Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Somewhere in the Grand Line, in a dark cell, in a facility, there was a young blonde boy. When anyone would look at him, they would always look at him in pity.

If only they knew, he chuckled darkly.

In that same facility, there was a young freckled boy, if only a little older. When anyone would look at him, they would look at him and laugh.

They’ll get what’s coming to them, he grinned maniacally.

In the colosseum cages, there was another boy, with long raven hair pooling around him, and most likely the youngest of all. When anyone would look at him, they would feel a sense of loss, yet also a sense of admiration.

I will live, his lips set into a thin line, and he locked his jaw, as the cages opened, and the games begun.

o-o

A shudder wracked through Luffy’s body. He had just finished another game and he wanted nothing more than to rest. He looked at his body, examining old wounds and new ones.

I broke my arm again, he observed, same with a few of my ribs.

He looked at his hand and clenched it in frustration. When had he become like this? When had he turned into a monster? He let out a roar and punched the wall, sending cracks through the wall. His attention was stolen when he heard screaming coming from near the entrance to the cages.

No, not the entrance, he realized, they have someone new. He had long since stopped caring for who they brought in, knowing that if he got attached then they would use it against him. When the guards dumped the person into the cage directly in front of him, he turned back to examining his wounds. Decidedly uninterested about whoever was in there.

“Hey.”.

Seemed like the person had different ideas.

“What.”, Luffy asked, still indifferent about the person.

“What’s your name?”, and just like that, everything froze.

My… name? he thought numbly. He distantly noted the person in front of him trying to get his attention, but didn’t care.

My name? My name. MY NAME. WHAT IS MY NAME?! WHAT IS MY— then everything stopped.

Of course, he thought calmly, I am Monkey D Luffy, I have 2 brothers. Ace and Sabo. I won’t forget. Not again. Not ever again.

He never got to thanking the person for helping him snap out of his emotionless stupor. Nor for helping him remember who he was. He died too soon in the games for that.

o-o

A maniacal laugh sounded out throughout the halls. One young boy, just settling into teenage years was finding something amusing in the way he was being tortured. In the way he was being branded, and the way he was being used for sick, sick entertainment.

He had an amused smile on his face, as he looked around to see his best friends (read: prisoners) with him. He remembered who he was. It was his only lifeline in this place. He was Portgas D Ace, son of Portgas D Rouge and Gol D Roger. He had 2 brothers. Luffy and Sabo. Both of whom he must protect with his life.

He closed his eyes, and then snapped them open, a crazed look about him, and gave yet another cynical laugh, causing his cellmates to shy away from him.

For 3, goddamn years, he was surrounded by nothing but suffering, suffering, and more suffering. So much so, that he couldn’t find a single light in it. The only reason he was alive was because he was too “valuable” to let die. Gold Roger’s son has its perks after all, he thought bitterly.

He was being raised as a tool for the World Government. He was fed the Mera Mera no mi, about 1 year ago, and was tortured with it ever since. He was always woken up with ice-cold water of the sea, and cuffed with kairoseki.

In the beginning of all of this, just after they were taken and separated 3 years ago, things weren’t like this. He would look into their eyes, eyes burning with red-hot fury, and don’t get him wrong, it’s still there. It’s just… hidden is all. Now, instead of burning with fury, they shone with an untold promise.

One that he intended to keep.

o-o

In a cell, of solitary confinement, lived a young blonde boy. His insides were spilling out, but he didn’t feel a thing.

In the Scientists’ eyes, he was but a guinea pig. Simply kept around for entertainment. His eyes had long since lost their luster and shine. Now, all that was left was a dull, murky brown, a stark contrast to the sky-blue they once were.

It is such a shame, he thought, that I can’t even bring myself to bare my teeth at them anymore.

He had stopped rattling the chains against his cages anymore, finding it so, so, taxing just to get up and use the energy to do an ultimately futile thing in the long run. He closed his eyes, untold horrors replaying themselves behind his eyelids.

The prickly feeling of the Scientists and their needles, the strong smell of blood and antiseptic, and a sunshine smile and freckles—what?

His eyes snapped open and he remembered.

Sabo, my name is SABO! I have brothers, I have hope! I have a family! Ace! Luffy! Garp! Dadan! Makino! I won’t forget! I MUSN’T!

He settled down, feeling a feeling that he couldn’t describe, having been so long since having felt it in the first place.

Content, he realized, I’m feeling… content. Happy.

And so, he smiled, a wide smile that hurt his face so much. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall, and he choked out a sob.

I won’t ever give up. Even if I break, I’ll have you guys to fix me up, I’ll find you, in this facility, even if it kills me, he resolved, and then rested.

o-o

Luffy pushed away his food with a grimace. His ribs were starting to show, and that can’t be good. Not when he has another fight scheduled for that afternoon, or was it night? He didn’t know. He had written Ace and Sabo’s names the best he could in his cage so he would never forget. Granted, it was in his own blood, so he couldn’t forget even if he tried…

He looked at his food again and winced as his stomach gave a painful gurgle. He licked his lips and looked at the food again. Actually, gruel would be a better term for it. It was so disgusting, Luffy secretly thought that it was inedible.

He knew. They didn’t know that he knew, but he knew. He knew that they were putting different drugs into his food, trying to find out which ones would make him the most “entertaining”. The last one had him go on an upgraded adrenaline rush, and as wonderful as it felt, the aftereffects were not. He had broken his leg that day, as well as 2 ribs and got a busted lip to go with it.

He grimaced again, when his stomach gave another painful gurgle, and he shakily reached over to the plate, and ate the gruel. The second he finished, he felt hazy, what was it this time, was his last thought before he went unconscious.

When he woke up, all his wounds were healed, and the bars to his cage were bent in half. He got out of his cage and looked around. For lack of a better term to describe, it was a bloodbath, a slaughter.

Luffy was amazed and disgusted at the same time when he saw that all remained of the colosseum contestants were bloody smears on the ground. When he saw the guards, sick satisfaction coursed through his veins when he saw how mutilated they were. He didn’t care that they died. He never did and never will. In fact, he felt at peace with the fact that they died.

Had they gone back to their families, they would’ve been hunted down and dead anyways. For them, death was a mercy.

Luffy walked out of the colosseum cells and down the hallway, sensing for his brothers in the process via “mystery power”. He got horribly lost anyways.

He ended up walking into a bathroom at one point, and saw himself in the mirror. He winced at his own reflection. He was thin, unhealthily so, short too, but that was to be expected, he was only 11 after all. Or at least, he thought he was.

His hair was overgrown and draped all over his face, parting at only one area to show a bloodshot eye. He looked in the mirror for a few more seconds and then got an idea. He turned his lips up and stretched his face until he was smiling. It was a shadow of the smile that he used to have, and it didn’t reach his eyes, but he wanted to be able to smile! Even for a little bit, after all, he wanted to show his brothers that at least one thing hadn’t changed.

Satisfied with himself, he continued on.

o-o

Ace hummed to himself. He felt something was different about today. No, he didn’t feel it, he just knew. Maybe today would be the day he sees Luffy again? A wicked grin split his face, or maybe today will be the day I get to find him myself. He chuckled darkly to himself.

Every time someone would come to see him, they would laugh. “Oh look! There’s the son of the Pirate King! Gold Roger! What a joke!”, they would mock him, and he would take it, knowing that there would be hell to pay with that.

He recently finished a few trials. Around 2 years ago, he had successfully awakened his Devil Fruit, causing him to be one of the few Logias in history to ever do that. He was now a literal fire god. Couple that with the fact that he had a scary tolerance for kairoseki, and he was near unstoppable. Really, kairoseki did nothing against him. It was useless. Other than the fact that it chained his Devil Fruit down, it no longer made him lethargic anymore.

Although, that didn’t change the fact that he was lethargic and even more useless in the water.

He heard footsteps approach him, and he quickly schooled his expression into a bored one, looked up to see the guard staring blankly at him. Ace wanted so badly to snark at him, but instead held his tongue, instead opting for a thoroughly unimpressed look.

The guard unlocked his cage and grabbed Ace by his neck shackle.

Oh? Isn’t it a little too early for another trial? He almost chuckled at the thought, his now morbid humor going into full swing.

He was ready to give a mad grin to the guard when the defining click of his shackles echoed through the silent cell room. Whatever expression he had on his face was entirely dropped, in lieu of a frown.

“Why?”, he hoarsely asked.

The Guard said nothing, instead taking out a map, while still wearing that insufferable blank expression on his face, and circled 2 locations. One location was in the solitary cell area while the other was in the colosseum cage area.

Finally, the guard spoke, “Your brothers are here. Maybe the colosseum one is somewhere else in the facility, but the blonde one is in solitary confinement, and he won’t be getting out anytime soon, so go break him out, will ya?”.

Ace looked like he was about to cry, but furiously wiped at his eyes, and demanded, “Who are you?”.

The Guard gave a solemn smile and said, “My name is Boris.”.

Ace snatched the map from the now named Boris’s hands and sniffled, “I will never forget this! Thank you! Boris!”.

Then Ace ran. He ran. And ran. Straight into the colosseum cells. He knew he wasn’t prepared for whatever was waiting for him, and by god was he right. He definitely wasn’t prepared. In fact, he wasn’t even expecting this to be real.

“No…” he whispered.

He ran towards the only cell that didn’t have a bloody smear coating the ground and almost sagged in relief when he saw the walls. It had his name and Sabo’s in messy handwriting scrawled out in blood on the wall.

He had new resolve now that he knew for sure that Luffy was alive. And Sabo, too, of course. He would just have to go to the Solitary Confinement next. He could only hope that he wasn’t too late, and that Sabo wasn’t already suffering a fate worse than death.

He ran towards the Solitary Confinement section of the facility while following the map, and coincidentally bumped into another boy roaming the halls. Just as Ace was about the shove the boy away and kill him in order to keep quiet, he froze.

“Luffy?”, he hoarsely whispered.

“Ace?”, the now named Luffy returned.

“Ace.”, this time it was a lot happier that the boy had said it.

“ACE!”, Luffy then jumped up onto his unseen for 3 years brother, and gave him a classic bear hug, all the while smiling a smile that he hadn’t in 3 years.

o-o

Luffy was decidedly lost. That is, until Ace showed up with a map. Ace was a lot stronger, that’s for sure! When they get free, they should spar! Maybe Luffy could finally beat him this time!

Although… Luffy frowned Ace is acting different…

And that was true. Ace was acting different, if slightly unhinged, often breaking out into random bouts of hysterical laughter. It wasn’t scaring Luffy, though. He had seen much worse.

They were running to the Solitary Confinement and when they finally broke through, they saw a beaten and bloody Sabo sitting in chains in a dirty and damp cell. When said Sabo saw them, his eyes widened a fraction, and then cleared a little. No longer a murky brown anymore, but a darker blue.

Not fully clear, it could never be fully clear, but it was a start. Ace had melted the bars to the cage, and the shackles that bound Sabo. Sabo gave a pointed look to Ace, and mouthed something imperceptible to their little brother.

‘Want to go to sea with a bang?’

Ace gave a wicked smile and nodded.

Luffy turned a questioning look at both of them, and rasped out, “If you want anyone dead here, I can kill them for you. I was literally honed to be a fighting machine.”, he finished a tad bitterly.

They both looked at him in pity, but then shook their heads, “Might as well try to find our way out of here,”, he resolved, “And try not to get lost in the process…”, he finished lamely.

“Gee, Sabo, I wonder how we found you in the first place, oh, I don’t know, with a map?”, Ace said sarcastically.

Luffy let out a chuckle, “Shi… shi…shi”.

Both brothers froze and turned to Luffy.

“Let’s go! Let’s live!”, he cheered.

