In a sleepy little town on a plain little island in the most boring of the world's 10 oceans, one of the most powerful pirate crews on the planet were having a little vacation. The Red Hair Pirates had crossed under the Red Belt from the New World into Paradise, rowed their way through the right Calm Belt, and had ended up in East Blue. It was quite relaxing to go from an environment where even gravity wasn't dependable and absolute to one where the laws of physics were solid and logical. The crew led by one of the Four Emperors had (almost) nothing to fear so long as they kept a low profile and didn't draw the World Government's attention while they rested and recharged in the 'weakest' of the 4 Blues.

They had sailed in, assured the locals that they were 'good' pirates (Peace Mains rather than Morganeers) and promptly set up camp. They'd made themselves at home, winning over the townsfolk with their free-flowing gold and good cheer and lack of (major) crimes or property damage. They'd even proven to be a hit with one little boy who seemed to have found religion when he witnessed the lifestyle the crew led. In fact, said boy was determined to impress them enough to convince them to take him with them when they left.

"Today's the day!" the boy declared, standing on their ship's figurehead with a small knife in his hand.

"Hey, Luffy, what're you up to now?" asked one of the pirates curiously.

"I've had it with you guys! Now you'll have to take me seriously! This is how tough I am!" the village boy, Luffy, declared in full voice, as loud as his 7 year old throat could manage.

The captain, 'Red Hair' Shanks himself, chuckled and laid a hand on the straw hat he'd inherited from his captain so long ago. "Dahaha! Get it over with, whatever it is!"

To the pirates' collective shock and horror, Luffy took the knife and promptly stabbed himself just below his left eye.

"HUH?!"

"YEOWCH!"

"YOU IDIOT! WHAT'D YOU DO THAT FOR?!" Shanks demanded of the bleeding and crying young boy. He also made a mental note to make sure his adopted daughter and the crew's official musician Uta never used a knife unsupervised… ever.

After the crew doctor saw to Luffy's cut (needing 3 proper stitches), the crew gathered in the local pub, Party's Bar. "A toast!" Shanks called, raising a tankard. "To Luffy's… courage… and to our next voyage!"

"Har har har! Drink up!"

"Grog! Grog! More grog!"

"Hey, that's MY meat!"

"Not anymore, I'm eating it!"

Luffy gave a watery smile, his face still slick with sweat from his earlier self-inflicted agony. "It didn't hurt a bit!"

"Liar!" Shank roared at him with shark-teeth. "That was a foolish thing to do!"

"I'm not the least bit afraid of getting hurt!" Luffy declared, optimistic and confident and fearless as only an innocent child could manage to pull off. "Take me with you on your next voyage! I want to be a pirate too!"

"DAHAHAHA!" Shanks let loose his signature laugh. "You?! A pirate?! Impossible! Luffy, you know why we call you 'anchor'? Because you can't swim– you just sink! What good is a pirate who can't swim?" Shanks was being a bit unfair, given some of the strongest pirates on the planet had eaten Devil Fruits and therefore couldn't swim either. But that was beside the point: deflating the boy's ego at his humorous expense.

"It doesn't matter so long as I don't fall overboard!" Luffy countered. "AND I'm a strong fighter! I've been training! My punches are as strong as a pistol!"

Shanks propped his head on a hand and gave a deadpan expression. "A pistol, eh? Is that so…"

"ARE YOU DOUBTING ME?!" Luffy roared at his idol.

A bunch of Shanks' men had wrapped arms around each other's shoulders and were doing an impromptu dancing line, all of them at least half-drunk. At their center was Lucky Roux, one of Shanks' senior officers and the ship's cook. They all had been listening to their captain talk to the boy and decided to chime in.

"Calm down, Luffy!"

"Let's just have a good time!"

"Yeah! Pirates always have a good time!"

"The sea is vast and there's lots of islands to explore!"

"And best of all, pirates have FREEDOM!"

"Wow!" Luffy beamed with stars in his eyes.

"You guys stop filling his head with crazy ideas," Shanks sighed halfheartedly.

"But it's true!"

"Right?"

"C'mon Captain, let's take the lad with us just this once!" one pirate suggested, knowing their next trip was just a quick cruise around East Blue to avoid the next Marine patrol. Besides, Uta was only 2 years older than Luffy and she was an official member of the crew even when they were in the New World. It really didn't seem fair to exclude the young boy with big dreams of adventure on the sea.

