'thoughts'

"speech"

(Dawn Island- East Blue)

In the dead of night, all was quiet in the forest outside of Fuschia village, nothing except the insects made a noise-.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, HELP ME!"

-And the terrified screams of a young child, yeah. Completely normal. A seven year old child was sprinting through the forest, running away from a small pack of wolves. The child had raven colored hair, dark colored irises, and a frantic expression on his childish face. His shirt was in rags hanging off of his body, so no use describing them, he also had on a pair of tattered shorts, and open-toed sandals.

Luffy was in the forest because his grandfather threw him in here alone...again.

'I gotta find a place to get rid of these god damn wolves.' Luffy thought, he's been running for at least 10 minutes from the canines behind him, he needed shelter. As if to answer his prayers, he suddenly stumbled into a clearing with an incredibly large tree in the center, it looked like an oak tree, it was about 20 meters tall with a 10 meter wide trunk. From what Luffy could tell there was a hole that looked large enough to fit him within the tree.

Without a second thought, he pushed his burning, sore legs even more to get him to the tree, feeling his lungs burn more from exertion, not forgetting about the barking and growling wolves behind him. In less than 15 seconds he made it into the tree hole successfully with a bounding leap and scurrying up the rest of the way, getting the wolves off of his tail. Heh, get it? You know 'cause the wolves- and the- yeah, okay? Okay, back to the story.

Luffy was on his back huffing and puffing, gulping in mouthfuls of precious oxygen, trying to regain his breath, and famished. Deciding to see if he was lucky enough to find a single morsel of food, he looked over to his left, and, as if Lady Luck was on his side today, he saw an entire fruit, but it was strange.

The strange fruit was a light blue color, shaped like a pear covered what looked like teardrop shaped lumps that had swirls on them with a green curled stem coming out of the top of it. 'Even though it looks weird, gotta eat to survive.' With that final thought in mind, he took the fruit and took huge munches out of the fruit, getting past the bitter taste, and swallowing it down.

After a few moments of devouring the fruit, he felt something weird with his arm, like something slightly chilly, he looked down and saw it was frozen. 'Wait, frozen?' Indeed, his arm was covered in ice, from the front of his fist to his elbow.

"AHHHHH, GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" Luffy started freaking out before noticing his arm didn't feel stiff or cold at all, it actually felt completely normal except for the slight chill on it, he focused on turning his arm back to normal, and it worked. His arm was as fleshy as he remembered it. Concentrating on his arm again, he turned it back to ice, seeing and feeling it work, he smirked. "Things are gonna get really interesting from now on." feeling the day's exhaustion crash into him, he froze the inside of the trunk, not feeling comfortable unless he did, and settled his head on the wood of the trunk burrow thing and embraced the peacefulness of sleep.

(The next morning)

Luffy woke up, groggily rubbing the sleep from his eyes, looking around the frozen interior of the tree, feeling oddly comfortable with the frigid temperatures around him. Waking up fully when he remembered that his grandpa was supposed to pick him up from the forest in the afternoon, memorizing the old man's schedule. He soon got out of the tree and started venturing into the forest, picking and eating edible berries on the way and testing his new devil fruit powers.

After walking for a short while, he could just see a clearing through the trees and saw a pack of wolves resting, the pack of wolves that nearly ate him last night, looking intently at his soon-to-be multi-course meal, he smirked and placed his hand on the slightly moist ground preparing to freeze it to keep them in place while he takes them out. He concentrated and pushed out his ice as fast as it could go and the moist earth froze in less than a few seconds. The ice nearly got to their legs but they ran off, whimpering, before it could.

Luffy stood up, confused at their actions, before he could contemplate it any more, he felt a warm rush of wind on the back of his neck, paired with a growl and snarl. He froze (pun not intended), thinking of what it could be, he slowly turned around and nearly screamed in terror. Behind him was a tiger, one that was larger than anything he'd ever seen.

The monster before him towered above his small frame, lips drawn back in a snarl, yellow eyes glaring at him with a bestial hunger, putting two and two together, he finalized that he was its new dinner. The tiger opened its maw and roared in Luffy's face showing him the nasty row of razor sharp teeth, and giving him a faceful of the tiger's rancid breath that stunk of, what he could only guess was, the remnants of corpses of many woodland creatures, and maybe some people in there too. As the roar died down, Luffy got in gear and bolted away, eyes wide in terror and gasping in gulps of air into his burning lungs and pushing his aching legs as hard as he can with the beast trailing behind him, knocking trees down as if they were wet paper towels.

Luffy took a sharp right into a small opening the first chance he got, but all that did was make the tiger skid along the ground to have it on his tail not a second later. The chase kept on going on for about five or so minutes before Luffy burst out into a clearing, nearly running into a rock wall, the tiger was now right behind him, licking its chops,and gaining a satisfied glint in its eyes, knowing that its prey had nowhere else to go. Luffy backed up in fear until his back hit the rock wall behind him, and he was rooted to his spot, at the mercy of the Tiger Lord.

'This can't be it, it can't.' Luffy desperately thought before clenching his fists and glaring up at the tiger in fierce determination. 'I won't die here, it'll be a cold day in hell before I go down without a fight!' With new intense determination and will within him, he turned his right arm into ice and slammed his palm onto the ground. Willing his ice to freeze the moist earth, but as he was preparing to do so, he felt a slight tug in his gut, not thinking anything of it he let his instincts take the wheel, and with a grunt of exertion, he sent out ice all around him, possibly 30 metres out in all directions turning the earth into solid ice, along with the tiger who was frozen in mid swipe with its paw a meter shy from Luffy's head.

Feeling tired, Luffy started to stumble for a short distance, leaving the clearing behind him, mist rolling off of the ice, before he pitched forward, his exhaustion catching up, but before he could reach the ground a pair of strong hands caught him and gingerly picked him up. The man holding him in his arms was his grandfather, Monkey D. Garp, a Vice-Admiral in the Marines.

He looked at the aftermath of Luffy's show of power, though already having seen it, he just wanted to study it again to be sure. "So he was born with it, but where did he get a devil fruit?" the Vice-Admiral muttered, seeing all of the unconscious animals at the fringe of the clearing. Without another word, Garp walked off, seemingly to some place to set up camp.

On the way he thought of what he saw, before putting it aside for tomorrow, he'd have to discuss some things with his grandson, but not now seeing as Luffy would be unconscious for the rest of the day, he soon arrived at the campsite he set up and laid Luffy down before laying down himself to get some sleep.

Like it? Love it? No flames please. Please review, tell me what you think.