A/N: yes, I am aware I'm skipping Syrup village and Usopp. I've tried for weeks to write a decent chapter but nothing ever happened with it. Kuro is not here in the timeline so there is absolutely no action to be had at syrup village. So let's just say Usopp got the item and a life lesson and then Carter left to go find Luffy.
————
Dawn island, the birthplace of the future king of the pirates. I arrived here just moments ago. It had taken a bit of time to get from the capital to Foosha village, but Justice and I enjoyed the walk.
Arriving in the village we received some strange stares because of justice but we brushed them off and made it straight for makino's bar. It was as good a place as any to find out where Dadan lived since the story didn't exactly give us a real location other than in the forest.
So, with justice deciding to wait outside the tavern I walked in. I ignored most of the people in the tavern and made a B-line for the bar itself after seeing the woman I was looking for washing a glass.
I approached the bar and sat at one for the open barstools. After a moment, Makino took notice of me and put down the glass to talk to me.
"Hello mister marine, what can I get for you?"
"Hello ma'am," I gave a polite greeting. "My name is Carter Davil. I'm one of Vice Admiral Garp's students. He asked me to check on his grandsons for him while I was passing through the east blue on my bounty hunt."
Her eyes widened briefly before she gave a small smile. "So you're here to see his grandsons huh? Luffy and Ace are staying with one of Garp's associates. She lives up the mountain, it's about a half-hours walk to her house, you can't miss it.
"Thank you very much for your time miss" I said as I placed a few hundred berri on the counter and left.
The flight on Justice's back took less than a few minutes and just as Makino said. Dadan's house was very clear to see. We touched down and knocked on the door. After a moment we heard rustling coming from the inside and then the door swung open to reveal the "Curly haired" Dadan herself.
"Who has the nerve to-!?" her shouting stopped abruptly when she noticed my Marine uniform. Immediately, her personality switched to the one she used around Garp. "Ah, a marine w-what can I do for you sir?"
"You don't have to worry, Miss Dadan. I was sent by Garp to check on his grandsons." I said amusedly. "Just tell me where they are and I'll get out of your hair."
"Oh, Those brats usually spend most of their time in the forest. They have a treehouse built that way." she said pointing into the forest. She still carried a bit of unease but hearing that Garp was the one that sent me seemed to relax her a bit. "You can probably find them there."
"Thank you, I'll be off then," I said before walking into the woods in the direction of the treehouse, Justice following close behind me.
I could sense her attempt to secretly follow me but I didn't mind. 'She Is just a mother concerned for her children after all.' I thought, remembering all the fond moments I had seen in the One Piece series. The woman liked to pretend that she felt nothing for the boys but she really loved and cared about them.
A few minutes later, I sensed two new presenses hiding in the foliage. It seemed like they wanted to ambush me but were wary of Justice.
'Go for a fly. I'll take care of this.' I sent Justice a mental message. No sooner did I send the message did she spread her four massive wings and launch into the sky.
I continued walking for a few moments before my two little attackers sprung their attack.
""Ha!"" the two shouted coming at me from both my sides. Little Luffy from my right and Ace from my left.
"Take this!" Ace swung his pipe towards my ribs.
"Gomu-gomu no Pistol!" Luffy's stretched back arm rocketed toward my head.
Neither of them noticed my face shift into a smirk. 'Adorable.'
In an instant Fuffy's punch was met by my open palm as I clamped my fingers around his fist with just enough strength so that he wouldn't be able to escape. My other hand intercepted Ace's pipe and it went upwards before the boy could let go. Before either boy knew it they collided with each other as I brought my hands together.
The two boys hit the ground with a resounding "Thud!" as they began to groan in pain. I was gentle but I used enough force to leave a few bruises.
"Yep, you two are definitely Garp's grandkids. No plan, just action. Recklessness must run in your blood." I said matter of factly.
The two boy's stiffened hearing my words before Ace spoke up, still clutching his side from where he had closed with Luffy. "You know the old man?" he asked with a bit of distrust on his face.
"Yes, I do. I'm Carter Davil, One of his students. Which makes me your senior! Show some respect, brat!" I demanded as I have the heir of the pirate king a chop on the head.
He winced in pain and then glared at me. By then Luffy had recovered as well. "Who're you calling a brat bastard!" he shouted but was quickly silenced when my fist met the top of his head.
"Ouch!" he cried as he clutched his head before he looked at me with wide eyes. "F-fist of love!? How can you do that!?"
