Work Text:
One Piece:
The
Great Tale
Of
Monkey D. Luffy
And The
Straw Hat Pirates
Book One:
Romance Dawn; The East Blue Saga
By McGould Gibbon
Prelude:
Beginning Of The Golden Age
No-one had any idea how the Marines had arrested Gold Roger. The man had been sailing up and down the world, causing chaos and creating disorder for over 20 years and until now the navy had nothing to show for it. The man was able to go anywhere he pleased whenever he pleased, and no army they mustered or weapons they brought were ever enough to worry him. In fact, he seemed to welcome the danger with open arms! For all the World Government could boast of, they’d never managed to capture a single member of Roger’s Crew, and they, on the other hand, had held many of their own soldiers hostage.[1]
Roger had become so powerful, so rich, and so infamous that he was declared King of the Pirates by the world at large. Of great interest to the public was the great treasure he had allegedly uncovered. No-one knew what it was, no-one knew where it was, and no-one knew what power it could possibly hold. All anyone knew was that whatever it was, it was the greatest treasure in the world, and that it had awarded Roger the highest bounty of any pirate at the time. The World Government almost paled in comparison to the might of this one man and his ragtag group of ne’er-do-wells, and it seemed like not even God Himself could stop Gold Roger in his tracks.
Then, to the utter confusion of the world, the Roger Pirates disbanded shortly after they peaked. People were left only to speculate as to why with no way of knowing what went down. Many theorized that they had broken down over internal politics. Perhaps Rayleigh, Gaban, Oden or some other hotshot had objected to how he handled their newfound fame and fortune—or something of equal importance—which resulted in the crew going their separate ways. Another theory stated that Roger had become so cocksure of himself that he decided he could take on the whole world by his lonesome. A particularly conspiratorial theory stated that the government had captured a loved one of his, and that he had to stop, lest whomever it was he loved so much died, which gained more credibility once the execution was announced. The most interesting theory though—and in this author’s opinion, most likely theory at the time—was that he believed he had achieved all he could. Whitebeard, one of the only men to ever rival Roger, once stated that “He was an adventurer at heart. That man never cared for any of the money, fame, or power he had gained. All he was interested in was the next great treasure he could find and the journey that came with it. But there was no greater treasure, nor a more legendary journey on the planet than the one he had so recently claimed as his own, so he decided to retire after that.”
And now they were going to kill him. One of the most extraordinary men to ever grace the earth, cut down after he had achieved it all. And they would execute him right where he was born, just to add a little more salt to his wounds. Needless to say, the execution was causing a ruckus months before it even began.
Weeks before the day even came, transponder snail lines were breaking down due to the sheer amount of use from journalists, pirates, bounty hunters, and ordinary citizens simply discussing the execution. The marines eventually decided to block all non-governmental and unnecessary transponder snail communications throughout Loguetown, and even then the lines still had trouble functioning from all the other trouble that was going on. The town became crowded to the point of lawlessness. Every square inch was packed with tourists and criminals trying to get a front row seat to the once-in-a-lifetime historical event about to occur. All the restaurants, hotels, houses, banks, and any other building with any interest to anyone anywhere were packed to the point that some of the rubberneckers started getting crushed to death simply from being cramped in with too many other people in areas of note. This inevitably caused a shortage of everything on the island, from food and housing to the paint used on the ships in the harbor. It’d be expected that this would discourage anyone else from coming to the island, but it barely put a dent in the excitement. Most considered it worth the risk to their life to see the end of an era in real time, and bared the cold, starvation, and violence necessary to witness it.
