Chapter 27

Luffy was smiling brightly as he started his journey in his tiny row boat. His Dad and brothers had offered him better, but he wouldn't have any other. He wanted to have adventures and seek life in his own way. And that includes the ships he will steal or buy in the future. Taking a bite from the apple, he watched as the few clouds above him slowly drifted past.

Ace had already started his adventures and Sabo was doing what he wanted from an early age. His brothers were doing great things on their own and he won't stay back. He is going to get a crew which would rival others, and would soon fight a Yonko! He would be getting stronger and stronger, so that he would be able to protect whoever he wants to! He won't be getting a vast crew like the Whitebeards. He wants a crew of ten. A swordsman, a navigator, a sniper, a cook and many more.

His hand went to grab another apple, when his hands came in contact with the air. He pouted. Well, he can eat when he reaches an island. He sat up and looked at his mother, who was humming a song to him, until the swirling of waves hit his ear. He stood up and he was greeted by the sight of a whirlpool. Well, here the tests of his mother starts. From here he is an ordinary person who has no advantage over his mother.

He ran through the options in mind. He can't swim and abandon the boat. He can always ask his mother, but that would be cheating!! He is not going to ask his mother always! He has to grow up on his own. With that thought in his mind he looked at the empty barrel. Well, he can fit in it.

He looked at the whirlpool once more and poked his tongue out. With that he jumped into the empty barrel, which was dark. He took his bag pack with him, he doesn't want to lose it. The only source of light came from a little glow which his body provided. Within seconds, he was asleep, completely unconcerned by the dangers he could face.

.

On a remote Island, on a pink colored ship, a fat, ugly lady runs her fingers through the railings of the ship. A layer of dust settles in her fingers as she asks in a cold voice the reason for so much dust. Her men, her crew, the pirates, get scared of her as they try to beg for forgiveness. They try to persuade the fat lady to give them a second chance and they will never do it again. But the captain, Lady Alvida, as she was called, mercilessly pounds her Iron Mace on the pirate which tried to beg for another chance. She turns towards a short, pink- haired boy, who visibly sweats, and asks him.

"Coby! Who's the most beautiful person in all the Seas?"

The boy sweats and panics and persuades the captain that of course it is her. The captain grins her wicked smile as she reasons that the chore boy, Coby, is only on the ship and not dead because he knows about navigation more than the others. Coby had heard this before again and again. He freezes from fear and doesn't believe anymore that he could ever reach his dream like this.

Alvida kicks the poor lad and orders her crew to keep cleaning the ship. Even though Coby is shaking, beat, even though his mouth and nose are bleeding, he smiles nervously, not wanting another kick or worse the Iron Mace on his head, which will take his life in an instant.

The captain leaves the poor guy and Coby cries in solitude of the waves, begging for freedom, for happiness he once had, and for achieving his dream. Coby looks at the waves which crashes on the shore and sees a barrel floating. He wipes his tears as he fetches a rope and drags the barrel out of the sea. He rolls the barrel, which he assumes is filled with sake, to the store room of the ship. But the pirates are there to take his loot away. He couldn't do anything. He is weak, a pathetic cabin of terrible pirates. He can't fight them, so he lets them do whatever they want.

The pirates approach the barrel and were about to punch the barrel in their style, when a straw hat wearing kid breaks out of it and yells how good of a nap he just had. Two pirates, who tried to approach the barrel are instantly knocked out on the ground, while the others eyes widens and jaw drops.

Coby watches as the kid with a bag pack stands inside the barrel and asks who are they, to which the remaining three pirates yell at the boy, asking who was he. It was comical to say the least, if Coby was not surrounded by strong pirates. He didn't want the straw hat kid, to be captured like him, to suffer like him, to.. never be able to reach his dream like him.

The three pirates swung their sword at the said kid, and Coby closed his eyes in fear of seeing worse. He wanted to shout at them to leave the kid- who was obviously looking younger than him- alone, but no sound came out of his mouth. After few seconds, he heard sound of body dropping on the floor and he opened his eyes in fear of seeing the boy dead.

But what he saw shocked him, the three pirates were on the ground and the boy was getting off the barrel. Coby sighed in relief.

"Are you alright? Did you get hurt?" But honestly Coby could see no scratches on him. How did he managed to knock the three pirates? May be they were weak from all slacking off. Yeah that's the answer because only Alvida was stronger on the ship.

"I'm fine!" The kid spoke with a bright grin on his face. "I'm Luffy. What's with them??" Luffy asked innocently.

"R-run, hurry!" Coby said with realization hitting him. "If they come back with their friends, you'll be killed!!" Or captured like himself.. but he doesn't believe Alvida would keep any other alive.