Both brothers’ eyes softened, and then their wills hardened. Sabo grabbed the map from Ace and said, “I remember a little about navigation, I can help you with this.”.

He opened up the map and announced, “This way.”.

After 30 minutes of walking, he stopped, “Wait for me here.”, and he dropped the map and ran off.

Ace huffed indignantly, but still obeyed, because, who will keep Luffy under control, then?

After 2 minutes of silence, he got worried, and was about to go check on Sabo when said person returned. He returned in his top hat and cravat, with a pipe strapped across his back, and black noble overcoat. He returned with a battered old Straw Hat and red ribbon. He returned with something new as well.

“Happy birthday, Ace.”, he whispered, and shoved a bright orange monstrosity of a cowboy hat into his hands, as well as a chain of red beads, and 2 pins, one smiley and one sad, to pin to the hat.

Ace swallowed and just barely kept from bawling his eyes out, “Thank you… Sabo.”.

He shoved the hat onto his head, and the beads over his neck and continued on. When they reached the exit, Luffy was ready to scream Hallelujah. But there was one last guard remaining.

It was Boris.

“Kid,”, he grunted.

“Boris,”, Ace returned.

Both had a battle of wills for a couple of minute before Boris sighed and pointed to a boat.

“Take that, and go, kid. I’m already signing my death warrant my helping you here,”, he muttered that last part.

Ace’s eyes lit up.

“Thank you! Boris!”.

Sabo hoisted the sails, and Luffy pulled up the anchor while Ace stood at the bow and waved back at Boris.

“I won’t ever forget this.”, he whispered wetly.

Then, he turned to the helm and twisted the wheel, turning the rudder and then the ship, away from the cage that they had known for 3 years, away from the oppression that plagued them, and the cause of their suffering.

Then he heard a loud explosion behind him. He turned around stiffly and noted that the former facility was no burning. The only way anyone could’ve done that is with bombs, Ace frowned, so who—his eyes widened and glossed over with unshed tears.

Boris.

Sabo coaxed Ace away from the sight of the burning facility, to the shimmering blue of the sea, brimming with promises of freedom and adventure.

“You know,” Sabo said offhandedly, “I almost forgot what the sea looked like.”.

Ace gave a warm smile, “Well then, we’re going to have to remember.”.

“I’M HUNGRY!”, Luffy yelled before rocketing into Sabo.

“Shishishi.”, he snickered.

Sabo groaned from under him, and glared when he heard Ace laughing like there was no tomorrow, but soon he gave in and began laughing as well. It was the first, nice moment either of them had in a long time. And it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last.

It was 2 weeks into the sailing that they realized the real effects the facility had left on them. Sabo was near starving, and nothing could sate him. Meat was always vomited out after a while, and vegetables were simply avoided.

“Okay, Sabo, speak up,”, Ace ground out, “What the ever-loving hell is going on?”.

Sabo gave a groan in response and stuck his head over the railing of the ship.

“Hell, if I know, I just… blegh… can’t… eat it…”, he vomited out.

Ace sighed, “We’re going to be reaching an island in a few hours, think you can hold out till then?”.

Sabo paused for a moment and then gave a curt not, “I think so.”.

“Good,”.

“By the way,” Sabo spoke up after a moment of silence, “Don’t you think that Luffy is a little bit… too quiet?”.

Ace paled, and whipped his head around. He scanned the open deck for any sign of the rubber-brain, and then promptly paled even more.

“Aceeeee…”, Luffy whined near the galley, “I’m hungry,”, and the tension eased from Ace and Sabo’s shoulders.

“Luffy…”, Ace began softly, “Would you just SHUT UP AND WAIT?!”, his voice raising with each word, and by the end, taking a distinctly manic undertone. The rubber-brain got the message and promptly shut up.

For about 5 seconds.

“Aceeeee…”.

“What?”

“I’m—”

“No.”

“You didn’t—”

“No.”

“Plea—”

“NO!”

Luffy pouted and crossed his arms exaggeratedly. “Hmph, Ace is a meanie.”.

Ace was practically screaming at this point until Sabo interrupted him, “Calm down, both of you, if anyone needs food, it’s me. So, both of you shut up,”, he said, icily calm.

“Hoist the sails and dock!”, Luffy yelled out of nowhere. When his brothers looked at him oddly, he gave a trademark grin and elaborated, “We’re there.”.

o-o

The ASL trio set foot on the island, and saw that for an island on the Grand Line, it was sorely uninhabited. Only a few villages here and there. They walked into one of the villages, subtly eyeing all of the goods, weighing them on a mental scale to see if they were worth stealing or not.

What? They’re pirates now, after all.

“Hey, kids shouldn’t be around without their mommies or daddies,” a leering voice said from behind them. It was a really big, fat, and ugly man wearing a lecherous grin, “In a Town like this one, kids definitely shouldn’t be walking on their own, especially females!”, he finished, grabbing a pistol from his belt and firing at them.

Luffy stepped in front and shielded his brothers with his body.

“What… WHAT ARE YOU?!”, the man shrieked once he realized exactly how bad he messed up.

Luffy frowned. He knew that in his time at the facility, he still couldn’t tell who was lying for the life of him, but he knew what people meant when they said something. How ironic.

“Well, first off, I am male,” he replied, “Second off, I am a rubberman,”, and on cue, the bullets bounced off his torso, rocketing at twice the speed pack to the disgusting man.

Somehow, discarding how fat the man was, he managed to dodge a good amount of the bullets, save one. It nicked him on his face, right under his eye near the cheek. The man froze, why, he didn’t know. No one in that town knew what happened that day. They still futilely thought it was a trick of the light.

They refused to acknowledge that a child, younger than 15 jumped onto a full-grown man, bit him, and then promptly turned him into a shriveled wad of skin.

Sabo himself refused to acknowledge that.

So that’s why I can’t taste meat anymore, he thought numbly, Crap.

He turned towards his brothers, expecting to be met with disgust, only for a human missile to rocket into his stomach, and… words? Enter his heightened hearing.

“Saboyou’reokayiwassoscaredthattheguywasgoingtokillyouand—“, Luffy was cut off when Sabo put a hand to his mouth, an amused smile playing on his lips.

“Let’s go, I’m no longer hungry.”, he beckoned towards the ship, and his two brothers followed.

One week after that, they saw Luffy’s aftereffects. It was when they chanced upon an island with a Celestial Dragon “gracing” it. The three brothers didn’t know that yet, though, so they split up.

“Hmmm… I wonder where everyone is…”, Luffy wondered to himself as he skipped along the pavement. Then he abruptly stopped, a shudder running down his spine.

What was that, he thought, then closing his eyes to roughly locate the origin of the shudder, and his eyes snapped open, dark rage flowing through them.

Now, it is a fact, that Ace has a rage like a red-hot inferno, whereas Sabo’s is glacial. Luffy’s however, is neither that nor this. It is a looming threat and endless pools of darkness. Like a predator hunting prey.

It was a good thing he was hungry.

He ran towards the town square and bolted through the crowd.

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Oi—”

He couldn’t care less, when he reached his destination, he saw a fat piece of crap holding his unconscious big brother Ace by gunpoint, and his eyes sparked once more.

A feeling washed over him, not unlike the one he felt at the colosseum, although he was no longer hazy. He could see perfectly clearly, minus the fact that he couldn’t control his own body, that was fine.

He slowly stalked towards the oblivious crap, the perfect picture of ‘terrifying’ and ‘predator’, and without control lashed out at him.

He grabbed the Celestial Dragon by the head, and oh, now they notice, inwardly, he chuckled darkly, I’ll make him regret ever touching my brother.

He opened his mouth, now filled with a gaping maw of sharp teeth dripping black liquids and chomped down on the Celestial Dragon’s head, and just like that, the Celestial was dead, not a single bit of him remained.

When Ace woke up, he was greeted by the sight of a creepily smiling Luffy before an aghast crowd.

He reached up to his brother and asked with a chuckle, “What did you do this time, Lu?”

“Shishishi,” was all he got in return.

“I saw everything.”, Ace looked up to see a certain blonde with a grim, but amused look on his face.

“Guess what, Ace?”, he snickered, “You’re living with a cannibal and a vampire now,”, Ace looked at him, paled, and then laughed.

“Come on,” he said mirthfully, “Let’s return to the sea of adventure”.

Chapter Text

It had been 2 weeks out at sea with no land in sight, and Ace’s sanity was taking a dip. Even more so than when he had been in the facility. Luffy was constantly pestering him and every time he looked into those eyes to tell him off, he just couldn’t.

Sabo wasn’t much different, although… the jerk decided to take first watch. And the next watch… and the one after that… Leaving Ace to be the one on Luffy duty.

He sighed.

At least we’re together, he chuckled, where will we go next, though. A huge squawk and a thump resounded behind him and his eye twitched.

Can I get even a moment of peace around here?!, he internally screamed. He turned around, ready to launch himself against… Sabo? Why was he on the floor? And wrestling with a seagull?

“I WON’T GIVE YOU A SINGLE BERI, YOU RIP-OFF!”, Sabo screamed halfway through the scuffle.

Luffy was laughing like a maniac, effectively drawing his attention off of pestering Ace, to Sabo’s… dilemma. Ace failed to stifle a few chuckles of his own.

It seriously looked like Sabo was having a wrestling match with a seagull (he was). And losing. After about five minutes, Sabo was on the ground, breathing hard while the seagull was perched on-top of his rising and falling chest striking a victory pose.

“Sabo!”, Ace called out, “You must be really rusty if you can’t even beat a gull.”.

Sabo gave him an icy-cold glare, though its effect was nullified by the fact that he was on the floor and replied, “I was in chains for 3 years, I had no form of exercise, what do you think?”.

Ace winced at the mention of the three years they were gone, and gave a stiff nod. Sabo sighed, “It’s fine, anyways, this ‘gull’ as you so degradingly called it, is a news coo. We pay it 100 beri and it will give us a version of today’s paper, and due to some people,”, he looked pointedly at Ace, “we’re dirt poor,” he finished.

Ace rubbed the skin on the back of his neck bashfully before snapping his fingers and sending a lance of fire through the gull’s chest. It dropped down dead and the newspapers that it held dropped out of its talons as well.

“That enough to compensate?”, Ace asked, while making a show of blowing the smoke off the top of his finger.

Sabo laughed and took the newspaper from him and offhandedly said, “It’s good that I somewhat remember how to read,”.

Ace and Luffy edged closer to him as he began to read off the newspaper article.

“‘RED HAIRED PIRATES DESTROY ANOTHER MARINE BASE’”,

“Hey! That’s Shanks!”, Luffy cheered, “He really did come looking for us.”.

Sabo and Ace shared a smile and then continued on, “‘GARP MISSING FOR THE THIRD YEAR SINCE MAY 25’”.

Shocked silence descended upon the three brothers.

“That… crappy Jiji… missing?”, Ace stuttered out.

“Jii-chan,”, tears welled up in Luffy’s eyes.

Sabo frantically searched for the paper’s date.

May 25, he noted, the same day we went missing… “He’s been missing ever since we disappeared.”, Sabo gritted out.

A hysterical laugh ripped from Ace’s throat, “What do you know? The Jiji actually loved us!”, he said, with a deranged look in his eye. Then, just as fast as it appeared, it disappeared, almost as if being forcefully shoved down.

“Continue.”, Ace grounded out.

Sabo shakily nodded and forged on, “‘Garp the Fist, the famous Marine Hero has been missing for three years. Today marks the beginning of the times in which pirates have gotten all the more confident with the disappearance of Garp. We all hope and pray for the Hero to return to us once more and save us from the Pirates, but until then, we can only speculate on why he disappeared in the first place, was it because of grief on losing a loved one? Or something else—’”, Ace held up a hand to stop him.

