And we’ve begun.
Chapter one, the beginning of the adventure. The first cover of the series, it’s a little unusual. Worth mentioning is that Nami shows up here, long before Zoro does. This is also a scene that could never actually happen in canon, as neither (non-child) Luffy nor Nami ever spend time with Shanks’s crew.
Also, I’ve said it before and will say it again, Romance Dawn is an incredible name for a first chapter.
AU: Red-Hair Pirate Luffy
As a child, Luffy begged Shanks time and time again to join his crew and be a pirate. In this world, he somehow succeeded.
Exactly how this happened is hard to say, but Shanks didn’t lose his arm and did change his mind, and decided to bring a seven-year-old to sea. For some reason.
Luffy ends up raised as a pirate, and if you thought he was a wild child before, you’ve got no idea.
He’s basically copying Shanks’s role on the Oro Jackson, cabin boy, feral brat and occasional hatstand, except much more likely to randomly run off into the woods and have to be rescued.
He has a ship full of dads now. When he finally meets Usopp, they’re gonna be brothers.
If he meets Usopp, that is.
He’s still going to take off on his own at some point, but for now, he’s more or less okay as is. He already has his freedom, after all.
Nami never meant to get involved with pirates any more than absolutely necessary. She’ll rob the hell out of them, but still can’t stand them.
When she runs into a famous Grand Line crew out in the East Blue on vacation, currently drinking themselves into a stupor on some island, she gets overconfident and figures they’ll be easy targets.
They’re friendly enough when she asks to join them, and she settles in to play the long con.
When she gets to talking to the one member of the crew that’s her own age, she doesn’t expect to like him so much.
She didn’t expect to start feeling like, maybe, robbing this crew would be regrettable.
She has no idea yet how long she’s going to end up staying with them.