The Tower

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It was raining in Loguetown.

Not that the day had been particularly sunny to begin with, but between one moment and the next the skies went from relatively gray, but clear, to a rolling mass of foreboding storm clouds. With them came sudden, sharp winds and the beginning of what promised (threatened) to become a torrential downpour.

In the meantime the streets had already been mostly empty (the few townsfolk wandering about that hadn't gone to the square did so morosely, smothered in the more general air of unease and sadness) but when the first heavy drops fell, they quickly disappeared and Loguetown became well and truly a ghost town in all but name.

(Ain't that just damn perfect, one denizen at the tavern muttered angrily in his tankard as he listened to the rain lengthening to a true and steady drizzle. He tossed back the rest of the strong alcohol while his fellows sat silently by, and a grim-faced bartender nursed a shot glass of his own. All were blissfully unaware of the commotion a few blocks over.)

Meanwhile— the perfectly clear streets served just fine for a certain group of pirates running pell-mell towards the harbor. Or tried to, at least; more than once they'd been forced to reroute thanks to the various marines equally hell bent on chasing them. Nami had been insistent that they leave as soon as possible before the storm made it impossible to cast off, so run they did and it mostly working out even with the absurd number of enemies they were trying to escape from. However, the rain and wind weren't making things any easier, and when the shouts of marines behind them faded into the pouring rain the small group took the chance to stop for a welcome breather.

"We… finally… lost 'em!" Usopp wheezed— with tears of joy from where he doubled over trying catch his breath. When he straightened though— "W-Wait! Where did Zoro and Nami go!?" Evidently they'd mysteriously lost two of their members in the chase. Sanji's eye nearly popped out of his head as he realized.

"Nami-Swan? Shit!" he cursed, "We gotta go back!" but at the head of their formation, Monkey D. Luffy only grinned and shook his head.

"Don't worry, they'll turn up!" he laughed. The other two groaned and shook their heads… while the fourth member of their group fell to his knees with a heavy thump. He also struggled for air, but unlike the others he was also sickly pale and shaking; the chase hadn't done much for him. Of course, the heavy seastone cuffs around his wrists were doing him no favors. Sanji took this in with a frown as he chewed a sodden cigarette.

"Oy, Luffy, the marine's just dead weight if we don't get those cuffs off," he said, nodding towards the offending items. The words earned him a glare as said marine raised his head.

"Then leave me the hell behind," he spat— "Why are you people doing this? If you're hoping for ransom maybe you didn't notice the damn execution you just kidnapped me from!"

"What? No, I kidnapped you so you could join my crew," Luffy said bluntly. There were heavy facepalms to go with the marine's startled expression.

"Don't talk about kidnap so casually, moron," said Sanji, flicking his cigarette at him. It was raining too much to smoke right now anyway.

"Um…" Usopp raised his hand. " Scary marine guy…" another sharp glare, "I know we're just going along with Luffy's orders and I trust him, but… I don't really get what's going on here? All the posters and the flyers said sedition, but the townspeople seemed so—"

"None of it is true." For a moment the seastone seemed to have no effect as the marine snarled. The rage kindled in his eyes like a flame to dry tinder as he drew himself up… only for it to die away just as quickly. His shoulders dropped, and the sickness returned. "You want the truth?" he muttered lowly, "I didn't fit in their cookie-cutter brand of Justice. That's all you need to hear." The bitterness in his voice was thick, and couldn't be missed. He looked like he had not so long ago in the square, forced to kneel beneath the blades of the executioners just moments before they fell— like a man who had been utterly broken.

(Daddy, what's going to happen after? A little girl said sadly into her bowl of ice cream. I don't know, sweetie, her tired father said over a bowl of his own. It had been an impromptu tribute, six scoops each, but neither could find it in themselves to finish. They blinked as a horde of marines stampeded outside their door.)

There would have been a long and awkward silence had Luffy not been picking his nose with a blank look.

"Yeah, well, I don't care about any of that," he said, and the marine sputtered, bristling indignantly despite himself.

"What— what do you mean you don't care?" he spluttered, "You just— I'm not— why—"

"Don't think about it too hard," Usopp offered, "Once Luffy sets his mind on something…"

"Yeah! You're going to join my crew, and that's that."

"I'M NOT JOINING YOUR RUDDY—"

"So you'd rather just give up and die after all, then?"

The marine ground to a halt. Luffy was uncannily quiet then; even with wind and rain lashing at his clothes, his hair, he stood more or less at ease in the face of the storm, in the face of their pursuers, with a wide grin stretched across his face... and a spark of something in his eyes, something expectant. It forced the abductee into silence.

"I…"

"OI! LUFFY!"

The shout cut off anything else he might have said, as around the corner sprinted a missing Zoro himself, with an irate Nami thrown over his shoulder.

"Put me down, already!" she seethed, though her words fell on deaf ears.

"There's a bunch of marines just around the corner," Zoro was saying, rapidly blinking away the rain running down his face, "and they're moving fast. There's a lot of them." That got everyone going. The nervous energy slowly dying down quickly returned.

