Disclaimer: I don't own one piece

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Luffy awakes with a start. He briefly wonders what has happened, and shudders slightly as snippets of memories come back to him. Realizing how dark and cramped the space he is in is, he searches his memory for anything that might tell him where he is. Hearing murmuring outside of what appears to be the inside of a barrel, Luffy strains to here what the voices are saying.

"... She won't if you keep your trap shut. Right, boy," a deep voice says.

"Uh... r-right... hehe," a vaguely familiar voice stutters.

Coby? Luffy thinks as he suddenly recognizes the high pitched voice, Must be from before he hit puberty, Luffy smiles.

"Right, I'll open 'er up the ol' fashioned way," another yet unknown voice speaks.

Pausing for a moment to gather his thoughts, he comes to conclusion, and Luffy bursts through the top of the barrel.

"I SLEPT SO WELL!" Luffy screams, throwing his arms into the air, and knocking an unfortunate pirate unconscious.

The three others in the room all leap back in fright.

Luffy quickly scans the room, and sees his pink haired friend and two burly looking men.

He turns to the two men.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" the two pirates yell.

The two men draw their sabers, and threaten him. Luffy grows bored, and turns to his freckled friend.

"Hey do you have any food?" he questions the quivering boy.

"HEY LISTEN TO US!" The two pirates demand.

Luffy smirks, turns around and bonks them on their heads. They fall down, out cold.

"W-who are y-you?" Coby asks.

"Monkey D Luffy," Luffy gives the kid a smile, "What's your name?"

"C-Coby," the pink haired boy with a bowl haircut stammered.

"Cool, Hey Coby, do ya have any food on ya? I'm starving," as if to confirm this statement, Luffy's stomach growls.

"Uh-uh yeah, I think there's some food in there," Coby points towards a door with a distracted look on his face.

"Cool, Thanks," Luffy smiles and heads for the pantry.

"W-wait, those pirates you knocked out were under the command of Lady Alvida, if she finds out she'll kill you," Coby tries stop him frantically.

"I don't care I'm hungry," Luffy says as he opens the lid of a crate, "Yum, apples," and begins stuffing his face. "Oh yeah, "Luffy stops momentarily, "are we on her ship, or another ship being raided by her?"

"A passenger ship," Coby elaborates.

"So, are you a passenger or a pirate?" Luffy asks.

Coby tells Luffy his story, who already knows, but listens nonetheless.

"If you don't like it why don't you run away?"

"Are you kidding, ifshecaughtmeshedkillmeandjustthinkingaboutthatmakesmewannapuke," Coby has a minor panic attack.

"Oh, so you're a coward," Luffy chuckles with a smile on his face, "I don't like you."

Coby sits there with tears in his eyes. Coby shakes his head and mumbles something.

"You're right, if only I were brave enough I could be rid of these pirates," Coby says miserably, "someday, I want to be able to live out all of my dreams."

Coby calms down considerably and cheers up a bit too, "So, why did you come out to sea?"

"I'm gonna become king of the pirates," Luffy states.

Coby gets worked up again, but before he can go off on a tangent Luffy puts a hand over his mouth, "I know what you're gonna say, but I don't care, it's not about if I can do it, I want to do it, I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be the king of the pirates, I don't care if I die along the way, because it's my dream."

Coby just sits there, awestruck.

"Coby, do you have a dream?"

Coby calms down, "Yeah actually I do, I-I want to become a marine," he says quietly.

"Do you think I can do it?" Coby asks.

"I dunno."

"No! I can," arguing against his own doubt, "I'll become a marine, so I can catch bad guys, and eventually I'll catch that ugly old hag Alvida!"

Luffy gave the marine-to-be a warm smile. Before said ugly old hag fell through the wood ceiling.

"What was that Coby? Who did you call an ugly old hag?"

"Uh-uh-um," Coby hums and haws for a bit before steeling in his resolve, "You, you bitch!" He shouts, "I'm gonna get out of here someday and become a marine! And once I do I'll catch your fat ass," he proclaims loudly to those gathered in the room, including a now smoldering Alvida trying to burn two holes through his head with her stare.

Luffy smiles inwardly, There's the Coby I know, the one with the unwavering resolve.

"Why you little runt!" Alvida raises her black club and readies to bring down on the pink haired boys head. But just before she does, Luffy nudges the shaking boy aside and takes the full brunt of the hit.

Coby looks on in fright as he sees his new friend die before his eyes. The friend in question however smirks and thinks, So weak, I didn't even need to use haki.

