I hereby dedicate this thread to write down how I feel the Giant Squad was formed, and how each individual became what he/she became.
For starters, here's Ronse:
The Strawhat crew sat down as the giant, merged into the ocean with half of his body, started his story…
It was very long ago, at least with small human scaling. On the main island of the giants, a boy was born. His parents were so proud. They named the baby Ronse and, being Elbafians, did everything in their power to make him a great warrior just like them: loud and proud, battling for a living, living for battle.
Ronse, as others saw it, was destined to be the next „Great Warrior”. This title was given to those who had proven themselves stronger, faster and more brutal than the other giants.
In such soceity, fighting against enemies or even each other was more than common. No wonder so few had reached the age of 150, even though giants could live way longer than that. As fighting, death was part of everyday’s life. Thus, these giants didn’t know how to mourn. For most, this wasn’t a problem, but for those, who, for some reason, were born with more emotions than pitiful hunger and wrath, Elbaf became pure hell soon enough.
Ronse was one these rare giants. His parents of course recognized this at a very young age, but as they were true Elbafians at heart, they decided to kill out those emotions of their son. They succeeded, at least, partially. They managed to put Ronse into a state, where he was blind for the horrible happenings around him; instead, he only saw joy and pride.
A fish, however, will never reach the sky, no matter how high its bird parents throw it. It will eventually fall down, and die.
Ronse had been practising all day long, like he promised his parents when they departed for hunting.
Exhausted, he ate the last bits of the bread, drank some ale and decided to go to sleep. He felt as he wasn’t able to move for much longer. All that aside, he was happy.
Or was he?
Of course he was, why wouldn’t he have been? He was a brave warrior, his parent were brave warriors, his friends were great warriors. He was home.
„Why do I feel this again? What is this? Why am I not happy?”
As he was wondering, he fell asleep.
Shortly after, the town turned into something, that had more resemblance to the nest of chaos than anything else.
A few hours before sunset, the townsfolk woke up to one of the guards’ shouting.
„WAKE UP! SHIP AT BAY!”
Men have quickly jumped out of their beds, grabbed their weapons and without any armor, they rushed to the bay.
Long seconds, minutes passed. Suddenly, the whole town started gathering in the great hall, bringing food and ale with themselves. It didn’t take too long for Ronse to arrive. He was way too tired to shout with the others, so he decided to go, hide somewhere when he saw it was a feast he came to. When he tried to leave, he felt a strong grip on his shoulders.
„Ronse, tonight, we hold the feast just for your parents!”
„Really? That’s great! So they defeated a kraken or...” Suddenly, a strange feeling captured his heart. Where were his parents? Maybe they were looking for him. But the feast shouldn’t have started without them. He remembered the others shouting „TORCHES!! BRING TORCHES! MORE MORE!” at the bay.
Then, he finally got it.
It felt like a punch in the stomach. Mumbling, he started to run towards what he believed was the bay. He couldn’t think straight. When the houses finally got out of his view, he stopped. His whole world shattered into pieces in a mere second as he looked at those flames, which were eating the ship, like a kraken.
„What are you doing? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!”
Ronse almost reached it. His mother’s hand. Only a few inches separated them. Around him, the ship was burning and could have collapsed at any moment.
All of a sudden, someone from behind pulled him out by his leg.
The sky was clear but on the horizon, dark clouds gathered to bring a terrible storm upon unfortunate sailors. Captain Ky, a formidable marine scribbled something into his small notebook, then put it into his left pocket. His subordinates didn’t take any notice of that, they got used to their strange commander a long time ago. Lately, they had more interesting things to stare at.
Like a giant, not older than maybe 20 years, who was swimming ahead of them for days without any sign of exhauston. They thought he didn’t even noticed them. As much as they could see him, he appeared to be rather well-built, with some kind of a double-edged axe on his back and a piece of metal covering his face.
„Maybe a mask or something... ”
„Giant sure know how to swim!”
„Where is he heading to anyways?”
„To our base I reckon.”
Usually, these little meddlings ended with the Captain’s command: „Back to work, NOW!”
Captain Ky couldn’t bare the thought of his men neglecting their work because of some strange little phenomenon. On the other hand, he couldn’t help but wonder what was the giant doing there.
Whatever the cause, they had to part ways for now. The giant may be foolish enough to swim right into the storm, but the marines couldn’t risk a broken ship and injuries.
He took out his notebook and wrote: „The End?”