"Where do we go? I don't even know where we are now!" Usopp shrieked. Sanji took cooler approach, though he was grinding his teeth.

"Hey, you, can you even stand?" He said to the marine, who jerked his head in the negative.

"…Can't."

"Shit."

"Let's just beat them up!" Luffy said, smacking a fist into the other hand; Nami whipped her head around with a glare.

"NO!" she snapped, "We don't have time for that! If they cut us off before the docks, we're dead, you hear? DEAD!"

"What? What do we do then? This guy can't run anymore!"

"Tch! Usopp, grab his arm we'll just drag him—"

….is what they would have done, but it was too late. The sound of pounding boots filled the air as marines poured into the street all around them, rapidly cutting off any way of escape. There was a short silence as the groups stared each other down; Nami and Usopp shrunk back, while Luffy cracked his knuckles in anticipation. Sanji and Zoro tensed further when a single marine stepped forward; a woman, in a darkly colored Marine's jacket and a floral shirt, a pair of glasses on her nose.

"Straw Hat Luffy!" she shouted, brandishing a katana in hand, "You are hereby accused of aiding and abetting in the escape of a traitor and known enemy of the Marines and the World Government!" Said so-called traitor flinched, looking away with a stony expression. "I hereby order you to stand down and release the prisoner to us immediately!"

Luffy suddenly relaxed, the one person smiling in the midst of the standoff.

"Nope!" He said cheerfully. There was noticeable tensing among all present. The marine's eyes narrowed.

"I'll say it again. Stand down and surrender yourselves, or I will be forced to take action." Her face was hard as she spoke, though the severity melted away in the face of Luffy's easy grin.

"Nope!" he repeated, and the woman's mouth narrowed into a thin line. Her eyes darted away, then back; The knuckles on her sword were white with tension.

"Then you leave me no choice," she said, and raised a free hand into the air. "Men!"

"YES MA'AM!" the enemy shouted at once, as every single marine raised their held weapons in the air, and…

…dropped them. The clatter raised a din even in the rain. While Luffy only tilted his head, the rest of the crew gaped, caught off guard, even more so as the entire company dropped; A few even threw themselves bodily to the ground. No one seemed as shocked as the captive marine though, as he stared open mouthed and wide eyed, stunned into silence.

"ARGH! S-Sergeant, they're too strong!" a marine cried, just one voice in chorus of dramatic screams and moans.

"M-Monsters! There's no way we can win!"

"Such power… I can't move my body!"

"We've lost…! Forgive us, Sergeant!"

Only the woman, the sergeant, was left standing, shoulders straight and head high as she sheathed her sword in one smooth motion. Luffy burst into laughter.

"These guys are funny!" he said; the rest of the Straw Hats stumbled.

"Idiot! You don't see anything weird about this?" Sanji protested, a vein popping in his forehead. Meanwhile the woman stepped forward; This time, she spoke lowly and quickly, with an edge that betrayed her nerves.

"You need to move quickly," she said, nearly tripping over her words in haste, "There's still a full company out there. I don't know how many have reached your ship, but we've misdirected as many as we can. If you take the way behind us it should—"

"Sergeant." It wasn't a marine who spoke— or rather, not one of the marines writhing on the ground in feigned defeat. This time, it was the marine in Straw Hat custody. His face was turning an alarming shade of red as he finally spoke, but the Sergeant didn't appear to hear, keeping her eyes fixed on Luffy.

"—should take you more or less straight to the docks. The ships that came for the execution might go after you, but—"

"Sergeant Tashigi!"

"—With a head start you can lose them at Reverse Mountain—"

"Tashigi, what the hell are doing?"

"Sir, please!"

The Sergeant's cry canceled the other out as he stared, bewildered. She drew a shaky breath.

"Here. You'll need this," she said quietly. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a small key, and thrust it forward into Luffy's hands. "This is all I can do. Repay me by not getting caught."

"Don't do this. They'll have your head as easily as they had mine," said the marine, urgently, with a hint a panic, and Sergeant Tashigi finally looked over to stare him him dead in the eye.

"I don't care."

"I'm not worth it. I'm ordering you to—"

"Forgive me, sir, but you aren't my Captain anymore," Tashigi said sharply, "Which is why I'm doing this. Which is why I'm doing this."

Right there in the rain she bowed low— perfectly at the waist arms stiff at her sides, a bow that no self-respecting marine would ever make to a pirate.

"Straw Hat Luffy," she breathed, "I ask… no, I beg you… please get Captain Smoker out of here!"

And Luffy nodded.

"Okay, I will," he said, without a hint of reluctance. Then he spun to face the rest of his crew and called, "C'mon, let's go to Merry!" before spinning back and taking off down the street, past the downed marines, and towards the docks. Shaking their heads, still caught off guard by the turn of events, they followed, and with them pulled the former marine captain Smoker. He resisted, but barely; the color had now drained from his face.

Tashigi didn't look back. Instead, she shrank into the distance, and was gone, swallowed up in the night to her uncertain fate.

