"Woonan's island is said to be somewhere around these parts. The Great Gold Pirate..."
Luffy's ears perked up at the unfamiliar words Nami was muttering to herself. Not because he cared about the gold, but because it was something new. Also because he was hungry. He had been trying to not eat all the food right away, but these time loops were making sailing from island to island even more boring than normal and boredom made him hungry.
"Woonan? Who's Woonan?" He asked.
Zoro, Nami, and Usopp all looked at him incredulously.
"You've never heard of Woonan? The famous East Blue pirate said to have collected a third of the world's gold?" Nami asked.
"Never." Luffy confirmed.
"But everyone in the East Blue knows the story!" Usopp protested.
"If anyone in the East Blue would be ignorant of it, it would be Luffy." Zoro reasoned.
"That's true." Nami and Usopp nodded sagely.
"I would have heard about it in the time loops if it was true!" Luffy yelled back, outraged by their lack of faith in his intelligence.
"Oh, right. The time loops."
This was still very early in their adventure, and their faith in the time loops was not very strong.
"This is probably just like that mushroom idiot." Luffy decided. It was the only thing that really made sense to him and he just hoped it would be less annoying.
On the bright side, anything that broke up the monotony of having to keep repeating the same thing over and over was good.
Which was why he was actually glad to see three unknown guys sneaking aboard their ship.
"Hey, who are you guys?" He asked, making them freeze in place.
"They're after my treasure!" Nami instantly roared, preparing to commit murder most heinous to defend her precious money.
"Ah! Take this!" The thieves yelled in panic, throwing about a dozen onigiri their way.
"Food!" The three men of the Straw Hats yelled, diving for the treats.
"What about the thieves?!" Nami roared at them. "They might have more treasure! Get them!"
"Okay." Luffy shrugged, having already devoured more than half of the onigiri. He'd have eaten more, but Zoro and Usopp had been hungry too and therefore on the ball enough to snatch as much as they could.
The thieves had only just managed to get back on their small boat when the rubber man caught up to them. The resulting fight took no time at all.
"Man, so weak." Luffy sighed in disappointment. He supposed he should have expected it since this was still the East Blue, but he forgot about that in the excitement of seeing something new for a change.
"Don't call us weak when you ate a Devil Fruit like El Drago!" The three thieves protested, cowering at the end of their small boat.
"El Drago?" The rubber man tilted his head at the unfamiliar name. "Who's El Drago?"
"He's scum!" A beaten up kid suddenly shouted, jumping out of nowhere. "He beat me up and made me work for him. Wait, that's not right. I, the Great Pirate Tobio, infiltrated his crew so that I could find Woonan and join his crew."
Luffy thoughtfully stuck a pinky in his ear, considering the situation. This kid sounded a lot like Usopp and everyone was talking about Woonan all of a sudden. This had the feel of an adventure… but was it even worth it when everyone was so weak?
"I'm hungry." He finally sighed
"Oh no, it's El Drago!" The three beaten up thieves shouted. "And he's going to use his Devil's power!"
"Eh?" Luffy turned around to look. There was a big lion-looking guy wearing a lot of gold on a ship some distance away. Wait, he was more like a cat. And he was yelling.
Luffy was way too experienced by this point to be surprised by the beam of force that blasted out of the cat guy's mouth, so he just grabbed Tobio and jumped back to the Going Merry. The beam wasn't going to hit the ship dead on, so he just watched it curiously.
It was kinda cool and the wave it created was kinda fun.
"Oi, Tobio, do you know where we could get food?" He asked while everyone else was busy panicking for no reason.
"Uh, my grandpa has an oden seastall nearby." Tobio said numbly.
XXXXX
"Well, you've gone and cleaned out my stock." Ganzo, Tobio's grandpa, said while scratching his chin. "I guess that means you liked it."
"I can't even complain about how much he ate." Nami commented mostly to herself, still baffled by Ganzo's prices. Seriously, who charged only 11 beli for over a hundred servings? How was he even still in business?
"It was great!" Luffy enthused. "Almost as good as Sanji's."
"You're saying that someone else can make better oden than me?!" Ganzo yelled, mustache bristling.
"Sanji is the personal chef of the future pirate king, me. Obviously he's the best." Luffy informed him.
"You're not as great as Woonan!" Tobio interjected passionately.
"If he's so great then I want to meet him." Luffy decided. If nothing else, it would make for a nice change from the usual boredom of repeating events.
"Pah, why would Woonan, bother with you?!" The kid yelled.
"Because I'm going to be the Pirate King." Luffy replied blandly. Hadn't they been over this already?
"Stop it with the stupid jokes!" Tobio yelled again. "Why don't you just say that I don't have what it takes to join Woonan's crew?!"
"That's up to you."
"He's dead serious." Zoro told the baffled boy.
"Woonan's gold, hmmm?" Nami was daydreaming. Then she suddenly stood up, slamming her hands on the counter. "I've decided! We're going to find Woonan's gold and take it for ourselves!"
"Oi, that means we'd have to beat his crew, the crew of the Great Gold Pirate." Usopp fretted. "I think my gold allergy is acting up."
