2 chapter 2

He can recall the day he got it back.

Nine year old Luffy was walking though town with Qrow on an errand to get groceries before talk of a traveling salesman invaded their ears. Being the curious boy that he is, Luffy wanted to meet the man.

Qrow was a man with black spiky hair that is graying out along with red eyes and his scythe in sword form holstered on the back waist like Ruby has with her Crescent Rose. He wears a grey dress shirt with black dress pants and shoes, as well as a red tattered cape and a crooked cross shaped pendant.

When they found him, the salesman came across as a shady type with his red trench coat hiding everything underneath it, a matching pointy hat, and a large backpack.

His face was mostly covered, the only thing the two could see were his eyes.

Luffy approached him with no sense of danger while Qrow stood close by, unable to gauge the mysterious person's intentions.

"What do we have here?"

came the deep voice of the salesman as he regarded the boy's presence with interest. Luffy just stands in place staring up at him in silence.

"Hey, old man. What are you selling?"

Luffy asked, wanting to get straight to the point.

"Don't be rude, kid."

Qrow chided as he gave a soft bop on the head for lack of manners. The salesman chuckled in response.

"To answer his question, I bear many oddities that I come across in my travels."

he replied, getting Luffy's attention at the mention of adventuring.

"An adventurer as well as a treasure hunter, huh? I'll admit, you have guts for combing through Grimm infested territory just to make a living."

Qrow remarked.

"Well, I can handle myself in a fight. But enough about me..." he said as he reaches into one of the pouches on his backpack. When he pulled out a purple fruit with swirls, Luffy was wide eyed in shock of what he was seeing. He whipped his head to his adoptive son and found himself stunned with Luffy's expression.

He would've figured that the boy would be starry eyed at the sight, but he was not expecting absolute astonishment. It was as if Luffy knew what it was exactly yet was surprised to find it out here.

"Can't really call it business unless you get something out of it. If it's not money, then what?"

Qrow asked in rising suspicion.

"...Enjoyment."

he replied, causing Qrow to stare in confusion of the vague answer.

"I don't know where you got this, but if I'm going to protect what I have left then I might need this."

Luffy accepted with a serious expression. Qrow was at a lost of what he's talking about.

How can a fruit help make him stronger?

"I see... in any event, it was a pleasure to meet the both of you."

the salesman said, feeling pleased with the boy's words. The man left and merged with the crowd, eventually disappearing from their line of sight.

"See kid, this is why you don't talk to strangers. Some of them give you fruits that could be bad for you."

Qrow spoke wisely, but it fell on deaf ears as Luffy already took a bite out of the fruit.

"Bleck! The taste is so nasty."

Luffy said, causing Qrow to facepalm himself.

'Dammit... he just had to think with his stomach.'

he thought in exasperation. He was about to scold the boy before he was introduced the the sight of Luffy pulling his cheeks apart.

The scythe wielder stood frozen at what he witnessed his kid messing with his stretchy body.

"I'm obviously not drunk enough."

he muttered.

Luffy's mind came back to reality to see the criminal staring at him with disbelieving eyes.

Wait, he got that weird ability by eating something ... that doesn't make any sense!'

He ranted in his thoughts with a twitching eye as he pushes the questions to the back of his mind to avoid a headache then sends his gaze towards his fallen comrades.

"You were worth every cent, truly you were."

He shakes his head in disappointment.

They couldn't even put up a fight against two youngsters... that's pretty sad.

"Wow, you must be broke, cuz those guys were really weak."

Luffy stated bluntly, stating his opinion on the strength of the criminal's workers while not getting the sarcastic tone being used. Ruby joins him and nods her head in agreement to that.

"As much as I like to stick around a little longer, business beckons me to make an exit. With that, I bid you adieu Red... Straw Hat."

Torchwick said in a gentlemanly manner while pointing his cane at the duo as if aiming to shoot something.

Surely enough, two volatile projectiles comes out of the barrel and heads straight at them.

Luffy tilts his head to the side to dodge the first shot, then steps in front of Ruby in protectiveness and used the same black arm to bat the projectile aside with the back of his hand, the flare exploding the concrete behind them.

"I could've dodged that."