They both shared a look and then turned their heads in their youngest brother’s direction. Said younger brother had been eerily quiet through the entire article. What they saw made him stop cold.

o-o

Luffy was positively livid. For all the time that Sabo had been reading that article, he was thinking. Jiji, where are you? When Sabo was finally stopped from reading, Luffy didn’t feel like Luffy anymore. He felt rage. He felt furious. He felt sad. He felt sad that his Jiji couldn’t stay in the Marines to follow his dreams, sad that they had let themselves be taken by the facility.

Overloaded with so many negative emotions, Luffy was no longer Luffy, but a Devil. A sad Devil, who yearned for hunger, and the subject of his emotion. When denied, he let out a mighty roar and launched himself towards the nearest living, breathing creature, which just so happened to be Sabo.

o-o

Sabo was watching Luffy intently, and saw when his pupils dilated and his eyes turned completely black, with a bright red orb glowing from within, and by all means, that was when he should’ve dragged Ace and left to let Luffy finish his little ‘episode’. That was exactly what he should’ve done, but instead, like the idiot he is, he waited.

That’s when Luffy let out a roar and launched himself towards Sabo with black, intangible, vine-like tendrils licking around the edges of his body. Sabo’s instincts went into overdrive.

He got up, put two arms in front of him and pushed against Luffy’s strength. His canines grew into fangs, and his ears elongated. The behind of his pants ripped and something jutted out. His nails grew longer and fur started popping up on his ankles, his elbows, and the back of his hands. His feet were now a mix of paws and feet, and his pupils slitted and glowed an aura of red around his inherently blue eyes. His face paled, and he stood his ground, skid marks coming from the contest of strength between him and his little brother.

All the while, Ace sat there with awe.

Sabo let out a roar easily matching Luffy’s in volume and pushed back at his little brother. He took a backseat in his brain as he felt his instincts take over his body. Sabo slowly stalked over to Luffy, much like a wolf would do to their prey, and licked one of his gleaming fangs before opening his mouth and aiming for the throat.

In his own mind, Sabo was kicking and screaming for him to stop, to take back control of his body, to not kill his little brother, but all he could do was watch helplessly as his own body would inevitably devour his little brother.

Ha. He thought bitterly, I’m still so useless, aren’t I?

He felt a pain in his side and howled in pain. Sabo’s ears perked up.

Ace? He was overjoyed, Luffy’s saved!

Then, he blacked out.

o-o

After Luffy went crazy, Sabo went crazy. What the hell did they go through in the facility?

Ace was thoroughly confused. Luffy turned into a crazy person, and Sabo turned into a weird cross between two mythical creatures; a vampire and a werewolf. He thought he had perfect enough merit to be confused. He always knew he could just ask what happened in the facility to them, but that would be breaking the unspoken agreement between them.

o-o

It passed a good three hours before Luffy and Sabo awoke, and they both sent questioning glances to Ace, who gave them a surprised look before shrugging them off. They continued reading out the newspaper to each other, Sabo trying to teach them all to read again, while very smartly not questioning the hole in his pants and underwear showing off his butt.

He learned to not question things anymore. He forgot if he learned not to question things when he first met Luffy, or if he learned that in the facility.

When they finished reading out the newspaper, three bounty posters fell out of the folds in the paper.

DEAD OR ALIVE

FENRIR SABO

100,000,000 beri

DEAD OR ALIVE

GOLD ACE

150,000,000 beri

DEAD OR ALIVE

MONKEY D LUFFY

150,000,000 beri

o…o

Marco was watching Thatch and Haruta run away from the Vista while laughing like they just succeeded in taking over the Grand Line. He didn’t know how they managed to do it, but they stole his mustache wax and used it to style his hair into a huge heart.

Marco felt bad for Vista, he definitely did, but he would be lying if he didn’t say that it wasn’t funny. He just couldn’t find the heart in him to laugh at Vista considering he was just pranked this morning.

He woke up to a face full of blue painted turkey.

“Marco, son,” his father rumbled. Marco turned towards the legendary Whitebeard as he sat in his throne and replied, “What, Oyaji?”.

“Take a look at this,”, he gave the newspaper to Marco. All on deck began huddling towards Marco as he began reading through the paper.

“It seems that Garp is still laying low,” Marco said, “It also seems that the Red-haired pirates still haven’t found who they’re looking for,”.

He remembered the day the Red-haired pirates came to their ship like it was yesterday…

o-o

“Hey, old man.”, Shanks said, “Got you some sake,”. He threw a ten-foot tall and wide sake jug to Whitebeard.

“So, brat,” Whitebeard rumbled, “Care to explain why you’re suddenly going rouge, destroying every single Marine Base you cross?”.

Shanks looked up at Whitebeard with a grim look in his eye and said, “I’m searching for someone,”.

Whitebeard gulped down a sip of sake and wiped his mouth before asking, “Who exactly?”.

Shanks gave a wicked smile, “Nunya,”

“Hm?”

“Nunya business,”, Shanks laughed.

o-o

Shanks had refused to tell who he had been talking about, but the fact that he was searching for three years showed that he had a lot of faith in the person. The brat hadn’t visited ever since. Now, Garp on the other hand…

o-o

“Oi! Whitebeard!”, Garp yelled from a dinghy on the open sea, “I’m looking for my grandsons, so if you find them anywhere on the Grand Line, don’t touch a hair on their heads. Until then, I’ll be gone!”, he said flippantly.

Although the man had a jovial tone, anyone with Observation Haki could feel the threatening and serious undertone his words had.

“Very well,”

“Great!”

o-o

They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since. Anyone would think that someone as eccentric as Garp would be sticking out like a sore thumb, so no one on the ship really believed him when he said that he would be ‘gone’.

Oh, how wrong they were.

A bunch of wanted posters fell out of the folds of the newspaper, and Marco bent down to pick them up. He shuffled through them, gaining a surprised look on his face.

He leisurely walked over to his beloved father and gave him the wanted posters. His father shuffled through each one, absently commenting on each one. He would say things like, ‘cocky brat’, or ‘this one is interesting’, or maybe, ‘this one won’t even last’. Most of the wanted posters in general had some sort of threatening air to them in which Marco got a sense of normality.

Oh. Boring, boring normality.

The last three wanted posters completely destroyed that.

Whitebeard had a look on his face when he saw those three bounty posters splayed out in front of him that literally screamed, ‘I want it’.

Out of curiosity, Marco and Thatch walked over to the bounty posters and saw three kids on each one.

Fenrir Sabo, who had a picture of pointed ears with dirty blonde fur at the tips, blue eyes, which were thoroughly broken, and sharp fangs protruding from his top gums.

Gold Ace, who had a picture of a maniacal smile, with tears coming down his face, flames licking around his gray eyes which shone with vengeance.

Monkey D Luffy, the seemingly youngest, who had a picture of a grimly determined look on his face, with longer bangs and a childish scar under his eye.

All of them had one thing in common, they screamed, ‘chained’.

Marco turned to his friend Thatch, who now had a comparative determined look on his face just like the Luffy child. It seemed that he was determined to adopt those three. A metaphorical fire burned in his eyes.

Marco was ready to set a course for paradise, but then realized something he should have when he first read the bounty posters.

“How do we explain this to Garp?”, his father ended up voicing the unspoken question bouncing around in Marco’s head.

He just sighed and went on to plotting the course.

I’ll deal with that later.

o…o

Zoro and Usopp had recently escaped from the facility by a hair thanks to Boris. Whoever that guy was, he was good, Zoro needed to remember that in case for the future. Or at least, until he went on a suicide mission and decided to blow up the entire facility and himself in the process.

This Boris character was weird. He freed certain people, but chained others. If he was like that, at least with some goodwill inside of him, why did he surround himself with… the White-coats?

He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked at the 2 years younger boy next to him. Said boy had a nose almost as long as Pinocchio, but unlike Pinocchio, his eyes weren’t filled with joy. They were dull and broken. The kid’s name was Usopp.

“Zoro, where are we going next?”, the now named Usopp asked.

“Wherever the wind takes us,” Zoro replied.

“Oh.” Usopp walked over to one end of the dinghy and sat down. Zoro looked at Usopp, taking in the changes that the White-coats had done to him. It turned out that Usopp was the first successful experiment they had in a while. He was successfully fused with an eagle, and now had the gift of flight and superior eyesight, with somewhat enhanced strength.

It wasn’t much of a gift when he got it from them, though.

The White-coats broke Usopp through and through, so much so, that gone was the kid, and in place was eyes much older than should belong on that face.

Zoro observed himself soon after. When he told them his name, they all were surprised. What’s so wrong with the surname, ‘Roronoa’? No matter. Whatever they did to him though… it hurt. Badly. All of a sudden, he gained enhanced strength and speed, along with a demonic spirit awakened in his body.

He thought they were scientists, not voodoo whatevers.

They turned him into a full-blooded Asura. But damn if it didn’t feel good when the power rushed into him every time, he shifted forms.

He felt another tug on his sleeve, and looked up to see Usopp pointing to a fairly small-sized ship. Probably could hold around 10-15 people. Maybe they would help them. It would take a little… convincing, though.

Usopp flew over to the mast of the ship and saw three kids, two of which were around Zoro’s age, and the other around his own, reading a newspaper. No, wait, they were reading bounty posters. Never mind.

Zoro climbed up the side of the ship and landed on deck with a thud. He found three kids staring at him. One of which had freckles, another of which had a top-hat, and the last of which had a straw-hat on with long hair that pooled around him. All three were wearing bewildered expressions.

Well, let’s get this over with, Zoro closed his eyes and shifted into the Asura’s form, embracing the rush of power as his arms and heads multiplied by three.

He was ready to attack when the blonde blurted something out which stopped him in his tracks cold.

o…o

Sabo was just reading the newspaper with his brothers, until they found their bounty posters. They had weird pictures. Although, he can’t deny that they had a good angle to take them.

Everything was relatively peaceful until this one guy bounced up on deck and got into a tight attack stance. Or at least, he thought it was an attack stance. Ace was once step away from attacking him, but was stopped when Sabo gave him a pointed look.

Then, when the kid’s arms and heads multiplied, everything went to hell, and Sabo just couldn’t control his mouth.

“You’re from the Facility?”, he blurted out.

The kid adopted a bewildered expression before it contorted into rage, “How do you know?”, he replied.

“We were from there ourself,” Sabo gestured to his brothers, “For the entire last year, I heard rumors that the White-coats were trying to create a demon, and I somewhat remember a bit of my past life before the Facility, and—That’s an Asura, right?”, he asked.

Zoro dropped his attack stance before calling out to someone, “Hey! Get down! Maybe they can actually help us!”.

A cross between a bird and a human, but not quite exactly Fae dropped down in front of the three brothers, before standing up and walking over to the green-headed boy.

Zoro decided to take a leap of faith when he heard that they were from the facility too, and introduced himself.

“I’m Roronoa Zoro, and this is Usopp, who are you?”.

The youngest decided to reply before his brothers, “I’m Monkey D Luffy! Those’re my brothers Ace and Sabo!”, he gestured wildly to the other two, who just waved, before asking, “Hey, Zoro? Usopp? Join my crew!”

Zoro shared a look with Usopp and thought back to his life before the facility. Before the facility, he would’ve stayed far away from offers to join pirates, but at this point, he couldn’t care less. He was kidnapped and taken to the facility for 1 ½ years, and he could honestly care less about who helped him, so long as they helped him. And Usopp too, of course.

The kid came after Zoro, but was tested on more vigorously, broken more quickly. He ended up staying in the facility for an entire year.

How they knew the time? Well, the facility liked to gloat about how long they kept prisoners, and how long said prisoners were stuck, so they kept time on how long who stayed inside.

