Chapter Text
Across the windy deserts of the Kingdom of Alabasta, in a small town close to the shore, a black figure emerged, approaching from the desert side. The locals at first acted like it was just a mirage, that their eyes were playing tricks on them. No sane man crosses the flaming hot desert, especially in the driest season they'd ever lived through.
But the figure started to take shape. A man in a black coat and a cowboy hat, with a serious expression fixed on his face, walking straight through the town. The passersby and the shop owners stopped speaking. They felt something pressing on them they couldn't name, so their minds told them to do the only thing they could do — witness
As the man walked, his large shadow trailed behind him.When his march stopped, it was because his nose had caught something — a saloon with "Restaurant" painted under the sign. He kicked the batwing doors in. The noise of drinking and card games died the second he barged in.
He started by taking his coat off, hung it by the door, and crossed to the bar. Each step landed heavy enough that the old wood floor groaned under it. But it wasn't his boots that took the crowd's tongues and color from the room
— he continued his walk until he reached a stool, grabbed it, and made himself comfortable, displaying his bare back proudly to the people behind him.
A drunk stared at his own bottle first, checking if what he was seeing was right. "That can't be..."
A waitress nearly dropped her tray as she was serving . "What's someone like him doing here?"
A grumpy old man at the end of the bar had read
about a recent situation in the papers. "That symbol... he has to be—".
The symbol on his back was a Jolly Roger colored in purple , and unlike any other jolly Roger,the bones weren't crossed across each other ,it was an actual cross, and that skull wasn't random it was smiling and it took the shape of the strongest man in the world and the king of the seas.
"Bottle of sake, neat," the man said to the bartender, in a surprising polite manner "And whatever's the biggest piece of meat you've got back there."
The bartender went pale and went to work anyway.
Up close, the stranger looked barely twenty. Whatever had made the people in that room anxious became a puzzle, his eyes didn't carry it — they lit up at the food like a kid's. He drank the sake in one go.
"Ahhh." He grinned. "That's a nice change."
He ate like every bite mattered, cherishing it.
Outside, an angrily shouting man broke the sclince"YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE FROM ME AGAIN, STRAW HAT!"
The man sighed , then dropped a gold coin on his empty plate. "Thanks for the food." He was out the door before the bartender could answer — coat still hanging by the entrance, forgotten.
Monkey D. Luffy was running for his life in a dead straight line, which is the one thing you're never supposed to do in a chase. When a wall appeared in fornt of him, he didn't slow down.
"GUM-GUM PISTOL!"
His fist punched clean through it without breaking stride. He looked around mid-run — his crew had scattered in every direction.
"Guys, where'd you go?"
He didn't get long to worry about it. Smoke clouds curled around his throat before he even heard the man behind him catch up.
"Stand back!" Smoker gave an authoritative command for his marines subordinates backing him up . "He's mine."
The smoke coiled tighter, snaking after Luffy no matter how he twisted, working its way into his nose and lungs until his legs slowed on their own. Then it caught his neck.
Luffy hung in the air, kicking, throwing a rubber-armed flurry of punches that passed straight through smoke that just closed up behind them...
"Told you I'd catch you." Smoker tightened his grip, this time cigar smoke curling past his teeth. "If it weren't for that man, you'd already be shackled and rotting in a cell."
Luffy's face was going blue. He couldn't make out a word of it. But over Smoker's shoulder, something was falling toward them fast — too fast, too bright to be the sun.
A voice cut the air. "HEAT HAZE!"
Fire sliced clean through Smoker's arm. Luffy dropped. The fireball hit the ground and started to take form into a man, already between Luffy and Smoker before the smoke cleared.
" yeah, You're smoke. But I'm fire." His hands stayed lit with flames " i will not let you Touch another hair of my little brother again"..
Luffy stared up at him, and then his whole face broke open. "ACE!"
Behind them, the crew had gone still. "Little brother?!"
Zoro's eyebrows shot up : Logia ,huh?
Ace glanced back at Luffy, eyes crinkling into a grin. "You haven't changed one bit." His idiot little brother, already on the Grand Line. Of course he was.
"You ate a Devil Fruit!" Luffy's eyes were sparkling "So cool!"
"Flame-Flame Fruit." Ace looked past him, toward Smoker. "Get your crew out of here, Luffy. I've got this one."
Smoker's gritted his teeth. "someone on your caliber ,helping this rookie brat ? What are you doing here Portgas D Ace ? He narrowed his eyes "If you don't move from my way now ,we'll have a big problem!"
Ace planted himself between Smoker and his brother, fire climbing both fists ,with a daring smile on his face "I'm afraid I can't do that."