"But I am hungry!" Luffy pouted, leaving Coby baffled. Luffy was sure innocent and carefree. Coby's thoughts kicked in. He could not let the kid die. He could not let him have the same misfortune as his.

Luffy was walking off to another direction, the direction of food. "These look great!!" The boy squealed.

"M-My name is Coby. You are Luffy, right?" Coby looked at the boy nicely. The boy looked about a year or two younger than him. He was wearing a red vest and blue shorts, with a red bag pack. All over, the teen looked even more weaker than him and more innocent but carefree. Maybe he could also have beat the pirates on his own if he was not that coward.

"Is this a pirate ship?" Luffy asked, munching on the food.

"No, it's a passenger ship raided by Alvida-sama," Coby said. Luffy nodded. He hadn't heard the name ever. Maybe it was an upstart pirate or some weakling whose name neither the revolutionaries bothered to remember nor his mother.

"Do you know if there are any boats on the board?" Luffy asked.

Coby nodded as he led the boy to the inner docks of the ship to show him a boat, which he has been building secretly since the past two years. The boat looked more like a coffin to be honest.

Coby saw how generous the boy was when he said, "Don't you need the boat? You don't look like you wanna stay here."

"I-I want to escape from here but whenever I think about it," Coby shuddered, remembering what happened to an old crew member. "The big iron mace of Alvida-sama appears before me." The mace which would slam on to his head and finish him with one blow.

Coby then explains how he left for fishing two years ago to accidentally walking on to the ship of these pirates. How miserable his life has been since then being the chore boy of the ship.

"You're pretty stupid and useless and you seem kinda wimpy too. I don't like you." Coby cried at the blunt reply of Luffy, who smiles throughout the ordeal. He fails to see how Luffy was trying to agitate him to leave the ship. But Coby accepts that he really is not brave to take stand for himself.

"Where are your parents?" Coby asked Luffy ignoring the insults. Surely, a parent wouldn't leave such a carefree boy alone, right?

"At home," Luffy says through a huge grin.

"Why are you here then?" Coby asked. Maybe Luffy was in a ship which got stowed away.

"I'm sailing to become the Pirate King!" Luffy exclaimed loudly, shouting out his dream for Coby to hear. Coby's jaw dropped to the ground at the mere declaration.

"P-P-Pirate King?!!! The one who had everything in the world??!!!" Coby finds himself getting hysterical. Maybe his dream is even more probable than the kid's before him. "Are you telling me that you're looking for the 'World's Greatest Treasure' The 'ONE PIECE'?!!!! You wanna die or something?! All the pirates in the world are looking for that treasure!!"

Coby sees Luffy pout, cross his arms over his chest and his legs on the other leg as he replies affirmative.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! Utterly impossible! To become the pirate king in the pirate era there's no chance!! Utterly impossible-!" Coby feels Luffy bonk him on the head and cries out of pain.

"Why'd hit me?!" Coby whimpered out, holding his head, where a bump formed.

"'Cause I felt like it!" Luffy answered simply.

"...Oh well, I'm used to it anyway," Coby lets out a nervous laughter. Coby was slowly beginning to realize that he would never reach his dream since he couldn't even stand up against a guy younger than himself.

Unknown to Coby, whirls of emotion flood inside of Luffy. The one of hopelessness of not being able to leave what his duty was in previous life. The fear of being lonely again...

Luffy jumped from the counter, leaving the thoughts. His hands clutched his locket and strawhat making him feel that he wasn't lonely. With a bright grin he looked at Coby.

"I'm not afraid of dying. 'Cause it's my dream and that's why I won't mind dying for it!" Coby sees the determination and resolution radiating from the boy and feels a spark inside him as well.

"Won't even mind death...?!" Coby asks in disbelief. He had met many people in his life, but everyone is scared of death, of the end, but now, this teenager, Luffy, says he doesn't care if he dies for his dream. He sees how Luffy looks outside through the window, the sun shines on his face, as his grin gets impossibly wider.

"Besides, I have done it way before and I think I can do it again! Even if it gets tougher in this era!" Coby doesn't understand a single word, which Luffy utters but all he thinks is the sentence that he isn't afraid to die for his dream.

Coby feels streams of tear wet his cheeks as hope ignites in his heart and he asks Luffy, "Will I also be able to accomplish my dream? If I'm willing to die?" Coby looks at Luffy, straight in his eyes, even though he was scared, he asks further, "Will I be able to become a Marine?!" He could see Luffy giving a bright grin to him, but there is something more which he couldn't place it.