“Sure.” Zoro replied. Usopp dully looked at him and nodded along.

Luffy grabbed Usopp’s arm and dragged him over to some storage closet before taking out a few fishing lines. He talked animatedly to Usopp for a few seconds, and Zoro could’ve sworn that a spark of light ignited in Usopp’s eyes for a second there. But he could’ve just been imagining it.

No, wait, he didn’t imagine it. Usopp cracked a small smile and that spark in his eyes ignited into a flame. He didn’t know how the kid did it, but he was amazed. Usopp began talking somewhat docilely back to the kid, before slowly accelerated into animated movements and hand-gestures.

2 weeks of trying to heal Usopp on his own, and that kid did it in less than 5 minutes.

He heard a chuckle behind him. Ace was shaking his head in fond exasperation, “Luffy can bring out the best in you, I don’t know how he does it, but he does it.”, the blonde brother cut in.

“Come on, let’s go to the galley, we’re going to need to change the rations we’ve got.”

Zoro smiled and nodded. He was already starting to feel more alive on this ship than he had in the 13 years that he’d lived.

He walked with the older two brothers to the galley, leaving Luffy and Usopp to their devices outside.

BIG MISTAKE.

When Ace opened the galley door again to go out on deck, he was drenched in paint before sneezing from pepper being dropped from above, and speed-drying it onto himself. Luffy and Usopp were laughing their heads off while running from a raging pyromaniac.

He chuckled, I could get used to this.

o…o

Garp sighed and put the newspaper down. Today marks the 3^rd year, he thought, I’m going to have to return to the Marines sooner or later. Otherwise Senny will be mad.

He let out another sigh before clutching his head and kneading a throbbing headache. Tiny crystals pricked at the edges of his eyes, threatening to fall. 3 years, and I still haven’t found my grandsons.

He furiously wiped his eyes and grabbed the bounty posters. He shuffled through all of them, muttering incoherently at each one, before stopping at the last three.

My Grandsons, tears once again pooled at the edges of his eyes, but this time he let them fall, I found you.

o…o

Shanks was sitting on a rock in the light of the sunset, perfectly accenting his grim face and blood-red hair.

3 years, he thought, No sign of Anchor or the other two Garp told me about.

He sighed and grabbed the nearest sake bottle before taking a big sip. He smacked his lips together and closed his eyes, thinking of the time when Anchor accidentally ate his devil fruit, and even then, couldn’t swim, and Makino, who looked at him with kind and soft eyes, and oh! That Mayor Woopslap—no. He shouldn’t be thinking about those things.

Even without thinking about those things, tears seeped out of his eyes, and his nonexistent left arm throbbed in a phantom pain. He was broken out of his reminiscing when Benn ran up to him and shoved three Wanted Posters in his face.

Shanks sat up and took the Wanted Posters off his face before staring at Benn Beckmann, his first mate, with an unreadable look.

Benn was frantic. That wasn’t normal. Normally, it’s Shanks who is frantic and Benn the one to comfort. Shanks absently filtered through the three Wanted Posters before stopping at the last one.

It was Anchor.

He hadn’t felt this happy in a long time.

“MEN! SET SAIL FOR PARADISE!”, he commanded, his voice resonating throughout the entire razed down Marine Base.

A chorus of “““AYE!””” resonated from in front of him.

o…o

Makino was crying. Whether it was from happiness, sadness or anger, she did not know. Happiness, for knowing that the three boys she helped raise were alive, sadness, from knowing that she could do nothing to help them, or anger, from the conditions they were in.

Dadan was in the bar too, she was carefully blank, but anyone with a trained eye could see the unbridled fury in her eyes.

WHO DARES TO DO THIS TO MY BOYS?! She internally roared.

o…o

Whitebeard was gulping a sake gourd and smiling all the while.

We’re in Paradise.

Chapter Text

Monkey D Luffy was hungry. As shown by the constant pestering of said Monkey D Luffy to brothers; Ace and Sabo. Usopp and Zoro weren’t exempt from it either.

Wait, actually they kind of were. Zoro was sleeping by the mast, while whispering sweet nothings to his swords, Wado Ichimonji, and two other nameless ones. Actually, he was just sweet-talking Wado. For Usopp, it was his turn to take watch. It was somewhat of a unanimous decision for Usopp to take watch, because, well, eagle eyes.

That left Ace and Sabo on Luffy duty. Again.

Neither of them were happy with that. Sabo was one step away from going into rage-werewolf mode, and strangling his little brother, and Ace? Oh, Ace. His mental states were warring with each other. One half wanted to stitch Luffy’s mouth closed, whereas the other didn’t want to stitch his mouth closed.

The end result on the outside was a furiously twitching eye, along with a violently pulsing vein on the top of his forehead.

“Ace.”

Twitch.

“Ace.”

Twitch.

“I’m hungryyyyy…”

SNAP!

Ace turned his head and glared at his little brother, and a distinctly manic look entered his eyes. Luffy didn’t seem to get the message.

“Ace—”

Within one second, Zoro was alert, and in his Asura form, Usopp had a crossbow he stole recently ready, Sabo was visibly tensed, Ace’s presence was flaring, and Luffy… Luffy was matching him for that power, bit by bit.

Both presences towered over the rest on the ship, being matched only by each other, and the only one coming close, being Sabo.

The presences kept fighting each other in a silent battle of wills; One of which neither was willing to lose.

The skies split in between them, but none on the ship paid any heed, too absorbed in the battle itself.

We’re sticking out like a sore thumb, Sabo realized at one point, with them flaring their presences like it’s nothing…

Sabo sucked in a breath, and ran to hoist the sails. He wasn’t suicidal. He wasn’t going to get in between their battle of wills. Not when he was so weak and out of shape. He was nothing but skin and bones at the moment, with the barest hints of previous muscle still lingering on him.

He knew he was going to die if he tried to get in between them in the middle of their battle. The least he could do is make them move before they attract…

Sabo paled as he looked out in the distance.

That. He finished numbly.

o…o

The legendary Whitebeard and his crew were sailing through Paradise, with the help of his beloved son Haruta, and tracking down the three children he so very much wished for.

He knew that he would be fighting a battle with Garp the Fist for them. Would he regret it? Not a bit.

If they truly were that old geezer’s grandchildren, then Garp would understand…

Probably…

Whitebeard grinned and guzzled a sake gourd, pointedly ignoring the protests from his daughters and Marco, before almost dropping it on them in surprise.

2—no—3 presences, he amended. One was fiery, one was icy, and the last, a dark, apoplectic thing.

They came from a small ship, just barely spotted o’er their radar. With keen eyes, he scanned the presences on the ship before stopping at the three most powerful. 2 of them were warring, and the skies were splitting with them so.

Must be Haoshoku, Whitebeard thought absently, he rested his eyes on the third presence. This one had an aura of calm and calculating floating about it. However, it suddenly flew into a frenzy, discarding all semblance of ‘calm’ it ever had in the beginning.

Whitebeard blinked once, then twice, before smiling and dropping his gaze towards the source of the third presence. It was a blonde boy, with murky, blue eyes, as well as a top hat and cravat. Whitebeard stared at the boy, and the boy stared right back.

…Before hoisting the sails and yelling some unintelligible words to two other crewmates who scurried to them, and sailing away from the Whitebeards top-speed.

The famed Edward Newgate blinked once, before setting his sights on the already receding boat in the distance.

Let the chase begin. He thought.

Just then, a huge wave rocked the Moby Dick, causing Whitebeard to stagger, just barely. He turned around and peered over the edge of the ship, only to be met with a good old, knuckle sandwich.

…And a very angry Garp as the owner.

o…o

He couldn’t believe it! He finally found his Grandsons! He was in nothing but a little dinghy, effectively sailing under the radar of most ships he crossed in the First half of the Grand Line.

He sighed happily, before readying himself to jump onto their boat (seriously, how could it be anything other than a boat? It’s too small and weak to sail the Grand Line, really, it’s a miracle it got this far to begin with), two immense presences began warring. It wasn’t at the same level as one of the Yonko, in fact, it was but a meager imitation, but the fact that there were two presences, warring gave Garp enough context as to what happened to his grandsons during the time they were gone, and who the two presences belonged to.

Who… Who pushed Ace and Luffy so much that they awoke CONQUEROR’S at this age? He gritted his teeth, before locking his jaw, I can worry about that later, right now, Grandsons!

He bent his knees, and got into the starting position for a particularly strong Geppo, before the neglected third presence, which he was quite sure was Sabo, flew into a frenzy.

It put Garp off-balance so much so, that the dinghy he was in, tipped over and sank upside down. Once he surfaced, he found that his Grandsons were far, far away, and the Moby Dick—Whitebeard—was in their place. Every part of Garp’s mind that was concern, was wiped away and replaced with white-hot anger.

He cocked a fist back and let it rip in the direction of a Moby Dick, the shockwave from his fist creating a wave that was too small to be one of Whitebeard’s Tsunamis (he wasn’t in a position to be producing one of those), but big enough to rock the Moby Dick.

When he saw the first signs of Whitebeard peering over to see what had caused that, he un-suppressed his presence and let it flare before rocketing out of the sea and decking Whitebeard in the jaw.

He set himself right on the deck of the Moby Dick with a barely-noticeable Geppo, and glared into the eyes of every single one of the pirates he swore to capture. He gritted his teeth together, just barely restraining letting his Conqueror rip out from himself and attack everyone there, bulldozing through all their wills, and breaking their minds.

He watched as Whitebeard slowly got up and get into a fighting pose. It seemed that he knew that Garp wasn’t messing around. Not today.

Not when it was Whitebeard’s fault, he couldn’t see his Grandsons in 3 goddamn years!

Garp got into his own fighting stance. Both legends stared each other down, before letting their right fists fly into a deadlock with each other. They gazed mercilessly into each other’s eyes while the skies split in a true battle of wills above them.

o…o

“Captain, we’re nearing Paradise,” Shanks heard Benn say. Shanks spared his first-mate a glance, before looking back on the Umi that his former captain so very much loved. It didn’t escape his mind that on one of the Wanted Posters he had seen, it had the name

“Gold Ace”.

It was a stupid imitation of that kid’s true name, but the Government wasn’t stupid. They wouldn’t give that surname to anyone unless they were actually Roger’s children.

Seems like him and Rouge actually did get together, Shanks mused, I wonder…

He was broken out of his musing by two presences flaring nearby, before another presence going into a frenzy, and then said presences receding into the distance, before another 2 presences rocketed into his senses. 2 very familiar presences. One presence of which he contacted regularly, and the other of which, he hadn’t seen in 3 years.

The old man and Garp… he realized; I need to stop this before they kill each other.

His face set into grim determination, before he yelled in Benn’s general direction (Man, Kenbunshoku Haki is useful),

“SET SAIL; FULL SPEED TOWARDS THE WARRING TITANS!”

He felt a few indignant auras flare up in the back of his mind, but he paid no attention. Right now, all he had in mind was stopping the havoc that was about to be wrecked on the seas.

Once he reached, only a few people actually noticed him. Whitebeard and Garp, not included. They were both in a deadlock of fists, and as awesome as it looked, it was causing a few islands to tip over. Shanks generally didn’t care about stuff like that, but, Damn, if he wasn’t terrified.

“So, what’s going on?” he asked dumbly.

A nearby Whitebeard Pirate glared at him before speaking, “If you can’t notice already, Red-Hair, they’re both trying to kill each other,” they said sarcastically with not a small amount of venom.

Shanks refrained from sneering back at him. Right now, is not a good time to be doing that.

He slowly inched his right hand towards his cutlass, before resting his hand full on the hilt. He gulped, Okay, here goes…

“STOP!”, he commanded with a good amount of Conqueror’s infused with it, even though he was trying not to piss his pants from the sharp glares he got sent his ways.

