"Hey! Ace! Wait for me! Hey!" Luffy's constant yelling made Ace scowl at him in clear annoyance.
"My name is Luffy. Are you going somewhere ?" Not responding, Ace drove his foot into a massive tree next to him, making it crack open and fall over.
Luffy's eyes widened in surprise when he saw this, even popping out of his eyes as the trees began to roll down the hill to crush him. He tried to run, but the tree rolled over him and crashed into the rock in the distance. Ace just walked away after seeing this. Meanwhile, Luffy was seen flattened on the floor like a pancake, not really in pain but he found it hard to get back up.
After a short while, Ace was walking across a rope bridge over a massive valley. The drop from the bridge to the ground was long. It's impossible to survive a fall from up there. While Ace was walking, he stopped and looked back in shock as he noticed a smiling Luffy standing behind him on the bridge. Ace scowled and walked over to Luffy, who smiled, thinking that he was finally ready to talk to him. But instead of talking, Ace slammed his stick onto the bridge, making the entire thing shake and launching Luffy into the air. In shock, Luffy plummeted down hundreds of feet to the bottom of the valley.
***
"Hey! Ace is back!"
"Food!"
The bandits rushed to dismantle and dismember the animals that Ace brought back home.
"Ace, you came back alone ? Where's Luffy ? I thought he was with you."
"I don't know." Ace replied and walked into the house.
It was now night and the bandits were trying to look for Luffy.
"That fool. Where is he and why hasn't he come back ?"
"Maybe he's dead."
"We're dead if Garp finds out about this."
The next scene shows Dadan being drunk and the others trying to control her. "Eh ? What did you say ?"
"Get a hold of yourself boss!"
"I said, it's not good that we lost him on the first day!"
"Who cares! If he dies, he dies!" Dadan retorted and drank another cup of sake.
"Garp is gonna kill us."
Dadan ignored him and poured herself another cup of sake. "First of all, why should we take care of Garp's grandson?! We're not nannies! He has to take care of his own grandson!"
"Why don't you say it to him then ?" The other bandit deadpanned.
"You got a problem?!"
"I'm already giving up on Ace as it is! I don't care if he dies or not. I'll just tell Garp it was an accident. It's true that "the devil's children have the devil's luck"! He's the devil's son! If the government finds out about this, what do you think they'd do to us?!" What she didn't know, was that Ace was listening in on the conversation the entire time and stared forward with a stern expression.
"Easy there boss. You're getting too drunk!"
Later that same night, the dog was barking uncontrollably, which served to wake up the other bandits.
"Who don't you shut up! Eh?!" He was shocked when he saw Luffy and immediately called Dadan.
When Dadan saw Luffy, she questioned where he was and why he didn't show up for so long.
"You! You're alive! Where were you! What were you doing all this time!" Dadan interrogated him while pulling his cheeks, which stretched unnaturally.
"I fell to the bottom of the valley and was dancing with the wolves down there. After that, they chased me but I kicked their butt!" Luffy grinned and pointed behind him.
When the bandits looked at where he was pointing, there eyes popped out of their sockets and their jaws fell open. Behind Luffy was around five or six dead wolves, all beaten to a pulp. Dadan looked down at the boy, who didn't even have a single scratch on him, in surprise.
"You! You did this by yourself?!" She found it hard to believe. Even though Ace does the same thing, he doesn't do it bare handed! Luffy, as far as she knew, didn't have any weapons on him! Not even a stick!
Dadan clicked her tongue and picked Luffy up. "Alright, since you hunted them by yourself, tomorrow, you'll get to eat a portion of that meat."
She opened the door to the room where Ace was sleeping and threw Luffy on the ground. "Why don't you go to bed tonight ? You gotta work from tomorrow!"
The moment she closed the door, Luffy went to sleep, which made her open the door again in shock. "Already?!"
***
The next day...
"What's up! Are you going somewhere today, Ace ?" Luffy asked after opening the door and laying his eyes on Ace, who was walking away from the house.
