Hello there, this story is set in the AU belonging to Who We Were Meant To Be (WWW) where Luffy and his fellow Straw Hats are marines. This story will be told in 3 chapters.

1. Smoker meets Luffy.

2. Alabasta.

3. Aftermath of the Paramount War.

It's -technically- a spin-off, and you don't need to read WWW to understand it, but you will be heavily spoiled. Particularly when we reach the chapter surrounding the Paramount War. If you haven't read WWW here's the blurb:

Portgas D. Ace is ready to be executed, he's made peace with it... Until a rag-tag band of marines frees him from Impel Down. They come in the name of his traitor of a brother, a man who had carried him into that same cell. Marine!Luffy AU

Be sure to check it out :) and leave a review if there's anything you'd like to see from Smoker in this WWW universe, I'm digging writing him a lot right now.

If someone asks Smoker how Monkey D. Luffy convinced him to leave a post Smoker had hold on to for years, for which he had rejected several promotions to keep and then abandoned in a day to go to the Grand Line… he'd answer that it's no one's business but his own.

If that someone was to be a person he respected or appreciated, he might say that it's not something one can put into words unless they've met the stupid idiot themselves.

The truth is that, Smoker always knew – from the moment that he set eyes on him – that Monkey D. Luffy was going to be a pirate. Despite his lineage, his spotless record, his many accomplishment, his fame and his fierce sense of Justice… that man wasn't meant to follow the rules, much less enforced them. The thought hits Smoker without base or reason, but it's from a well-cultivated understanding of piracy born from years in service, and Smoker had never been wrong. He was there when the Great Age of Piracy was born and he thinks it left him an impression, a sliver of understanding that his fellow marines of the absolute justice regimen cannot see.

So, when he sees this not-yet pirate, dressed in a marine officer's coat, Smoker knows that wherever he goes, mayhem would follow. Smoker's sense of justice doesn't allow for a pirate to play marine, Monkey D. Luffy would slip and Smoker would be there to catch him. He would never admit his suspicions or conclusions to anyone, not even after the Pramount War –but to himself, he's always felt a little bitter about just how right his gut was.

Smoker first hears about Monkey D. Luffy when his subordinates notify him about a disturbance on the center plaza as he's patrolling the streets of Loguetown. Smoker is purposely going at half his usual speed because he knows they're HQ marines visiting, and the less time he needs to put a nice face the better. He's been the Captain of Loguetown a long time, and he's not appreciative of the way HQ marines tend to turn their noses up at him. Contrary to cocky pirates, Smoker's not allowed to beat the crap out of them.

His den-den mushi narrates that there is man on the scaffold and when Smoker takes a couple of back alley shortcuts and sees it for himself, the officer coat he's wearing is the first thing to catch his eye. The man has one hand raised towards his head, fingers barely grazing a head full of unruly black hair. The man is looking out over the concerned citizens with a presence that Smoker has only seen once before. He's sure he must have it wrong but, the man's not admiring the view, is he? From atop the platform he smiles, and the more Smoker studies him, the younger he seems.

Despite that, the resemblance that strikes Smoker is uncanny. He gets closer.

"What do you think you're doing… officer?" He adds the title just in case, curving his belligerent tone, but it burns in his mouth all the same. It'll be a cold day in hell when Smoker's marines are breaking the law so openly, but… if this man really is a marine then he's clearly from the HQ ship that's returning to the Gran Line. The man startles out of his reverie, and takes a moment to turn down to look at Smoker, his grin intensifies.

"Hi!" He yells and then he's next to him, having jumped 20 feet effortlessly and without consequence. Smoker keeps the surprise off his face as best as he can. "My name is Monkey D. Luffy. Who are you?" No rank? Smoker thinks. Unusual, but from up close there's definitely no mistake that the man is a marine officer.

"I'm Captain Smoker, in charge of the marine base here in Loguetown." He answers gruffly, a little off balance by the man's friendliness. "Climbing the scaffold is against the law, what were you doing?"

"Ehhh? Against the law? Really? Pfft. I had noooo idea." The pan pursues his lips and looks to the side in the worst attempt at lying Smoker's ever seen, and now he knows this is one of those weirdos who can only be a marine in the Grand Line where rampant ridiculous is not only expected but accepted.

"You're a terrible liar." He deadpans, and the man pouts in response.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." He immediately confesses.

"Are you stupid?"

"Hey! No, I was just…" At this the man's eyes sober a little, a hand coming up to graze against a tattoo of a circlet around his neck, the ink is a non-reflective obsidian black. It catches his attention, but he knows it'd be rude to stare. Luffy meets his eyes with solemnity. "I wanted to see, what the last thing the King of Pirates saw was." Then his expression turns sheepish. "Could you, eh, not… tell my Gramps? Please?" This request throws Smoker for a loop.

"Your 'gramps'?" The other man's nodding.

"Yeah, he's going to be at the base, and well… he's not really fond of the Pirate King, y'know?" Smoker thinks that a certainly level of disdain for Gol D. Roger is basically a requirement to be a marine, but he just goes along with it. He doesn't even know this idiot's –Luffy's– grandfather and who cares?

"Right."

"Hey Smokey–"

"It's Captain Smoker."

"–are you going towards the base?" The man steamrolls right through the correction.

"After I finish my patrol." He eyes the other as he shuffles, smiling brightly.

"That's great 'cause I'm totally lost, shishishishi!" Smoker has the sudden urge to facepalm. "Don't worry, I'll go with you so that you can finish your thing." No one has ever made his job sound so much like a hobby, are patrols nonexistent in Marine HQ? Somehow, Smoker's sure it's got more to do with the individual than his precedence. He wants to say no, but fails to come up with a valid reason. What's the other marine supposed to do, anyway? Wander around until he finds the base? Smoker sighs.

