My apologies to Ms. Aoihand for trying to bribe her with writing this in order to nab plot for Subtlety. But I wanted to do it anyway, so I did. The Multiverse challenge. Let it be known that any overly-flowery language is a direct result of reading waaaay too much Ray Bradbury. Anyway! Here goes!

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One--No One Loves It

Alcatraz.

"We want your name."

The food was horrible. His room was cramped. Tiny. Uninhabitable. And for this country his father had come all the way from Italy? Freedom was a falsehood. America was a lie.

"We want your real name."

"Cocodrillo," he said. Crocodile. "Get me some cigars." They stared. He stared back, feet crossed on the damp concrete in front of him, hands folded behind his head. "Do you speak English? Sigarette. Something to smoke. Bring me nicotine."

They ignored him.

Alcatraz.

Fantastico.

Two--For Reasons Undisclosed

"Over here!"

Koby's legs twitched to run away, but his brain had other priorities. Luffy was his first friend. Ever. Ever in his life. Therefore, priority number one was to keep him from getting killed by Marine Captain Axe-Hand Morgan's demonic prisoner. So he ran after the behatted pirate instead of in the opposite direction.

"Do you really think they'd keep a wanted criminal in the courtyard?" he gasped, straining to reach the top of the wall where Luffy already hung, scrutinizing the scene beyond. After some effort, the pink-haired boy managed to haul himself up alongside his new-found friend. Having done so, he promptly dropped back to the earth, fearful sweat breaking out all over his face. Oh, this was the person Luffy was looking for.

The bandanna. The strap where swords would have hung, had the marines not prudently removed them. Rumors circling the shipping network of East Blue said that this particular bounty hunter was terrifyingly prodigious in the art of swordsmanship.

He turned to Luffy to warn him of even more horrible things, but Luffy was gone, his straw hat shimmering gold in the blistering sunshine. He was feet from the crucified form, hands on hips, surveying the demon with bright interest.

"I'm looking for nakama to join my pirate crew," he said, apparently unperturbed by the appearance of his "recruit". The bloody face, burned from days in the sun, was framed by curtains of dark, sweaty hair and a greasy green-black bandanna. Shadowy, long-lashed eyes rolled up to stare impassively at their owner's visitor.

"And how do you plan to persuade me?" asked Demon Hunter Kuina. And Luffy grinned right back.

"You're gonna be my first mate!"

Three--Freezeframe

At some point, a ship came. The hull scraped and boomed against the slick, blackened stone of the island, but he barely heard it. All and any energy previously spent on his senses had been directed into survival. Escaping starvation.

Yes...yes, he had a full stomach now.

Voices thrummed in his delicate bones, and then there was a smell of leather and sweat and sea salt...humans. Marines, by the occasional "sir" filtering through the ringing in his ears. Calloused, tarry hands hovered for a moment as a muffled, distant voice made warning sounds ("Slow...slowly! I told...don't...degeneration...")

His body seemed to creak as it was raised gently into the air, and then there was human warmth as his side rested against a broad chest. The muscles in his neck were strips of paper, too weak to support its seemingly bulbous weight. Blond head lolling to one side, he let his eyes slide shut and the receding voices washed over him. They were searching for other survivors. They would find none. Just a cage of bleached ivory, long devoid of any humanity...or flesh.

Yes, he had a full stomach...

---

He was Chef Sanji of the Baratie, the silent cook who had perfected his kicks for eleven years. Not once in those years had he allowed his chefs to present rare or raw meat to their customers. Whenever the kitchen's chaos was less prominent than usual, he would patrol the tables, smoke curling behind him, inhumanly keen ears pricked for compliments and critique--but, more importantly, the voices of beautiful ladies. Given that his vocal cords hadn't stirred for over ten years, the unenlightened might have thought it impossible for him to make his affection for the fairer sex known.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It was surprising, the amount of suggestion he could put into little gestures--the slight raise of an eyebrow, a subtle swing to his step, the barest smile. Any one of his subordinates could have told you; Chef Sanji only ever shows emotion for food and women...

But that wasn't entirely true. There were certain other subjects that could evoke very...intense reactions from their boss.

For instance, if someone ever happened to mention the name. Some pirate customer had known the man, recognized the style, those distinctive kicks. The blood hadn't come out of the deck, and they'd needed to replace the varnished oak boards, which were concealed by a rug now anyway, because they hadn't matched the rest of the floor... Anyway, the crew of the floating restaurant had been quick to pick up on this taboo, and even trainees were informed of the "unspoken" rule. Not even garbage boys deserved such a fate.