Ruby mumbled under her breath with half-lidded eyes staring at Luffy's back.

She doesn't needed to be treated like a damsel in distress, as much as she admires the fact that Luffy would put himself in harms way to protect those he cares about.

Luffy then realizes what he just witnessed and can't help but look in awe.

"AWESOME! That stick thing can shoot things! What else can it do?"

he says in childish excitement. He is easily amazed by a large portion of weapons he gets to see in action.

Everyone, including Torchwick, sweatdropped at the young boy's sudden change in demeanor.

'Well that was a thing.'

Torchwick thought upon witnessing an odd way to deflect the explosive round.

No one just uses their bare hands to do something as crazy as that!

Using her semblance, Ruby dashes away from the spot to avoid the blast, while Luffy pumps his legs to enter Second Gear, giving his body a reddish tint that produces steam, and disappears from sight, the blast having no effect, much to the shock of the marksman.

Before Torchwick can do anything else, Luffy stops in front of him with his left palm facing him and his right fist cocked back, still covered in Armament.

" Gomu Gomu no Jet Pistol! " he shouts as the blur of a punch slams into Roman's chest, causing him to cough up a little blood before being sent flying back first into a wall, cratering it.

He quickly recovers, but feels immense pain in his chest.

'What was with that punch! The pain shouldn't be this bad since I was using aura.' He thought in confusion.

That definitely felt like it cracked one of his ribs. After getting over the pain, he heads toward the ladder that lead to the rooftops.

Luffy returns to his normal skin tone and sees him making an escape.

"Ah! Girly Man is trying to get away!"

the straw hat boy exclaimed.

Ruby sweatdrops at the nickname for the notorious criminal before looking over to the dust shop and asks the old man that runs it.

"Would you be alright if we chased him down?"

The old man slowly nodded his head, still shaken from the attempted robbery. She nods in confirmation then turns to her cousin.

"Okay, lets go!"

Before they could get close to the ladder, reinforcements entered the scene to the block the way.

"We're gonna lose him at this rate. Luffy, do you think you can-" she was cut off when Luffy walks up to them and exerted his will over them with Haoshoku Haki (Color of the Conqueror King), causing them to fall unconscious with foam in their mouths.

"Nevermind, forget I was asking."

She finished in a muttered tone. She was a bit envious of Luffy having such a useful ability available to him. Hardening limbs, brief premonition, sensing other presences like a portable radar, and knocking out people with so much as a glance. He's not even using aura at all.

Upon reaching the side of the building, Ruby shoots herself upward using the recoil to gain enough height to reach the top, while Luffy grabs the ledge by stretching his arm and pulls himself over. When they reached the rooftop, they were greeted by the sight of Roman entering a bullhead that was taking off.

"Oi, get back here and fight like a man, Girly Man!"

Luffy shouts over the sounds of the flying vehicle's thrusters.

A tickmark appears on Torchwick's head as he hears the demeaning nickname, but maintains his composure.

"Call it a strategic retreat Straw Hat, maybe you should-" He was cut off by the sound of a sniper round that whizzed by his head by mere inches that belonged to the almost forgotten redhead.

"Well Red, that was rude of you to interrupt. As I was saying, maybe you should BOTH buzz off."

Upon threatening them, he pulls out a red dust crystal from his pocket and tosses it at them. While the crystal was in midflight, he shoots another round aiming to hit the object.

The duo see this, as they brace themselves for the upcoming explosion... only not to feel it. They stared in awe of a new arrival that projected a defensive barrier in front them.

Said arrival is a middle aged woman with bright blonde hair tied in a bun, green eyes through a pair of oval shaped glasses, and gives of the aura of the "stern librarian".

She wears a white long sleeved dress shirt with a black business skirt, black-brown leggings, a tattered cape with the inside being purple, and a pair of black boots with brown heels.

Ruby couldn't help but give a fangirl squeal at the sight of her.

"OH MY GOSH, that's Glynda Goodwitch, an actual huntress!"

Ruby exclaimed in fan-like awe.

It was always her dream to be a great huntress, and now she's in the face of one of great renown. Luffy was just staring out of childish glee at seeing what looks like a magician performing magic tricks.

