[Intro Here]

"Hey Shanks, where do you want to stop for supplies, we've needed a pit stop since re-entering East Blue" asked Benn Beckman to his Captain, albeit the term was used loosely on this certain ship.

"Oh Beckman" replied Shanks while vigorously chopping down on the piece of meat in his hand, "Well I was planning on stopping in Foosha Village, it's rather close plus I hear the townspeople are quite kind to pirates" he grinned.

"We may have a problem then Captain"

"Such as?" Shanks attention was now entirely on Beckman.

"There have been reports of a group of bandits raiding and slaughtering a town just thirty miles East of Foosha, supposedly the group has been at it for over a week and the marines have yet to do anything, as of recent the bandits have the town under martial law" Beckman looked grim.

"I see, well I suppose we have no choice then" Shanks looked deathly serious, and the slightest wave of Haki expanded from him.

"Tell the crew the change course East and furrow the Sails all the way, let's make haste".

"Roger, Captain".

"Ahhhh" wailed a woman. She was screaming uncontrollably and looked as if she had seen a ghost. In front of her stood three men, one dressed in long black pants and a light blue shirt, one with white torn up shorts on and a black v neck, and finally, standing in the middle was the tallest of the trio. He was tall, roughly seven feet, he wore long white sweats along with an unbuttoned "Hawaiian" shirt, his body and face were lidden with scars along with an emotionless face, fully apathic to the situation he had just caused.

The gun the middle man was carrying had just been fired.

In front of him stood a body, no more than ten, who looked deathly still.

Red stained the dirt in below the body, and the redder it got the more the woman screamed.

"Shut up" one of the men spoke, with a grin on his face, seemingly amused by the whole situation.

"The boy tried to stand up to us, with the regime we are trying to erect here we cannot have any insolence, especially from someone so young." The emotionless man explained, cooled and calm.

"HE was my SON" the woman screeched as moved closer to the body trying to feel if there was any warmth left. As she attempted at putting a hand on the boy the man shot at her, piercing right through her palm.

In unimaginable pain, but determined, the woman kept moving.

"Last warning or this time it's going through your forehead" the utter monotony of the man's tone revealed just how little he cared.

She didn't either.

She continued moving and the man, seeing this, drew his pistol back up and got ready to fire.

"Bang" the shot was loud, and with it came the sound of three people falling over. The woman, realizing she was still alive, looked up from her dead son. In front of her stood all three of the man that had terrorized her, only all three of the lay on the ground, each with a hole right through their chests. Behind them stood a man with red hair and a straw hat. Next to him were two men, Ben Beckman and Lucky Roo, both of which had pistols in their hands, looking freshly fired.

"Who are you" the woman asked. Her voice was apprehensive and despite what she had been through her eyes still had some fight in them. They could easily just be here to overthrow the bandits and then take control as they had done. She had lost her son but she still had two more kids to look after. This time she would fight.

"The name is Shanks and these two are Benn Beckman and Lucky Roo, we are of the Red Hair Pirates!" he made a slight grin and then turned serious again.

"We are here to take care of the bandits" he continued.

The woman's eyes widened at this statement as tears started to come down from her eyes. Maybe she would get out of this, at least, with two of her children. Then she realized something that made her grow grim again.

"T Th Then you'll need more than you three, there's roughly thirty more of them, you'll never be able to take them all down" she spoke warningly.

Lucky Roo started chucklingly while Shanks threw her a reassuring smile.

"Not to worry ma'am, I came here knowing what activities these bandits were up to, I've sent the rest of my crew all over the town with the intention of getting rid of them as soon as possible, in the case of preventing them from hurting anyone else."

His voice grew grim as he got ready for his next words

"with that said"

He motioned down to the dead boy in front of her "I am deeply sorry I did not get here in time to save him" he sounded genuinely upset.

With the apology, the woman's face grew pained, but now was not the time to cry, she could do that later. "It's okay" she said, she closed her eyes and calmed herself.

"The time for mourning is later, if you are truly here to take down the bandits then we may have a slim shot, I'll notify the villagers to prepa.." she was cut off.

"All done" shouted a man walking towards the four, he had a satisfied look on his face.

"That took you awhile, Yasopp" teased Shanks.

"Yea, yea to be fair some of them were hiding in some rather weird places after I knocked the head off the first one…." He was being dead serious.

"That's rather violent for this crew Yasopp, we don't want to terrify all of East Blue now" Shanks tried to admonish with a frown. Beckman smirked and Lucky Roo grinned.

