?! You assholes get back here!"
"Oh, no you don't!" The massive pirate grabbed Luffy by the head and forced him to drop the sack of money before wrapping a hand around the boy's throat. "Thought you could steal from us, huh? Wait until I tell Captain Bluejam about your friends!"
"Get off of me!" Luffy summoned his parashu and forced the pirate to drop him unless the guy wanted to lose an arm. The pirate tried to haul a humungous sword up from beside where he was resting only for Luffy to have bolted with the cash at this point.
"Damn it, I have to get those brats!" He reached into pocket to grab a huge conch shell and blew a deafening call that rang out over miles of forest and Gray Terminal.
The fleeing Ace and Sabo heard the call and swore. Looks like Luffy proved to be a pretty bad decoy. Oh well, at least he bought them some time…
"There you two are!"
Both boys turned around in shock to see Luffy racing towards them, far faster than they were running despite his shorter legs and carrying just as much loot.
"What, how are you still-?!" Sabo was cut off when Luffy slammed him over the head with a sack of money, knocking his top hat off as he tumbled to the ground. Ace was then socked in the face before Luffy grabbed him by his collar.
"You planned this whole thing, didn't you?! What the hell did I ever do to you?!"
"Get off of me, you idiot! We have to get out of here before-!"
"HEY! LET ME GO!" Ace turned and went green in the face as the giant pirate that cornered Luffy now had Sabo by the throat in his giant hands. All around the forest came the dozens of members of the Bluejam Pirates, all unkempt, scraggly brutes of men brandishing cutlasses and pistols as they surrounded the boys.
"Good going there, Porchemy. If you had let a bunch of tykes get the better of you, I'd have used you for target practice," said the leader of the bunch, another giant of a man with unkept black dreadlocks going down his hair, a regal blue captain's coat over his shoulders as he held up a flintlock to Sabo's face.
"Of course, Captain Bluejam," the brute nodded, "These kids thought they could sneak onto your ship and steal your treasure."
"Hmmm, just a bunch of gutter trash… Shame, if one of you belonged to the nobles around here then I'd have good reason to keep you alive."
"Look, you can have the money back! Please, just let him go!" Ace begged, dropping the sack. Luffy blinked in surprise. He could see just how worried the boy was, especially as Bluejam's gun inched closer to the blonde's temple.
"You know what'll happen if I do that? Then people will hear I'm getting soft. When someone steals from you, you put them six feet under. Sends a message to anyone stupid enough to try."
"No, it doesn't!" Luffy argued, "It just makes you an asshole! And what's the problem here, you want your money and we're letting you have it!"
Porchemy's hand closed around Sabo's throat, making him squawk and struggle as he slowly turned red. Bluejam just chuckled. "How stupid can you be? It's not just about the money, but the principal of it all."
"Take me instead!" Ace said, throwing himself onto the floor with his hands behind his back, "This whole thing was my idea, just let the other two go!"
"Ace… No…"
"Eh? What about that one?" Bluejam pointed his gun at Luffy, "Wasn't he just your fall guy?"
"No, he's just some stupid kid who followed us! He didn't want any part of this, just leave him alone!"
"Hmmm, a touching story… Let's see how much I care…" Bluejam's gun slowly drifted over to the younger boy, shaking with rage. The captain's finger tensed on the trigger only for Luffy to rush forward with a yell. A bang echoed throughout the trees, Ace closing his eyes and cursing that Sabo was about to die…
…Only to open his eyes and see Luffy unharmed. Bluejam's eyes widened in horror as he saw where the bullet clearly hit where the kid was standing only for Luffy's fist to slam into his stomach and send him flying back.
"CAPTAIN?!"
"WHAT?!" Sabo cried just before Porchemy dropped him. The lug's first and foremost job was to beat up his captain's enemies and that was now Luffy. The kid simply summoned a bow from nowhere and fired an arrow directly into the goon's left calf, making him scream in shock as he fell cradling his leg before Luffy roundhouse kicked his face in.
"Holy crap…" Ace gulped. As several of the pirates around them charged in, the young scrapper unslung the metal pipe from across his back and started busting kneecaps. Sabo quickly grabbed his own pipe that Porchemy had lifted off him earlier and bashed the goliath over the head to make absolutely sure he stayed down.
As for Luffy himself, he was using his trishula to swat aside bullets as he rushed towards half a dozen Bluejam Pirates franticly firing at him. Once he got in range, he swung his trident out to force them back before throwing it straight into one grunt's gut. He summoned an astra ball in each hand, firing back at the crowd and soon making them all run for the hills.
"You… You damn brats!" Bluejam yelled, revealing several more guns inside his coat, "I'll make you beg for death for humiliating us!"
"You want him, you have to go through me!" Sabo yelled, ready to swing his pipe.
"You got that right!" Ace said alongside him, "He may be a squirt, but he saved us even after we screwed him over! You're not getting him without a fight!"
"Fine, go to the grave with him!" The pirate opened fire but Ace and Sabo didn't flinch since Luffy was already in front of them to draw the fire. The two hoodlums charged ahead while he was distracted, slamming their pipes directly between his legs and making him squeal like a pig before falling to the ground.
The last thing he saw conscious was Luffy walking up to him, a fire in his eyes that made the grown man tremble. "Some pirate! You threatened your own crew! You're the kind of pirate Shanks warned me about!"
He was then knocked out by a sucker punch, letting Ace and Sabo breathe in relief.
"Wow, thanks for the help…" Sabo admitted, "And, um, sorry for stringing you along like that."
"Eh, whatever. These guys were assholes anyway. So, now what?"
"Now?" Ace gestured back to the sacks of money that the pirates had tried and failed to recollect, "Now we enjoy our payday! And with the beating we gave these guys, we won't have to worry about them again!"
And from that day on, Ace and Sabo treated Luffy as an equal. They ended up not only with millions in cash from the haul but handing in the notorious Captain Bluejam himself to the Marines for a hefty 14.3 million that he was wanted for. Ace and Luffy even handed a portion to the Dadan Bandits and suddenly their caretaker was all too happy to look after them by the next time Garp checked in on his grandson.
And Dragon could only laugh when hearing all about this, his agent getting the word about Bluejam's capture from those in Grey Terminal. Not only was Luffy developing as a fighter, he was setting a great example and found some genuine friends. He just knew Laura would be smiling right now…
So, everyone got the Hindu mythology angle but only one person guessed correctly: Ferrovax25 on AO3, you called it! It's the Human-Human Fruit - Model: Shiva! And now with the stage set, it's time for things to really heat up next time!
Thank you all so much for reading! Feel free to leave a review with any questions or comments.