Ace was certainly surprised when he heard that Luffy killed those wolves by himself. But instead of waiting around, he ran.
"Hey! Wait for me! Ace! Let's become friends! Take me with you!" He ran after Ace, much to the dismay of the bandits.
"Boss! He's running after Ace again!'
Dadan, who was brushing her teeth, saw this and yelled. "Hey! You gotta do chores around the house!"
But Luffy stopped, turned around and looked at Dadan. He pulled the bottom of his eyelid down and put out his tongue in a mocking way.
"No thank you!"
"You little shit! You're out of control! Bring him back right now!" Dadan ordered the other bandits, who failed miserably when they tried to catch him.
Ace noticed Luffy running after him and picked up the pace. He maneuvered through the forest, ran under trees and through shrubs, and skipped across rocks. He swung across a river using vines and jumped to the top of a rocky hill before stopping and looking back down at Luffy, who had managed to catch up to him so far.
"Ace! Let's become friends!" He then jumped on what he thought was a rock, but he was so wrong.
What he had assumed to be a rock turned out to be an enormous crocodile. Multiple crocodiles came out of the water and opened their jaws in intimidating fashion as they tried to swallow Luffy, who struggled at the top of one of their snouts. Luffy's legs were at the tip of the crocodile's snout as it opened its maw to devour Luffy. Seeing that the situation was cleared, Ace jumped away, knowing that Luffy wouldn't be able to chase after him anymore.
When Ace returned to the bandit den, he was shocked to see Luffy holding a whole crocodile above him head with a smile on his face. And not to mention, he was completely untouched and unscathed. Ace was shocked at how he managed to dispatch a crocodile by himself without a weapon but Luffy only smiled.
It seems that Luffy brought home even more meat. Unfortunately for the bandits, before they could start to eat, Luffy had already devoured most of the crocodile meat, only leaving some for Dadan and Ace.
"Hey! You want some ?" He offered a piece of crocodile meat to Ace, but the older boy just walked away, leaving Luffy standing there by himself.
"Oh. Does he not like crocodile meat ?" Luffy questioned before consuming the entire thing in one bite. Bones and everything.
***
The 8th day...
"Ace! Wait for me!" Luffy ran after Ace again.
"Work, you little shit!" Dadan yelled.
"It's no use..."
"Bring him back!"
"I'm not gonna lose him today!" He saw Ace skipping across rocks and smirked.
"I can do that too!" He did the exact same thing and nearly made it to the top, but several chunks of rocks were thrown at him from the other side, falling onto him and squashing him like a pancake.
***
Ten days have passed...
"Luffy!" Dadan called his name.
"He's gone already..."
"Look for him!"
He kept going after Ace and kept losing him. This happened every single day.
Luffy was seen panicking when a massive hundred foot snake tried to eat him. Luffy later used that snake as a jump rope and dragged it back to eat, much to the astonishment of the mountain bandits.
The next scene involves him jumping at Ace, only to be kicked down a massive cliff.
***
Two months...
It didn't matter if it rained or if it was windy.
The next scene shows Luffy being picked up by the wind, making Dadan stare out the window in shock.
But Luffy never gave up. At the same time, he never used his devil fruit abilities to try and catch up to Ace, only using it when he got into trouble.
"Is Luffy chasing Ace again ?"
"How does he never learn after getting hurt so many times ?"
"I... don't think he was really hurt..." He reminded how Luffy never actually got any injuries on him, no matter what animal he came across.
"Damn! He has to stop making me worry!" Dadan complained.
"So you are worried."
"N-No way! Stop talking nonsense!"
They all later screamed on seeing Luffy's face, which was covered with be stings and swollen in comedic fashion. Probably the first time he's actually gotten hurt in the past two months.
"A bee hive fell on me."
"...Who are you ?" The bandits didn't even recognise Luffy for a second, before Luffy shook his head until it was a blur and only eyes could be seen. After that, his face was completely normal again, much to the shock of the bandits.
