Fanfic / Once Again

Once again is a One Piece Peggy Sue Fan Fiction written by TheVictor.

A 7-year old Luffy is approached by his future self. It seems Luffy's entire crew died at the hands of Fleet Admiral Akainu right after defeating the Yonkou Kaidou. Luffy and his future self fuse together, making him both much stronger and much smarter as he repeats his adventure, hoping to avoid the same fate as well as correct some mistakes.

Last updated in August of 2013, Once Again became the most popular One Piece story in the fandom and the furthest Peggy Sue fic in canon progression before the author vanished, and served as an inspiration for many writers to try their own hand at the Peggy Sue genre.

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Examples

• Almighty Janitor: How everyone sees Luffy after he tells them about his brothers "Blue Gentleman Sabo" and "Fire Fist Ace", his friend Shanks, his grandfather "Hero of the Marine" Garp. Oh, and he gets to phone Whitebeard about the Blackbeard issue.
  • The funniest part is that the crew still doesn't know about Luffy's father.
• Berserk Button: Luffy is obscenely frightening when he's in a bad mood; while typically done when he has nightmares, he also lost his temper when Nami broke his armor. His crew is terrified of his temper in that form, but in Water 7, when Luffy catches up with Usopp and finds that he had been beaten up by the Franky Family, the sniper notes that that wrath was downright tame compared to his expression at that point.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Luffy's typically the happy-go-lucky guy we all know and love, but if he's in a bad mood, he's so scary that he terrifies the living daylights out of his own crew.
• Black Arm, Take Warning: Luffy will sometimes lose control of his Armament Haki when sufficiently angered by something. For example, Blackbeard's face.
• Bond One-Liner: After Luffy one-shots Higuma:
  Luffy: Well, there goes 8 million berry.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Luffy kept his memories — meaning that until Robin joined, he was by far the most world-savvy member of the crew. And even with Robin, he's still Mr. Exposition. He's still a manchild, though.
• Calling the Old Man Out: While in Loguetown, having the knowledge of his relationship to Dragon this time around, Luffy takes the opportunity to tell Dragon that he doesn't care about their relationship one way or the other, but that if Dragon honestly ever cared about him, he'd have been more proactive in his son's life. That a gust of wind carries Luffy to the Going Merry shortly afterward indicates how much of an impact the speech had on Dragon.
• Cliffhanger: Many of the chapters, but none more than Chapter 61, where the fic dead-ends smack in the middle of Enies Lobby.
• Continuity Nod: Luffy still wants a bronze statue.
• Crash-Into Hello: When Luffy accidentally uses Geppou for the first time, he ends up catapulting himself several dozens meters away…right into Robin's bosom.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Many, many, of Luffy's fights, which make sense, seeing as he's a Yonko-level pirate in the middle of East Blue and, eventually, Paradise, the first half of the Grand Line. His fight with Crocodile was the only major fight he's had that wasn't one, but it was still a little one-sided. His fight with Mihawk doesn't count because it wasn't really a fight — they stopped as soon as Luffy saw that Zoro was okay.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Future Luffy, and Luffy himself after gaining his memories.
• Darker and Edgier: While still fun-filled, this fic deals with Luffy's knowledge of his crewmates', Sabo's and Ace's deaths, and how he will do whatever he can to protect them all. He often gets nightmares about everyone dying, and you'd better not anger him when he's in a foul mood.
• Deadpan Snarker: Surprisingly, Luffy, although pretty much everyone gets it at some point.
• Dead Fic: It hasn't been updated since August of 2013, and nobody has heard from the author since then either.
• Death Glare: Luffy has mastered Haoshoku Haki, but he hasn't used it very much in this fic. But he doesn't need to; even without Haki, the fire in his eyes is enough to intimidate most foes.
• The Dreaded: Thanks to his actions during the Alabasta civil war and a subsequent interview, the entire world now knows that Luffy defeated Crocodile, resulting in this.
• Evil Laugh: Predictably, several of the enemies get this, such as Crocodile, Enel, and Spandam. But in Chapter 60, Luffy also gets one when he considers reviving Pluton himself…or at least that's what it seems like he's thinking.
• Flat "What": How Luffy tends to react when the others (usually Sanji, Nami and Usopp) are stunned because he subverted Idiot Hero.
• Forgot About His Powers: In Chapter 43, when Luffy is falling towards the sky sharks, he accidentally discovers how to use Geppo because of this trope.
• For Want Of A Nail: As a child, Luffy warns Sabo of a "big, fat, ugly guy with bushy chest hair that likes pies." Years later, when Sabo has joined the Whitebeard Pirates, he's suspicious of Blackbeard enough to tell Marco about this. As such, Marco was able to find Thatch in time to get him medical help.
• Groin Attack: In chapter 61, Luffy kicks Spandam so hard in the crotch that even Lucci winces in sympathy.
  • Enel also attempts one of these with Luffy. Well, it's a hit, but still harmless to him.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Luffy has one of these on the rare occasions that he goes without sleep due to nightmares of his Dark And Troubled Past…or Future.
• Hand Gagging: Ben does this to Shanks in Chapter 2 to prevent him from interrupting Luffy's explanation.
• Idiot Hero: Aside from Robin and Zoro, everyone thinks Luffy is one. It's actually Subverted. He's childish and pretty much crazy, but he's quite smart and mature when he needs to be.
  • In fact, he even takes advantage of this to piss off his enemies — especially when he was stuck in that cage by Crocodile. By the time Vivi arrived, Crocodile was almost ready to tear his hair out because Luffy was annoying him so badly.