It took about three days for the government to decide to kick everyone who didn’t live in Loguetown out without any kind of warning. The decision, predictably, pissed off a lot of people who were hoping to watch the killing go down, but to everyone else it was a huge weight lifted from them and their town’s back. After that point only ships with necessary items and workers were allowed there from that point onward. All of this might’ve fully restored peace if it weren’t for 3 reasons:
- The World Government couldn’t resist the opportunity to make a spectacle out of the Pirate King’s death. It was the perfect opportunity to scare anyone who might aspire to be like Roger straight as a wooden plank, and an even greater opportunity to show the government’s absolute good triumphing over the pirates’ absolute evil. The propaganda value was oozing out of the very concept! So special seat tickets were issued that were handed out to a select number of foreigners alongside the townsfolk who were already there. The problem with this was that the tickets were very easy to fake, and many ended up in Loguetown who had no business being there. What was almost easier than that was to just fake your identification. All you had to do was say you were someone important, provide a fake ID, and take your position among the crowd. It was estimated that there were around 500,000 people who got in with a fake certificate, or by pretending to be a noble or a journalist. Speaking of journalists…
- Another reason so much chaos occurred in Loguetown was the chaos with the press. Every newspaper treated the execution like an immortal golden goose, meant to be kicked and kicked and kicked until it laid more eggs than the universe itself could hold. Thousands of articles were made about any updates about the execution, any happenings in Loguetown, any information on Roger’s crew, anything even vaguely related to Roger was printed. At one point, someone made an article about a bar Roger used to frequent, and the place was turned upside down soon after. “Every day I’d get about 1,000 gawkers, criminals, bounty hunters, and other jackasses trying to come into the bar.” Said the bar’s owner. “The place only holds about 30 people, so we’d be having people fight and kill each other on the street and in the bar just to get a spot. I started having armed guards outside and inside, and every employee was carrying a flintlock pistol on their side just in case. Even then we still had to spend hours cleaning blood, spit, and mucus off the walls. It cost me thousands of dollars even years after the fact.” When the bar owner was asked how he would have treated roger if he knew what would happen later, he said “I would have thrown hot tar on his back and cut his dick off just to make sure he never even glanced at this place.” The worst of the sensationalists was undoubtedly the World Economic Press. They would print articles twice a day that speculated endlessly on every detail of the Pirate King’s life, and anything related, from his familial relations to his morning routine.[2] You couldn’t walk two steps down the street without one of their articles ending up at your feet, and audiences ate it up, which led to an even stronger frenzy and even more people trying to get to Loguetown.
- However, some didn’t even need the encouragement to break into the town. Disobedience and disorder might have already been flowing through their veins before then. Plenty of pirates and other criminals tried breaking into the marine base in Loguetown to get to Gold Roger for a variety of reasons. A lot of pirates seemed to think that if they became the one to slay Gold Roger, they’d be crowned the new pirate king, or gain some other fantastic title. Others thought they could threaten him into giving up the map to his treasure. And some were just in it for the thrill of the hunt. Regardless, every day another crew of would-be pirate king killers would arrive on the marine base, plunge the place into a crazed hell for 30 minutes, then get whooped by a vice admiral or captain of some sort and get sent straight to Impel Down. That was usually how it went anyway; there were a few groups that actually put up a decent fight and almost lobbed off Roger’s head before the gov’t could. The most notable one of all these attempted murders[3] was perpetrated by the man only know as Shiki the Golden Lion. He charged headfirst into the marine base—with no-one else there to help him or hold him back—and before you could even blink, he had slaughtered the entire rank and file at the front gate. All that was left in his wake were piles of corpses that looked like they used to be human and the living dead who wished they were part of the pile. Most of the vice admirals had heard the commotion by now and went to take down the Golden Lion. They managed to hold him off for about ten minutes before he laid their lifeless bodies at his feet and moved on to the main room of the base. By now he was only a few feet away from the cell where they were holding Gold Roger. But just as he was about to claim his prize, Vice Admiral Garp pulled him away and threw him into the stone wall behind them. Shiki put up a good fight with Garp, but it was no use, and he was defeated like every other blackguard before him. As they were dragging him away, bound to the back of an iron beam with steel and silver chains, he was screaming out his lungs until they bled with the words: “Why Roger?! Why did the man who stood toe to toe with the great Rocks D. Xebec give himself over to these pathetic bastards?!” After that he was sent to Impel Down and was never heard from again.
If the gov’t hadn’t been so insistent in their efforts to demonstrate the size of their own sword to the entire world, Loguetown wouldn’t have had to suffer as much violence, thievery, sensationalism, and general disorder as it did in those few weeks or the many, many decades afterwards. But alas, what can we do about history that’s already been written? Besides, it was nothing but a drop in the bucket compared to what would come on the day of the Pirate King’s execution: the day that would cause a shift in the world so great, it would eclipse everything that had come before it that century.
