Ch 1 Flash-bang

"Awesome, a new chapter of One Piece is out" I exclaimed as rain splattered against my window.

"I saw it first dude" my friend Bart said over discord.

I looked around my dark bedroom and admired my one piece merchandise collection, posters on the walls and figurines on my shelves and even a cardboard cutout of post time skip Nami.

"Guys just mute yourselves so we can read it in peace" my other friend Charlie said.

"No way I'm live streaming our reaction to this chapter we are going to be famous" shouted Bart.

"Dude your stream only has 4 viewers and 3 of those are us" I said laughing at him.

"You're just jealous I thought of this first" he said

Charlie cut in and told us "Guys just stop arguing and start reading I'm already 5 pages in"

I listened to him and started reading but was surprised by a flash of light and sound of thunder outside.

"Woah"

"What dude" Bart exclaimed.

"Nothing lightning just hit really close to my house"

Bart laughed, saying something about divine retribution.

I turned my attention back to my monitor and admired the cover page but as soon as I scrolled down a white light filled my vision and a thunderous bang hit my ears.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

I fell out of my chair onto my carpet. It takes a second for my vision to correct itself, only my room looks different, it's brighter and all my sweet one piece merch is gone.

I've been robbed even my Nami cutout, gone.

It's only then that I realize that it's brighter in my room because the storm outside is gone, only a sunny sky in its place, I then hear noise coming from my fallen headset.

I bring the headset to my ear.

"LEO!!!"

"LLLLLEEEEEOOOOO!!!!!"

"ARE YOU OK DID YOU FALL"

"SCREW THIS I'M CALLING 911 WHAT'S HIS ADDRESS"

The guys were screaming for me. It's nice to see they care.

"Guys I'm fine but things are really weird I think I got hit by a flash-bang then someone stole all my one piece merch and the storm outside suddenly disappeared," I quickly rattled off completely out of breath.

"I think he got a concussion talking about a storm disappearing, maybe the flash bang was when he hit his head" explained Charlie.

"What are you talking about? One piece merch the game isn't out yet nobody even knows what it is about" said Bart.

"No, what are you talking about, one piece game ?" I asked

"Damn you really must have hit your head, One piece online the first ever full dive VR game we were just about to watch the trailer together" explained Bart.

"Anyway, are you really ok ?" asked Charlie.

"Ya I'm fine" I said but really my mind was racing, how could they have never heard of one piece we were just reading it, does this have something to do with that flash of light and the storm?

While Bart made jokes to his streamer audience of one, his stream is now titled One piece online trailer reaction instead of one piece manga review. I searched google for any mention of one piece anime or manga finding nothing but news and hype for the upcoming game.

I then searched for characters like Luffy, Zoro, Nami, straw hat pirates, Doflamingo, and Law, but nothing related to one piece came up for any of them.

And did Bart say VR full dive? that wasn't even close to being invented the closest was the HTC Vive and stuff.

"Guys it's starting!" squealed Bart.

I went back to the One piece online website to see a video with a countdown of 12 seconds left.

When the time was up the screen went dark.

As the screen brightens up we open on a scrolling ocean as the camera pans up we see an island with a populated town.

The camera travels forward to the port of the town as the camera begins to travel down the streets. I notice that the people in the town also seem to be hurrying in the same direction as the camera.

Soon the camera comes into a packed square in the center of town on top of a platform in the center of the square kneeled a man in a red coat with a luscious black mustache and grand smile.

To either side of him stood marines with spears and instantly I knew it was Gol D roger king of the pirates but in realist 3d graphics.

"Gold roger king of the pirates attained everything the world had to offer" a voice said in narration.

The marine leading the execution announced "Gold roger you are to be executed do you have any last words?"

Gol D Roger smiled I found myself smiling along with him

"You want my treasure, you can have it, I gathered everything together in One piece, now you just have to find it" he shouted.

The scene suddenly became chaotic. The marines quickly stabbed Roger but it was too late people were already rushing off to become pirates and Roger smiled to the end.

The narration picked up again "His words drove countless souls to the sea in the promise of treasure and glory starting the great pirate era."

All I could think was this is real, this is happening.

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That starts my One piece online story. The game will start 5 years before Luffy's story from the anime starts.

My spin on the mc has future knowledge of a videogame story

He doesn't actually know how the game works or has any knowledge of the future irl, only how the world and power systems of one piece work which is a huge advantage

It's sort of like that movie Yesterday

His friend characters will be eventual team members but I plan to have the mc solo travel for a bit before starting a crew

Also, there will be no game money to real currency transfer. The game is just for fun and for internet fame.