How did I end up in One Piece!?

Year 1509 Early September

13 years before canon starts

Small Island in East Blue

??? POV

The first thing I can notice as I wake up is my head throbbing and blood dripping down the left side of my face. I have no idea where I am. The only thing I can tell about my situation is that I am a young child on some kind of island. The only problem with that is that I recall being a twenty-seven year old daredevil about two minutes prior.

On Earth, I was an average guy to most people as I passed them on the street. I wasn't that tall, strong, or smart. You could say I was average in almost every regard except for my sense of danger. It was like I had a sixth sense for when something bad was gonna happen around me before it happened. I wasn't able to tell the future or anything psychic like that. I just knew when it was best to back out of a situation.

It has saved my life on quite a few occasions. From almost being hit by a truck as a kid to almost being struck by lightning as a teen, my sixth sense kept me alive. It got to the point that I got really cocky with it. I began to take way too many risks in my life betting on my 'Danger Sense' as I called it to save me.

It did however lead me to find some friends that would stay with me through all my shenanigans growing up with them as the closest thing I had to family. I thought we would be friends into our old ages and be together forever. But as we all got older, the group shrank and shrank as the others 'grew up' or 'had other responsibilities' which I knew was code for their significant others didn't want them to keep hanging out with the dude that risked his life on the near weekly doing stupid shit.

Honestly, I don't blame them. I had no kids, no wife or girlfriend, and definitely no relatives. I had nothing to lose if I didn't make it. I mean I did leave in my will all the money I made doing these dangerous stunts to the orphanage that raised me. It was the least I could do since I fully expected to die doing one of my stunts. What I didn't expect was to go against my better judgment and risk my life for someone else.

The day was like any other. I went out on my daily jog that I did to stay in reasonable enough shape that I could physically do the stunts I did while eating whatever I wanted. I took the same course I always did. OCD is a bitch if you don't follow it.

On the jog, I realized I needed to go to the store to pick up some new camping gear as I was going pretty deep into the mountains for my next stunt wingsuiting through the Devil's Knot. The Devil's Knot was an odd tree formation that formed some kind of tree ring just large enough for a go-kart to drive through. The only problem was that it was fifty feet in the air. My plan was to use a hot air balloon to go 150 feet in the air to get enough speed to glide through the Knot.

I patted my pockets as I entered the specialty shop I go to for my gear and realized I didn't have any cash on me. So I decided to get some from the bank across the street. I waited for the light to change to green because while I am a daredevil, I am not a big enough idiot to trust American drivers with paying attention to the road.

As the light was about to change, I got that feeling in the back of my neck when something was about to go tits up. I looked around and saw nothing. Nothing was up until I saw a soccer ball pass between my legs into the street. As if instinctively, I reached my hand out and caught the collar of a kid about to run into the street after said ball.

I thought the kid getting hit by a reckless driver was causing the feeling but it just kept getting worse and worse as I got to the bank. I waited outside of the bank in line since the bank hadn't changed their stupid Covid regulations back to normal yet. It wasn't until I heard it that I realized what I was being warned about.

I heard a tractor trailer blowing its horn like it couldn't stop. It took a moment to realize that the truck, in fact, couldn't stop because a front wheel popped off its axis and was heading straight for us as well. The world slowed down around me like whenever I was doing a stunt. I looked to see if there was an escape route for me.

I saw one but when I was about to take it, I saw out of the corner of my eye the same damn kid with who I assumed was his dad frozen in fear a foot or so away from me. I somehow knew the kid would be okay due to the height at which the wheel was flying would go cleanly over his head but his dad would die either way since his only escape path from the tire would put him directly in the truck's path.

Knowing what it was like to grow up without my parents, I slammed my full weight into them, sending them sliding across the pavement just out of the truck's path. It went against every self-preservation instinct I had. The tire connected with my arms that I brought up in a cross guard to brace for the impact, breaking both my forearms.

"That's going to delay my plans for a while." I thought as I went numb to the pain in my arms. As my arm dropped to my sides, the next thing I saw was the truck. "At least I ended my life with a good deed." was the last thought I had as the truck plowed right into me.

Moments later, a voice woke me from the all encompassing pain I felt and I saw an amorphous figure floating in an unending expanse of white. The figure said in a neutral but child-like tone "Finally you are awake. We don't have much time. Your next life wasn't supposed to start yet. I have a few choices for you to be sent to but you need to pick it soon."

The figure gestures its limb to a few pedestals with an item on each. The first pedestal had a fishing pole on it. The second had a baseball hat on it. The third and final pedestal and the strangest fruit I ever saw. It sort of looked like a Buddha's hand if I was being honest. The odd thing about it was that its base was black and white in a striped pattern while the six 'fingers' on it were gunmetal gray.

The figure said "Each choice will give you the adventure you sought after in your past life. Now choose wisely. Once the choice is made, you must live that life until its end." as he guided me to the pedestals with its body being much larger than a moment ago. I looked up at the figure and said "Which would be the hardest and which would be the easiest?"