Who knew Old Men could be so terrifying?

“IS THIS GOING ANYWHERE?”, Okay, try to fix the problem with talking first, and then if all else fails, whack them both on the back of their heads and hope to Oda that they won’t remember anything in the morning.

All he got in response were even more intense glares. He sighed and amended, “You’re both looking for Anch—Luffy and his brothers, right?”, he barely stopped himself in time. It wouldn’t do well for people to know that he was already close to them. (Well, really it was only one, but he included them by extension).

He got a slightly less intense glare from Garp, and a stare of confusion from Whitebeard.

Shanks sighed and elaborated, “I mean, that, if we stay here, will we be getting anywhere? As we speak, they’re wandering aimlessly across the Grand Line, and I’m sure you know what’ll happen…”, he let the statement hang in the air for a bit before continuing, “So instead of trying to kill each other, let’s try to actually do something without destroying entire islands—”, he sent a venomous glare towards both Garp and Whitebeard who respectfully flinched in lieu of his glare.

Shanks sighed, “I’ll take the Calm Belt, Garp, you try to track them down, Whitebeard, you take Paradise, let’s find Anchor.”, this time he forgot to stop himself from saying Anchor, but at this point, he didn’t care.

Whitebeard laughed before rumbling, “You’re in no position to be making orders of me, brat,” he paused thoughtfully for a moment, “But very well,” he conceded, “Let’s find them”

Garp grinned and boomed, “I can’t wait to see my Grandsons again!”, again, everyone could hear the unspoken threat in his words, the one that hung over each and all of their heads should they try to harm his Grandsons.

Even Whitebeard’s mouth was shut in this. He could handle Garp on so many levels. He could handle Garp in a rage, so long as it was calculated. If it was blind, Observation Haki would be useless, and even then Garp’s strength is still legendary, and on the same level as Whitebeard’s. He didn’t even have a Devil Fruit.

I suppose that’s what’s the scariest about him, Newgate thought out, All his strength is not given, it’s earned.

He looked at Garp with a nostalgic look in his eyes, Exactly like Roger’s strength. Only difference is that he uses his fists instead of a cutlass. Whitebeard snorted at his thoughts.

Garp turned around and walked off the edge of the ship, before landing with a thud on the deck of the Red Force. He walked right through the sea of Red-Hair pirates as if he owned the place, and watched with a flippant attitude, how the newer members of the Red-Hairs gritted their teeth and gripped their cutlass or rifle handles just a bit tighter, whereas the older members just gave exasperated glares towards him.

A news coo landed next to him on the rail of the deck. It took one look at Garp, paled, which was real funny on a bird, and dropped a newspaper on the deck before speeding off at speeds that would’ve made Lucci of CP9 jealous. (Or Rainbow Dash, for those of you that watch MLP FiM, she would be a better comparison…)

Garp laughed it off before grabbing the newspaper. He didn’t even get past the first page before his hands started trembling in sadness. On that page was a picture of a really old, tired Sengoku, and behind him, a shadow of what Marine Headquarters once was. His heart ached. He wanted to return so bad, but his family always came first. That was what it was to be a D.

I need to return as soon as possible, he resolved, I can’t allow Marine HQ to become like this ever again.

He dropped the newspaper on the ground before silently stalking off, this time in a significantly more depressed mood than before.

o…o

Sabo was terrified, he was hyperventilating. He was scared. Petrified. He was… are there any more synonyms to the word ‘scared’? Because one has got to describe what he was feeling just then.

He only had heard legends. Legends that he just scarcely remembered. Legends of the one called Whitebeard. The equal to Gold Roger. It creeped him out, whenever he said Gold Roger, that Ace would no longer get mad, but have this empty, yet accepting look in his eyes.

He wanted the old Ace back. But, who was he to say what he wanted… when whenever he closed his eyes he would forget about the sea and think that he was back in that Oda-damned facility, where they were constantly—

Oh. He opened his eyes, Another episode…

He looked towards the general direction of his two brothers and saw that they were still silently engaging in their battle of wills, neither of which was wavering. Zoro was entranced by the battle, why? Sabo had no clue, but he was gripping his White Katana (Ichimonji…?) especially hard, so he guessed it had to do with his past before the facility.

Usopp was entranced as well, but probably for different reasons. His focus was completely lost, so he could no longer hide his wings, feathers, and talons inside of his aura, so he was completely going all harpy while silently cheering for Luffy to win.

Sabo blinked.

What? He thought, How did I know that?

He shook his head and resolved to think about it later before an amused smile spread across his face, Looks like Luffy’s got two loyal supporters for life, He mused.

He let the smile drop from his face as a familiar, sick feeling came over him. Oh god… Dear Oda… How did he not notice it by now? Maybe the stress had gotten to him, and maybe that’s why he was weaker than normal for the last 2 days or so…

He was hungry. And not the normal hungry, he was hungry, hungry.

He felt his canines elongate in his mouth to turn into fangs and his skin pale while his nails grew into borderline claw-form, yet immaculately cared for. His right eye gained a distinct red color, while his left eye remained blue, and yet again, he took a backseat in his own mind.

o-o

Luffy didn’t know what was going on. One moment he was having fun with Ace, pestering him about food, and the next, Ace just tries to bulldoze into him. Except well… mentally. Luffy barely had any time to react.

He put up small barriers around Zoro and Usopp, but not Sabo; he knew that Sabo wouldn’t need it, but Zoro and Usopp would. It was hell on his mental state to keep those barriers up as well as maintaining his own in a battle of wills against his own brother. But… the amount of power Ace was emitting could break minds that weren’t mysteriously powerful in their own right, and Luffy knew this.

That’s why he was doing everything he could to protect them. He felt another aura tickle the back of his mind, like it was Sabo, but not quite Sabo. It was too chaotic to be Sabo’s, and way too blind, but it still gave off the impression that it was Sabo.

He looked back at Ace before searching with his mystery power behind him. It seemed that Ace hadn’t taken notice about the weird presence that was crawling around. It was so weird. He felt it getting closer… and closer… Once it was close enough, he focused a little more on analyzing the aura, and he could see its intent a little bit more clearly and it was trying to—

FEEDFEEDHUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRYBLOODBLOODBLOODBLOODBLOO—

Luffy’s eyes snapped wide open before dropping the force he was putting against Ace, and letting the oppressing power wash all over him. He didn’t care. He didn’t have time. He focused all of his mystery power on the thing that Sabo became and rocketed his will towards him.

Sabo, who was his brother. Sabo, who was trying to eat him. Sabo, who loved him with all his heart and more. Sabo, who was too jaded to think properly. Sabo, who took a backseat in his own mind. Sabo, Sabo, SABO!

He keeled over, foaming at the mouth, and was safely unconscious. Both sides of him.

Luffy cried tears of blood that day. It started out as salty liquid, but ended out metallic after the tear glands were emptied.

I wanted to use this power to protect whom I love, he whimpered mentally, Instead I’m using it against my own allies and brothers.

Ace was snapped back to reality by what happened, and the manic look in his eyes was no longer there. He looked with a gaze of confusion at Luffy and Sabo, before his eyes widened in realization. He had the decency to look abashed, what with the hand rubbing the back of his neck in all, before running towards Luffy and Sabo.

Upon seeing them both, the light in his eyes dropped, as if a cloth had snuffed it out. He knew, very well, that the strength of his and Luffy’s power could break minds and wills in half cleanly. And Luffy had just rocketed his at full force towards none other than their own brother.

Even if they had been battling for a while now, and Luffy was taxed, that would still be a lot.

“He was hungry,” the words were quiet, but they resonated all throughout the deck. “He was hungry,” it was repeated, only this time louder.

“HE WAS HUNGRY!”, Luffy yelled once more before slamming a fist into the deck next to Sabo, leaving a fist-shaped dent in the wood. Ace had no doubt that wasn’t his little brother’s full strength, but didn’t say anything pointing it out.

“He was… hungry…” Luffy sobbed. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, in an attempt to stifle the tears.

“He was hungry and I was the one whining,” Ah, now Ace knew exactly what was going on.

Here comes the guilt.

He was too busy rocketing his will into Luffy’s to care about what would happen to Sabo. He had Faith that Sabo would be fine, and yet, he wasn’t. Ace sat down next to Sabo’s motionless body, putting a gentle hand on top of the rising and falling chest.

“Luffy, we’re still alive,” he began, “From now on, instead of battling each other with our wills, Nakama first. Family, first.”. Luffy nodded, still sniffling.

“Ace,” his voice quivered, “Please don’t die,”.

Ace was silent at that request, before he finally spoke up.

“I can’t promise that I won’t die,” he said, “But I know that I’ll live.”.

He shot a signature D smile at his little brother who gave a smaller one back.

“One more thing…”, Usopp butted into the conversation, “I don’t see any wind,” he looked around frantically, “Or waves for that matter.”

Ace gave a deadpan look at him, “That’s not possible,”

“Brat, if you’re going to be sailing the Grand Line, you should get rid of that mindset,”

“Shut up, Jiji—” Ace’s eyes widened before he whipped his head around, and his mouth went dry.

“Jiji!” Luffy said for him, before rocketing them both into the old man’s waiting arms. Said old man squeezed them closer into his barrel before whispering into their ears, “I’m so glad you’re alive,”.

He picked up Sabo’s body and hugged that one too with the other two. If anyone had seen Garp the freaking Fist at that moment, they would’ve thought he looked so, so vulnerable. Such a stark difference from the man many pirates came to know and fear.

“Anchor!”, a voice called out.

Luffy’s ear twitched, before he reluctantly pulled himself out of his Grandfather’s hold and rocketed into the other voice.

“SHANKS!”

Shanks gave him the best hug he could, with one arm. Garp looked at him jealously, before shrugging it off, in lieu of talking about Whitebeard’s reaction when he finds out that Garp found the three first.

None of them were listening though.

“Hey, what happened to you boys?”, Shanks questioned, mentally steeling himself for the long story he would inevitably hear. He knew that things were different. Three years had passed, Anchor now had 2 new brothers, but what should not have happened, was the fact that him and the freckled brother unlocked Conqueror’s.

Nothing should’ve made sure that’d happen, unless they were both put under serious situations with high stress and—

Shanks grit his teeth together before motioning for Luffy to continue.

“So, then, at Dawn Island, it was perfectly fine, and then, these CP9 guys came into the island, they were really mean, they threatened to kill Makino if we didn’t come with them calmly, so we ended up doing that. Makino doesn’t know, though, so don’t tell her, and neither does Dadan. We sneaked away. They put us in a weird facility and split us up after we entered. Ace was—”

“I was being raised to be a superweapon”

“Sabo was—”

“urrgh—I was a guinea pig,” was all the downed brother got out before snoring away again.

Shanks was bewildered, but the Monkey D family and Ace ignored it with frighteningly practiced ease, before Luffy continued.

“I was basically entertainment,”

The temperature on deck plummeted.

“What?” Shanks whispered.

“Yeah, I was put in colosseum cages to fight, they forced me to kill, I couldn’t make friends, and they drugged me after 2 years of fighting,” Luffy exclaimed flippantly.

The temperature on deck went below freezing temperature.

“Drugged you?” Shanks whispered dangerously. Not that Garp was any better.

A thick tension filled the deck, with only Luffy being seemingly oblivious to it, because the choice of words he kept using was just… wrong.

“Yeah, they drugged me and made me do things while I was unconscious,”

The temperature skyrocketed, courtesy of Ace.

“They made you do things when you were unconscious?” Ace gritted out, “What kind of things?”

“Oh, they would make me go crazy, they would make me do these weird stuffs, I can’t describe it,” Luffy said obliviously.