"Let's go."

After leaving the plaza, it takes no more than 5 minutes for Smoker to witness exactly why Luffy is lost in the first place, and that is because he has the attention span and curiosity of child. He wants to see everything and try anything and talk to anyone, it's almost like they're playing a game. Smoker's goal is to keep the idiot going in the right direction and Luffy's is to go in literally any other direction possible.

In the commotion of trying to keep a hand on his fellow marine a small girl bumps into him, and Smoker resists the urge to wince when he feels sticky wetness in his pant leg. Luffy laughs loudly, but Smoker can see the little girl is terrified. Sadly, he's aware what his face looks like and the effects it has on unsuspecting children. He ignores Luffy and kneels.

"I'm really sorry." She whimpers, and Smoker shakes his head.

"I didn't see where I was going, I'm sorry." He emphasizes, pulling out some change. "Get yourself another one?" The girl is blooming in happiness and gifts him a gaping smile.

"Thank you, sir marine!" She departs, skipping back towards the ice cream store. When he stands, he feels Luffy's curious gaze on him, it's heavy and approving and Smoker doesn't like the glint in the other man's eye.

"You're a good guy, Smokey, you should come with me to the Grand Line!"

And because Smoker knows a pirate when he sees one, and someone needs to keep this guy in check, Smoker does.

Smoker's commanding officer is an idiot.

Everything since they'd left Loguetown had been in the crazy pole of ridiculous and Smoker's not sure how he's been dragged into the pace of the most unorthodox marines he's ever had the displeasure of meeting. The only upside is that Tashigi – who was definitely crushing over Luffy's squad's swordsman – has decided to come along and therefore, Smoker isn't the only one suffering.

The first surprise turns out to be that Luffy's 'gramps' is marine hero, Garp the Fist. Then, it turns out that Luffy isn't only his fellow marine officer but, as a commodore, he is Smoker's superior. 'He got promoted this week,' Garp had explained.

While sailing to the Grand Line, as the small inner crew gathered on deck to meet the two new marines, Tashigi asks how their travels had gone before Loguetown. Smoker hears from Nami that in the few weeks the marine battleship toured the East Blue, Luffy has saved a town by arresting former Roger Pirate Buggy the Clown, prevented an invasion to a small town by previously thought dead pirate Kuro of a Thousand Plans, and taken out Arlong's fishman tyranny in some far-off islands. Simultaneously, the young commodore and his crew uncovered not one, but two instances of marine corruption.

None of the crew members, except for the two unnamed helmsmen are originally from the Marine Headquarters. Rather, they'd all been recruited in the East Blue. When Smoker asks what they'd been doing before becoming marines, the answers given are alarmingly vague. Other than Roronoa, who Smoker has heard of, and Sanji, who worked at the Baratie the other 3 crew members are complete unknowns.

Smoker looks at his commanding officer, who is precariously sitting in the sheep's head of the vessel they were using –another incongruity. While the Vice-Admiral and the rest of Luffy's ground crew were entering the Grand Line like reasonable marines via the Calm Belt heading straight for the HQ, Luffy had refused to part with a 'thank-you' present from someone named Kaya. The present in question is a ship, a caravel named the Going Merry. The only issue is that, as a non-marine standard vessel, the caravel cannot cross the Calm Belt. Therefore, they are forced to navigate the Grand Line the old-fashioned way until the Ship can be properly outfitted when they reach the HQ, currenly halfway across the world.

"Is that allowed?" Tashigi had asked, frowning. Smoker doesn't miss that both Nami, Coby and Ussop –the marines present for the conversation all look away immediately, as if busying themselves with something else.

"…There are no rules against it." Ussop says evasively, idly petting the railings of the ship. Smoker pinches his nose.

"That's a common thing with you guys, isn't it?" Tashigi says accusingly, but in this, they are right. There are no rules forbidding marines of offering their personal vessels for service, probably because no one thought such a rule was needed. The marines were going to regret not having written down a lot of 'common sense' regulations, Smoker could tell.

My grandson's a bit of a handful, you sure you wanna sail with him, Captain?

A splash is heard and even before Nami's yell of "Zoro!", the swordsman, who'd been previously snoozing somewhere farther off deck, is already soaring over the railing down to sea. It takes Smoker a second to realize that Luffy had indeed fallen into the water. How had this man become commodore of the navy?

"Luffy's just a magnet for really odd trouble that often requires a lot of justice to get rid off." It's Coby, the smallest, meekest marine Smoker has ever lay eyes on, who answers him. Smoker realizes he'd spouted his thought out loud. Coby flinches slightly when Smoker's attention focuses on him. The boy seems to shrink into himself a little, but he smiles at Smoker with some kind of odd wisdom in his eyes. "I used to think he was crazy, too."

"He is crazy." Ussop refutes, watching as Roronoa carries a laughing captain on deck, where he proceeds to shake himself like a wet dog, thank the green-haired man and sit himself in the exact same spot he fell off from before. At the lack of reaction this irrational behavior causes, Smoker is resigned to the idea that Luffy falling overboard is a reoccurring event. Roronoa barely gives off a grunt before immediately going back to his nap.

Smoker hadn't believed what Coby said then. Yet, shortly after reverse mountain, when they've been eaten by a whale, he sees the Commodore stop some whale hunters that turn out to be illegal bounty hunters from which one, is an undercover princess from a nation subjugated in tyranny by a government-approved pirate... and he starts to see it.

Worth pursuing?