But perhaps even more important to Sanji than these laws was the restaurant itself. He was fiercely protective of the ship--which wasn't to say that it was unnatural for a chef to be attached to his workplace, but Sanji treated the Baratie almost like a living being, something to be guarded with burning ferocity. Which he did, and probably would have done so to his death, should the need have arisen.

---

"So that's why he got so mad at the Mister Armor," said Luffy, and swallowed his soup bowl. A moment later, the bowl re-emerged from his throat, sans soup. "Thanks for the meal."

"So, you'll take him with you?"

Zero hesitation. "No."

The Baratie's staff only had a moment to consider protesting before the distinctive sharp tap of Sanji's polished black shoes rang in the silence. It was the dropping of the proverbial pencil--every head turned a fraction of an inch, eyes flickering towards the new arrival. A lanky black form shadowed through the crowd, pale head bobbing between the mushroom-cluster of toques. Luffy stared, unblinkingly innocent, up at the restaurant's head cook.

Sanji blinked once. Twice. He inhaled a mouthful of smoke, held it for a moment, and then released it in a steady white stream from his nostrils. And then he nodded solemnly, and turned to walk away.

"Awesome!" said Luffy, one hand reaching for another helping of soup. "I've got a cook!"

The gathered chefs exchanged surprised glances--generally, it took months to fully understand the owner's silence. Maybe the kid was special.

---

"Hey, kid! This is your food. We'll be staying on opposite sides on the island. In a situation like this, it would be better to treat each other generously, right? We'll signal if either one sees a ship."

"Greedy old man! I don't need your help! No way I'd tell you if--"

"And one last condition, kid. The food in the bag is only enough for five days. Even if you ration it, it'll only last you so long. So in that case, my old body's more likely to waste away than yours, don't you think?"

"What's that got to do with anyth--"

"If I die..."

---

There was a dream. He'd thought it was the Baratie, but...from long ago, something returned to him.

All Blue, All Blue, All Blue..

---

No one seemed surprised to see him on his hands and knees...though perhaps the tears were a surprise to the men who knew the calm and stoic Sanji best. They had never heard the man speak, let alone shout like this. But none of them were so shocked as to make the mistake of thinking he was bowing to them, or even to the Baratie. Something beyond the restaurant, though exactly why he needed to apologize was anyone's guess. Later, taking shots from the marinade wine, they might toss cautious guesses back and forth about the man and the name, but they would probably never know exactly.

Suffice it to say, Sanji apologized. Not that Zeff had ever wanted an apology. But some things have to be done. Now, with new nakama and a new dream...yes...yes, he was full.

Four--When It Starts Burning

Sunlight sheeted down, sparking on grains of quartz in the cobblestones and boiling back up around the feet of a thousand people. The body heat was bad enough, residents of Loguetown and visitors alike crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in the square. And for a kid...well, he hadn't choked yet, and he didn't have any mind to. He'd gotten into scraps before, and he was well-used to a press. He could elbow and stomp like a champion, and a few crushed toes brought him to the front of the crowd just in time to stare up...and up...and up...

The Pirate King had looked a lot...smaller from a coupla streets away. The man was pure monster, standing a head or two taller than the guards on either side of him. His shaggy black hair looked matted, his gaudy coat tattered and grimy from Loguetown's filthy cells. But...was that what a pirate about to be executed looked like? Nah. He looked like a fop goin' for a morning walk (not that fops did that in Loguetown if they wanted to come home with their money, clothes, and ears all still on). Point standing: he wasn't scared. He wasn't at all. His head was up high, like he was enjoying the air.

Then he got a real good look at that weatherburned face, and there was the smile... Big white teeth bared in the broadest grin imaginable as he strode to his death. Not a care in the world.

And the boy who would one day be called Captain Smoker stared, and somewhere inside him, something was caught in the balance, teetering.

"My treasure? It's yours for the taking. Search for it! I left everything I owned in this world in 'that place'!"

And things fell one way, not the other.

The boy's crew would call him Captain, and he would roam the seas, and he would seek out injustice wherever it crawled and destroy it. And he would chase the Strawhats and cross the Red Line and he would always hold true to his own Justice. But the World Government would never hand him a promotion in this life...

...unless you counted that bounty of two hundred million later on...

Five--In a Pothole

After the world ended, Monkey D. Luffy's life went a bit downhill. It wasn't the giant cockroaches--they were fierce and gallant and anyway, he'd managed to pull a harness onto one and bash it into submission before three weeks following the apocalypse. It wasn't the wreckage of the city--he scampered through twisted steel and shattered glass like his primate namesake. It was the lack of people. He'd liked having them around, 'cuz they were human.