Shanks proved unyielding. "Okay, but one of you will have to stay behind so he can go."

That made all support for Luffy promptly vanished. "Sorry, laddie, you've just been marooned! Let's drink!" Lucky Roux declared as he turned the dancing line in an about face, literally turning their backs on the young boy.

"Hey! I thought you guys were on my side!" Luffy shouted in betrayal.

"You're just too young, kid! Maybe in 10 years I'll give you a chance!" Shanks teased the boy. And hey, if Luffy actually set out to sea and managed to survive long enough to reach the New World at a reasonable age, then Shanks would accept the boy with open arms into his crew's ranks.

"Cap'n Shanks! I'm telling you! I'm not a little kid!" Luffy shouted with all his heart, a tick mark on his forehead and steam all but coming out his nose.

Shanks spotted a way to de-escalate the situation and set up a prank in one fell swoop. "Don't get so upset! Here, have some milk!"

"Oh boy, thanks!" Luffy grinned, accepting the glass Shanks gave him and glugging it down happily.

Shanks slapped the bar and laughed. "DAHAHAHA! A real pirate would never drink milk!"

"THAT WAS A DIRTY TRICK!" Luffy howled in his youthful rage.

Luffy walked away from the bar with his half-finished milk, grumbling under his breath. "I'm getting tired of this. I even stabbed myself in the face so you'd take me with you."

The first mate of the Red Haired Pirates, Benn Beckman, looked up from smoking and enjoying the general chaos of his subordinates. "Luffy, the captain's just doing what's best for everyone."

"How do you figure, First Mate-san?" Luffy asked.

"The safety of the entire crew and the ship rests on his shoulders," Benn gave a mini-lecture. "Being a pirate isn't all fun and games, y'know… there's lot of duties like pillaging, hostage taking, heavy drinking, and swimming. And the captain knows all about the dangers of the sea too! It can kill you a thousand different ways. He's trying to protect you, not crush your dream of becoming a pirate."

"Well, I don't believe it!" Luffy declared, all the wisdom of his elder going in one ear and out the other. "Shanks just likes to make me look dumb!"

"Hey, Anchor!" Shanks called from the bar.

"I told you," Luffy said to Benn, pointing a finger back at Shanks, who was in a conversation with Makino, proprietress of Party's Bar.

'Maybe the lad has a point,' Benn admitted to himself.

"Luffy! Do you want something to eat?" Makino asked as she lugged another barrel of beer out from storage.

"Yeah! Just put it on my treasure tab!" Luffy grinned, suddenly back at the bar and with a knife and fork already ready in his hands. His appetite was really something to behold.

"Treasure tab? Look, boy, don't try and swindle the lady," Shanks scolded.

"I'm gonna become a pirate, find lots of treasure, and then come back and pay her!" Luffy declared with total confidence.

"Ha ha! We'll celebrate together when you come back!" Makino grinned, gently encouraging her youngest customer.

Makino soon brought them both a plate of tasty food. The two men ate with voracious appetites and not much table manners, though Shanks was much more refined than Luffy. "Shanks?" Luffy said, mouth full as he tried to eat a whole ham steak in one bite.

"Yeah, kid?" Shanks replied.

"How much longer will you stay at this village?" Luffy asked.

"Hmm… let's see… we've been using this village as our base about a year now. After two or three more voyages, we'll leave for good and head home," Shanks planned aloud.

"Two or three more voyages, huh?" Luffy thought, getting a bit dejected as he realized his time with his best friends and role models was coming to an end not that far off. Makino gave a little sigh at the look on Luffy's face. Luffy swallowed and turned back to Shanks. "I'm gonna learn to swim by the time you leave!"

"That's good, kid. Do whatever you want," Shanks said dismissively.

Luffy huffed, upset at yet again not being taken seriously by Shanks. He was still a little hungry after his meal. He spotted a weird melon-like fruit in a little chest set not too far away on the bar. Reasoning that it belonged to the pirates, and that none of them would mind if he borrowed one fruit, Luffy reached out and took it. He was just taking a bite when there was a big commotion from the door. One of the hinged swing doors was kicked off to land in the middle of the tavern floor.

"Make way for the scourge of the mountains!" shouted a loud man.

