“AAAHHHH!!”

“Hey hey, aren’t we already good? We only asked you for 500 berries.”

Crack Crack

The man said while his foot stomped repeatedly.

“NO PLEASE STOP! AHHH!”

The boy screamed for them to stop in pain but did not move his hands away.

Once he did, these gangsters would only do worse.

“Hey hey, we’re not devils, so how about you pay us tomorrow, deal? I even helped you with a handicap, people should pity you more, right?”

The gangster said with a condescending smile the goons around him laughed.

Without waiting for the boy to agree, the gangster along with his goons walked away.

“Hey boss, wouldn’t this kid die with his injury?”

One of the goons asked with concern.

 “Hee, new guy right? If he dies he dies, there are a bunch of them anyway.”

The gangster said with a smile, thinking it was normal.

“Remember, the weak fall prey to the strong, right now we are the strong.”

The goon nodded but still looked concerned, the gangster boss shook his head.

These types of people will only soon lose their innocence after tasting the benefits.

“Weak fall prey to the strong.”

The young boy repeated with gritted teeth, his body shaking from either pain or anger.

But one thing was true, his hands were now useless, countless bones broke, and even if they healed, the sequelae would probably make his hands half disabled.

“This damned world!”

The boy cussed with tears, he had a normal life, and as average as his life was, he was still a happy person.

But a friend of his went crazy and he tried to help, what he didn’t expect was that his friend hid a gun, it was already too late when he noticed.

When he woke up, he was surprised, his body changed, and a chaotic mix of memories occupied his head.

His name was Jaeger Allan and was born on this island known as Apple Island, his parents were killed by pirates who pillaged the whole village.

His home was burnt to the ground and he lost everything, he was too young to work so he swam in the sea of garbage for anything edible and begged on the streets for money.

But competition was great, many young and old beggars roamed the street scouring garbage areas and begging for money, and he became one of them.

The gangsters who prey on the weak would roam around forcing beggars to spit out their hard-earned money.

Many beggars, young and old die in the streets, and for those who die, the town guards would clean up the next day.

Although hard, Allan accepted his new identity, it was an easy process because of the memories he accepted.

At first, Allan thought he could do well in this new world, after all, he was from modern times, but no matter how hard he tried, no one would accept a ten-year-old boy as their worker, not to mention an emaciated boy.

So Allan could only find food in garbage bins while begging for money, but the gangsters he often evaded, found him one day, he looked around only to see other children look at him with pleasure.

He was sold out, the other beggars knew he was able to earn more and even save some money.

On the virtue of him being an adult in mind, Allan did perform better, he just didn’t expect people in similar circumstances would betray him.

He was beaten till he passed out, his savings were robbed, and he was back to an even worse start, the gangsters wanted to kill him, but the smarter gangster, the one who broke his arms thought otherwise.

“Let him live and beg for more money.”

He remembered such words of derision unironically saved his life.

It took him a while to recover, and with a weaker body, his earnings plummeted, and the gangsters started harassing him more, the gangster leader was smart but only to an extent, he didn’t give Allan time to recover before extorting him again.

And so came the time when Allan couldn’t even earn enough to pay.

Allan could have chosen to be a thief but couldn’t bring himself to do so in the end.

Looking at his broken arms, Allan hated his weakness.

The smart gangster might be evil, but the smart gangster understood the law of the jungle, the weak fall prey to the strong.

It was a simple principle.

Allan was weak, the gangster was strong.

So by default, he was prey.

He limped away towards the streets, behind the shops were garbage bins, the gangsters were rampant lately so there were fewer and fewer of Allan’s kind, after all, it wasn’t every day that pirates invaded.

Hence, the village people who ignored the orphan and beggar’s plight became victims of extortion.

The gangster’s way of thinking was simple since there were fewer beggars in the street.

Make more while extorting money.

The port was the hotspot for beggars since people from other islands were more generous, not to mention the people on the island knew about the gangster’s activities and were reluctant to give the beggars money.

Allan didn’t go to the port but walked towards the local grocery store.

The store owner was one of the kindest people in the whole Apple Island, he would leave soon-to-be rotten fruits on a wooden box behind the grocery store never interacting with the village beggars to avoid being implicated.

Allan was the first to discover this when he noticed the small wooden box, knowing this secret, he never shared it with anybody, especially after the betrayal.

The people in the village saw Allan with broken arms and looked at him with pity before avoiding him like the plague, he didn’t blame these people for their behavior, everyone had people important to them.

If the result of them helping him was being harassed by gangsters, then avoiding him would be the right choice.

But their avoidance also made Allan sadder.

Weren’t there a lot of good people in this world?

With berries as currency, birds that deliver newspapers, and memories from his predecessor, Allan had already known where he currently was, rather, which world he was in.

One Piece.

A famous anime of which he was a fan, but the things he didn’t bother to think of in the past were now laid in front of his eyes, One Piece world was never a good world, he knew that just from the experience of the many crews in the Straw Hat Pirates, but with Luffy, the issue was never that obvious.