"Marine?" He hears Luffy speak.

"Yes! I know it means that we'll be enemies!! But joining the marines and catching bad guys has always been my dream." Coby declares to Luffy, who gives him a sunny grin, all the confusion in his face, which was earlier fades away.

"I wouldn't know until you try!" Luffy speaks playfully to Coby.

"No! I'll do it! If I'm gonna be a chore boy for the rest of my life, then I'll break out of here and catch Alvida-sama, no, Alvida!" Coby shouted in determination.

But unfortunately, his luck, his determination fades away as the voice of Alvida comes from the background and her Iron Mace destroys his self made boat. Coby cries in desperation and fails to see the shadowed face of Luffy and anger which courses through his new friend. All he can see is Alvida, and the pirates standing and them looking at Luffy and him.

"You're gonna team up with him to catch who?" The voice of Alvida asks in rage, making Coby cower in the corner, shaking.

"You don't seem to be Zoro, the pirate hunter," The fat woman said to Luffy with a grin.

"Zoro?" Luffy asked, not sure who that was but he's pretty sure he has heard about him.

"Coby!" At the sound of his name, Coby screamed out in surprise. This was it, the end. After two years of suffering it's going to be over.

"Before you die, I'm gonna ask you," Alvida looks at Coby, ignoring the scrawny brat, Luffy, completely. "Who's the most beautiful of all in these sea?"

Coby shudders in fear and his eyes flicker between Luffy and Alvida. He sees the hooded look Luffy is giving and he is almost terrified of it. He gulps and balls his fists as he looks at Alvida, he remembers his last conversation with Luffy. Adrenaline flows through him as he shouts his next words, which he was sure would be his last.

"In all the seas, Alvida..." Coby speaks, he manages to stay calm, but tears well up in his eyes and he looks at Luffy for the last time. Something flows through him. If he gets to be brave for once in his life, he will do it. Even if it meant direct death and nothing less. He prays silently before speaking the words which would surely call death to him. " IS THE MOST UGLY, RUDEST DAMNED BITCH OF AN OLD HAG!!!"

He closes his eyes shut, preparing him to receive his death but he hears Luffy's voice, "Very well, Coby!"

He opens his eyes when there is no impact of the Iron Mace and sees Luffy crushed under it. He cries but is left with an open mouth the next second, when Luffy springs up.

"That won't work!" Luffy grins and takes in the shocked looks of the pirates. With one punch, the woman flies through the ship, making a big hole in it.

Luffy points a finger to rest of the pirates. "Prepare a boat for Coby! He wants to join the marines! So stay outta his way!"

Coby feels tears of happiness running through his face, when the pirates scramble off without defying Luffy. Luffy's magical laughter resounds in his head and Coby finds his first friend and someone who he will forever look up to. He couldn't believe that someone he met just a few minutes ago, stood up for him. He will be eternally grateful to Luffy, to give him a reason to believe in his dream and escape the hellish ship for once and for all. He finally has hope to be able to complete his dream.

.

"Looks like we got away," Coby mumbled as he looked at the ship which was now being attacked by marines.

"Whew, that was fun!" Luffy laughed from where he sat.

"Umm, Luffy?" Coby asked, making Luffy turn towards him with his ever present smile on his face. "If you're looking for the 'One Piece' that means you have to get into the 'Grand Line', right?!"

"Yeah," Luffy said with the widest grin he had till now seen on his face.

"But that place is known as the pirates graveyard," Coby says as a matter of fact.

Coby watched the teen look at him, with a smile, which never seems to leave him. "Yea, that's why I need a strong crew and one of them is being held captive at the place you're going."

Coby's eyes widens a he realizes that Luffy is speaking about none other than the famous pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro. He freezes when the rumors about the said pirate hunter runs through his mind.

"Luffy, you should not try to recruit him." Coby says frantically to the teenager, whom he had come to respect since the last few hours. "He is a demon, a criminal!"

But to Coby's dismay, Luffy digs his pinky in his nose and says, "So?"

"He will not hesitate to kill you!" Coby tried to point out the obvious. According to Coby, Zoro would be more stronger than Luffy and he didn't want his first friend to get killed by a bloodthirsty pirate hunter.

Luffy smiled brightly with his signature laugh. "If Zoro would be a good guy then I would ask him to join otherwise not."

That relieves Coby to an extent.

.

The sky darkens as the night arrives. Besides the twinkling stars, there is no source of light. The wind blows softly through the little boat, the waves sway the boat as a mother lulls her child to sleep.

