Chapter 2: Monkey D. Luffy

Dante found himself in front of a small pub, a sign hanging above the door indicated its name: PARTYS BAR.

Inside the bar, a symphony of voices echoed with laughter and the sound of scuffles. Everything seemed kind of familiar to Dante yet he couldn't pinpoint what exactly was giving him that feeling. 

Not having any better destination, Dante entered the pub locking gazes with a couple dozen scruffy-looking men. They all had bottles of beer, wine, and liquor in hand, their faces flushed red from the excessive alcohol.

It was then that Dante realized where and most importantly, when he was in the One Piece timeline.

'I'm in Foosha Village, and Luffy is about to eat his Hito Hito no mi!' Dante was drowning in his own thoughts witnessing the red-haired man sitting right next to a little boy with a fresh scar underneath his left eye.

'That's Shanks…'

Dante strolled toward the counter where a green-haired girl cleaned several glasses. She smiled amiably at the newcomer while greeting him.

"Hi, can I have a beer please?" Dante ordered a simple drink not wanting to rise suspicion by entering the bar without ordering something. He sat down next to the small black-haired boy who looked at him with intense curiosity.

"Hey, you? Who are you?!" The boy asked nearly exploding from excitement. He clearly lacked social contact and didn't have any social skills at all.

Dante smiled in response.

"I'm Dante, a… wanderer" Shanks, sitting next to Luffy didn't miss the small pause during his introduction. A questioning light shone, hidden deep inside his plain, black eyes."

Luffy turned around to face Shanks to ask him something with a confused expression.

"What's a wanderer?"

Shanks gave a hearty laugh making the rest of his crew join him and resume the party.

"It's an adventurer who seeks to see the world!"

"Ohh! So a pirate, then!" Luffy nodded, proud to have understood the meaning of the unknown word. Dante and Shanks locked eyes for a moment before chuckling.

"Sure, let's go with that." Dante had no intention of explaining to a kid the difference between a pirate and an adventurer, especially since he knew that Luffy had a vastly different description of what a pirate was.

By the time Shanks and Luffy warmed up to Dante with Luffy telling him all about Shanks' adventures on sea, Makino arrived with a glass of beer putting it on the counter in front of Dante.

He thanked the barmaid and continued chatting with the little kid and the red-haired future emperor.

Suddenly the door to the bar flew open. One of the hinges broke and the wooden door flew across the room landing on the floor in front of Dante.

A tall, tan-skinned man with black hair, a black goatee, and an x-shaped scar above his right eye entered the bar followed by his numerous goons. The man approached the barmaid, Makino, and tried ordering some drinks for his men, unfortunately, the pirates had drunk the stock dry and Dante had ordered the last beer they had.

"Sorry for that, better luck next time though." Dante winked at the bandit leader, pissing him off even more.

"What do you take me for? I'm a wanted man, you know? Is your life worth so little that you dare make fun of me?" The bandit leader pulled out his own wanted poster stating the 8 million berry bounty put on his head.

"Watch yourself or I'll slaughter all of you, you fools!"

Luffy looked stunned at the bandit, while the pirates weren't even bothered by his presence. Shanks watched from the sideline while Dante failed to not laugh in his face.

"Pff… Hahaha!" Dante's laugh echoed across the room, the tension nearly crushing Makino who didn't want the stranger to die inside her bar.

The bandits approached Dante while the pirates studied the situation, each of them was prepared to pick up their weapons in a second if push came to shove.

Yet Dante quickly regained his composure, waving the bandit leader off.

"Ah, sorry about that…" Dante bowed, apologizing for his sudden outburst of laughter. He turned towards the child sitting next to him and tried teaching him.

"You see, it's not proper to laugh in someone's face like that! That's why you should always apologize after doing it! It's basic courtesy!"

The boy nodded furiously, noting Dante's explanation of manners as something everyone should do.

"Don't teach the kid weird manners!" Makino nagged at Dante while Shanks broke out in laughter followed by the rest of his crew.

"I like the new guy!"

"He's right, though!"

"Didn't the captain do something similar last time?"

The pirates all laughed and shouted creating a chaotic atmosphere inside the bar, drowning the mountain bandit's presence. 

Dante, Luffy, Makino, and Shanks were so focused on their conversation about manners, that all of them forgot about the bandit leader for a moment. That was until he unsheathed his sword and tried swinging it at Dante.

Luffy jumped up, surprised by the sudden attack while Shanks readied himself to intervene yet the sword never reached Dante's head. Before he could follow through with the attack, Higuma stopped. His expression shifted to that of someone who forgot about what he was thinking about.

"What…? Why did I unsheathe my sword?"

A playful smirk danced around Dante's mouth as he answered the confused bandit.

"I don't know, maybe to cut some cheese for your friends over there?"

"Boss?" The bandits were even more confused than Higuma, they couldn't even remember why they were in the bar in the first place.

"Cheese…?" Before Higuma could once again become furious at Dante's provocations, Dante led the conversation elsewhere.

"Oh right! I think you were just leaving! Right, Luffy?" Dante looked over at the boy and gave him a wink. The boy looked in confusion at Dante.

"What are you talking about? He tried attacking you!"

"What…? I…" 

Dante facepalmed, he forgot about Luffy's inability to lie and his incredible brain capacity that allowed him to not understand sarcasm.

"Whatever." Dante was bored by the situation and flicked his wrist with slight annoyance. An ethereal door appeared in the center of the bar, the door was decorated with a strange symbol depicting numerous illusory doors covered with layers upon layers of more doors. 

The door opened revealing a myriad of stars hidden behind it showcasing the vastness of the cosmos. With another flick, a strong current of wind picked the bandits up pushing them all into the strange door.

In an instant, the bandits all vanished behind it and the door disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared together with all the uninvited guests.

"Finally, some quiet" Dante sighed and took a big gulp of his beer.

Everyone inside the bar looked at Dante with a mix of horror and excitement. The first to break the silence was Luffy.

"Wow!! What was that?! Where did they go?! Are you a magician?!" The boy bombarded Dante with question after question.

"Respectively, a door, to the nearest marine outpost, and kind of?"

Shanks observed Dante, not sure what to think about the odd stranger in front of him.

"You're not ordinary are you, Dante?" Shanks' somber and serious tone quieted down the rest of his pirates while Dante locked eyes with the pirate captain, a small smile as if mocking the situation tugged at his face.

"Neither are you, Red Hair." 

"Why is someone like you in the East Blue?" Shanks had felt from the beginning that Dante wasn't simple but it was his display of power that had increased his wariness. 

"Well, fate brought me here. I've yet to find out why, though."

"Fate?" Shanks was a firm believer of fate yet hearing someone else speaking casually about it irked him. 

The sound of loud munching interrupted the stand-off between the two powerhouses as both of them looked to the side watching the scene of Luffy eating a purple fruit with a swirly pattern.

"Luffy! What have you done!! Spit that out!!" Shanks jumped up from his seat grabbing Luffy by his feet and turning him around. He tried everything to get him to throw up the fruit but in the end, the young child became a devil fruit user.

"Damn it, that's your fault!" Shanks shouted towards the counter yet nobody was there.

"Huh? Where did Dante go?" The rest of the pirates looked towards the seat where the mysterious stranger had been sitting yet not a single trace of him was left. The only proof that he had truly been real was the empty glass standing on the counter with a small piece of paper next to it.

Makino picked it up reading the text written on it out loud.

"Thank you for the beer. As compensation, I grant you one wish! Think carefully and once you've decided recite the following prayer:

Lord of Mysteries;

Beacon of Destiny;

Embodiment of Sefirah Castle;

I implore you to grant my wish."