Luffy chewed his bite, reflecting that this fruit tasted icky, before he took a swallow. And then he got really dizzy and tingly. "Wha…." Luffy passed out, his head resting on the bar. The weird fruit tumbled out of his grip to fall behind the bar, losing its swirls and purple coloring to look like a plain Yubari King melon once more. The power locked inside had already been transferred to a new host.

Ignorant to his young friend falling unconscious, Shanks focused on the ruffians who were walking in and filling up the bar. "Heh heh… so you call yourselves pirates, eh? First time I've seen pirates… you look like a sorry lot to me," said the clear leader, the one who'd busted down the door. He walked up the bar, standing right next to Shanks as he focused on Makino.

"We're mountain bandits," stated the lead bandit, with a facial scar and stupid-looking beard. "Don't wet yourselves, we're not here to thrash up the place. Just sell us 10 barrels of sake and we'll only injure the bare minimum."

"I'm sorry," Makino said, keeping a brave face while her heart was pumping and a cold sweat was dripping down her neck. "I'm afraid we're all out of alcohol."

"Oh?" The lead bandit took a look at the room full of pirates and their many drinks. "That's strange. What're these pirates drinking? Fruit juice?"

"It's true. I just served the last of it," Makino tried to explain.

In Luffy's unconscious body, his heart was starting to beat a certain pattern. Pa-ta-fla-fla. Pa-ta-fla-fla. Pa-ta-fla-fla.

"I feel kinda guilty," Shanks said amiably. "Looks like we drank up all the liquor. Sorry about that," he said to the pissed off bandit. "Why don't you have this? It's still unopened." He offered a rather quality bottle of wine to the bandit.

The bandit's response was to backhand the bottle and send the contents splashing into Shanks' face. "What do you take me for? You can't make a fool of me! What good is just one bottle?" the bandit sneered as if he hadn't just insulted one of the most dangerous men on the planet (not that he knew that).

Shanks was far too mature, despite his childish nature, to get upset about a man-baby throwing a tantrum. "Oh my, what a mess," he frowned, more concerned about the puddle on Makino's clean floor than the wetness on his own face.

The bandit reached into his coat and pulled out a wanted poster of himself. It named him 'Higuma the Bear'. "You see this? My head's worth 8,000,000 Beri. I'm a wanted man. I've killed 56 people… mostly fools like you!"

Before Shanks could react to that threatening statement (his first instinct was to ignore the little frog at the bottom of his well), he tensed. His head whipped to see Luffy, who seemed passed out on the counter. But a powerful presence was starting to emanate from his tiny body. And it was growing. Fast.

"Oi! Look at me when I'm talking to–" Higuma sneered at Shanks, reaching out a hand to force the man to turn and face him.

Luffy shot straight up, ramrod straight. In a flash, his whole appearance changed. His black hair turned snow-white and gained a cloudy, smoke-like quality as if it all were a nimbus attached to his head more than strands of keratin. His eyebrows did the same. Bits of his hair detached and started to float around his neck like little clouds chasing the bigger cloud. His clothes (a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals) all turned the same white and got the same cartoon-ish quality. His eyes opened, showing they were now glowing with pink rings around the pupils.

And he was radiating an aura that had every member of the Red Hair Pirates with an inkling of Observation Haki all but peeing their pants. This power… it was like nothing any of them felt before. It was massive, surpassing Shanks or even Whitebeard or any other of the world's strongest they'd encountered. More than its sheer size and intensity, it felt… otherworldly. Literally not of this world. It felt… well, like a god or something.

Luffy grinned wide, wider than he ever had before, until all his baby teeth were revealed in a smile that seemed more demented than cheerful. Or at least both in equal measure. He looked down at himself, then slapped a hand to his forehead and threw his head back laughing. "SHISHISHI HAHAHA! I'm puny! A pipsqueak! I'm pathetic! THAT'S HILARIOUS! SHISHISHI HAHAHA!"

"What the fuck?!" Higuma reared back, scared shitless at the seemingly supernatural display going on with this weird kid.

Luffy, or whatever Luffy had turned into, opened his eyes and locked onto Higuma. His smile got impossibly wider and even more disturbing. "Hmm… you're no fun! You're a meanie! A bully! Imma teach you a lesson!" So saying, Luffy hopped off the stool he was on and hit the floor. Said floor inexplicably bent under him, before it went taut like a trampoline and suddenly everyone who'd been standing was thrown into the air.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" screamed Higuma, most of his bandits, and some of the pirates.