They didn't run into any more marines the rest of the way; there was one small group, but they too seemed to be neutral; they only pressed a distinctive wrapped weapon into their hands, silently pointing the way before melting away into the alleys. Tashigi had been true to her promise of waylaying as many as she and her supporters could manage. The Merry Go was waiting for them, bobbing in time to the waves, but while the others rushed aboard with a nod to their Captain, Luffy remained with Smoker, finally released to stand on his own.

"You have some good nakama." It was Luffy who spoke first.

"You shut up," Smoker snapped; he was swaying where he stood, his strength still sapped by the seastone cuffs, but he was glaring holes into the ground. "They shouldn't… they didn't have the right. Idiots. Those… stupid idiots."

"Hey, you sound a lot better now!"

"What?"

"Before you were sounding sort of lame. But the way I see it, you kind of owe those guys now."

"Owe them?" A sharp laugh, cut off quickly before it turned into something else—"You say I owe them? They don't have any idea what they're doing. I had nothing to do with this—"

"Which is why you owe them."

Smoker aimed a withering look that would have cowed just about anyone in Luffy's place, but even so his glare also betrayed barely hidden desperation. Luffy himself, however, stood unaffected.

"You can't die now," he said simply, "Or it'd all be a waste. They chose to do this, but if you give that all up they'll suffer anyway for all the wrong reasons."

Silence.

"Hey, Smoke-guy… I'm going to be King of the Pirates, you know?"

Smoker laughed. A short, humorless sort of laugh, more out of surprise than anything.

"Pirate King?" he said, "You? You really think you can be a pirate king, out of every damn pirate in all the oceans? Are you out of your mind?"

"Nope!" the grin was back, sunny and optimistic, "Because that's my dream, and I'm gonna make it happen. And when I'm Pirate King…" he paused. The grin slipped away, and suddenly Luffy was serious again, staring at Smoker intently as he spoke, "When I'm Pirate King, I'm going to change the Marines."

A beat. Staring at him incredulously, Smoker started to shake, then chuckle, and finally, broke into full out laughter. He laughed so hard he ended gasping for breath, doubled over and wheezing. If there was a hint of hysteria in his laughter, Luffy didn't say a word, only waited quietly for it to subside. When it did, there was rain in Smoker's eyes that might have not all been rain.

"You're crazy. You're crazy, kid, you know that?" he gasped, "Change the Marines? A pirate? How? Why would you do that?"

"Because... I think sometimes, you need to tear things down so someone can build it right again."

The last of the laughter died away under Luffy's solemn expression, and Smoker peered at him, falling into a frown as he studied the pirate. Then Luffy brightened.

"So how about it?" he said, and held up the small key Tashigi had given him, "Join my crew… and I'll take your cuffs off!"

Smoker looked at the key, then back to Luffy. He took a step back, and gave him a long, long look.

"…I hope you go to hell someday," he said at last, "You'll deserve it and I'm probably going to end up right down there with you at this rate."

"So is that a yes?"

Smoker smiled for the first time days.

"…Get these damn things off of me."

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There was whispering in the east blue. Whispering that spread to the other three relatively quickly. Try as they might, the government couldn't entirely hold back the events of Loguetown that day, and even if the full truth was withheld it wasn't long until everyone knew how Straw Hat Luffy, holding the highest bounty in the East Blue at a whopping 30,000 berries, had successfully made a clean getaway from two fully staffed Marine battleships with full compliments of crew… aided, they said, by a lucky storm and by a thick white smoke that obscured all traces of their escape.

Shortly after those whispers began the rumors of a new crew member, a white-haired man bearing the symbol of 'Justice' on the back of his jacket… a man rumored to actually be a former marine gone rogue. Impossible, of course, according to the papers, because there was no such thing. Headquarters put their all into this cover up, but in the end it didn't matter anyway the day the Straw Hat pirates stormed Ennies Lobby and stood in defiance for all the world to see. All of them.

The very next day the bounty posters for 'White Chase' Smoker ran fresh off the presses in thousands.

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"We're saving that guy," Luffy said. He'd been silent until that moment, as they stood at the back of the crowd and watched the prisoner was led to the execution platform. Zoro gave him a sidelong glance.

"That guy?"

"Yeah. We have to."

"Well, if you're sure," the swordsman shrugged, and tugged a black bandanna from around his arm.

"What, just like that?" Sanji raised an eyebrow, but didn't seem so surprised by this decision; Luffy had been oddly quiet ever since they'd landed and read the notices.

"Captain's orders."

"It's gonna cause a ruckus. They're literally raising the blades right now."

"Then we gotta be quick!" Luffy said, seconds before diving into the crowd, not one thing holding him back now that he'd made his mind. The two looked at each other and shrugged.

The chaos descended very quickly after that.

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Polishing off this old what-if I wrote in Coin Toss and now both of those things are their own fic and I might as well delete it lol; the premise for this one was me thinking 'hey I wonder how I could get Smoker to join the Straw Hats lol' and eventually came to the conclusion that it would have to be as the result of total betrayal on the Marines' side of things and therefore the AU timeline this takes place in is probably… not a very nice one? I don't think I'll be expanding this further…? But maybe I'll poke in a few other what-ifs that this 'verse would bring up.

Alternately if anyone wants to take this and run with it I'm 100% on board.