One Piece reached the midpoint at the end of the Marineford arc, and the entire Grand Line changed during that battle. The deaths of Whitebeard and Ace, the Devil Fruit theft by Blackbeard, and the live view of the Navy’s bloodlust have shaken the world. The Straw Hats are scattered throughout the Grand Line and various seas after they finally hear from Luffy. Now, they face a two-year wait at their captain’s request, and each will find a way to make themselves stronger during the Two Year Time Skip. Not just for their own strength, but for Luffy’s as well.
To read about the Fallout of Marineford and actions taken by the Navy and Emperors, check out this analysis about the Fallout of Marineford. Otherwise, this article will explore what the Straw Hats and a few other characters spent their time doing during the Two Year Time Skip.
Monkey D Luffy
Luffy travels to a deserted island to train with Gol D Roger’s former first mate, the ‘Dark King’ Silvers Rayleigh. His first order of business is to teach Luffy to harness Haki, and Rayleigh knows that he already has Conqueror Haki. Then there’s the question of refining Luffy’s fighting ability and tactics, like Gear Two and Three. It’s going to be a long two years for Rayleigh as he teaches the world’s stretchiest idiot.
To his surprise, Luffy takes on everything quickly. He picks up Armament Haki first, learning to combine it with his attacks in order to deal heavy damage. Armament even gives him a way to counter Logia users finally, which he couldn’t do before. He still isn’t great at Observation Haki, but that will come later on in the Whole Cake Island arc. Most importantly he learns to utilize his Conqueror Haki to knock out minor enemies and make ferocious animals obey him.
The big secret weapon to his arsenal becomes the Gear Four moves he develops. These utilize his Gear Three ability to inflate his limbs and concentrate the air along with Armament Haki. He won’t showcase any forms until Bounceman in Dressrosa, but he’s apparently made a few different forms that specialize in different fighting styles.
Roronoa Zoro
Honestly, Zoro manages to go to the best place for what he needs. He’s had a goal of overthrowing Dracule ‘Hawk-Eye’ Mihawk since they met on the Baratie. So, it was good for him to end up in the Muggy Kingdom, home of Mihawk. Also home to a lot of enormous, sword-wielding apes who all want to murder whoever comes around on the island. Other than Mihawk and his newly moved-in roommate Perona. Mihawk allows Zoro to stick around while he heals, but when the news of Luffy’s message hits, he begs the Warlord to train him.
It’s certainly a bold strategy to request training from the dude he’s vowed to kill and take the place of. Things work out though, because Mihawk finds his earnestness hilarious. After Zoro comes back bruised and bleeding from the giant monkeys, Mihawk tells him he won’t train him until he defeats them all. Except Zoro already did, and Mihawk has a moment of ‘oh, I definitely underestimated this guy’ and takes him on.
At some point during the time skip, Zoro loses his eye. When everyone meets back up on Sabaody Archipelago two years later, his eye is permanently closed and scarred. He becomes a terrifying enemy to face though, with even stronger sword skills.
Usopp
Sniper King lands in the Boin Archipelago, a massive jungle full of big monsters and even bigger bugs. Everything will kill him in this jungle if he lets his guard down, and he’s barely kept alive by a knight named Heracles when he wakes up. There’s supposedly peace and treasure in the middle of the island, but it’s near impossible to get to. Monsters grow larger and more ferocious as explorers near the center of the island. These creatures are vicious and won’t hesitate to either kill intruders or them back to the outer islands.
Usopp is still a coward, but his time on Boin Archipelago makes him at least a little braver. He spends tons of time running from the creatures on the island so his cardio and agility became top-notch. Then it comes to his actual abilities. Before this Usopp only really used his homemade slingshot ammo with everything from hot sauce to dials incorporated. Now he keeps the dials, but adds in the quickly growing greenery of the Boin Archipelago to his arsenal.
His most used is Pop-Green, which causes a massive plant to sprout up beneath enemies, throwing them in the air. There’s a load of others, with plenty of them even more dangerous than others. Some will eat enemies, some will spray water around, and others will burst into flames, which makes no sense but it’s One Piece so it works.
Sanji
The Straw Hat’s chef is the greatest womanizer on the seas, and ends up in the worst possible island for him. Sanji ends up in the Kamabakka Kingdom, ruled over by the one and only Emporio Ivankov. Despite the genderfluid nature of the Kamabakka Kingdom, where gender doesn’t exist, Sanji finds himself on the run in scenes that don’t hold up too well in retrospect. He spends his two years on the run, and eventually picks up some big new abilities while he does.
Sanji is able to train himself sufficiently in the Sky Walk ability first shown by Cipher Pol 9 in Water 7. It helps his mobility, especially with the kick-based fighting style he uses. Sanji learns to kick so fast he lights his freakin’ leg on fire to hit his enemies. If that’s not one of the most badass things that a pirate can do, then what is? It’s an insanely powerful boost to Sanji’s fighting ability, and that’s before his cooking upgrade.
The Kamabakka Kingdom is famous for its energy-restoring food, which packs more nutrients into regular ingredients. It’s great for the Straw Hat crew because they’re all constantly running through energy, especially Luffy. Despite the more dense and healing energy of the food, Luffy doesn’t let it cut down on his portion sizes.
Nami
Of all the Straw Hats Nami was the only one to make it into the sky. She lands on the sky island of Weatheria, full of old men dressed like wizards. It’s not some school of witchcraft though, but instead the head research facility for any and all weather. Just the place for Nami, who uses her weather baton to manipulate the atmosphere around her in battle. Not to mention how much she needs to know in order to navigate the Thousand Sunny out of every condition possible on the Grand Line.