"Don't worry, Usopp." Luffy assured him. "Even if he really is a big deal in the East Blue, this is still the weakest sea. Woonan is nothing compared to the dangers of the Grand Line."
Shockingly, this did nothing to calm Usopp down, and it had the side benefit of enraging the Woonan fanboy Tobio.
XXXXX
After the excitement calmed down, Ganzo decided that he had to wash all the dirty dishes that the Straw Hat gluttony had generated. In order to do this, they sailed a short distance to a nearby island.
Nami, having sailed the East Blue in search of treasure to buy out her village, didn't recognize it. Tobio was quick to tell her that it was Woonan's island.
Luffy knew he was an idiot, but this all seemed awfully convenient even to him. Still, they were not really in a rush to get to the Baratie, so he just shrugged and went along with it.
It didn't take long before they ran into El Drago, who was also searching for Woonan's treasure.
Luffy was disappointed by the gold-obsessed pirate. He had been so incredibly weak. Not particularly strong or fast, and he only knew how to do a single thing with his Devil Fruit.
Zoro had had a little more trouble with the man's hired swordsman, but not much.
After that, looking for the treasure was more of a leisurely stroll across the island. The weird castle had been empty, the mountain that the whale's tail pointed at had been a diversion. In the end, they found Woonan's skeleton and final words in the hidden basement of an empty house.
"So, the real treasure was the adventure he had along the way." Luffy concluded. "A wise man."
"WISE?!" Nami roared in outraged. "He gave all the gold back! Why would anyone do that?!"
"Yeah, didn't the legends say that he only stole from bad people?" Usopp chimed in with his own confusion. "Why would he give the gold back to them?"
"You shouldn't believe everything you hear." Zoro told him in a dull deadpan. You'd think a liar would know better.
"Ah, I think he would eat my oden now." Ganzo said mournfully, looking at his friend's remains.
He had told them the story of how the two of them had been friends with children. Woonan had wanted to sail out and acquire gold, while Ganzo just wanted to make people happy with his oden. In the end, they were separated by an accident that led Woonan to believe that Ganzo was dead.
"This whole adventure was weird and kinda boring." Luffy muttered to himself.
XXXXX
Luffy had been through the whole rigmarole of escaping Loguetown and going to the Grand Line enough times that no longer paid attention to it.
"Hey, there's a resort island on the way to Reverse Mountain. We should make a stop there and relax a for a bit." Nami said.
This unusual statement made him immediately pay attention.
"Resort island?" He repeated. "I don't remember any resort island."
"Another thing you haven't seen in your time loops before?" Zoro asked.
By this point, the crew was much more convinced of his claims.
"We should investigate." Nami asserted, recalling all the loot she'd stolen from El Drago.
"I kind of want to see what this is about, but we don't have time." Luffy frowned.
One one hand, new adventure. On the other, Vivi would kill Laboon if they delayed for even a few hours, and would then be killed herself by the exploding snot guy. It had been different with Woonan's treasure – they would have needed to wait at the Baratie for several days before Krieg showed up anyway.
"Head for Reverse Mountain." He finally ordered.
There were disappointed grumbles from everyone except Zoro. He was disappointed, too, but he didn't want to reset again.
"Uh, Luffy?" Usopp called out barely an hour later. "There's a huge armada of ships right in front of us."
"Ah, It's the Trump Pirates!" Nami yelled fearfully, spotting their sails.
"Who?" Luffy had never heard of them.
"They're a huge and fearsome pirate crew led by someone called Bear King." The navigator explained. "I always stayed away from these parts because of them."
"Right next to Smokey?" Luffy scratched at his head in confusion, knowing how determined the guy was to catch pirates. "I guess he was more worried about his perfect record."
Still felt a bit strange, though.
Only two of the Straw Hats were in any way worried as the pirate armada approached. Once they were in speaking range, they saw that the lead ship had a blonde woman taking a bath in the oversized figuredhead.
"That is one sexy lady!" Sanji declared lustfully.
"Oi!" Luffy said blandly. "You're in our way."
If this made them late to saving Laboon and Vivi, he was going to be real mad.
"Hmm?" The blonde. "We're in your way? No, you're in our way."
Then she took a closer look down at the Going Merry, her eyes fixated on Nami.
"Alright, time for a riddle!" A very round individual declared as he jumped forward.
"We don't have time for riddles." Luffy said, irritated.
"Who will become the greatest pirated in the world, the King of Pirates?" The round man asked.
"Come on, Boo Jack, that one's way too easy." The blonde fakely admonished him.
"Me, obviously, now can you move." Luffy made a shooing gesture with his hand.
"Wrong!" The now named Boo Jack denied. "The answer is our boss, the mighty Bear King."
"No, you're wrong." Luffy denied his denial. "I know it's not common knowledge that I'm going to be the Pirate King, but you shouldn't be going around spreading lies."
"What kind of riddle was that anyway?" Sanji asked, amused at seeing someone else having to deal with Luffy's brand of logic.