Was Luffy a good person?

This question alluded to Allan for a long time after traveling to this world.

His goal in life was to be a pirate king without acting like a pirate would, he did good things in the name of pirates, but why not an adventurer instead of a pirate? Just with the reputation of his grandfather as a marine hero, the Marines would probably be happy enough to consider Luffy an adventurer.

Of course, knowing Luffy had an original dream, becoming a pirate king was probably just a means to an end, the end being his unknown dream.

As for Luffy releasing the prisoners in Impel Down, that was definitely an oversight on his part, but he in that situation almost died multiple times and Emporio Ivankov, the Newkama Queen, used his hormone fruit ability to sacrifice 10 years of Luffy’s life for a meager chance of survival.

Would Luffy even care about the other escapees? The only ones he really chose to release were Jinbe and Crocodile, so the only evil he chose to release back then was Crocodile and his crew, as for the others, they only took advantage of the situation, but will Crocodile be whitewashed like the other characters?

Allan hopes not, this person indirectly killed millions in Arabasta by creating an artificial drought and encouraging rebellion.

As for Jinbe, if his letting Arlong and his crew go to the East Blue was counted as evil, then he couldn’t be considered a good man or fishman, after all, didn’t he expect what would happen when fishmen laced with a superiority complex and hatred would do to normal people?

Of course, even if Luffy considered himself an adventurer instead of a pirate, with how much of a troublemaker he was, he would still end up with a bounty.

But that being said, it had nothing to do with the current Allan, right now he didn’t even know if he’ll be able to live for a few more days.

The One Piece world was full of darkness and death, if Allan had a choice, this world would be one of the last of his choices or outright excluded.

But one thing had to be said, the physique in the One Piece world was excellent.

Even though Allan thought his arms would be disabled, this also shows that he expects his arms would heal even without proper medication.

If he could afford to find a doctor on the island, his hands might even fully heal, but without any money on him, the doctors would never treat him, not every place had characters like Chopper.

Finally arriving at his destination, Allan stopped.

Looking at the garbage bags and bins in front of him and his broken arms, Allan walked towards the box where the grocery owner placed the none-rotten leftover fruit.

After pushing the box open with his foot, Allan kneeled down and started munching, most of the time he would divvy up the fruits for later consumption, but his weak body needed nourishment so he decided to eat everything except one rotten-looking fruit.

Feeling his body being satiated, he could finally take a nap, his tired body was screaming for rest, and now that he was full, he could finally close his eyes.

His body slumped down without a care in the world, with the earth as his bed and the sky as his blanket, Allan fell into a deep slumber.

Waking up, Allan felt pain from his broken arms, his arms had become dangerously swollen, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Stopping the urge to cry, the hardships he had undergone, and his past life problems seemed like heaven compared to his current hell.

But like a broken dam, his tears gushed out like a river.

The stress and pain made him want to shout.

Many times he thought of killing himself, but he resisted, life was precious, and even this damned second life was as precious as his first.

After a hefty cry, Allan looked at his wet shirt with a wry smile, his eyes followed the wetness and finally saw what he thought was rotten fruit.

“This is!”

The fruit was pitch black with six big and long swirls with smaller gray swirls, the oval fruit made Allan gulp.

“Devil fruit!!”

The treasure of the sea, devil fruit, even the cheapest one could sell for 100 million berries, but to Allan who was weak, not to mention 100 million berries, even 1,000 berries meant disaster.

The devil fruit in front of him was a chance, a chance for growth and power, although Allan was never a vengeful person, he’d also never encountered such suffering, now that a chance was in front of him, he did not hesitate to devour the whole fruit.

Maybe it was the taste or relief, but tears started to fall from Allan’s eyes.

Munch Munch Munch

Allan savored what could only be described as shit-flavored fruit, but this short suffering meant liberation so he swallowed happily.

Regretting the fact that he could only eat one, but also happy that he could only eat one, Allan tried to feel his body change.

He also felt a type of will appear inside his body, according to what he knew, if he was not strong enough, this will might override his.

“Ahhhh”

He couldn’t help but moan in delight, he could only describe that his body had become strong and resilient.

His body started to transform but Allan immediately transformed back when he realized what his devil fruit was.

“Zoan-type Insect-Insect Fruit Model Flea!”

Allan said in surprise.

“Ehhh!”

He was a flea?!

 “This… is really unexpected.”

Allan said while scratching his head.

“My arms!!”

Looking at his healed arms, Allan suddenly didn’t mind that he was a flea.

So what if he was a flea?

Ancient and Mythical Zoan fruits were rare and few, but from what he felt in his body, the bonus he received was not at all small.

“Hahahahahahah!!”

Feeling his strong and resilient body, especially his legs, Allan couldn’t help but laugh happily, the worries and fears that he had suddenly felt insignificant.

And he felt like he was reborn.