Coby enjoys the soft, warm weather, he enjoys the freedom, which he has finally got after two years of constant suffering and all thanks to Luffy, who is staring at the stars with a wide grin on his face. The silence is comforting and not at all awkward. He hears Luffy snickering at times, then sees him grinning, as if he is hearing some funny stories.

He doesn't remember when he falls asleep to the soft swaying of the boat. The soft breeze helps him and he dreams about being a marine and capturing bad guys. The morning soon comes and they find themselves near Shell's town, which shouldn't happen. Weren't they anchored? Coby ignores it for the thought that Luffy might have pulled out the anchor, but he sees Luffy still sleeping peacefully, curled up against his bag pack.

.

"We have made it!!" Luffy shouted with excitement, getting off the little boat, which Coby guided it safely into the port behind him.

Coby and Luffy began walking through the town together, Luffy with a grin of excitement and Coby with a look of nervousness.

"Seriously, you are crazy to want him to join you!" Coby tried to reason with his new friend once more.

"I haven't decided yet," Luffy told Coby truthfully.

"He's been caught because he's a bad guy," Coby yelled stopping in the middle of the street while Luffy continued to walk forward, stopping at a fruit stand, picking a pear and tossing a coin to the woman running the stand.

"Do you know why Zoro's being held at the base?" Luffy asked him but they were immediately met with everyone jumping away in shock.

"It seems the name Zoro is a taboo here," Coby whispered to Luffy, who looked at the people who were looking at them with wide eyes. Did they recognize him? But Alvida wasn't able to! And his face was not in his wanted poster even!!! Maybe it could be related to the guy, Zoro?

"Let's check out the base," He said, frowning a bit. "You're gonna be a marine, right?" He said as they walked towards the base again.

"Y-yes... but I'm not really ready yet," Coby said, looking at his hands. It all still felt like a dream to him. "Rumor has it, Captain Morgan is at this base and-"

Like with Zoro's name the townspeople who had gradually begun getting to work, all jumped away again in shock. But this time the reaction of the people towards the name was more scary. The civilians had fled away at the mere name.

Luffy laughed at the reaction. People are really funny to him. But Coby was having a bad feeling about all of this. He could understand why the people would be scared after hearing the name of the Pirate Hunter because he could escape any time but why would they be afraid of a marine captain's name.

When he questioned this loud. He saw Luffy gave a small smile and looked at the sky, the sun rays falling on his skin and the light wind ruffling his hair. After a fine good minute, Luffy finally spoke.

"Not all marines are good." The voice held a little pain, which was strange for the teenager, who did nothing but smile, since he had met him. But his words couldn't be accepted by Coby, even if he could sense that Luffy was speaking the truth.

"A bad guy? But he's a marine!" Coby said immediately, suddenly remembering that Luffy was a pirate and was supposed to be a bad guy... but he wasn't.

When he accepted Luffy to argue about it, the boy gave him a smile.

Coby just can't except the fact that marines, the people who save innocents, are bad. That's impossible. He wouldn't unless he is given a proof. Marines are heroes, not villains.

He didn't even notice when they stood in front of the towering grey marine base. The way to his dreams stood before him, yet he couldn't shake off the feeling that he wasn't ready to join the marines yet. He saw Luffy climb up the towering wall, which was thrice his size.

"Luffy!! What are you doing?" Coby asked as he saw Luffy jump down from the wall and run to an another side, which Coby chose to follow him.

"I saw something over there! It could be Zoro!" Coby's eyes blinked in disbelief. Why would be the pirate hunter be on the grounds and not in the cells? But still he followed Luffy as he climbed the wall pretty easily again. The moment he saw that black bandana and green haramaki around the waist and felt the intimidating aura, he knew he was looking at the Pirate Hunter, Roronoa Zoro. He fell on his butt due to the trembling in his knees.

"Th-That's him. T-That's R-Roronoa Zoro." Coby stuttered in fear and started to sweat.

"So, he's Zoro." Luffy grinned looking at the Pirate Hunter tied to the pole. "Those ropes look pretty easy to break."

"S-Stop joking!! If you free him, he could make a mess in the town and even kill you!!" Coby yelled. He didn't want his first friend to die due to his recklessness. But who was he kidding, no one ever listened to him.

A/n:

So here we are finally starting Luffy's journey to be the King of Pirates!!

You can tell me if things get boring. And to spice things up Luffy's age is 17 but he looks like 13-15. Otherwise things would have been mostly the same.

Reason behind Luffy looking younger is because Gods age slow. That is an excuse and more things will come o to spice up the story so it won't go starught like the cannon one.

Have you all seen the one piece episode today? I guess it would be cool!