I had to hold myself back from laughing. 'Garp you sly old man' my strike was not in fact the fist of love, I had just coated my hand in a thin layer of armament haki to counteract Luffy's devil fruit. As Oda had confirmed in my last life, Garp's fist of love was not haki but in fact something else entirely. But for now I'll allow the boys to believe I had the same power.
I hardened my expression and made a decision. "I can clearly see why Garp wanted me to check on you." I said as I grabbed the fourteen and eleven year olds by the heads, much to their protest. "C'mon I'm gonna teach you the importance of planning an attack, BEFORE you strike."
According to what I later heard from Dadan she could hear their screams of protest from her house. All I did was recite a few lines of the Art Of War...and a little bit of sparing.
'I've spent exactly three hours and twenty seven minutes here and I can already tell why literally no one took Luffy seriously after meeting him and I now know the exact reasons why Ace was such a dumbass.'
"It has become completely clear to me that neither of you have a functioning brain. Must be a trait D. families share." I said as I looked down on the two kid's battered forms from where I was standing on the branch of a tree. "Your brother must have been the brains behind your operation."
'Well that worked' I thought as the boys stiffeded for a split second before jumping up and glaring at me with eyes filled with rage.
"Bastard! You don't get to talk about Sabo!"
"Get down here so I can kick your ass!"
I stared blankly at them. "Wow, look at the two of you. Immediately challenging a man you know you can't beat just because he said something you didn't like." I said with a disappointed sigh.
"Garp said that you two said you wanted to be pirates right?" I said jumping down to their level.
The responses were: "that's right" from Ace and "I'm gonna be king of the pirates!" from Luffy.
"Well let me show you why jumping straight into things without thinking is a bad idea." I said with a devilish smile.
If the boys refuse to learn from physical attacks then I suppose I'll have to use mental attacks. Right before the boy's eyes I pulled the heads of Dero, Gasparde, and Chameleone from my inventory. The boy's eyes widened with horror at the sight of the severed heads.
Without missing a beat I continued with my mental assault. "Dero, 42 million berri bounty. Got arrogant and tried to intimidate me into surrendering without properly assessing threats. Gasparde 95 million berri bounty, believed his devil fruit would protect him from everything and made the same mistake. and Chameleone, 300 million berri bounty. Made the same mistake."
The boy's attention was now firmly on me as I placed the heads back into my inventory. "These were only a few of the pirates I've killed in the last month. They all made the same mistake. Attacking me head on with no planning and no caution. For pirates, arrogance and recklessness are a death sentence. Are you starting to understand?"
The two boys nodded slowly. I could tell they really did get it but I decided to put the last nail in the coffin with my next line. "Good. Now let me tell you something else. Your brother died because he made the same mistake."
Their heads snapped up at me but before they could get a word out I continued. "He attempted to sail away from dawn island at the same time a world noble was coming into port. If he had waited and observed the situation and had left later he would still be alive." my words shut them down before they could start and I could see they began to contemplate my words.
"Now ask ourselves. Would sabo want you to die because you were stupid and made the same mistake of not being prepared?"
The boys looked down and shook their heads. "He wouldn't." Ace muttered.
I smiled at this. 'Looks like that you can actually learn.'
"From this day forth, I'm taking up Sabo's role of the intelligent brother. Call me Aniki from now on."
My new little brother's heads shot up in indignation. "Now hold on! Whoever said anything about you being our new brother!?" Ace shouted.
"Yeah who put you in charge-!?" Luffy joined him.
They both let out a yelp as they were both met with my fists coming down onto their heads. "I'm your new brother because I say so! Now! It's time for training! Unlike Garp I can see you wont give up on this pirate business so i'm at least gonna make you prepared for it! Now give me a thousand laps around the forest!"
"Why should we huh-" Ace's cry of protest was cut off the moment my haki-clad fist slammed into the tree behind him, reducing it to splinters.
"You'll run because if you don't I'll beat you halfway to death!" I shouted, mimicking Garp as well as I could.
———
Later that night, after thoroughly exhausting my new brothers with training I sat on a tree branch looking with satisfaction at the blue window that had popped up.
[Notice: task completed. Defying fate:
-Change the future of all five original members of the strawhat crew. (5/5)
Rewards: 2x Tier 4 item boxes, otherworldly item token, specific low grade otherworldly skill token, 5.0 free attribute points]
Quest progress: Defying all fates
-Change the future of all members of the strawhats (5/11), change the future of Ten key figures related to the strawhats (antagonist or allies) (3/20)]
I smiled widely at the results until another message came in.
[Notice: System update beginning. Stats will be recalibrated back to humans from Ancient Giant. All system functions aside from inventory will be unavailable for the next 3 days.
compensation: unique item.]
"Wait, what!?"