• Improbable Weapon User: At one point, Luffy uses meat as a weapon…eating it immediately afterward. It's probably a good thing Sanji wasn't there at the time.
• Jaw Drop: Common, as you'd expect for anything involving One Piece. Notable is in Chapter 2, where he gets this twice from everyone in sight when he knocks out the bandits with Haoshoku Haki and one-shots Higuma.
• Kiai: Discussed in Chapter 19:
  Zoro: Why do you always say 'armament'?
  Luffy: (Sweat Dropping) Why do you say 'Santoryu' every time?
  Zoro: ...Good point.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Luffy does this both literally and figuratively to Spandam. It won't surprise anyone to learn that he greatly deserved it.
• Long Runner: There are many Peggy Sue fan fictions for One Piece, and most of them dead-end before they make it past the Alabasta arc. Once Again was the first one that didn't do that, and made it all the way up to the middle of the Enies Lobby arc before the author vanished. That was in August of 2013, and it took three years before another fic made it that far.
• Manchild: Luffy, since he's technically an adult mentally — or at least as much as an adult that Luffy can be.
• Mood Whiplash: Luffy became quite skilled at this.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Sanji gets a mental reaction like this in Chapter 24 when Luffy's in a bad mood again (the last time being in Chapter 13, at the Baratie). He's downright scared, and when the rest of the crew finds out that that's the case, they're scared too…for very good reason.
• Only Sane Man: Robin seems to be the only one to understand Luffy is much smarter than he lets on, rather than an overpowered idiot with occasional bouts of common sense. That can be blamed on her general maturity and world-savviness. It also helps that while Luffy is physically seventeen, mentally he's around the same age as Robin, if not older, making it easier for Robin to connect with him.
• Out of Character: Surprisingly averted. Despite Luffy being much more mature than in canon, he's still the Luffy we know for the most part — except he's technically over thirty years old now.
• Official Couple: Luffy and Robin are set to become the main couple, but other than some bouts of Ship Tease, it really hasn't taken over the story…and the author has stated many times that that is the intention.
• Peggy Sue: Well, obviously.
• Secret-Keeper: When Luffy first returns, Shanks and his crew learn everything that happened. Well, so does the rest of Windmill Village, but none of them have much of a part in Luffy's life after he leaves. Shanks, on the other hand, maintains contact with him now and then after he defeats Crocodile.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The very premise of the fic.
• Share the Male Pain:
  • When Luffy fights Enel, the latter gives him a Groin Attack. It doesn't hurt Luffy, due to him being made of rubber, but everyone watching winces, with Gan Fall and Zoro being the most detailed.
  • When Luffy confronts Spandam after the latter bruised Robin, he kicks him in the crotch hard enough that he gets sent flying into the ceiling, and stuck there. Kalifa and Robin go wide-eyed, while the rest of CP9 winces in sympathy. Do bear in mind that that includes Lucci.
• Slasher Smile: Luffy gets something like this when he sends the rest of his crew, except Robin, off to hunt the South Bird as training…and punishment for insulting him.
  • The next chapter also gives him one when he starts trying to kill Blackbeard.
• Spared By Adaptation: Sabo, since the fic was started long before it was revealed that he was actually alive, and Thatch. Also, Shanks doesn't lose his arm.
• The Stations of the Canon: Has this feel to it, though there are deviations — chances are that the story won't really deviate noticeably until around the Whitebeard War Saga.
• Super Mode: For the most part averted. Oh sure, Luffy still has his gears, but he doesn't need to use them. Justified that he's a Yonko-level pirate in the middle of Paradise — his baseline strength is probably equal to that of the upper tier Warlords.
• Took a Level in Badass: Luffy again, of course (in the alternate future, he managed to kill Akainu. Too late to save anyone, and he wasn't conscious of his actions at the time, but still!), but the other Straw Hats also got stronger thanks to his training. Sanji and Zoro can somewhat use Observation Haki by the end of the Skypiea arc.
  • Also, Future Coby, who became an admiral and ate the "Toki Toki no Mi/Time-Time Fruit". Luffy resolves to make sure he makes it to that level of strength again.
  • Luffy also gains higher bounties — his first bounty is 70 million and his second one is 160 million.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Justified with Luffy — after seeing his friends dying in front of him, he's determined to make them strong enough to survive this time around, as well as getting stronger himself. The recurring nightmares and subsequent lack of sleep doesn't help.
• Troll: Luffy certainly acts this way towards all his opponents (especially evident with Arlong and Crocodile; with the latter case, when he's locked in a sea prism stone cage, he annoys Crocodile so much that by the time Vivi arrives, he's able to shut up the Warlord's Evil Laughing by threatening to do another of his impressions), but even outside of that, he appears to get a kick out of pissing people off (such as with the White Berets in Skypiea). His strength, general maturity, and knowledge of the future allows him to get away with this.
• Unstoppable Rage: If you bother Luffy when he's in a bad mood, you're in for a world of hurt. But if you harm one of his friends…you may as well dig your own grave.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Luffy deliberately invokes this when Rob Lucci tries to intimidate him with his Devil Fruit powers. Luffy just looks bored and picks his nose, and Lucci has to resist the urge to face fault at that reaction.
• Willfully Weak: Luffy deliberately refrains from using all of his abilities—most notably, his Haoshoku Haki—to make sure that his plan for setting right what once went wrong is not jeopardized by some higher-up antagonist finding out just how strong he is.