The next scene involves Luffy chasing Ace again, but Ace escape, again!
Ace then quickly hid as he noticed a creature nearby, which Luffy unfortunately didn't.
"Damn! I lost him again! Ace runs so fast!" He then heard something nearby and smiled, only to realise that it was an abnormally large monster that looked like a tiger.
'That's the beast of Mt. Corvo! No one can beat it! Why's he not running?! It's gonna eat him!'
But Luffy didn't feel scared. Ever since he got this new power, he felt like he could do literally anything he's ever wanted!
"I won't be down to you! I'll show you my powerful fist!"
"Gomu Gomu no Pistol!" His arm then shot out as it extended from his body and punched the beast in the face. Hard.
Now, he new completely that his devil fruit was a zoan type, but since Shanks called it the Gomu Gomu No Mi, he named all of his attacks after that. He knows about his devil fruit powers but Shanks and Garp told him to keep refering to it as Gomu Gomu No Mi as a way to hide from the world government and not give it away.
The monster stumbled a little bit and Ace was left stunned by what Luffy just did. Luffy then grinned and his hair turned white.
"I've learnt how to transform on command now! Hehe!" He laughed, before stopping and looking up at the glaring monster that was about to crush him under its foot.
He screamed in response as his eyes popped out of his eye sockets like it was a comic strip. The monster crushed Luffy under its paw, but that very same paw began to get lifted up by Luffy, who seemed abnormally big. He appeared to be the size of an adult for some reason.
"Gomu Gomu no..." He then pushed the paw away, making the beast stumble back as his body quickly increased size.
"Giganto!" Suddenly, a newly transformed Luffy turned into a giant, standing at nearly twelve metres tall, making Ace stare at the boy in shock.
"EEEEEEHHHH?!!!"
"Hahahaha! Ahahahaha!" Luffy then landed a nasty right hook on the tiger monster face, breaking it's teeth, before upper-cutting it and making it fall over. He laughed while standing on one leg with the other lifted in the air.
"Yahahahaha! I'm a giant! Yahoo!" Ace could only stare in bewilderment as he just saw the young boy turn into a giant and change hair colour.
***
Later on, Luffy ended up in a smokey junkyard as he was chasing Ace. A place where unwanted things were thrown and rogues that were shunned from the mainstream society lived. A place called the Grey Terminal.
Luffy screamed Ace's name, only to fall into a pile of junk immediately after. After several minutes of searching and running into people, he noticed Ace entering the forest in between Grey Terminal and Mt. Corvo. Luffy then grinned before running after him.
Ace eventually reached his destination and looked around for someone. "Sabo! Sabo, are you there ?"
"Oh, Ace." A person spoke from the tree.
"Sorry I'm late."
"You sure are. I've already done some work in the city." Said a blonde boy named Sabo.
"Oh yeah ? Well so did I."
They both showed each other what they got and Sabo was surprised by Ace's catch.
"Whoa! You got a lot! Way more than I did! That's a lot of money. How'd you get that ?" Sabo asked him.
"I robbed some things near the main gate!"
Sabo then began counting the money. "Damn. You won again."
"It doesn't matter if you win or lose. It's been five years since we started putting money in our "pirate savings". We worked hard for it." Ace smiled while looking at their secret stash filled with gold, jewellery and treasure.
"We sure did. We're going to leave the east blue and go to places people have never even imagined. It's exciting just to think about it!"
"Now put it away. We can't let anybody see it." Ace told him.
"I wonder how much we need to get a pirate ship."
"I don't know. 10 million or maybe 100 million ? Long way to go."
"A pirate ship?!" Both Ace and Sabo flinched and shut the secret door instantly before looking down from the tree.
"You guys! Are you going to become pirates?! I'm gonna become one too!"
Sabo and Ace both ran down and quickly punched Luffy in the head. "Be quiet!"
The next scene shows Luffy tied to a a tree as the two boys interrogated him. But Luffy was least bothered.