"That won't work on me!" Luffy chimes.

The club bounces back and before anyone can react, Luffy grabs Coby by the arm.

"Let's get outta here," he says excitedly, and jumps up out of the hole made from Alvida and on to the deck of the passenger ship.

There is a large number of pirates on the deck, I don't really feel like dealing with these idiots but I don't want to reveal my haki just yet, so Luffy grudgingly goes into gear second to finish the men off quickly. Needless to say they last a whole 6.7 seconds against Luffy, Damn, I'm out of shape, Luffy thinks as he pants slightly.

"What was that?" Coby asks with a shocked and slightly horrified expression on his face.

"What? Oh, that was just gear second."

"How dare you take out all my men like that!" Alvida roars.

She takes a swing at Luffy, he dodges, and then a swing at Coby. But before she can connect, Luffy throws his arms out behind him.

The two others gape as his arms stretch out behind him.

"Gum Gum no" Luffy begins his attack name "BAZOOKA!" his arms snap back and continue in into the fat lady's stomach in an open handed strike. Alvida is launched out into the ocean.

"W-w-what was that?" Coby panics, "You're arm just stretched."

"Oh, I ate a devil fruit. The gum gum fruit."

Coby just sat down on the wooden deck with his head in his hands and muttering things along the lines of devil fruits and 'more action than he can take in one day'. It was at that moment the marines decided to show up.

"Crap, their firing at us," Luffy says, "Hey didn't you say you wanted to be a marine? Now's your chance."

"Are you kidding? If I go now they'll just arrest me."

"Well if you're not going then let's find a boat and escape."

Luffy grabs Coby by the arm and runs, they come across a small boat and drop it into the ocean. The two teens jump in and sail off, just escaping the marine onslaught.

The two boys were sailing in the small white boat as it gently rocked in the calm waters of East Blue.

Coby had warmed up to Luffy considerably, and they were making small talk when Coby had brought up the subject of Luffy's crew.

"So, where's you're crew Luffy?"

Luffy's eyes flicker darkly for a moment but return to normal.

"I don't have one yet," Luffy explains, "I'm looking for members now."

"Oh, well is there anywhere you want to go to find people?"

"Yeah actually, I heard there's a marine base in Shells town nearby, I heard their holding Roronoa Zoro the pirate hunter, I wanna go meet him." Luffy answers.

"You can't do that! Haven't you heard the rumors about him?" Coby starts to panic, He does an awful lot of that, doesn't he, Luffy thinks.

"Yeah I've heard the rumors, but that's all they are, rumors. For all we know he could be the nicest person you've ever met."

"But what if he really is a demon, if you try to talk he'll just cut you up!" Coby bursts out.

"I'm strong, he won't be able to hurt me," Luffy reassures.

Coby doesn't seem too reassured by Luffy's words but accepts his words and settles down. Coby reevaluates their course and turns their boat due east for Shells town.

It's about an hour into their new course when a sea king bursts out of the water, Coby stares at the monster, that reminds him of a turkey, in shock.

"Aaahh! We're gonna die! We're gonna die! We're gonna die!" Coby repeats.

Luffy, however, smirks and stands in the small boat, "mmm, lunch."

Luffy jumps into the air and out over the water and, to Coby's surprise, jumps again, and again, until he is above the sea king's head. Then Luffy brings his foot up and, being made of rubber, it is flung about ten feet above his head.

"Gum Gum no... Axe!" Luffy calls his attack and brings his foot down on the seaking's head, hard.

Unfortunately, with no way to cook it, the two teens can't eat it, so instead Luffy decided to tie the monster up and hopefully sell it for its meat at the next island. Coby is still speechless and stares at Luffy in awe.

"How strong are you?" Coby manages to say finally.

Luffy frowns and thinks for a while, and remembers the words of a certain ex-pirate king.

"When you go back, you will keep you're knowledge, all you're skills. However, you're body will be reverted to the state it was in during that time." The mustachioed man explained.

Luffy had a slightly perplexed look on his face, so Roger further clarified, "You'll have the body of you're seventeen year old self, that scar on your chest will be gone, and you'll be weaker, but you will still have your haki abilities."

His face brightened at this, you could almost see the cogs turning, "So all I'll have to do is train to get my body stronger and faster," a nod from Roger and he continues, "I'll be able to save everyone this time," Luffy's eyes clouded.

"Strong enough," Luffy says cryptically.