This time, Zoro was grounding his teeth together, and Usopp—Usopp—was gripping his crossbow so hard, it threatened to break under his grip.

“After they drugged me, they would make me fight in the colosseum,” Luffy finished.

The tension that was thick on the deck soon disappeared without a trace, and Garp gave a smile before frowning as he remembered what Ace said.

“Superweapon?”, he whispered, “Oh!” he snapped his fingers.

“If CP9 came after you, you’re wanted by the World Government.”, he stated, “That means the Marines will be after you, and unfortunately, I only pocketed as many off-days as 3 years. I was about to give up and go back to the Marines recently, and then I got word you came back, thank Oda. Anyways, I never really supported that facility. I tried to break and raze it down every chance I got, but I had my job on the line, and believe me, as ancient as the Gorosei are, they’re strong. So, I could never really raze it down, so I gave word to my son, who’s part of the Revolution, that there is a facility like that, he sent some guy named Boris to do the job of razing it down,” Garp finished.

At this point, Sabo had awoken halfway through the story, and lay open-mouthed till the very end.

“Wait, so we don’t have to be marines?”, Sabo ventured hopefully.

Garp sighed before saying, “No… But whatever you do, don’t get caught. I wanted you all to be Marines because if you become pirates, there’s a high chance that if you get caught, the world will be coming to take you back, and I’ll have to be fighting for your death. I have no sympathy for criminals; but for family, I do.”.

Garp gave them all a blank stare. His grandson returned it back, Ace gave a wide-eyed stare, Sabo’s jaw was practically reaching the floor, and Shanks was watching everything with a keen eye.

“I called Whitebeard,” Shanks spoke up, “If what you’re saying is true, then they need to be taken by Whitebeard. They’re strong enough to take care of the kids. I could do it, but I constantly move around, and I look for fights with Marines. That’s not a good thing,”

Garp looked visibly conflicted between aiming to take them back to Dawn Island, or letting them live safely at Whitebeard’s. Just as he settled on a choice, the Moby Dick came into view.

“Garp!”, a booming voice called out, “I hope you’ve got your answer ready!”

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: I don’t own One Piece, those rights belong to Eiichiro Oda

Whitebeard looked at the 2 smaller ships in front of him. While it was true that no ship could hold a candle to the Moby Dick, the Red Force was its own vessel. Whatever those kids were living on at the moment wasn’t even a ship to begin with. It was borderline dinghy.

When he was sure he entered earshot of Garp and Red Hair, he boomed,

“Garp, I hope you’ve got your answer ready!”

He could visibly see the sky darkening above where Garp was in turmoil. Shanks was resolute, but one could see the conflict in his eyes. Garp was hesitating. Not a sight many see of the marine Hero.

All of a sudden, a boom shook the deck. Whitebeard inclined his head in the direction of the boom, and he saw Garp there.

“Oi, Newgate,” a powerful said, Whitebeard snapped back to reality and looked at Garp with an inquisitive look in his eyes, “What?”

“Take care of my grandsons, and their friends,”

Whitebeard stilled for a moment before guffawing and saying, “You’ve got it, Garp!”

o-o

Marco was practically fuming when Garp left yet another crater on the ship. That totaled three craters that Rakuyo had to fix. The 7^th division commander would not be happy.

“Oi Newgate,” Marco’s attention snapped over to Garp, “Take care of my grandsons and their friends,”

Marco’s brain screeched to a halt.

Friends? he thought numbly,

He stiffly turned his head to his father and saw that he had stilled at the news as well, eyes widened imperceptibly.

Then, that old man, that he so very much loved, but sometimes could get too much, laughed and agreed.

Eh?

o-o

 Luffy was nervous. His Grandpa went up to old man moustache with a look that he never saw on his face ever, and practically threatened banana moustache to take care of him.

“Whoa.”, Ace whispered from beside him, “We’re going to be living on that ship,” he looked up reverently, drinking in the sight of the imposing ship that somehow gave them the sense of safety as well.

Sabo scoffed, “That’s what we had to sail away for, idio—”, Sabo froze.

“Eh? Sabo?”, Luffy turned around.

“Sabo?” Ace asked, slightly worried.

“No…” Sabo muttered, “No! Not that! Anything but that!”, at that point he was in hysterics, “Please, kill me if you must! Don’t do that—no…” he froze again, and Ace was one step away from literally shaking Sabo back into perspective.

“You’ll never take me alive.”

Luffy stilled, and then launched himself towards Sabo, effectively pinning him on the ground, “Sabo!” he called out desperately, “Sabo! You’re here! You’re not there, you’re here! You’re with us, you’re okay! Please…” he sniffed, tear tracks running down his cheeks, “Sabo…”.

Sabo groaned and then froze again.

“Luffy…?” he croaked, “What did… I do?” he sounded so lost.

Ace winced and cautiously walked over to Sabo.

“‘bo? Are you… okay?” he asked quietly.

Sabo distantly noted that the world had stopped spinning around him and everything had gone quiet, yet the silence was so loud—

“Is it healthy for silence to be loud?”, Sabo gave a shaky grin and then fell unconscious again.

“What happened?”, Shanks growled after a few moments.

Ace had the decency to look at his feet in shame as Luffy began explaining.

“Ace went crazy, we ended up using our mystery power to fight without moving, and then Sabo went crazy, so I had to cut our fight short, and then knock Sabo out, but then Ace didn’t stop and—” Luffy whimpered, “I could feel his mind break under the pressure”

Shanks winced and spared Sabo’s unmoving body a glance. He turned his attention to Ace, whose head was still hung in shame and tears pricked the edge of Ace’s eyes. Shanks walked up to him and put his hand under his chin. He angled Ace’s head up and looked into his eyes. For a moment, his mind blanked out.

God, those eyes look so much like my Captain’s…

“You’re brothers, aren’t you?” He found his voice, “Then, fix it together,” Oda knows that I didn’t, was what he left unsaid. He had yet to mend ties with Buggy after their Captain died. Buggy ended up going to East Blue to stay in the sea that their Captain was born in, whereas Shanks went ahead to become a Yonko of the sea. As a result, despite the fact that those two were practical brothers (not that Buggy would admit it, of course), they had a major falling out, and old hatred in Buggy did the rest.

They barely even talked anymore. I’m going to have to fix that, he resolved, later, he added sheepishly.

Ace looked at him with wide eyes, and before he could say anything, Shanks blurted out, “When I saw your freckles, I was reminded of Rouge,” Ace’s eyes widened even more as he looked at Shanks with wonder.

“To be honest, that’s the first thing I thought of when I looked at your face,” he admitted, before seriously looking into Ace’s eyes, “When I saw your eyes, they reminded me of Roger,”, and just like that, Ace’s mood soured.

He muttered something incoherent under his breath, but before he could loudly vocalize his opinions, Shanks forged on, “Rouge was like a mother to me, so that would make us brothers,” he winked at Ace, “Now we’re all family, whether you like it or not, firecracker!”. Ace’s face turned into a happy grin, and then Luffy rocketed into him.

“Oof!”

“Hey, hey, SHANKS! Does that make us brothers too?” Luffy hyperactively bounced around.

Shanks laughed and agreed, “Yeah, Anchor! That makes us family for sure, Sabo-boy included!”

After the brothers and Shanks started laughing like they just pranked Sengoku the Golden Buddha, Garp made his presence known to the 3 children and the 1 man-child which doubled for a Yonko of the sea.

“Come on, brats, let’s go,”.

o-o

Once the ASL brothers, and their crew (?) made it onto the ship, Usopp immediately became closed off. He fell off the side of the ship and flew beside the Moby Dick, while Zoro took his 3 katana, while carefully holding Wado closest to him, he walked towards the mast and began napping by it. To normal people, it would look like he was just napping, but everyone on that ship knew that he wasn’t.

They could tell, they would have to be blind in order not to see that in the position he slept in, he had a clear opening towards his katana, and he was in a position which would be easier to launch himself up from and fight on the go.

To those who escaped from the facility, however, they could also see that in the position by which he was napping, he was ready to go into Asura form at a moment’s notice.

Ace picked Sabo up and went to the back deck, a tactical move, seeing how it was completely isolated, and with Usopp flying along the sides of the ship, all they had to do was jump off and they would be able to get a ride off.

But that’s only taking into consideration which ones have Devil Fruits and which ones don’t, Marco realized, All of them, they’re unnatural, his phoenix senses screamed at him that, he’d be damned if he forgot it, They’re unnatural, but only 2 have Devil Fruits? How…

Luffy immediately bounded up to the figurehead of the ship and sat down, while exuding a thick miasma of an aura, so that no one would even think to come near him.

They were taken in by the Whitebeards, yes, but that never meant that the ASLZU had to trust them. (Ace, Sabo, Luffy, Zoro, Usopp).

6 years, at the most, 6 years and they could leave. In 6 years, Luffy would be 17 and no one would have any power over them. Just. 6. Years.

Luffy groaned.

That’s foreveeeerrrrrr…

o-o

2 weeks later

“Why…”

“Thatch—” Marco began—

“Whyyyy…” Thatch cut him off with a petulant whine. In his perspective, his whining was entirely justified. No matter what Marco said, Thatch could tell that even he, the always unflappable Phoenix Marco was becoming annoyed by how quiet the brats were being.

Some crewmates were even questioning whether they left the ship or not.

Thatch was broken out of his whining when the ship rocked violently. Within 5 seconds of that, the door to the galley was slammed open, and a winded Namur made himself known to the 2 commanders.

“Attack…” he wheezed, “Oyaji… Marines—” that in itself was more than enough to rouse the 2 commanders from the table.

“Where?” Thatch asked.

Namur sucked in a breath and led them towards the deck, where a huge battle was happening… And the Whitebeards were on the losing side. It seemed that the Marines were more confident in themselves since the last 3 years. How—?

Oh, that’s right, Marco’s face soured, Garp, that geezer.

Marco ran at full speed across the deck, and when he reached a point, he jumped high and shifted into his half-phoenix form before letting out a screech and dive-bombing the Navy ship to the right of the Moby.

Thatch, however, had other things on mind. The brats, WHERE ARE THE BRATS?! He kept on searching around, and before he could react, a wind brushed past him. It was a weird wind, considering it almost scalded him—

“HIKEN!”

A column of fire erupted from one of the Navy ships attempting to surround the Moby, and within seconds, burned down into nothing but ash. Everyone was speechless for a moment, as the flames condensed and shifted into a solid form—

“Yeesh, you could’ve at least attacked us when I wasn’t sleeping ya jerk,” Ace groused while sending several lances of fire through another Navy ship.

“Jeez, Ace, could you stop complaining? I’ve got a splitting headache,” another voice chuckled.

Sabo sped through a marine battleship that was burning and bit a grunt. Within 5 seconds, all he became was a lump of flesh with his veins running dry.

He licked his lips, fangs glinting in the sunlight, “Never mind! I’m feeling better now!”

Another Navy ship was sliced into disproportionate thirds. Zoro got up from the remains of the ship that still managed to float. His three heads and 6 arms were as clear as day.

“Where am I?”, at this statement, Sabo sweatdropped and wondered, Did he really get lost… there?

“Damn ship, it moved again!” Zoro growled once he found the direction of the Moby Dick. He crouched down and rocketed upwards, landing with a boom right next to Haruta.

He walked up to Whitebeard and reprimanded—reprimanded— “You should stop moving your ship so much, it becomes hard for people to find out where you are,”

Newgate blinked, but before he could return with something, Zoro was already by the mast and napping.

A screech stole their attention and they looked towards another Navy ship where Marco was working on bombarding with dive-bombs and the such. Then, a brown and white blur raced past them and another dive-bomb occurred, this time not from Marco.

