Chapter 8: Invitation

"Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love." -George Eliot.

Lee glanced at the golds and Jewelry about 10,000,000 Beris in the beg, without even looking at the content, he tossed into space and disappeared. Over the past few days spending with Nami, not only he savored his time with her but also advanced some of his abilities. One of them was his *Space* ability which he was able to create storage as large as a trailer container. At first, it was small, but with practice, he was able to make it much larger quickly. It was easier than he thought when he tried it. He imagined a mirror box as a container, but invisible.

Instead of making breakfast like he usually did, he walked up to the deck to enjoy the daybreak on the horizon. It seemed like Nami left with her boat early in the morning. Even though Lee knew her situation, he was pained that she didn't trust him enough to ask for his help.

He tried to organize all negative thoughts that came through his mind. At first, it was his first crush to whom he was never able to tell his feelings to. Second, he found another girl he loved and finally was able to tell a girl his feelings, but she shot him down like it was nothing. Third, another girl came along who didn't keep her promise. That was why, even though his relationship with Whitney Butler was closed, he didn't take the last step with her.

Nami was an accident, but he loves her, even now, he won't want to throw that feeling that he had for her away. It just came as a shock to him that he was in disorder. He sat on the desk watching sunup slowly until it reached its zenith, then slowly moved down toward the horizon again.

Just like a philosopher, Ai said, ('Relationships are like the sun. It rises up in the morning and sets on the horizon. Through the whole process, it could be a rainy day that blocks out the sun's brilliant, doesn't even let a ray of sunshine down. On another day, the sun would still persist, able to shine down and spread its love to the world again')

Ai continued, ('You should know by now, things such as relationships are short lived. There are lots of fishes in the water, you shouldn't limit yourself to one.')

Lee didn't respond to her, he just sat there without hearing what she was saying. She continued on and on about what she said. If she was a real person, she would have become a philosopher. When the nightfall, the day lit up again.

Not often but from time to time, some commercial ships and pirates' ships passed by but none of them stopped to look at his ship because it was deserted as a ghost ship. Moreover, there were holes and other broken stuff everywhere on the ship because of the fight Lee had with pirates.

Of course, there was some exception.

('Headup, a pirates ship approaching your location. You should expect to see this.') Ai's voice sounded in his head.

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The ship where Lee stayed at, another ship slowly approaching it. The ship was smaller than the one he was on. On the sail, there was a skull with crossbones similar to what he saw Buggy flag, instead of a red nose, it had a yellow straw hat on it. Same for the black flag at the top. For the bowsprit, it replaced it with a white sheep head structure with two horns twisted in a curve circle shape. Underneath it, they had a cannon hole with a large cannon placed there.

On the newly approached ship, there were three men there. One with a straw hat just like they had on the flag, with a red jacket and blue jeans that cut off at the leg area. The guy had a scar under his left eye, with black hair and eyes. He was skinny in both arms and legs with a large grin on his face. Another guy was a slim tan-skinned teenager with medium-length black woolly hair, prominent lips, and a long nose. He wore an olive green plaid bandanna, a blue and white striped armband on his left arm. As for the last guy, he was a muscular man of average height with lightly tanned skin. He carried three swords along with him, bundled up with a green haramaki over his right hip, which is not natural for swordsman. He had green hair with white-T, and dark green pants.

One of them with the straw hat saw the ship where Lee stayed, he stretched his arms really long and grabbed on the armguard of the ship. Then he lashed himself up on top of the ship and landed on the deck.

"Luffy, where are you going! You know the ship really might be a ghost ship", the guy with the long nose shouted behind him on the deck of their ship in a shaking voice. As for the guy with the green hair, instead of waiting for Luffy to reply back, he followed after him by jumping up to land on the other ship. The guy with the long nose had no choice but to also follow them as he climbed up the ropes on the side of the ship.

When he got up and finally landed on the deck, he saw both Luffy and Zoro studying a guy who was sitting there appeared to not move for a long time.

'Ghost!' That was the first thought that came to Usopp's mind.

"What are you doing here?" Luffy asked the man who had been sitting there without moving even though he noticed them.

There was silence when Luffy was waiting for Lee to reply to him.

Luffy stretched out his arm grabbed Lee shoulder and asked,

"Oi, are you alright?"

Instead of expecting the person to turn around, he instead fell down on the deck.

"Ghost!", Usopp screamed from behind. But as for Zoro, he just watches without saying anything.

"Oi, what's going on with him?" Luffy shouted with worry, then looked at the book Zoro and Usopp who was standing there in the distance.

Zoro answered, "He's just hungry. Give him something to eat and he will be fine." It happened to Zoro a lot of time, so he knew about Lee's situation.

As Lee was sitting there for a long time thinking about his relationship and how to help Nami with her situation, by the time he knew it he was so hungry that he couldn't move anymore. Even though he had space storage, he didn't put any food in there yet. Luckily, the Strawhat crew showed up.

After he was able to get some food, he felt alive again and thanked Luffy and others.

