Chapter Text
It was gearing up to be a usual day when suddenly the wind starts to pick up, whipping the trees around. Nami immediately picks this up as it being strange since so far the weather has been normal for the East Blue. But this.…this was not.
“What is going on?” Sabo asks as he too, looks towards the sky. It is this comment from their young friend that causes Ace and Luffy to look toward the sky as well, finally taking notice of the quick change in weather.
“I don’t know.” Nami answers truthfully, caution and worry building in her, but she made sure not to let it leak into her voice as to worry the kids. “Whatever it is though… it isn’t natural.”
Certain members of the crew were preparing for anything that may come when they all heard a laugh, a very specific laugh that was known innately for the crew members that causes them all to relax.
“Wha–” Ace starts but is cut off by the sky parting and showing an enormous, curly, white haired, grinning god that had an infamous scar just below his left eye.
“There you guys are!” His voice booms as he slowly starts to shrink down to his normal size.
A chorus of “Captain!” comes from the crew, as they race to meet their captain who laughs and embraces all of them in a tight hug.
“I’ve been worried about you guys. Is everyone okay?” He asks his crew, looking them all over.
“ This is your captain?!” Ace and Sabo exclaim in shock as young Luffy shouts in amazement.
The question causes the Strawhat crew to pause, looking back over to the kids. Everyone except the captain realizes that young Luffy was still here, along with their captain who was of course right beside them. What was going on?
However, as the crew was thinking this, it seems like their captain was stuck looking at the three children.
“What?!” Ace snaps at him, probably feeling self conscious.
“What Devil Fruit did you eat?” Sabo asks, curiosity at its fullest with everything that he has seen so far.
“You look so cool!” Young Luffy shouts as he jumps around in uncontrollable excitement before spotting something that causes confusion to take over his face. A straw hat that looks very similar to the one that was currency on his small head. “That looks like my hat that I got from Shanks.” He points out.
“It does,” is all Luffy says in response to his younger self.
“Do you know Shanks?” Luffy asks the captain with the straw hat.
“I do.”
“Who are you?” Sabo asks, taking a step forward, closer to his newly bonded, younger brother.
The white haired teen is quiet, face not showing any emotion which is unnerving the crew as their captain has only been serious a handful of times. After a moment though, his face finally breaks into a grin as he says, “I am the man who will be King of the Pirates.” As he says it though, the white in his hair and clothes seem to melt away, revealing the very familiar face now that he wasn’t in his Gear 5 form. “And I will be the freest man in the world.”
All three kids’ mouths drop open in shock. Luffy is the one that seems to collect himself first.
“Hey! That’s not fair, that’s my dream!” It seems that the youngest wasn’t catching on to what this may mean.
“Shishishi!” The Captain laughs before grinning and saying, “I know.”
“Captain, how did you get here?” Brook breaks into the conversation.
“How did we get here?” Zoro asks in his gruff voice.
Luffy turns around to face his crew and explains everything. How they had been heading towards the middle island after Wano, the one with the tell-tale twitching sign of adventure as Luffy put it. How when they arrived at said island, they had been split up and that Luffy had come across this old guy with an apple head that had a bunch of cool stuff everywhere. Turns out that Luffy had put on a weird hat, and it was only after doing so that he was made aware of what it is and does by the “Applehead”.
Apparently, the device had been created for a Memory Scanner, but it had been deemed a failure as it didn’t actually scan the memory of the wearer. Instead, it brought people into a random memory of the wearer with no way of getting them back.
“Of course I didn’t accept that,” Luffy states as if all of this was just a normal every day occurrence and hadn’t just told his crew that he had managed to send them into his own past with the creator saying that there was no way back. “So, I thought about how to get you guys back and realized it was super easy! I just had to turn back the pages of my adventure book!” He crosses his arms across his chest while grinning widely and Nami couldn’t hold back anymore.
“You mean this is all your fault?!” She screeches as she strangles the thin, rubbery hose of Luffy’s neck.
“What a wonderfully creative idea, Captain.” Robin smiles widely with her eyes closed as she praises Luffy on his plan.
“How do we get out of here though?” Jinbe asks as Nami finally releases Luffy from her grasp.
“Yeah, aren’t you now trapped here with us?” Usopp asks, scratching his head, getting confused on how everything was working with Luffy now apparently in his own past.
“Nah, I’ll just take us back to our current adventure,” Luffy states matter-of-factly as he whips out a book from seemingly nowhere.
“Wait, what’s your name? You never said.” Ace asks, breaking into the conversation as he points out the fact.
“I’m Monkey D. Luffy.” He tells Ace which causes an eruption of chaos between the kids.
“What?!” Luffy’s younger self screams.
“How is that possible?! Don’t you have the rubber fruit? How are you able to do any of this? Why were you big and all white and stuff?” Sabo asks, wanting to understand.
“No way, you’re the future crybaby?!” Ace exclaims in disbelief.
The captain just chuckles at them, “Shishishi. I’m not a crybaby anymore! I got my own awesome crew and have tons of adventures.”
“Cool! I’m so cool!” Young Luffy exclaims with stars in his eyes.
Ace huffs, “Well, if this is you in the future, I must be even cooler!” He looks over to the captain of the crew for confirmation but instead just sees a small smile. It was weird to see honestly, almost making the smile look… sad or something.
“You’ve always been my cool brother Ace.” He confirms for the young kid.
“What about me?!” Sabo jumps in, curious about his own future, even as he already has an idea of what he wanted to do with his life.
Luffy looks down at him and tells him, “I think you work with my dad and Iva-chan. You kick ass and save a lot of people!”
“I work with your dad?” Sabo echos in surprise since that definitely was not what he had thought.
“I have a dad?” The young Luffy asks blandly while picking his nose in disinterest.
“Yeah,” is all that is said while the nineteen year old Yonkou picks his own nose, equally as disinterested as his younger self.
“Captain, perhaps, it is best if we return to our own adventure before things can get any more awry.” Robin says, stepping into the conversation.
“Oh yeah! We were on an awesome adventure with that weird guy. I want to get back to that.” Luffy recounts in excitement, smacking his fist against his flat palm.
“Wait, you guys are leaving already?” Ace asks with a level voice, though they all knew that he was sad at the thought.
“Yep!” Luffy says with a wide grin.
“I don’t want you guys to go yet. They are my nakamas too, right?” The seven year old Luffy asks with a pout.
“No way! They are MY nakama. Not yours, stupid!” Luffy rebuts.
“He does realize that he just called himself stupid, right?” Nami asks, whispering to Sanji in the background.
“I honestly don’t know if he does or not.” Is all that Sanji replies as they watch the conversation go on.
“But I’m you! So what is yours is mine too.” The young Luffy tries to tell his older self, however, the Yonkou isn’t having it.
“They are my nakama because we have been on adventures together! You will get your nakama when you set sail and go on adventures too.” The captain explains which finally seems to make sense to the both of them as they smile at each other and agree.
“I can’t wait to get my nakama and go on adventures!” The younger one says before both strawhat wearing boys start to giggle, “Shishishi!”
“Let’s get a move on, captain.” Zoro orders, wanting to get out of this weird place already. It was such a headache having to deal with two captains.
“Good bye! Make sure to give Gramps and Dadan a hard time!” Luffy says as he whips out that book from before out of nowhere again with one arm, as the other wraps around his crew like a rubber rope as he gets them back on their grand adventure.