Even with the vague sense of loneliness, though, Luffy was pretty sure he wasn't the only one who had survived. That would just be stupid. They had to be out there somewhere, and he was solidly certain that they'd turn up eventually.

Beyond the city was a shiny reddish desert, where the wind howled and scraped the sand into miniature dust-devils. Sometimes, Luffy would take Squid Octopus Chimpanzee out into the horizonless dunes in search of adventure and interesting things. Of course, the cockroach tended to tire after about twelve hours of exploring, and depending on his mood, Luffy would either ride his insect steed back to the city or allow Squid Octopus Chimpanzee to return on its own and continue into the desert.

On one of the days where Squid Octopus Chimpanzee had already gone back, Luffy saw a massive dust storm strike up in the distance, which was cool, 'cuz it was so big and swirly and all. It wasn't so cool once it had jumped him, and sand was going everywhere. Everywhere. He opened his mouth--it went down his throat. He tried to open his eyes--it packed itself under his eyelids. Choking, blind, and more annoyed by the second, Luffy pawed at his eyes with already grainy hands, but nothing seemed to help. It was getting really hard to breathe...

At some point, everything went black.

When he awoke, he was surrounded by...green. Luffy stared blearily up at it, trying to remember what the green was called. He'd heard the word before, but he hadn't seen it in a while...

Plants!

"Plants!" said Luffy aloud, and sat bolt-upright, grinning widely. Around him, a mass of potted plants rustled slightly at the movement. He stared at them in childlike wonderment, bright black eyes wide--and still stinging with sand. He blinked once or twice, tearing up slightly at the irritation, and then forgot completely about the pain as a sophisticated female voice sounded behind him.

"Ah, you've awakened."

He stood immediately, whipping around to search for the voice's owner. He found her almost at once, and started to run towards her. Before he could reach the potted forest and begin causing havoc, however, a pair of hands sprouted from the floor and tripped him neatly.

"Use the ladder, please," said the black-haired woman.

As it turned out, her name was Nico Robin, and the ladder had technically become a set of monkey bars as soon as the building had fallen on its side. Luffy had always been good on the playground, and even managed not to kick over any of the clay pots as he swung, arm to arm, to the cleared space where Robin sat. She was drinking coffee, which she musta scrounged from one of the empty stores, Luffy thought, absentmindedly picking his nose as she explained his situation to him.

He was now in one of the other cities, a couple of miles away from his usual haunts, and the blast hadn't been so bad here. Even so, most of the population had been wiped out. Robin knew only a handful of people who had survived, and many of those had died in the weeks after the world's end. Life, she explained, had changed. Whether for the worse or the better, in her opinion, was a matter of one's state of mind.

"For instance, take my garden," she said, gesturing with an arm grown from her left shoulder. "Devils, we call them. Devil cucumbers. Devil tomatoes. And over there, my Devil Zucchini. It's a menagerie of the New World's bounty."

"Me-whattery?"

"A display, Lost-Boy."

"M'name's Luffy," said Luffy. "Not Lost-Boy. You're funny, lady!"

She gave him a wan smile. "Indeed. Would you like to recover here?"

He considered this. "Well...Squid Octopus Chimpanzee should be fine on his own for a while. Sure, I can stay for a bit."

"Good. I would like you to meet my...acquaintances."

---

The first was her handyman, dressed in tight-fitting, bright-colored cloth, his shocking blue hair defying gravity. Luffy was in awe of his flamboyant personality and crazy wrench skills, as well as his ability to detach his right hand.

"Mister Cutty Flam--"

"Franky," interjected the handyman, who had settled, cross-legged, on top of a filing cabinet (one of five spaces that were free of Devil-Plants).

"--Yes. Mister Franky was trapped beneath a fallen building--not this one--and was forced to rebuild himself using the scrap metal around him."

"That's so cool!"

The days went on. The next acquaintance, as Robin called them, was a brown-skinned, long-nosed boy with burns on his legs and a device he called a Slinger Gun over one shoulder. Luffy didn't get how it worked, but it looked cool, and hey! he could hit a tin can off a fence post from fifty feet away! Usopp was awesome! Robin said he lived in the highest place left in the city, where he could watch everything. Luffy begged and begged to see the hideout, but Usopp said it was surrounded by vicious mutant lions that would attack anyone who came near (except him, of course), so there was no point coming.

That only made it more awesome. Luffy was pretty sure he could kick any mutant lion's butt, but he decided he could probably just wait until Usopp figured out a way to tame the things. Not that Luffy was good at waiting. But anyway!