"These guys are a joke." Zoro determined, unimpressed.
"Mocking the Trump Pirates, eh?!" Boo Jack seethed.
"Well then, it seems we'll have to explain it to them." The bathing blonde said and snapped her fingers, causing hundreds of pirates to spring up on the decks of their ships, all spoiling for a fight. "Go get them boys, and bring the orange-haired girl to me."
"Eh, what do you want with me?!" Nami yelled.
"Who cares?" Zoro dismissed. "They're all gonna get cut up anyway."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Marimo! I'll kick all of their faces in for thinking about touching Nami-Swan!" Sanji roared.
"I guess the fastest way is to kick their asses." Luffy decided.
XXXXX
And so it was. The Trump Pirates had numbers, but not much in the way of quality. The only real threats were their leaders, Boo Jack and Honey Queen, but even then not much of one. Fully equipped and ready, and with a vastly more experienced Luffy, they made short work of the armada.
Unfortunately, the Trump Pirates were excessively fond of explosives and caused severe damage to the Going Merry before they were beaten.
Enough damage that they were too slow in making it to Reverse Mountain.
Luffy awoke back at the start of his adventure, scowling. This was going to be annoying, he just knew it.
XXXXX
Omake – The food, the shade, the rum.
Elizabeth Swann was more than slightly exasperated.
Everything seemed to be resolving itself, largely thanks to the insane strength of this 'Monkey D. Luffy' fellow that Will had allied himself with in his quest to rescue her from the cursed crew of the Black Pearl.
Only for it all to go to hell when Captain Barbossa figured out that Luffy was extremely gullible, and that he lost all his strength when splashed by sea water.
Now here they were, just the three of them marooned on a tiny deserted island while the Black Pearl sailed back to the Isla de Muerta with Will in their clutches.
"You've been marooned on this island before, haven't you? We can escape in the same way again!" She argued to Jack Sparrow, currently demoted to the rank of first mate.
"Oooh, the sea turtles!" Luffy oohed enthusiastically. "How big are they? Are they giant turtles?"
"No, mate, the turtles aren't giant." Jack sighed. "And I lied, I didn't escape this place by riding sea turtles."
"You didn't?!" Luffy exclaimed, shocked.
"Then how did you escape?" Elizabeth demanded, confused.
By then, Jack had already found the old hidden rum stash and opened it up, expecting to see it dusty and full since Norrington had been so busy hanging pirates and smugglers for the past several years.
"Why is the rum gone?" He asked, confused.
A loud snore drew all of their attention to a nearby tree, where a green-haired young man was snoozing away without a care in the world. He had three swords cuddled up to his chest and there were numerous empty rum bottles around him.
"ZORO?!" Luffy yelled in shock.
This made the green-haired man wake up and stand to face the, revealing a hideous scar stretching diagonally across his entire chest.
"Luffy." Zoro said. "I've been looking for you."
"How did you find me, this isn't even the Grand Line." Luffy asked.
"Only you could get so lost that you wander into another world." Zoro scolded him.
Luffy's jaw dropped and he stared at the swordsman in mortal offense. "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT FROM YOU! HOW DID YOU EVEN GET HERE, YOU LOST SAMURAI?!"
"I just followed your trail." Zoro said casually.
There was so much wrong with that statement that Luffy was rendered speechless.
"Excuse me, you two seem to know each other." Jack interjected, looking between them.
"Zoro is my crew's swordsman and first mate." Luffy explained, looking to Jack with a frown. "That means you can't be my first mate anymore, even if it's just temporary."
"Understandable." Jack nodded, not taking too much offense to being demoted again. It wasn't like he was planning to stay part of Luffy's crew any longer than he had to. "But I must ask, why is the rum gone?"
"Because I drank it." Zoro replied blandly.
"How long have you been marooned here?" Elizabeth asked with some sympathy.
"Marooned?" Zoro repeated, not understanding what she was on about. "I just got here."
"B-but…" Elizabeth stuttered, looking at copious amounts of rum bottles and barrels.
"Oh, I see how it is. The captain eats everything and the first mate drinks everything." Jack said flatly, shooting Elizabeth a dead look. "Missy, I think we might starve to death, and we won't even get to be drunk while it happens."
With a jolt, Elizabeth realized that he was right. If Luffy really could eat as much as Zoro could drink, then there would be nothing left for her and Jack.
"No, we just need to set fire to all the trees." She said confidently. In different circumstances, she'd try to get Jack drunk and do it while he was passed out, but there was no way that was going to happen now. "The entire royal navy is looking for me. They will see the smoke and come pick us up."
And then they could go save Will.
"BONFIRE PARTY!" Luffy declared. "Hey, are there any wolves on this island?"
"Mate, why would there be wolves on an island?" Jack asked, utterly baffled.
"So we can party together, just like we did on the sky island."
"Sky island?" Jack repeated, intrigued. "There are islands in the sky?"
He had seen enough weirdness by now to believe just about anything. Plus, Luffy was almost painfully honest.
XXXXX
The omakes come in no particular order or continuity, and are definitely not canonical.