The last thing Sol remembered was the screech of tires and the blinding flash of headlights. He didn't even have time to be scared. He just thought, Well, that's a wrap, and then—darkness.
He expected hell. Or maybe heaven. Or at the very least, a shimmering "Game Over" screen.
Instead, he got a crib.
He spent the first six months of his new life screaming, pooping, and staring at a wooden ceiling that looked like it was built before safety regulations were invented. It was humiliating. He was a grown man trapped in a body with zero motor control. But as his blurry vision cleared and his chubby legs started working, he realized two things:
One: He wasn't on Earth anymore. The birds outside the window were too colorful, and the trees were too big. Two: He was incredibly bored.
His new parents were nice enough. His dad was a lumberjack with forearms the size of ham hocks, and his mom was a baker who smelled like yeast and affection. They lived in Shimotsuki Village—a peaceful, dozy little place in the East Blue.
For three years, Sol lived in a state of confused blissful ignorance. He was just a kid named Sol who liked to run into walls and bite things.
Then came the day he went to the market with his mom.
Sol, now three years old and steady on his feet, was waddling toward a fruit stand when the wind tore a piece of paper off a nearby notice board. It slapped him right in the face.
He peeled it off, annoyed.
WANTED: Dead or Alive "Red Leg" Zeff Bounty: 75,000,000 Beli
Sol stared. The face on the poster was a man with a braided mustache and a chef's hat, looking fierce.
Sol's tiny jaw dropped. Zeff? The guy who teaches Sanji? Seventy-five million?
He looked at the currency symbol. Beli.
He looked at the Marines patrolling the street in their goofy white uniforms and seagull caps.
"No way," Sol whispered, a wide, goofy grin splitting his face. "I'm in One Piece."
Most people would panic. The One Piece world was terrifying. There were sea monsters, corrupt governments, and islands that could literally rain lightning.
Sol? Sol started laughing. He laughed so hard he fell over.
"Sol, honey? Are you okay?" his mom asked, picking him up.
"I'm great, Mom!" Sol cheered, throwing his tiny fists in the air. "I'm gonna gamble everything!"
"That's… nice, dear."
Two Years Later (Age 5)
Knowing you were in an anime was one thing. Doing something about it was another.
Sol knew he was a nobody. He checked the mirror every day. No pink hair like Koby, no weird nose like Usopp, no 'D' in his name. Just Sol. A human. A civilian.
"Civilian caps," Sol muttered to himself, kicking a stone as he hiked through the forest on the edge of the village. "Humans have limits. Garp broke them, sure, but Garp is a freak of nature. If I want to stand at the top… if I want to be the strongest… I need an edge."
He was five years old, wearing shorts and a tank top, carrying a wooden stick he pretended was a sword. His parents let him play in the "Green Zone" of the forest—the safe part where only squirrels and non-murderous bugs lived.
But Sol was a gambler. And gamblers didn't stick to the safe zones.
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe," Sol chanted, pointing his stick at the dark, overgrown path leading deeper into the woods. "Mom said I'd get eaten by a wolf. But Mom doesn't know I have plot armor. Probably."
He grinned and sprinted into the dark woods.
He spent hours whacking bushes and pretending to fight Admirals. "Take that, Akainu! Boom! Magma is nothing against my… uh… stick!"
He was sweating, covered in dirt, and having the time of his life. But as the sun began to dip, casting long orange shadows through the trees, something caught his eye.
It wasn't a chest. It wasn't a treasure map.
It was a weird little tree growing in the middle of a clearing, completely alone. And hanging from a twisted branch was a single fruit.
Sol stopped dead.
It was shaped like a pomegranate, but it was a deep, violent crimson color. And all over the skin, there were swirling patterns. Swirls.
"No way," Sol breathed.
He approached it reverently. A Devil Fruit. In the East Blue? In the middle of nowhere? The odds were astronomical. It was like winning the lottery without buying a ticket.
He plucked it. It felt heavy. Warm.
Sol sat down cross-legged in the dirt, holding the fruit with both hands.
"Okay, Sol. Thinking time," he muttered to himself, his face scrunched up in concentration. "This is a gamble. A massive gamble."
He knew the lore. Option A: It's a Logia. He becomes a god. Option B: It's a Mythical Zoan. He becomes a legend.Option C: It's the Jacket-Jacket Fruit or something stupid, and he spends the rest of his life turning into a coat.
"If I eat this, I can never swim again," he reminded himself. "But if I don't eat it… I'm just a guy with a stick."
He looked at the fruit. The swirls seemed to be moving, taunting him.
"I want to be the strongest," Sol said to the empty forest. "The strongest don't hesitate."
He opened his mouth wide, shutting his eyes tight. Please don't be a Jacket fruit. Please don't be a Jacket fruit.
CHOMP.
He bit down.
Immediate regret.
It tasted like rotten gym socks dipped in battery acid and left in the sun for a week. Sol gagged, his eyes watering, but he forced himself to swallow.
"Guh! Gross! Why does power taste like garbage?!"
He waited.
He held his hands out, expecting them to turn into fire. Or maybe lightning. Or maybe he'd grow wings.
Ten seconds passed.
A bird chirped.
Sol stared at his hands. They looked exactly the same. He poked his stomach. Squishy. He tried to shoot a laser beam from his finger. Nothing.
"Did I just eat a rotten pomegranate?" Sol panicked. "Was that just a regular fruit that went bad? Am I gonna die of food poisoning instead of becoming Pirate King?"
He stood up, feeling betrayed. "What a rip-off! I bet everything on that bite!"
Frustrated, he kicked a massive oak tree as hard as he could.
CRACK.
The sound wasn't his foot breaking. It was the tree.
Sol froze. He looked up. A massive spiderweb fracture had exploded up the trunk of the oak tree where his tiny five-year-old foot had connected. The tree groaned, tilted, and then slowly crashed into the bushes with a heavy thud.
Sol looked at his foot. Not a scratch. It didn't even hurt.
He looked at the fallen tree.
Then, he looked at his hands again. He didn't feel "magical." He didn't feel like rubber or smoke. He just felt… heavy. Dense. Like his bones had been replaced with iron and his blood with gasoline.
A slow, goofy grin spread across his face, wider than ever before.
"Okay," Sol whispered, shivering with excitement. "I can work with this."
Somewhere deep inside him, something ancient and angry stirred. It wasn't awake yet, but it was hungry.
Sol dusted off his shorts, turned around, and began the walk back home. He had a lot of training to do.
End of Chapter 1