Mt. Colubo wasn't an incredibly high mountain, but its forests were exceptionally deep and teeming with terrifying, abnormally large beasts. We're talking about bears the size of multi-story buildings, tigers over ten meters long, and giant crocodiles that could swallow a child in a single gulp. It was absolutely impossible for an ordinary human to survive in these woods.
However, the Dadan Family mountain bandits were far from ordinary. Their secluded base was located deep within Mt. Colubo, which was precisely why Vice Admiral Garp had chosen to dump his two grandsons, Ace and Luffy, into their care.
Honestly, Garp's parenting methods were profoundly incomprehensible. Who in their right mind would deliberately abandon two small children on a mountain swarming with man-eating apex predators?
A normal person could never replicate Garp's training regimen. He had literally thrown a toddler Luffy down a bottomless ravine, abandoned him in a pitch-black forest in the middle of the night, and strapped him to balloons to send him flying into the sky. The fact that Luffy actually managed to grow up in one piece was an absolute miracle, completely owed to his immense 'protagonist luck'.
In truth, Bardock didn't have a burning, desperate desire to seek out the two brothers. But as the old saying goes: 'Since we're already here...'
Since he was already sailing through the East Blue and had coincidentally stopped at the Goa Kingdom, he figured he might as well take a small detour to personally witness the legendary 'Child of Destiny' and the posthumous son of the Pirate King.
Surprisingly, it didn't take much effort at all. Bardock and his crew had barely hiked halfway up the mountain before they practically bumped right into the two boys.
Standing beneath the canopy of an absolutely massive, ancient tree, a young, freckled Ace gripped a metal pipe tightly in both hands. He stood fiercely in front of Luffy, shielding the younger boy behind his back. Ace glared at Bardock's heavily armed crew with intense, burning vigilance, looking exactly like a cornered lion cub aggressively defending its territory.
"Who the hell are you guys?" Ace demanded coldly.
This specific giant tree was the secret base he and Sabo had established. More importantly, hidden deep inside its hollowed trunk was his entire pirate fund—the treasure he had spent years painstakingly accumulating for his future voyage. Therefore, he was incredibly tense.
Bardock didn't answer directly. Instead, he smiled faintly. "Isn't it common courtesy to introduce yourself before demanding the names of others?"
"Woah, Ace, that actually makes a lot of sense!" Luffy beamed, completely missing the tense atmosphere. He puffed out his chest and declared loudly, "I'm Monkey D. Luffy! And I'm the man who's going to become the Pirate King!"
Hearing this bold declaration from a scrawny seven-year-old, Bardock's crew had highly varied reactions.
"Oh? Did he say Monkey?" "So this is Revolutionary Dragon's kid. He certainly looks... energetic." "Heh. This little brat wants to be the Pirate King?"
Meanwhile, the only word that could accurately describe Ace's current emotional state was: Furious.
"ARE YOU A COMPLETE IDIOT?!" Ace roared. Channeling the furious, violent energy of a future Nami, Ace ruthlessly smashed his fist directly onto the top of Luffy's head. "I'm the one who asked them the question! They haven't even answered yet, why the hell did you introduce yourself?! And you even blurted out my name, you moron!"
"But..." Luffy whined, rubbing his head. Since he was a rubber human, the blunt physical strike didn't actually hurt him at all, but he still pouted. He opened his mouth to argue, but Ace instantly clamped a hand over it. If he let Luffy keep talking, the idiot would definitely blurt out every single secret they had, including the exact location of their hidden treasure stash!
"Alright, fine! Now you know our names!" Ace glared at the towering men. "I'm Ace, he's Luffy. Now tell us who the hell you are!"
Bardock nodded, his smile widening slightly. "I am an adventurer named Bardock. These are my crewmates."
After briefly introducing the members of the White Dragon crew, Bardock intentionally shifted his gaze to the massive tree behind the boys. "What are two little kids doing all the way out here in this dangerous forest? Is there something special about this specific tree?"
"That is absolutely none of your business!" Ace snapped, his grip on the steel pipe tightening until his knuckles turned white. He aggressively shifted his stance, fully prepared to fight to the death. Ace possessed a fierce, completely uncompromising personality; he would never back down from a threat. His only real concern was making sure Luffy didn't get hurt in the crossfire.