On the day of the execution, all the businesses on the island closed. No-one would be buying anything on that day anyway, so why should anyone come to work? That didn’t mean the streets were empty though. Thousands of people were flocking in and running toward the center of the island, kicking and screaming and pushing at each other for a view through a hole in a wall five miles from the platform where Gold Roger would be executed. The intensity of the whole debacle caused some people to resign themselves to the outskirts, content to simply be adjacent to history. It might’ve been the right idea, considering what was lying in the town square. For in that area, millions of men, women, and everything in-between were gathered around, waiting for the event to begin. People who couldn’t afford to get into the crowd or didn’t want to be crushed to death by all the pushing and shoving stood on buildings nearby or traveled through the sewers and looked up through the grates down below. Though it was illegal to have anything except necessities, people passed around popcorn and cotton candy and other confections for the spectacle.[4] Others were handing out and selling their own merchandise based off the event and the Roger Pirates throughout. Fights and injuries were extremely common, though the sheer size of the crowd meant the marines couldn’t do anything about it. It seemed that even though the marines asked for a large audience for the execution of the Pirate King, they could barely handle it when it was handed to them on a silver platter with mint leaves and oregano on it. It was the largest public gathering in history, and the crowd was as lively as ever. So lively in fact, 65% of people either suffered incredible hearing loss or became deaf from simply attending the occasion.
The crowd engaged in great debate and deliberation over what this would all mean for the world at large. How would someone like Dracule Mihawk react? How would Whitebeard react? What would become of his crew, and what would the marines do to anyone related to or part of that crew after this? But all these inquiries about the fate of the world seemed quaint compared to the most prominent question of all: what would happen to his treasure? In his later years, it was widely known that Roger had become one of, if not the, wealthiest, most powerful, and most famous men in the world. You wouldn’t know that if you looked at him though. His outfit was that of the most stereotypical pirate you could think of. He wore a dirty looking red leather coat, a dirtier captain’s hat, some aged leather boots and worn-out stockings, and a cravat around his neck. His face didn’t look much better either: he was a rather ugly looking man with a large, curved mustache, and messy hair. But appearances can often be deceiving. When Roger’s already immense bounty doubled with no discernible cause, people began to speculate wildly as to the reason behind the increase. Through various whispers and rumors circulated on ships, bars, docks, casinos, brothels, and any other place where someone could conceivably talk to someone for more than a millisecond, people concluded that Roger had done the impossible and circumnavigated the globe. And along that journey, he had discovered something no-one living was ever meant to find. What exactly it was no-one could say; people speculated that it could be a brick of gold the size of an island, a tree that could produce any food imaginable, a factory that could manufacture technology thousands of millennia ahead of its time, a weapon that could carve the planet in half at the push of a button, and many other wild and ludicrous ideas that all seemed like they could suddenly become true at any moment. Discussion of such a treasure was forbidden by the World Government, but—as a popular saying at the time went— “Nothing can stop Gold Roger. Nothing can stop Gold Roger’s friends. Nothing can stop Gold Roger’s occasional associates. And nothing can stop anything even coincidentally related to Gold Roger.” Thus, the rumors spread like wildfire, and that flame only seemed emboldened by the water you’d pour on it. Roger was quickly dubbed the Pirate King, and tall tales of him and his crew were told all throughout the four seas.
All of that was waying heavily on the minds of the attending crowd as Gold Roger himself stepped up onto the platform. He spoke not a word as he entered, simply smiling to himself as the audience yelled and cheered and booed and stared with wild, starstruck eyes at the platform holding the world’s greatest convict. Before the execution could begin, however, the government invited many of its most famous and revered personnel to speak before the crowd. Many men in fancy white jackets began to speak of justice, criminality, perseverance, the unstoppable triumph of good and the inevitable defeat of evil, among other lofty and abstract concepts. The crowd was having none of it. Before long, they were screaming at the top of their lungs to “Get on with it already!” At some point a particularly vicious marine by the name of Akainu shouted “You will all be put to death if you do not let these men speak!” which only seemed to get the audience to shout louder. After this, Akainu reportedly whispered into the fleet admiral’s ear “Every member of this crowd should be executed immediately after this event is over. They clearly have no sense of respect, or of justice.” This was never enacted upon, thank the lord, for if it was this little book would never have been made. The only way the speakers could calm the crowd was to either get closer to the execution or talk about their experiences with Gold Roger. Those that never interacted with the man went with the first option, hurrying up their speeches before they became the target of the crowd’s growing anger. Those that did interact with him usually took the latter option, divulging as much information about him as was possible to keep the crowd from rioting.