Torchwick lets out a 'tch' before moving to the cockpit of the bullhead to warn his collaborator.

"Hey, we got a huntress on our tail now!"

He informs her as they switch positions, Torchwick at the controls and the mysterious woman to deal with the nuisance.

She comes into view with a red dress that seems to have a bit of a sinister glow, the shadows doing well to hide her face except for her eyes that almost seem like they're on fire.

From the side opening of the bullhead staring down on the trio, she generates ball of fire in her hands and shoots it at them, only to be countered by Glynda's use of dust manipulation.

"That Mystery Lady can make fire out of thin air."

Luffy mumbles to himself with a heated glare to who he would now dub the Mystery Lady. He doesn't like the fact that someone is using something that resembles Ace's devil fruit for malicious intentions, not wanting it to tarnish the memory of his brother.

The clash between two skilled dust users continues until it finally ended in a stalemate. Glynda then conjures a storm cloud above the bullhead, only for ice shards to fall out of the cloud, buffeting the airborne object.

After a few moments of instability from the hailstorm, the Mystery Lady blasts a wave of heat to melt the ice.

Ruby takes the momentary stop of the battle as an opportunity to switch her scythe to its compact form and starts shooting the Mystery Lady, who is blocking the bullets with one hand.

"Luffy, now would be a really good time to use your semblance right about now!"

she calls out to her cousin, to which he nodded his head in agreement.

She would keep on firing to distract her opponent to give him time to set up the next attack.

Luffy focuses on activating his semblance, the only sign of activation being a blue glow in the form of a tattoo on the back of his right hand. The tattoo itself looked like a pinwheel with a mikan on one of the ends.

"Memory Bond: Navigator"

His pirate crew may not be with him physically, but they're with him in spirit, literally. Luffy's semblance allows him to 'bond' his memories with the memories of one of his crew members.

With memories includes knowledge, for when he does this, he gains the knowledge of whatever valuable skills that may be of use to him while maintaining his own battle prowess and personality.

It stems from Luffy's admittance that he would not have lived without the help of his friends, his crew.

The only drawbacks are that he has to constantly use Aura to maintain a link, and he can only link to one member at a time.

Plus, once he disconnects the bond, which deactivates the use of his semblance, the information immediately fades out of his mind.

Basically, it made him from a complete idiot in everything not related to using his current abilities to a very versatile adversary, and vice versa.

But since his old world never had aura, there was no way of knowing how to use it, hence the extra training.

It's also one of the few semblances that doesn't necessarily manifest in physical form, but through the mind, making it really difficult to tell if he's using it.

With Nami's knowledge of weather forecasting now in his mind, he takes out his Clima-Tact and presses the button next to the light blue line.

" Cool Ball...Heat Ball " he swings the rod creating a series of bubbles containing cold air and sending it in the air and quickly switches to the red line button to repeat the same action, except creating bubbles filled with heat.

"Thunderbolt Tempo!" he finishes up the storm that he was brewing by switching to use the yellow dust and send a static charge to the cloud.

the result ... a bolt of lightning come down upon the surprised escapists. shocking in to the point where one of the thrusters burst into flames and smoke .

Glynda was also a bit surprised at the display of creating weather by using dust.

While she just made a cloud to shoot ice shards, he made a legitimate cloud through natural process along with causing a lightning strike.

Meanwhile, Torchwick gritted his teeth in agitation, trying to keep the hunk of metal in the sky. The Mystery Lady was glaring at the troublesome kid and decides to launch an enormous fire ball at the rooftop. Glynda, Ruby, and Luffy jumped back to avoid the explosion that covered most of the roof.

"Damn, they got away."

the raven haired teen said as he deactivates his semblance and watches the robbers make their escape. He would chase them down, but he didn't want to leave Ruby behind. Speaking of which...

"Can I have your autograph?"

She says in cheerful glee asking a full fledged huntress for a signature.

Glynda just stares at the two and sternly tells them "Both of you will be coming with me!"

Ruby flinched at the tone that left no room for argument.

Suddenly, Luffy had a question of his own.

"Can we go eat first? I'm so hungry!"

he asks in a pleading tone, only to be given answer in the form of Ruby's facepalm and Glynda's scowl for his short attention span.