The figure jostled its shoulders as if it was laughing and said "You should know after all." I walked up to the fishing pole and got no reaction from my 'danger sense'. Knowing I wanted to live an exciting life, I walked away from it. I went to the baseball hat and got no reaction again, so I made my way to the third one with the weird fruit on it.

The figure sighed and said "How did I know you would pick the most ridiculous one? Each world you would have gone to would have been dangerous but the sense of adventure seems to be highest in that world." as he gestured to the fruit. I touch the odd fruit and a flash of light blinds me.

That was the last thing I could remember before I woke up in the body of a child on what looked like a tropical island of sorts.

I look around trying to get my bearings in my 'new' body. I soon found a puddle to see what I look like now. I now have short blonde hair with dark blue almost navy colored eyes. I also now have a small slash-like scar over my left eye just stopping at my eyebrow.

"Huh, I kinda look like Lutz from Jormungand. At least I will be more handsome in this life than my last." I thought as I inspected my face. I felt around my body to inspect it as well. It appears like this body is well fed. "It seems like this body has someone taking care of it or the previous owner instinctively knew how to do so but I doubt the latter since I look around 6 or 7 years old." I continue to think as I gather up any info from my surroundings.

I see the weird fruit from the pedestal just a little bit off from where I woke up. I pick it up and the strangest thing yet happens. A series of letters appear in my vision over the fruit in my hands.

[Neko-Neko No Mi Model: Byakko]

[Mythical Zoan type Devil Fruit]

[True Potential: Unknown]

[Warning: Consuming this will remove any skill of swimming you possess and give you a major weakness to seawater among other things.]

"I PICKED A DEVIL FRUIT OF ALL THINGS." I shout in my head. I am both terrified and excited by the line of thought in my head. I was a casual fan of One Piece in my previous life. Enough to have read up to the most recent chapter being the end of the Wano arc but not enough to remember every character and their subplots.

"I could eat this fruit and get a quick power up so I could prepare for the future if the story hasn't already started. Oh god. I don't even know where I am in the world or the timeline. I could be somewhere in the void century for all I know." Panic begins to set in as I spiral into my thoughts.

I am shaken from my thoughts when I hear an old man yell out looking for someone. Panicking, I stuff the fruit in my mouth. You really can't describe how bad a Devil Fruit actually tastes. The best I can do is a bowl of cottage cheese that was left outside in over 100 degree Fahrenheit dry heat for a week to rot.

The man's voice gets clearer as I can hear him call out for someone named Hunter. Hearing that name a burst of information flows into my head. Hunter is my name in this world. Ronze D Hunter is my full name. The old man calling for me is my uncle Ronze Gaben. I don't know if he was my dad's brother or my mom's brother but he is the closest thing I have to a family in this world. Just to annoy him about his 'advanced' age I call him grandpa.

"There you are, brat. I've been calling ya for the last half hour. It's time for dinner." Gaben says as he hobbles into view. Ronze Gaben is a monster of a man by my old world's standard. He is roughly 6 ½ feet tall, well-built man with long formerly black faded to gray hair. His hair is tied in a bushy ponytail in the back, while two thin strands of hair fall over his face.

He is even more intimidating to a normal person with the massive burn scar that can be seen through his shirt that spans from his left side collarbone down to the bottom of his ribcage fully covering his left arm that he keeps bandaged up. The scar begins again at the top of his left hip down to the stump leg that has a prosthetic made of a cross between metal and wood keeping him up right. The pair of axes on his back don't give the illusion of non-threatening either.

Gaben looks down at me and sees a look of disgust on my face that he recognizes instantly. Gaben sighs and places his bandaged left hand on my shoulder while kneeling down to get as close to eye level as he could. He says, "What have I told you about eating strange foods, Hunter? Just because you haven't gotten sick from any of them doesn't mean you should eat anything you come across. Now tell me, what did you eat?"

I described to him the Devil Fruit I had eaten without saying that I knew it was a Devil Fruit. He plops onto the ground letting away the weight off his fake leg. He sighs even deeper than last time while bowing his head deeply as if in contemplation.

"I guess I am going to have to start your training sooner rather than later against my better judgment." Gaben says with a smirk on his face. He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a pair of round sunglasses that he puts on his face. "Let's head back home to have some dinner. We will begin your training tomorrow." he says as he stands up and puts me on his shoulders with his bandaged hand.

We returned to our home about 20 minutes later. Now that I look at our home from his height, it looks like a repurposed ship made into a cabin. Our dinner went on like normal from my memories. When he put me to bed, the bedtime story he told me was one of the adventures of the Pirate King Gol D Roger. I am really glad I am at least in the same time period as the story. He had died just about 2 years before I was born.

Like always after the bedtime story, I ask him "What do you remember about my parents, Gramps?". He shouts out "How many times do I gotta tell ya, kid? I ain't old enough to be either of your parents' parents!" He calms himself down and says good night. When Gaben kisses my forehead goodnight, the same phenomenon as with the fruit happens again. I was honestly not prepared for what it said.

[Scopper Gaban]

[Former 3rd in Command of the Roger Pirates]

At least my life won't be boring. Just like I always wanted.