I don’t use the word rioting lightly either: the marines were actually worried that if the crowd got angry enough Loguetown would go up in flames, and at that point Roger might end up escaping. So, the marines who were speaking that day improvised an agreement to speed up their speeches/calm down the crowd as much as possible, preferably without pissing off the higher ups. Some speeches ended up a third of their original length, and some were cut out entirely. As the last speech came up, you could feel the audience turning violent, ready to claw out the marines’ eyeballs at a moment's notice. Thank God then that the last speaker was the famed “Hero of the Marines” Vice Admiral Garp. When he walked onto the platform, he simply said “I’m tired of hearing all this abstract horseshit about justice or what have you. Let’s all watch this sonofabitch get stabbed to death!” The energy in the crowd finally turned positive again, to the relief of every marine in a 10-mile radius. If it weren’t for that last fact, Garp probably would have been imprisoned for daring to say something so arrogant.
After about an hour of waiting, Gold Roger would finally be executed, and an era would end. The marines would finally have their victory. All those years of looting bases, kidnapping soldiers, sinking battalions into sea water, and racing up and down the world like he owned the damn thing would finally be over. Doing this would make every pirate think twice before even dipping their toe in the water. All the ones that were active would undoubtedly curb their own activity, hell, maybe some of the big ones would even retire. Of course they’d be intimidated! After all, what was this execution was always meant to say was “We’ve taken the most powerful man in the world and we killed him. Do you think your power or your money keeps you safe? No! We are the World Government, and we will make every pirate in the world bend their knee!” Ultimately though, Roger would have the last laugh. For in the World Government’s hubris, they allowed Roger one privilege. A privilege that would become the greatest mistake of their lives: they allowed him to speak his last words. When Gold Roger heard this, he calmly looked forward, smiled, and—to the confusion every marine there—said “I will now be taking questions from the crowd.” The crowd began to yell out dozens of questions as the marines slowly prepared themselves to execute Roger. Of the many that were shouted, only one question reached his ears, and it was the only question that he needed to hear: Where’d you hide your treasure?
“You want my treasure?!” shouted Roger, suddenly becoming as lively as ever. “You can have it! Wealth, fame, and power beyond the wildest dreams of any being to walk the planet! I’ve seen all this and more, and I’ve left everything right where it was found in One Piece. Now you just have to take it! It’s sitting right there, all for you, right at the edge of—” SHUNK! Before he could finish what he was saying, Roger was stabbed through the chest.
After years of dominance on land and sea alike, the King of the Pirates, the Greatest Criminal in the World, the Bastion of the very Concept of Piracy Himself, Gold Roger, finally died.
I was there when it happened, and I would like it to be known by the whole planet that when the Heartbeat of Gold Roger stopped beating, the world stopped with it. Not a sound was heard for miles. The chaos of the crowd dwelled to nothing. The wind suddenly stood still. Tumble-weeds stopped dead in their tracks. Not a creature moved. Not a creek was heard. No-one felt like they existed for that moment. In those last moments, all you could bare witness to was the merry, knowing chuckle of a dead man. And then the moment was over, and we were all left standing in another world.
As soon as that happened, millions of people rushed out of the town center, trampling on anyone that wasn’t fast enough to escape the great flowing mass. The Marines tried to preserve order in the town, but it was all in vain. Pirate crews were formed right then and there on the island, even between people who had never fought or ever rowed a dinghy once in their lives. Any item that wasn’t nailed down was stolen and carried onto a ship. The Gov’t’s base was spontaneously and successfully, raided by thousands of people in a fit of crazed joy and greed. Everyone that had a boat set sail immediately, and if they didn’t, they simply stole one. None of those people were making for a trip back home. As soon as those ships landed on the next island, they spread the great tale of Gold Roger’s final promise to the world. Sailors would go rambling about it to everyone who would listen. Musicians would write hundreds of melodies detailing the execution and the dream implanted into everyone who witnessed it. Reporters told their editors of everything they had witnessed, and those editors responded in kind by pushing the story to as many people with 10 Berri in their pocket as existed in the world. And as all those people told the tale, those who heard it told it to their own friends and family, and those friends and family told it to even more friends and family, and so on, until no corner of the world could say they hadn’t heard of the Pirate King’s treasure and his mysterious final words.