The improvements to her weather baton and knowledge of everything make her a dangerous fighter. She doesn’t get any decently long one-on-one fights in the second half of the story as of yet, but she’s great with crowd control and helping to keep things in check. She upgrades her weapon to create greater clouds, more mirages, intense lightning balls, and even miniature hurricanes. Nami might not be the strongest of the Straw Hat crew, but she becomes a surprising force to support Luffy.
Chopper
The poor doctor of the Straw Hat crew is still confused for their pet by his bounty, but he’s determined to become the greatest doctor ever. When he saw Luffy knocked out and injured during the war, he resolved to never let his friends suffer like that again and is determined to find treatments for everything. His island just so happens to be a pretty advanced place when it comes to medicine and surgical sciences called the Torino Kingdom. Chopper will face some issues from the local population though.
Every human in the kingdom is a slave or pet to giant birds, who are the top of society. It’s really strange, and they don’t speak the same language so there are often uprisings and fights, but somehow Chopper manages to broker a peace. In return, they give him access to their massive library of medical knowledge, and he sets to work. The knowledge he learns here will save thousands throughout the New World as he’s able to quickly make antidotes for poisons or mix vaccines for viruses.
His fighting ability improves too, as he learns even more transformations. Chopper masters Kung Fu Point, which becomes his go-to ability for the most part, but also reworks Horn Point and completely evolves Monster Point. Whereas before he had to take three Rumble Balls and could only stay in it for three minutes. Now, he can activate it at will and stay for up to ten minutes without any issues, though after that is rough.
Robin
When she’s thrown to the Tequila Wolf Bridge by Bartholomew Kuma, it looks like Robin will face another set of trials as she’s taken as a slave. They don’t realize who she is luckily enough, and put her to work building the bridge to nowhere in East Blue. Supposedly the bridge has been under construction for 800 years, meant to eventually connect every island around the world. It’s being built with slave labor though so the Celestial Dragons are definitely in charge. Robin only has to endure the terrible conditions for a short time before Dragon and his Revolutionaries show up.
For the next two years Robin trains under Luffy’s father and the other Revolutionaries. She becomes proficient in Armament Haki, and Awakens her Devil Fruit in order to make her sprouted limbs massive. This ability alone is going to save the Thousand Sunny quite a few times, but she goes even further. She trains in Fishman Karate, and a little bit of Sabo’s Dragon Claw technique. Combined with her abilities, she starts to become a more deadly hand-to-hand fighter.
To top it off she improves on her espionage skills, which were already high because of her checkered past. Robin learns a lot from the Revolutionary Army, and makes some critical allies for later. She even gets to meet Luffy’s dad, which is more than Luffy has done.
Franky
The time skip for Franky amounted to letting the shipwright cyborg loose like a kid in a candy store. He lands on Karakuri Island, a frozen, mountainous region known as the birthplace of the infamous Dr. Vegapunk. Vegapunk is the head scientist for the Navy, and one of Franky’s idols when it comes to inventions. When Franky manages to uncover all of the advanced technology left behind in one of the old labs, he enters his personal heaven.
He studies the plans and technology Vegapunk left behind in the lab for two years, perfecting his own cybernetic body in the process. Franky gets the biggest makeover during the time skip, becoming even more robotic in appearance with massive metal arms. He can also change his hairstyle at will, which is a nice running gag in different arcs. He can’t utilize improvements to the Sunny while he’s there, but he makes big plans for the ship.
That’s not to mention his other invention during the two-year skip, MechaFranky. Yes, he builds an entire Mech Suit that he can pull out of basically nowhere and pilot. This thing is huge, and looks like a Megazord from Power Rangers with a giant drill on its head. It’s fricking awesome.
Brook
The most interesting route taken by a Straw Hat during the time off, Brook became a world-famous musician. He’s always been great with any instrument and writing his own songs for the crew, but now Soul King Brook is on a whole new level. He kind of gets forced into the business by some Longarm Tribe folks he runs into on Nakamura Island after their foes think he’s a demon they summoned. It’s a wild story, even for Brook.
His time playing music in the world gives him a new understanding and control over his Soul-Soul Fruit. Now, he can control people through his music, whether he wants to make them dance or put them to sleep. Brook also finds a way to dispel his soul from his skeleton, which lets him go on recon missions. It also scares some enemies into fainting as an added bonus.
The best part is that Brook’s wanted posters from here on out default to his world tour posters. He became world-renowned and played his final show at Sabaody Archipelago, exactly two years after Luffy’s declaration.
Whitebeard’s Crew
Marco and the rest of Whitebeard’s crew eventually launch a desperate revenge attack on the Blackbeard Pirates. They’re utterly crushed by his combined Devil Fruit powers though, and unable to overtake the villainous new Emperor. They flee, the survivors scattering to the wind. Commanders like Izo will remain in hiding rather than return to their home of Wano, while others die in the battle.
Marco becomes a spontaneous character that appears to help the Straw Hats on occasion. He’s friends with Shanks’ crew, so can travel safely in any territory he owns, but otherwise sticks to Whitebeard’s hometown. Here he maintains the graves of his captain and Ace, while treating the local town as a doctor. Marco will reappear in Wano to help the Straw Hats along with Izo.
The Straw Hat crew are all determined to grow stronger than ever during the two years they’re apart. Now, after all this time they can meet back on Sabaody Archipelago at Shakky’s Bar. The Thousand Sunny is ready and waiting, and each will make it in their own time, but the Navy is sure to be waiting for them. A whole host of other issues pop up to boot, like a fake Straw Hat crew! All this is in the Return to Sabaody arc!