"SHISHISHI HAHAHA!" Luffy cackled, bouncing off the floor and then the walls and even the ceiling. The whole room had, ridiculous as it was to any rational mind, become all rubbery and bouncy. Literally bouncing off the walls, he went around the room in an endless ricochet. Gathering speed and momentum, he finally did one last big bounce and crashed headlong right into Higuma, sending him to hit the floor which suddenly became solid. "STRIKE! GAME OVER! SHISHISHI HAHAHA!"

"It's a demon!" screamed one of the mountain bandits, finding his feet once the room returned to normal.

"Quite the opposite!" Luffy said, suddenly right in the bandit's face and making him scream like a little girl. "I'm a baby god! Wrong direction, stupid! SHISHISHI HAHAHA!

"Kill the thing!" roared one of the larger bandits, pulling back a big club and bringing it down on the 'demon' child's head.

Luffy was squished under the blow, and it was somehow comical. The man pulled back his club to find his target compressed into a two-dimensional circle on the ground. A two-dimensional circle which popped back up into a three-dimensional Luffy. "WON'T WORK!" he shouted in his freaked out attacker's face, before sticking out his tongue.

"Grab the boss and run!" roared one of the smarter bandits, and there was a stampede for the exit. The knocked out body of Higuma was unceremoniously dragged by the ankle behind one of his inferiors.

Luffy giggled and started bouncing on his own leg like it was a pogo stick. "Whatsamatter? Just trying to have a little fun! Spread some joy! Shishishi!"

"Luffy!" Shanks said, recovering his balance and staring hard at the creature that seemed to have replaced his young friend. "What's going on with you?!"

Luffy twisted with a bounce to turn to face Shanks. He kept bouncing on alternating legs, each even making a 'sproing' sound with each touch to the floor before he was propelled halfway to the ceiling. "Luffy's asleep! I'm Nika! Nice to meetcha!"

"Captain! The chest with the Devil Fruit we stole from the government is empty!" reported one of the pirates who'd recovered from the whole trampoline room phenomenon.

"What do you mean, you're Nika?" Shanks asked the boy, noting that this might be some odd Devil Fruit phenomenon. Leave it to Luffy to bite into an unnatural-looking fruit without any regard for his own safety.

"You're funny! I am Nika, and Nika is me!" 'Nika' said, still doing his bouncing and even starting to do tricks. "My spirit is trapped in that particular Devil Fruit, you see! Most of the folks who eat it get some of my powers but never get good enough to let me out. I haven't gotten a chance to play since Joy Boy died! But young Luffy is special, see? Something about his body or mind or spirit or what-have-you let him awaken me as soon as he ate my fruit! Now I'm free, free, free! SHISHISHI HAHAHA!"

Shanks gulped. "Nika? As in the Sun God? The Devil Fruit Encyclopedia identified that as the Gum-Gum Fruit, a Paramecia that makes the eater rubber."

"Wrong, wrong, wrong!" Nika chuckled with an irrational humor. "I'm a Mythical Zoan. Human-Human Fruit, Model: Nika! But Imu's little lackeys are scared of my power, so they tried to lie and cover up how strong my fruit really is." He paused in mid-air. "Oh, poop. This kid is running out of gas. If I stay out much longer, he's gonna croak. Gosh darn it, fresh air after 800 years and now I gotta go back to sleep! Aw, well, what can ya do? Nice talking to ya, Red Hair!"

Nika landed on the floor, did a little pose like a gymnast who just stuck the landing, gave a little bow, and then his grin finally vanished. All the white vanished from Luffy's form, leaving a pale, drained looking Luffy with muted colors. "Hungry…" he said in a hoarse, weak voice before he fell flat on his face.

"Makino! Anyone! Get him something to eat!" Shanks shouted, the ring of command in his every syllable as he rushed to check on his friend. A friend who apparently was now the host of an earthbound god… what an exciting turn of events on their little 'vacation'.

Luffy was shaken awake and utterly devoured every scrap of food that was offered to him. He seemed to have a preference for meat, and Makino ended up flash-grilling all her stock to try and appease Luffy's appetite after Nika had his fun. When Luffy was done eating, his belly had visibly expanded.

"Thanks, everyone! That was super tasty!" Luffy grinned, back to being a happy-go-lucky lad as his energy returned to him. He got a little frown of confusion on his face a beat later. "Um, what happened? Last thing I remember was eating a really bad tasting fruit."