The World Government didn’t even try to suppress the spread of the news. They knew they had been completely embarrassed and utterly defeated on the international stage, and all they could do was hang their heads in shame they refused to acknowledge, and prepare for the worst yet to come. Trouble was brewing about everywhere you could imagine it. Pirates like Doflamingo, Black-haired Sam, Sir Crocodile, Oliver the Butcher, and many more were coming to prominence not long after the execution, and it was making everyone around the world weary. But for every concern about guns and jolly rogers raised, there was another person who became obsessed with Rogers final words.
The matter of most importance to these people was the deciphering of that last unfinished sentence. “It’s sitting there, all for you, right at the edge of—” Right at the edge of what? The world? The sea? An island of some kind? Existence itself? What could he have been trying to say? The most likely answer to these dreamers was the Grand Line: a vast ocean route said to house as many dangers as it had treasures. The people of the four seas never got much news from the Grand Line. The only thing that the newspapers would report on was the truly important stuff: the actions of the Four Emperors, Seven Warlords, World Government, etc., as well as the events surrounding them. But every now and then a poor, starving man with eyes like holes would wash up on shore and tell people of the wonders and the horrors he had seen. Beasts the size of mountains. Super-powered men and women who could do things only ever seen in dreams. People who could cut boats in half from two miles away with a butter knife. Armies destroyed by the sheer presence of a person. Everything gods and devils were made of could be found on the Grand Line, and millions wanted in on it, regardless of the desperate warnings of those who had gone and come back with only half their former self. It was the perfect place to hide such a legendary treasure as Gold Roger held. And so, every rouge, gentleman, ne’er-do-well, dreamer, schemer, tactician, blackguard, adventurer, bastard, and grinning madman set off on course for the Grand Line, hoping for everything you could ever find in a dream. For anyone who had ever had a dream had gained the will to finally pursue it. The world was setting sail, and the journey was not ending anytime soon.
I find it incredibly fitting that Roger’s execution never formally ended, since in the hearts and minds of everyone living it truly hadn’t. We were all chasing after Gold Roger’s treasure in one way or another. Whether it be through simply reading the daily paper, reading a history book on the Roger Pirates, or even going after the treasure themselves, we were all enraptured by what would happen next in the greatest story yet to be fully told. It was the start of the Great Pirate Era, and the legendary treasure which would soon become known as “The One Piece” was at center-stage in the great play that was only just beginning. Yet still the world would have to wait years for this tale to truly get going. For the most important player had yet to enter, for right now he was simply a little street urchin living in Foosha Village of the Goa Kingdom by the name of Monkey D. Luffy.
[1] Some might consider Silvers Rayleigh an exception to this, but I’ve decided not to exclude him, because A) he was never held captive for very long, and B) it’s incredibly likely that the Roger Pirates were secretly turning him in to collect the bounty reward money for their crew. A friend of mine, who shall go unnamed, once met Rayleigh and provided me with the following quote: “Roger was a good captain, but he was an idiot when it came to money. The number of times I had to auction myself off just to keep the ship afloat would have made me quit any other crew. I once had to stay in prison for a fortnight because the wanted posters on the island listed my bounty as being 300 berri lower than it actually was, and Roger wouldn’t settle for anything less than the full price.”
[2] The following is an actual headline the company ran during those few weeks: “SCOPPER GABANS SONS UNCLE STATED TODAY THAT GOLD ROGER HAD A SECRET CHILD!!!” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the article this one headlined was the best-selling in the paper’s history.
[3] There is some debate over whether he wanted to kill Roger or free him, though personally I believe the former.
[4] Though the marines did want to make the event into a propaganda piece, they were wary of making too much of a show. This resulted in strict rules with regard to things like the press, public discussion, and profit off of the event outside the island, and especially draconian ones on the island itself. Thus, no snacks.