Usopp tucked in his wings and rocketed towards the bruised and battered Navy Ship below him. I have to prove my worth, he thought desperately, otherwise captain will leave me! He will leave me behind and say that I’m too weak to continue, I must prove that I’m equal!

Tears pricked at the edges of his eyes as he formed tunnel vision from the force he was plummeting down at.

“Hey, isn’t he falling?” Haruta asked, before defending herself, “What? I mean, when you see Marco dive, he goes at an angle, this guy is…”

“He’s falling,” Thatch realized, “MARCO!” he shouted.

“Marco!” Marco’s head perked up from where he had been slashing at a Marine’s stomach. He turned his attention away and ignored the grunt’s pained moans as his guts oozed out of the gash.

“Stop the kid!”

Stop the kid? What… Marco’s enhanced hearing picked something up from above him. There was a slight change in air pressure, and Marco’s head jerked upwards, seeing the harpy kid plummeting downwards onto the ship at a 90^o angle. Faster than the eye could see, Marco unfurled his wings and launched himself upwards, meeting the harpy kid in less than 2 seconds.

“Hey, kid,” Marco shouted over the whistling of the wind. He could feel the kid’s surprise, and attention, so he continued, “You’re diving the wrong way,” he said nonchalantly before going under the kid and redirecting his trajectory to a slight angle, almost 90^o but not quite.

The kid fumbled for a bit before righting himself, and then found himself going faster than before with slightly less tunnel vision. He looked at Marco in surprise, before giving a small, yet thankful smile. Then the kid dive-bombed into the ship with slightly less force than Marco, but enough to leave a crater that couldn’t be ignored.

Marco smirked and flew over to the Moby Dick. My work is done, that kid will do the rest, he landed on the deck while simultaneously shifting into his human form. He crossed his arms and looked at the destruction on the marines. The ones that were on the Moby were long since taken care of, and now everyone was watching the show of power.

“Why aren’t you stopping the brat?” Vista questioned while sheathing his blades.

Marco just smiled, “That kid…”

o-o

Marco rocketed upwards in an attempt to get to the kid. Before he could say anything though, his breath was stolen by the sheer desperation in the black orbs of the one named Usopp. He was originally going to stop the kid, but recognized the desperation in those eyes.

It reminded him of himself. The will to prove to your captain that you’re not worthless, that they’re good enough not to be abandoned. He wanted to prove himself.

In the end, Marco didn’t have the heart to stop him, and instead helped change his trajectory to maximize damage to the enemy and minimize it done to oneself.

His heart melted when the harpy kid gave him a smile.

Damn me and my bleeding heart, Marco cursed in his mind. He turned around and flew over to the Moby Dick.

o-o

“Reminded me of someone, is all,” Marco finished after a pause.

From the look on Vista’s face, he didn’t buy it, but relented for now.

“Hey, do you know where the sixth brat is? Because he’s not raining havoc and destruction like the rest of them,” Thatch pointed out. Looking closer, Marco could see, yes, there was no sixth brat raining destruction on the marines.

BOOM!

Oh wait, never mind.

“GOMU GOMU NO ONO!” *

Right on cue, a leg coated in haki stretched up into the heavens and crashed into the last remaining, unscathed battleship.

Ha. ‘Unscathed’. Like hell.

That one axe kick that rained heavenly destruction the Celestial Dragons would’ve been jealous of, broke the entire ship in half, and made it sink like the Titanic.

But no, the brat didn’t stop there. He kept on going, with his fists, soon steam rose up from them and he smacked both his palms on the part of the ship that was still above water.

“GOMU GOMU NO HOU!” **

Then, the part of the ship that was above water exploded and the remains sunk into the briny deep.

“3 minutes,” Kingdew said numbly, “3 minutes was all it took… to destroy 6 battleships…”

When did he get back? Marco shook away that thought and nodded along, “Yeah, those brats have got talent, that’s for sure,”

The first to make it back on the ship was the blond*** boy, Sabo, if Newgate recalled correctly. From what Newgate remembered from the talk he had with Garp during the exchange, as his crew had taken to calling it, was that Sabo was undeniably the sanest one of them all.

Now, with said Sabo walking on deck, drenched in the blood and remains of his enemies, he began doubting that little piece of information.

He was humming, too.

The next to walk on deck was the freckled brat, Ace. He was yawning, and his overall demeanor was sleepy. That is not one’s demeanor after they burn one ship to ash and almost do that for another, just how much control over his flames does this kid have?!

Next to come was Usopp, although, he didn’t really walk on deck.

BOOM, CRACK!

He crashed into the mast.

He got up, a little dazed, before putting on a huge smile and looking around. The smile then dimmed a little when he didn’t find who he was looking for. Must’ve been the Straw-Hat Brat. Although, the second he laid his eyes on Marco, his smile went up a few watts again.

He bounced over to the Phoenix and began talking animatedly, but there were some subjects that he visibly avoided, and some subjects that he would talk about, but was blatantly guarded when talking about them.

Those particular subjects were those about the last 3 years. Newgate could completely understand.

Then, the last brat came onto the Moby. He was a small brat. Almost unhealthily so. The blond boy was also unhealthily small, but that was because he was chained. Ever since he got out of those chains, his unnatural genetics tweaked at him, and he hit a growth spurt.

He grew about 7 inches in the last 4 weeks.

The Ace brat grew normally, and one could see that, he was probably the best treated out of all of them.

Physically the best treated. Mentally, was another matter.

Newgate could hear the maniacal laughter in the night and trace it back to Ace. There was so much pain, longing, acceptance, and amusement in one laugh. Whatever those brats went through in those 3 years, he wouldn’t wish even on his worst enemy.

He was snapped back to attention by the small brat walking up to him. Aside from the fact that he was small, his hair pooled around him, and was matted with dirt, grime, and dried blood. What caught him off-guard though, were the eyes—

They were like endless pools of darkness. Murky depths that were too unholy for the human eye to see, yet so bright and willful. Power beyond what could be fit in that little body.

So much it was almost unnatural.

“Oi, Ossan,” the kid started, and half his crew fell over in the sheer nonchalance in that statement.

It honestly reminded him of Garp.

“You’re going to protect us, right?” he asked, while giving him the blankest stare of all blank stares.

Never mind, it doesn’t remind me of Garp anymore, this is eerily familiar to Roger and that Dragon-brat’s stares.

“Yes, I will, I don’t break my promises,” Whitebeard vowed, inwardly hoping he said the right thing. He knew these kinds of people. They were stubborn beyond comprehension, and if one thing is wrong to them, or a threat to those they care about, you can say bye-bye at your hopes and dreams.

Luffy kept his blank stare on for a moment or two before his face turned into a bright grin, and Marco swore that it eclipsed the sun itself.

“You’re a good guy, I trust you!” the brat laughed, before bouncing over to his brothers and friends.

For the next three days, those brats were seen by almost everybody on the ship.

Then Teach came back from his mission.

…

The brats disappeared again.

Chapter Text

“That man…” Sabo whispered before turning to glance at Ace.

“He’s bad,” Ace confirmed, “But we still need to be sure,”, then, as one, everyone’s heads turned to Luffy.

Luffy frowned at looked at his feet, “He’s… bad,” Luffy hesitated, “But why would the good old man keep him with him if he’s bad?”.

Zoro looked at Luffy, “Maybe they don’t know?”.

“No,” Usopp bit his fingernails, “They don’t know, but he’s managed to stay their friend for a very long time judging at how they easily talk with each other,” Usopp breathed out, “I don’t like it,”.

Luffy frowned, “Can’t they see?”

Ace looked at his little brother, “See what?”

Luffy gestured wildly, “Even Zoro and Usopp could see!” Luffy ignored Usopp’s indignant shout of ‘Oi’, and continued, “That man is bad!”.

Sabo nodded, “But how do we tell them?”

“That’s just the thing,” everyone’s eyes turned to Zoro, “We can’t,”

“Why not?” Usopp argued, “They would believe us! Right?”

Zoro closed his eyes and huddled his swords closer to him, keeping 3 arms on the hilt of Wado for comfort, “What makes you think they’ll believe us, over someone who they sailed with for so long?”

Usopp bit his lip and looked down.

“No need to get so down, Usopp!” Luffy smiled, “Let’s just beat him up and be done with—OW!”

“ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING?!”

Sabo let out a heavy breath and sat down next to Ace.

“We’ll be thrown off this ship, and I rather like the Whitebeards, no?”

Ace frowned, “But we need to get rid of him!”

“And we also need to stay away from the Marines and apparently, Cipher Pol, too, so tough luck,” Sabo said sarcastically.

Ace frowned even deeper after that revelation.

“How about…” Sabo spoke up “We subtly keep an eye on him, always travel in pairs, and never catch yourself alone with him. That guy… he’s dangerous,”

A solemn blanket fell over the 5.

“Welp!” Usopp got up and made a show of dusting himself off, “First thing we need to find out is who is the most trustworthy, no?”

Ace smiled, “We already know that the roasted duck is trustworthy,”

Sabo grinned, “So is the Fishman Commander,”

Zoro hummed, “The Cook, too,”

Usopp put his fingers under his chin and made an exaggerated thinking pose, “The old man is also pretty nice, considering your… Grandpa actually gave us to him with full trust,”

Luffy shivered with excitement, “Not-Lady is also nice!”

They all shared a smile with each other before launching themselves out of the rafters and into the galley, which was crowded with hungry pirates.

THUMP!

Everyone stopped to look at them. Usopp began squirming under the stares, though, not for the reason anyone would think. He was trying to look through the crowd to find Teach.

Once locking his sights on the target, he tapped Sabo’s shoulder.

“What?” the blond whispered.

“Teach is to the right of the galley,” Usopp responded, just as quiet.

Sabo stiffened, and just barely inclined his head to find Teach when—

“Okay, everyone! Stop the staring, we’re here to eat!” Thatch spoke while clanging together a pot and a pan.

As if a switch had been flipped, everyone went back to their cluttered conversations as they were before, only a few sparing glances at the 5 kids.

The ASLZU made their way to Marco the Phoenix, while Usopp kept a keen eye on Teach. The fat man seemed to be joyously joking around with his brothers like everyone else there.

It just felt wrong.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Marco asked, shocking Usopp out of his musings.

“Uhhh… I’m… seeing the galley! Of course, I’m seeing the galley, HAHA!” Usopp’s eyes went from fearful, to a touch of thoughtful, and then haughty. After spending 1 year in the Facility, he learned to hide his emotions, and swap them out for something different.

He knew that it wouldn’t take much for him to learn how to lie, considering that at this point, his life depends on it.

When Usopp saw Luffy for the first time, he was completely confused.

How can someone who lived at the Facility for 3 years be so… happy?

Then, the longer he heard the kid his age talk, the more his happiness became contagious. With him, Usopp remembered more of the happy moments he had in his life. He remembered his mother, he remembered his village, he remembered his first friend—Kaya.

But Kaya could never give him the same happiness and wholesome emotions that Luffy gave him. It made him feel… like a human again. Not like a piece of meat to be mutated and poisoned for lethal force.

As a result, he couldn’t help but smile around him. There was one thing he knew for sure, though. He’s going to follow Monkey D. Luffy till he’s either dead, or just can’t anymore.

Usopp knew that Zoro would do it even more, though. That one was loyal to a fault. Usopp wondered if it came from his Asura blood, or something else…

That’s why, he didn’t feel a thing akin to regret when he lied through his teeth, right in Marco’s face about what he was doing in the galley.

He became keenly aware that he was alone with Marco, in the crowded galley, but was 100% sure that Luffy and the rest were watching him like hawks, and a part of him basked in the attention and care he was so deprived of in the Facility.