Shanks was at a bit of a loss to explain that Luffy had passed out because a second personality embedded in that fruit had asserted control. So he beat around the bush and explained the basics. "That was a Devil Fruit, Luffy. They're special fruits scattered all over the world. Eating one will give you a strange power, but in return the sea rejects you. If you're ever in salt water or any kind of water too deep, you'll lose all your strength and drown."

"WHAT?! That means I'll never learn to swim!" Luffy freaked out.

"That's okay, Luffy. Like you said, just make sure you never fall overboard!" Shanks said with a shaky grin.

Luffy nodded, before he tilted his head. "Um, who just said 'no shit, dumbass'?"

Shanks frowned. "No one said that. Did anyone say that?" He looked around and saw all his crew shaking their heads or denying responsibility.

Luffy was frowning now. "Um, Shanks? I think I'm going crazy. There's laughing in my head. Does your doctor have a cure for crazy?"

Shanks was mildly alarmed that his young friend might indeed be schizophrenic. But an alternate explanation seemed to make more sense, as much as anything in this wacky world made sense at all. "Luffy, the Fruit you ate's power was that it had the spirit of a god inside it. The Sun God, Nika. When you passed out, he took over your body. And I think you can hear him talk even when you're awake."

"I've got a god inside me?!" Luffy's jaw dropped. Like a cartoon, it dropped as low as his toes, which freaked him out as soon as he noticed. "Wah! What's wrong with my mouth?!"

"That's part of your power, Luffy. The Sun God, Nika, is a being of infinite creativity and imagination. He could change shape into whatever he wanted. Even when he's not 'awake' and you're in charge, your body has a little of that. Your whole body can stretch and flex like rubber now," Benn spoke up from where he was observing everything patiently.

"Really? That's kinda cool! Not sure it's worth never swimming, though," Luffy frowned. He blinked. "Oh, Nika says 'It's not really rubber. If his brain was rubber, he'd be a vegetable. Still insulates electricity, though.' What's 'insulate' mean?"

"Stops electricity," Shanks said simply. "Luffy, does Nika have anything else to say?"

Luffy hummed as he listened really hard to his own thoughts. "He says 'This kid really is a treasure. All 3 colors, heart of gold, and he's got famous family. Lucky me!'. Hey, is Gramps really that famous?"

"I dunno. What's your grandpa's name?" Shanks asked, realizing he'd never asked Luffy's family name, assuming he had none.

"Monkey D. Garp," Luffy said casually.

"... EHHH?!" screamed half the Red Hair Pirates. Their innocent little fan was the grandson of such a big-name Marine? They were damn lucky that Garp hadn't come to visit his grandson the whole time they'd been hiding out here.

Lucky Roux pulled out a sketchpad and rapidly drew the face of one of the strongest Marines who'd ever lived. "Luffy, is this your grandpa?"

"Yeah, that's him! He's so mean. He makes me do this crazy training to try and make me a Marine and his Fists of Love really hurt," Luffy grumbled.

"He only visits randomly. Luffy is a ward of mayor Woop Slap, even though Garp has legal custody of him," Makino enlightened the Emperor's crew.

Shanks refocused on something else Nika had said. "Luffy, did Nika say you had 'all 3 Colors'?"

"Yeah. Oh, he's telling me about Haki. It sounds so cool!" Luffy beamed as he listened to the godly spirit cohabitating his body.

"It is pretty cool," Shanks allowed, though the thought of a mere 7 year old knowing about or trying to train Haki was mildly terrifying.

"Nika says he can teach me how to be super strong! And that he used to be friends with the very first pirate!" Luffy said excitedly as he learned to juggle listening to the voice inside his head and focusing on the outside world.

"Joy Boy," Shanks nodded, recalling the ancient, lost history his old Captain had revealed to the entire crew of the Oro Jackson.

"I decided!" Luffy declared, standing up on his own two feet. "I'm not going to ask to join you guys anymore. Instead, I'm gonna train super hard with Nika's advice and get so strong that no one can tell me what to do! Then I'll set out to sea, gather an awesome crew, and find the One Piece! I'M GONNA BE THE PIRATE KING!"

Shanks felt a shiver run down his spine. Something in the way Luffy said it was achingly familiar. It reminded him of his old Captain, the man who had last been crowned the Pirate King. Going with his gut, Shanks grinned and plucked off his straw hat he'd inherited from Gol D. Roger himself. "The Pirate King, huh? Well then, let's seal the deal." Shanks plopped the hat on Luffy's shocked head. "This is my favorite straw hat. Hold onto it for me. One day, you can return it to me when you've become an amazing pirate."