Then there was Brooke, who had been playing his violin when everything burned up, and had survived just long enough to find a Devil seedling and bite into it. So now he was a LIVING SKELETON, and sometimes Robin called him "Nero", which Luffy didn't get, but it probably had something to do with history, 'cuz Robin liked history.

And more were turning up every day! Like the green-haired guy who wandered in after two weeks, looking confused and sorta angry. He had a huge bundle over one shoulder, and huge metal-and-leather boots, which weighed, like, a ton each! Luffy knew, 'cuz he'd tried lifting one while Zoro (that was his name) got the rocks and sand out of them. And Zoro wouldn't say what was in the bundle.

And then there was Sanji, who could open tin cans with his teeth, which was just too cool, and Nami, who grew Devil Oranges and always carried a pack of cigarettes, like Sanji, who freaked out every time he saw her (or Robin, who said the blond man hadn't seen a woman since before the end of the world). And Chopper, who missed the snow and took weeks to actually come into Robin's apartment.

And Robin grew her Devil Plants and they stayed up all night playing made-up card games, because no one knew what time it was anymore. And Zoro started making his own beer from anything non-Devil he could ferment in Franky's homemade still, and Luffy decided Squid Octopus Chimpanzee could probably get on without him, and, and, and...

...and one day, Luffy tried a Devil Carrot. It didn't taste too great, 'cuz he'd never liked veggies, but he'd been hungry, and anyway, it filled his stomach. Sorta. That night, he had a huge fever, which Chopper tried to help with, but it wasn't so bad anyway... And in the morning, he was all stretchy! Awesome!

And the afterlife continued. Everything was pretty normal (as far as things could be after the apocalypse), and all in all, Luffy couldn't help thinking he hadn't had as much fun before the end of the world. But the nine of them were the only ones in the city, and after Chopper turned up, it seemed like there weren't going to be any more of them. Sanji really like to talk about how the human race would survive, which Luffy didn't get, because the kids would probably turn up on their own after a while. That was how things happened, he was pretty sure. But whenever Sanji started talking about it, Nami would punch him...go figure. She was a bit weird anyway, like all of them.

And then, when he'd been living in Robin's apartment for nearly a month, the clown guy came to town, and the guy who thought he was God after that, and it started to seem like the world wasn't so empty after all, and it was full of some intensely strange people. That was for sure.

AWESOME!

Wow, they just kept getting...longer...

Okay! Time for some notes on a theme!

1-An excuse for gratuitous Italian. Because Italian Crocodile is hot DO NOT ARGUE BECAUSE IT'S TRUE. Anyway, there he is in Alcatraz without a cigar. I went to Wikipedia for a picture of an Alcatraz cell, and they aren't exactly...commodious. So he's not happy.

(No One Loves It--No one loves Alcatraz. Unless they're very weird. Anyway.)

2-I've always wanted to write this, but I don't know what kind of differences it would make. Does this mean that Smoker's right-hand subordinate looks like Zoro and is named...Shigita or something? XD I'm not going to think about this anymore.

(For Reasons Undisclosed--I liked the sound of it. It doesn't tell you what happened to Zoro, I guess...?)

3-If you don't get this, I'm not telling you. Or maybe I will. I think I made it fairly obvious, but you'll have to tell me. This is similar to part of a story my sister once wrote, but it's discontinued now and all I've done is incorporate it into canon (the original was set in a totally different universe).

(Freezeframe--I was going to reference this in the story, how he was stuck in that one moment in time, and it was resolved when he apologized at the end. But I never got around to it.)

4-This would be so awesome.

(When it Starts Burning--Because, according to Rayleigh, Roger's last words became a flame that engulfed the world. Or something. So Smoker started, like, burning up with this ambition. Except it could have gone either way, is the theory. Doesn't it seem a little bit plausible?)

5-Robin's setup with the Devil veggies and Franky the super handyman are also from my sister, but the rest of it is totally mine. I love re-telling the canon story in a different world, is all. It's too much fun!

(In a Pothole--Um. A bit of a stretch. It's like, one of the riders of the Apocalypse's horses got its foot stuck in a pothole, so a couple of people survived...? Not that there's anyway you could have known my thought process there.)

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These probably won't go anywhere. All concepts are free game, should they seem interesting or attractive to you in a fit of madness (I'm just expecting everyone else to like them as much as I do, I guess). :D Shameless pimping over with, I hope you enjoyed this!

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EDIT: Whoa. Everyone's doing this. Wow. XD I'm so outclassed...I feel like the dork sitting at the corner of the cool kids' table...