"Don't worry. My name is Luffy. I am going to be the Pirates' King when I find One Piece. Here is Usopp and there is Zoro. What is yours?" Luffy asked like it was nothing when he declared to be a pirates' king.

Lee answered them since he was grateful for their help.

"...Lee, you can call me Lee." He said.

"What were you doing on that ship", Usopp asked. Even though Lee looked younger than them, they thought he might be a pirate too just like them.

"I..." When Lee about to answer their questions until Zoro cut in,

"Luffy we have company." when they heard that, they saw two Marines' ships approaching them.

One ship covered the left while the other was blocking the front because the right-wing was connected with the ship Lee was on.

From the Marines' ship parallel to them, a tall, muscular man with blonde mullet, a white coast on his back that had Justice word on it stood in front of the other Marines.

"You punks think you are so great, Dare to put up a pirate flag in my sea? I, Topaz, wouldn't tolerate this! Men, capture them!"

When the people on the Strawhat side saw that, Luffy was the first one to react.

"Gomu Gomu no Pistol!" When Luffy yelled out his move, he pushed out with his arm stretched out. The Marines who were hit by his fist fell into the water or blew back as they tried to make their way onto their ship.

"Gomu Gomu no Bazooka!!!", Luffy used more of his moves.

As for Zoro, he took out two of his swords only as those Marines were weakling. He cut them with the back of his swords one at a time when they made their way across.

Usopp who was the weakest of them stood behind Luffy and Zoro while shooting the Marines with his slingshot. At the time he didn't have sniper goggles yet as he just leaves his journey from his hometown in Srupp village.

While they were fighting, Lee who was also behind them didn't support them because he knew they were strong enough to take care of the Marines. But they forgot about the ship that cut off their path at the front. The captain of the Marine of that ship saw that it was the opportunity since the other ship Marines seemed to struggle to enter the pirate's ship.

The marine captain ordered his crew to load cannonball into the cannon. While they were doing that, Lee also noticed their action. Instead of telling Luffy and Zoro, he decided to assist out.

Lee took a cannonball from the ship where they held the cannon. He coasted his right arm with *Darkness* then slowly the cannonball turned red as he used *Flame*.

"*Wooop!*" a sound heard before "*Boooom!!!" sounded.

The Mariner's ship that in front of Strawhat's ship, their ship had a large hole at the bow as slowly the water was rushing in. It disturbed them while shaking so they did not able to shoot their cannon.

Luffy, Zoro, Usopp as well as the Marines they were fighting were really surprised as their jaws dropped to the ground. Lee caught another cannonball in his hand and performed the same thing, but this time, he jumped up and launched at the middle of the ship on the deck. When they heard another "*Boooom!!!" sound, the Marines ship sank into the water quicker. Many of them start jumping off from their ship and try to get onto the ship that Luffy and others were fighting with. Before long, the ship completely submerged under the water.

Captain Topaz saw what was going on, he decided to recall all his marines and retreat. He was a newly appointed captain, with this battle he surely will be demoted back to vice-captain rank again. He thought at least nobody died from the battle.

When Luffy and others understood they were retreating, they also decided to stop. Luffy only wanted to be a pirate king. As for Zoro and Usopp, they wanted to be the strongest swordsman and brave warrior of the sea. Fighting Marines were only to get out of their situation so as to not be arrested. They don't have a deep grudge for Marines, so they let them go.

When Luffy witnessed what Lee did, he was really thrilled. Zoro and Usopp are also interested in what Lee did too.

"What was that? What did you just do? Are you a devil fruit eater like me? I ate a Gomu Gomu no mi fruit and became a rubber man. What about you?" Luffy continued asking questions one after another.

"Yeah. Yeah, what is your devil fruit." Usopp also asked.

"It's not a devil fruit. It's something I learn from my hometown as I can still swim." He gave them his answer. Well technically yeah, the power he had was through his creation of demonic soup from his own world.

"You are really strong! Wanna join my crew?" Luffy invited Lee to join his crew.

Zoro who was behind them asked to confirm, "Luffy, are you sure about this? Can we trust him?"

Noticing Zoro doubt, Luffy said with a large smile on his face,

"It's okay Zoro, you worry too much. I trust him!" Luffy said firmly after that while given Lee his hand.

"Yeah, Join us," Usopp also chipped in from the side.

Lee on the other hand was thinking about what he should do when he suddenly heard Ai's voice in his head.

('Join them. Since you changed the timeline, you can ask them to help you with Nami situation like the original canon.')

Lee really didn't feel good about joining them for his own reason as these guys are really good guys. They even gave him food. But Lee decided.

"I can join you guys, but I need to go help my woman first, so can you guys wait for me?" Lee accepted their invitation while given them his reason. The main reason was he thought Nami might be pregnant with his child because they spent a lot of time together. Then Lee returned Luffy's hand.

"We can help you. Where is it at?" Luffy said with "hehe he" in his laugh. As both of them shook hands with each other.

"Cocoyasi village on Conomi Island," Lee replied.