"Ace! I didn't know you travel this far everyday!" Luffy said.
"Shut up!"
"Is this the Luffy that you were talking about ?' Sabo asked Ace.
"Oh! You told him about me ?"
"I told him about how annoying you are." Ace replied.
"He also told me that you're empty-headed." Luffy began to laugh on hearing them say this.
"You don't realise we're dissing you, do you ?"
"He finally got to me even though I didn't take any walkable routes. He's very weird. Even his body is weird. He can change shape and size!" Ace commented.
"Oh! That's because I ate a devil fruit! That's all! Nothing too serious!" He didn't mention about the part that he's going to be hunted down.
"Are you a friend of Ace's ? Be my friend too, buddy!"
"Shut up! You can't just call me "buddy"!"
"Then what is your name ?' Luffy asked him.
"Sa... I'm not telling you!"
Sabo then looked at Ace before talking. "That's why I told you to live with me! The daily round trip– training on a mountain road turned out to be bad!"
"What should we do ? He found out secret. He's going to tell someone if nothing is done. We gotta kill him." Ace said in a menacing way.
"Alright, let's do it." Sabo agreed.
Luffy just stared at them in shock and started to whine and cry comedically.
"What?!" This sudden outburst took them by surprise.
"Don't kill me!! Help me!! I don't wanna die!!"
"Shut up you fool!"
"Sabo, kill him already!'
"What?! You do it!"
"I've never killed anybody before!"
"Me neither! And I don't know how!"
"Don't throw me into water!" Luffy blurted out.
"Alright! Let's take him to the river!"
"Why did he tell us that ?"
"He's stupid."
"Help me!!!"
"Shut up!!/Shut up!!" They both screamed at the same time.
"I hear a voice coming from the forest! A kid's voice!' Some of those rogues from Grey Terminal spoke, surprising Sabo and Ace.
"Oh no! Somebody's coming!"
"Set him free for now! We gotta move from her or they're gonna find out treasure!" They set him free and his as the rogues, who were apparently working for Bluejam, passed before them.
"Dammit! I didn't know those things were working for Bluejam." Ace cursed.
"You mean you stole that money from them?!"
"I shouldn't have taken that money away. That's a real sword. That's Porchemy, a guy that works for Bluejam."
"You know he's crazy right ? He strips off your scalp alive after you lose a fight with him!" Sabo said.
"We just have to wait until they pass..."
"Hey! Where did he go?!" They both then noticed that Luffy was missing and saw that very same guy holding Luffy up in the air by the collar of his shirt.
"Let me go! What do you want from me?!"
"How could you get caught?!" They both stared forward in shock.
"Let me go! You bastard!"
"Who's this little shit ?" Porchemy questioned.
"Help me! Ace!!" Hearing this, the two boys hid.
"That idiot! He's calling my name!"
"So you know Ace ?" Porchemy questioned while glaring at Luffy.
"I'm his friend! Oh, but he just tried to kill me." Luffy said nonchalantly.
Ace tightened his fists. "That fool! He's such a big mouth!"
"I don't know if you know about this. I heard that Ace stole some money from us and ran today. You don't know where it is, do you ?" Porchemy questioned.
"Oh no! They're gonna take away all of our treasure! I hope that fool doesn't tell them!"
"So ? What do you say ?"
Porchemy and Luffy stared at each other as Ace and Sabo waited in anticipation, hoping that he won't spill the beans.
"I-I don't know..." But he said this in such an obvious tone that everyone new he was lying.
They all laughed at the boy.
"Alright, alright! It can't be helped that you don't know. I'll help you bring back the memory!" This left Ace and Sabo in shock, as they knew something bad was going to happen.
"What are you doing?! Let me go! Where are you taking me?! Dammit ! Stupid! Let me go! You bastard! Let me go! What are you doing, you bastard?!" Luffy cried out as the rogues took him away.
"What do we do ?" Sabo asked.
"You know what we have to do..."