The woman had a look of absolute shock on her face, had this group of average looking pirates really taken down all the men that had completely terrorized her village in just five minutes since showing up,? 'God Dammit' she thought 'They sure have shitty timing'. That said, they had still saved her and the village and she was in their debt.

"Um Pirates?" She hesitantly asked. They all turned to her. "I believe this town is in debt to you, is there anything we can do to repay you?". All four of the pirates grinned, with the same idea on their minds.

"Let's PARTY"

After defeating the bandits, the woman quickly informed the town of what had transpired, they soon were more than grateful to the pirates, and as they had requested, threw a huge party.

"Ahahahah" laughed a rather drunk Shanks. "The Sake here is great, I could drink it like water" he grinned and quickly took to chugging another jug down.

"Captain" Beckman called up to his captain.

"AH Beckman" Shanks grinned "How…. can" Burp "How…how can I help ahahhahhh" He was quite drunk.

Beckman sighed at the antics of his captain.

"I was just wondering captain, what are the current plans as far as our course, do you still wish to go to Foosha village?

"Ahhhhhh, ummmmmm, well no" Shanks was thinking rather hard with the amount of alcohol currently flowing through him.

"I think we should stay here for a while and help these villagers recover from this" He almost sounded sober.

"After that we won't have enough time to travel to Foosha and we'll just have to continue forward" having made up his mind Shanks went right back to drinking.

"Roger, Captain" and with that the conversation was over.

A small event in any story can always lead to a wave of effects, what will happen to a certain boy now that no one is there to ignite the dream of becoming a pirate.

In Foosha village a young Luffy lay unconscious as a bandit named Higumi stole all the sake from Makino's bar. He woke up and once he was told what happened he was devastated. Afterwards Makino tried to comfort him and say that it wasn't his fault but he wouldn't budge. He ran out of the store in tears to be alone.

"Luffy!" Makino cried out but he didn't turn around, he couldn't face her.

'I'm so weak' he thought to himself. He had tried to stand up to the Bandit but he had just smacked him over the head straight into a table, knocking him out cold. By the time, he woke up he had found out that he had punched Makino too for standing up to him along with taking all her Sake as compensation.

'I'll never let someone hurt her again' he swore to himself.

He kept running faster and faster, he wanted to try to outrun the shame he was feeling, he wanted to feel the pain in his legs over the guilt in his heart.

He was trying to so hard to focus simply on running fast that he failed to notice the small obstacle right in front on him. His foot caught on it smashing it open but he tripped anyway.

"Owieeeeee" Luffy whined as small tears threatened to come out, he was five after all. Opening his eyes, he noticed what he had tripped on. It was a smashed-up fruit. Blue with small spirals all over it. It reminded him of a giant pineapple. It looked kind of tasty minus the mashed-up part.

'Growl' his stomach "hummed" in approval. Luffy, not being one to hesitate took a big bite, only to immediately regret it as the taste of extremely salty pickles marinated in dirty sock juice filled his mouth. He refused to spit it up however, never being one to waste food, and painfully swallowed.

"CuuuuuuChaaaaaa that was gross ew ew ew" whined Luffy. Following the taste was a weird sensation in his stomach, he felt, lighter. 'Whatever' he thought nothing of it. Being done crying, Luffy decided to head back to the village when a growl could be heard from the bushes. Unbeknownst to Luffy, he had accidently run into a small clearing in the forests surrounding Foosha, and consequently right into the territory of an unknown beast.

"Who's there!" yelled Luffy, trying to act brave despite the immense fear already bottling up inside his small frame. Slowly crawling out of the bushes was a rather large Tiger with a look of hunger in its eyes. Luffy tried crawling back but that only seemed to anger the Tiger as it started to charge at Luffy.

'This can't be it'

"Crahhhhh" the beast growled

'I have to see Makino and Gramps again'

Its mouth opened, showing all the fangs in its mouth ready to rip him apart

'If I die here I can't protect Makino'

The beast was right in front of him and lifted his palm up at Luffy, aiming to end him with one hit.

'I can't allow this' at that moment all Luffy could think about was making the large cat disappear.

'Go away' 'Go away' GO AWAY' as Luffy thought his last wish the beasts paw landed right on him, but the second it did the cat shot right back in the opposite direction at an unimaginable speed, smacking right into a nearby tree, breaking the tree in half and dying on impact.

A second later Luffy opened his eyes having no idea where the tiger went or what the loud crashing sound was. He looked around and widened his eyes in shock when he saw the broken tree with the lifeless body of the tiger next to it. The only thing he could think to ask was

"Did I just do that…?"

End of Chapter One.