Luffy's eyes shone bright with tears. "SHANKS!" he cried, crashing into the redhead's legs to give a bruising hug. He was so overcome with emotion, he didn't even pay attention to the hysteric laughing from Nika in the back of his mind. 'That clinches it! This kid's going to make it big! SHISHISHI HAHAHA!'

10 Years Later

Luffy kicked off the dock in the small rowboat that was all he felt he needed. Caught in an ocean current, he turned and waved to all those who had come to see him off on the start of his journey. "BYE, EVERYONE!" he waved energetically with both arms. And it really was everyone he cared about who could physically show up. Makino, the crotchety old mayor Woop Slap who'd half-raised him, Dadan and her mountain bandits (poorly) hidden behind the crowd to witness him leaving, half of Foosha Village who he'd had interactions with over the years.

"He's off to chase his dream," Makino said fondly.

"Feh! He's off to bring shame to our village, more like!" Woop Slap scoffed.

Dadan, the closest thing to a mother figure in Luffy's life, wiped her teary eyes with a hanky. "Look after yourself, you damn brat."

Luffy kept waving as his boat drifted further from the shore. He paused as he sensed a threatening presence emerge from the water behind him. The people on the shore all started to freak out. Luffy looked over his shoulder to spot the local Sea King, nicknamed 'Lord of the Coast'. It showed all its massive teeth as it grinned and set its sights on devouring Luffy in one bite.

Luffy got his own near-manic grin, showing all his teeth. He let out a controlled burst of Conqueror's Haki. Not enough to knock the overgrown eel out, but enough to put the fear of a god into the creature. "Oh, look… lunch!"

The massive sea beast somehow managed to look frightened as a schoolgirl and turned tail to flee. Luffy stretched out one hand and grabbed hold of its fin. "Shortcut, alright!" he cheered at his own cleverness as his rowboat got dragged in the wake of the Sea King. He threw one last wave behind him at the stunned townsfolk. "Look for me in the papers!" he called. "I'm gonna get a HUGE bounty someday!"

"I believe him," muttered the fish monger to his wife, stunned at how the mere teenager had somehow terrified the local monster into running away with just a look. The mountain bandits were less surprised. Luffy's ability to tame wild animals had made him the unofficial chief of Mt. Colubo. Well, that and his monstrous strength.

Luffy rode the Sea King Express until the thing had the bright idea to try and dive into the depths. Luffy let go before he got dragged into the sea and just relaxed, sitting down in his rowboat. "Result alright, result alright! Now I'm pretty far from the island! Shishishi!"

'Joke's on you! We don't know the first thing about navigation! We're going to just float around until we hear or see someone! We'll probably starve or drown in a whirlpool or something! Shishishi hahaha!' Nika cackled from the back of his head.

As if on cue, Luffy felt his rowboat be tugged in an odd sideways direction. Luffy looked over and spotted a massive whirlpool, wider across than he could stretch. Luffy just grinned unconcerned. "What a great day! The weather's so nice! Who'd have thought this voyage would end in disaster so soon?" Luffy cast a look around him, but there wasn't a single ship or island to be seen on the horizon. "Ah, well, can't be helped. Up I go!"

Luffy grabbed his little rucksack of precious items and made sure it was secured across his back. Then he sucked in a massive breath, inflating his lungs and then his whole torso until he was rounder than he was tall. "Gum-Gum Balloon!" he declared, before pointing his head downwards and letting all his gathered air explosively out. He was propelled hundreds of feet straight up. When he ran out of air, he oriented himself to be upright as he hung in the air, gravity having not yet reclaimed its grasp of him.

Casual as you please and with an unconscious mutter of "Moonwalk," Luffy began to jump on thin air. He brought up one hand to tilt his beloved straw hat, borrowed and with every intention of returning it someday, to block the sun. He rotated clockwise slowly, scouring with his eyes for the faintest trace of civilization or some kind of shelter. He grinned when he spotted some kind of ship, actually heading towards the whirlpool's general direction beneath him. "Target acquired! Off I go!"

With no regard for the laws of physics he was making a mockery of, the rubber-man (or Nika-man rather) started to run on air over towards the ship he would apparently be stowing away on.