Luffy, entirely oblivious to the lethal tension hanging in the air, confidently stepped out from behind Ace. "Don't worry about us! We're incredibly strong! My punch hits exactly like a pistol!"
He aggressively threw a few wobbly punches into the empty air. Because he hadn't yet mastered his Devil Fruit abilities, his form was incredibly sloppy and pathetic.
Bardock ignored Luffy's display and looked directly into Ace's fierce eyes. "You are entirely too tense, kid. You're making it painfully obvious that you're guarding something incredibly valuable inside that tree. It's a very good thing you ran into us today; if we were actual, bloodthirsty pirates, you'd be dead already."
Ace scoffed, completely unappreciative of the warning. Despite his young age, he was already incredibly strong. He practically ruled the Gray Terminal thugs and had recently played a major role in defeating the vicious Bluejam Pirates. While Bardock's crew undeniably radiated a terrifying, suffocating aura, it wasn't enough to make Ace step aside.
Seeing the stubborn, rebellious fire burning in the boy's eyes, Bardock instantly recognized the fatal flaw that would one day define Ace's life: the absolute, pathological inability to retreat.
"Very well," Bardock sighed softly. "I suppose I should give you a small taste of how incredibly cruel and vast this world truly is."
The absolute microsecond the words left Bardock's lips, he vanished. He instantly reappeared directly in front of Ace, throwing a devastating, high-speed punch straight at the boy's head.
'So fast!' Ace's pupils shrank to pinpricks. He hadn't even seen the man move! He desperately tried to raise his steel pipe to block, but his body felt like it was submerged in thick molasses. Time seemed to violently dilate as he watched the terrifying fist rapidly approaching his face.
BOOOOOOM!
A deafening explosion ruptured the air. Ace violently gasped, his entire body breaking out in a cold sweat. For a split second, he genuinely thought his head had been blown completely off. At the absolute last millisecond, Bardock had slightly adjusted the trajectory of his fist, completely missing Ace's face.
Trembling, Ace slowly, stiffly turned his head to look behind him.
The massive trunk of his ancient base tree had a perfectly circular, meter-wide hole violently blasted straight through its center. Looking through the gaping hole, Ace saw that the terrifying shockwave of the punch had continued onward, violently obliterating every single tree, boulder, and hill in its path for hundreds of meters into the distance, leaving a perfectly clear, linear path of absolute destruction.
'The piercing power of that single punch... is monstrous,' Ace concluded, his heart hammering frantically against his ribs.
"WOAH! Your punch is just like a cannon!" Luffy shrieked, his eyes sparkling with absolute awe. Since Ace was perfectly unharmed, Luffy's brain instantly defaulted back to its usual, completely carefree state.
"It's alright," Bardock replied casually, ignoring Luffy's starry-eyed praise. He looked down at the trembling Ace. "Remember this feeling, kid. Until you possess the strength to throw a punch like that, do not rush headfirst into the New World."
Having successfully met the two legendary brothers and sated his curiosity, Bardock didn't linger any further. He turned around and gestured for his crew to follow. Within minutes, the heavily armed group had vanished into the dense forest, leaving Ace and Luffy completely alone.
"Hey, Ace? What's the 'New World'?" Luffy asked, tilting his head in confusion.
Ace, who had been feeling a profound, crushing sense of defeat, was instantly pulled out of his stupor. He frowned, genuinely curious about the term himself.
CREEEAAAK.
The massive tree groaned ominously, its structural integrity completely ruined by the massive hole through its trunk.
"Ah, crap! The tree is going to collapse!" Ace panicked. "I have to move the treasure stash right now!"
Forcing himself to stop overthinking the terrifying encounter, Ace scrambled up the groaning trunk. He quickly retrieved his hidden sack of Belly and valuables, preparing to find a brand-new hiding spot.
Clutching his heavy treasure bundle tightly against his chest, Ace paused. He looked out into the dense forest, staring intently in the exact direction Bardock had disappeared.
"Hmph. Bardock, huh?" Ace muttered, a fierce, burning smirk slowly spreading across his face. "Just you wait! The second I officially set sail, I'm absolutely going to challenge you!"