He turned his attention back to Marco just in time to hear him sigh in resignation, “Well, you do you, Usopp.” Marco paused to look around “I hope that you find the Moby Dick to your liking, and I hope that you can call it home for however long you wish, yoi” Marco gave a lazy smile before walking away.

Usopp hesitantly waved at him and gave a silent nod, not bothering if Marco noticed or not. How can we call this place home, he thought, if that man continues… uuurgh. He shuddered in revulsion and discontinued the thought.

He looked around and scanned the galley with eagle eyes, and zeroed in on Sabo and Luffy. He stalked over to them, just barely avoiding contact with the Whitebeards, when one huge body bumped into him.

Dazed, Usopp shook his head and looked up “I’m s—” the words died in his throat when he realized just who he had bumped into.

Teach.

His eyes widened in fear, and he turned around and scrambled to get away from the fat man. He kept his eyes locked on Luffy and Sabo. They were still in the same spot as before. He ran to them as fast as he could, not minding the amount of people he bumped into, or pushed in the process.

“Hey—! Watch it!”

“Gah! Brat—?!”

“WhooAAaaoh!”

Usopp closed his eyes and barreled through everyone, and within seconds, he made it to Sabo and Luffy. When he looked up into their eyes, he saw foreign emotions, that he could just barely recognize.

Sabo: fear, concern, sympathy, protect

Luffy: rage, protect, protect, protect, concern

Before he could even process the meanings of those emotions, Luffy put Usopp into a protective embrace, effectively sandwiching the long-nose between himself and Sabo.

Sabo subtly moved over to cover Usopp’s back, and Usopp wondered, why would he do that?

That’s when he noticed the fascinated stares of everyone in the galley, more specifically, from those who recently came back from the recent mission led by Teach.

His mind blanked out and he became numbly aware of the feathery appendages on his back, that fluffed outwards and folded inwards.

Oh. My wings are out.

When Teach stepped forward to try and pacify Sabo, who was now snarling like a feral dog, Usopp was almost 100% sure that he signed his own obituary.

Sabo almost bit Teach with elongated fangs, meant for sucking the blood out of mammals, and he would’ve, had Teach not retracted his hand in time at the last second.

Luffy gave off a threatening snarl.

“Back. Off.”

Usopp saw Sabo freeze up before forcefully relaxing as a blanket of mystery power fell over the galley. Through the corner of his eye, Sabo could see Ace deforming into a wisp of flame, no doubt getting ready to reform at a moment’s notice, should they need to fight.

Usopp could see Teach momentarily scowl, before complying with the mystery-powered demand. Within less than 5 seconds of Teach’s compliance, Zoro sped over to them, with his hand subtly laid on the hilt of Wado Ichimonji.

Usopp felt Luffy tense against him, before immediately relaxing.

“Are you okay, yoi?” Marco put out a hand with a concerned look etched in his eyes.

Sabo looked away, before retracting his fangs and claws, and then grabbing the hand offered.

o-o

Luffy was alert. The moment he saw Teach, he felt alert. He felt so slimy, and just wrong, wrong, WRONG. He knew he was right, too. He learned to always listen to gut instinct during the tournaments. If you didn’t, you could lose a limb, or worse.

That’s why Luffy wasn’t surprised, whatsoever, when Sabo snarled and snapped his jaws at the fatso.

When he saw the man scowl at his brother for self-defense, he was one step closer to losing control and eating that man for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

He held Usopp closer to his chest, with one arm free for clawing and punching. When he heard footsteps come near, he momentarily tensed, before immediately relaxing the moment that he noticed just whose footsteps those were.

“Are you okay, yoi?” Marco asked.

Luffy saw his blond brother take the roasted duck’s hand and get up, looking completely normal now.

“Oi, oi! Are you lot going to eat, or no?!” Thatch called out, effectively drawing away the galley’s attention to the chef.

Luffy hid a grin at the sight of the pompadoured cook. He’s a nice guy. Luffy nodded, proud of his judgement.

~Time skip~

Luffy sighed happily and laid a hand on his belly, which was now bloated to insane proportions.

I wonder where Ace is… Luffy wondered, looking up at the sky, as the salty sea splashed on his being, while on the figurehead of the Moby.

After they had eaten, Ace mysteriously left without a word. But Luffy wasn’t worried. Ace could handle himself! Ace was strong!

“Hey, Luffy—!” A voice cut itself off from behind him. Luffy turned around, and saw Haruta covering Thatch’s mouth with a hand, while looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“What?” Luffy asked nonchalantly.

Haruta yelped and wiped his hand on the back of his outfit, while glaring at Thatch. Said cook was grinning like a loon with his tongue stuck out.

“Why’d you have to lick my hand, you moron?!” Haruta fumed.

“Why’d you have to cover my mouth, you imbecile?” Thatch playfully returned.

Luffy just stared at the exchange with blank eyes, before a grin broke out on his face, and he dissolved into giggles.

Thatch and Haruta stopped their playful banter to look at the kid on the figurehead. “Hey, kid,” Thatch started quietly “Want to prank Marco?”

Luffy wheezed, “You mean the roasted duck?”

Haruta blankly looked at Luffy for a moment before dissolving into identical giggles.

“Roasted duck?! Oh, dear Oda! I’m never letting Marco hear the end of this! Heeheeheehee!” Haruta pounded the flat surface of the figurehead.

Thatch was visibly trying not to burst into laughter, and quite visibly, failing. “Roasted… duck… HA!” he snorted, his face turning red from the pressure of trying not to laugh.

Once they all stopped their giggles, Thatch continued, “Yeah, we want to prank the roasted duck, well and good,”

Luffy stuck his pointer and thumb finger in a sideways ‘L’ shape under his chin and made a show of thinking.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said after a while.

He got up, and whispered into Haruta’s ear. Through the course of the conversation, Haruta’s face morphed from confusion, to satisfaction, to grinning like a demon.

Haruta turned to Thatch, who was now equal parts confused and curious, and beckoned for him to bend down, before he whispered in his ear.

Thatch’s face went through more or less the same morphs that Haruta’s face went through, before it settled on grinning like a loon.

Haruta rubbed her hands together and began slowly laughing, “Jiihahaha…”

Thatch looked at her awkwardly, “Why are you copying how Shiki laughs?”

“SHUT UP! HIS LAUGH IS EVIL, OKAY?!!?”

Luffy just settled for his usual grin.

o…o

Somewhere in Marineford, Sengoku felt a sense of foreboding…

o…o

Ace floated around the rafters in a barely visible form. The only way anyone could sense him being that the air rippled around his form, not unlike the appearance of the space above a flame.

Luffy may have trusted the Whitebeards, but Ace sure didn’t. Well, he did, but when he realized that they kept someone like Teach around, that shook some of the trust he had with them. He doubted that Whitebeard would believe him if he told the Captain that Teach was bad, so he chose not to try.

There was no way he’d impair his brother’s survival on this ship because of his mistake.

That’s why he’s spying on Teach, right now. Ace floated around Teach’s room, making the barest of noises, and heating up the room ever so little every time he came close to something he could use, but then realizing that it’s useless.

The room is too blank, he decided after a while, much to suspicious, it looks like no one even lives here…

It was true; the room was empty, save for a mattress on the floor, a desk, a candle lighting it, and a few cabinets here and there. The mattress was white, and everything else was brown. It looked extremely boring.

Ace looked at the desk, contemplating whether or not to open its drawers. On one hand, he knew that the knowledge he would gain would be beneficial, but if Teach somehow finds out that someone dug into his stuff…

Ace winced, yeah, not happening. And that’s not even counting if he doesn’t find anything helpful there to begin with! Ace scoured the room a little longer to find anything blackmail-worthy, or good enough to use, before he felt fatigue.

My time is running out, can’t stay in invisible form for long…

Fate must have been laughing at Ace in that moment, because he could hear heavy footsteps coming closer to the room. Teach…?

“Zehahahaha!”

The blood drained from Ace’s nonexistent face, Teach, he confirmed. Ace grunted and hid next to the desk.

Please don’t be coming here to sleep, please don’t be coming here to sleep! He prayed to whatever gods or goddesses that were out there.

“Ahhh…” Teach let out after he closed the door to his room “Room, sweet room,” he gave a disgusting smile and unlocked his desk-drawer.

“There are 5 new brats on the ship,” Ace tensed “One of them seemed afraid of me…”

Ace crouched down, ready to bolt into the rafters.

“Change of plans, then,” Teach gave a sinister grin, “I can’t kill Whitebeard in kids’ presences. Especially if they know who I am,”

A fatso, that’s who you are, a small part of Ace wanted to snark. The rest of Ace was reeling in shock from Teach’s master plan.

Kill… Whitebeard…? Ace thought numbly, just barely holding onto his invisible form. He launched himself into the rafters, making a slight sound that caused Teach to jump and look around frantically. Ace paid no mind to that and ran through the rafters.

I need to tell Luffy.

o…o

Sabo was confused. When he saw Namur, he was confused. He shrugged it off, though, thinking that Namur was just a weird-looking human, but when said Division Commander spent 30 whole minutes under the sea, Sabo began doubting that claim.

“Who are you?” Sabo asked.

“What do you mean?” Namur raised an eyebrow.

“‘What’. I mean ‘What are you’?” Sabo clarified, as the pressure on the deck subtly increased. Heads turned towards the interaction, with interest.

“Why do you ask?” Namur asked suspiciously.

“You spent 30 minutes underwater without losing consciousness and dying. You’re not human, and from the looks of things, you’re not from where we came from either, so what are you?” Sabo answered back.

The pressure on the deck increased tenfold.

“I am a fishman,”

“Fishman?”

“Fishman,”

“Okay,”

Then Sabo just walked away like it was nobody’s business, and the entire deck was left in confusion. Namur in particular was completely out of it.

Okay…? Namur ran over to the retreating blond and grabbed his hand, the hell does he mean, ‘Okay’…?

All of a sudden, a frigid cold washed over the deck, and it seemed to be coming from the blue-clad blond.

“Let go of my hand,” the statement was quiet but it echoed through the deck as if he was yelling it.

Namur immediately let go of the hand as if it had burned him.

“Sorry,” he winced when the blond immediately ignored him and turned back around, “Wait…!”

The blond stopped and turned around, “What?”

“Are you not…” he hesitated “Going to say anything?”

“Say anything? Why would I do that?” Sabo questioned.

“I’m a Fishman!”

“And I care, why? To me, you’re just another person on this ship, and to be honest? You’re more human than them,” a haunted look made its way into Sabo’s eyes, and Namur paused and wondered, what could have possibly scarred him so bad?

All of a sudden, the pressure dissipated from the deck, and the air heated up 50 degrees. Sabo’s eyes widened and he cursed under his breath. All of a sudden, a ball of fire hurtled through the air, and made impact on Sabo’s stomach.

The fire shifted and twisted to make the form of a kid around 14 years old with a face full of freckles and wavy dark brown hair, clutching his head in agony. Sabo got up from his place on the ground and groaned,

“Ace? You sure know how to make an entrance, what time is it?”

As if a switch had been flipped, the now named Ace turned and shook Sabo by his shoulders at supersonic speeds, all while repeating the same question ‘Where’s Luffy?’ like a mantra.

Sabo grabbed Ace’s hands and stopped him from shaking his already dazed mind into unconsciousness.

“What? Ace—why are you naked?”

“My clothes burned off,”

Sabo put a hand to his forehead and kneaded a headache, “Okay, why did they burn off?”

Ace frowned and thought for a moment, “Oh, that’s because, wait—” he looked around “Get Luffy and I’ll tell you, this involves… him,”

In a flash, Sabo’s pained face was replaced with a grim, serious expression.

“What time?”

“Tonight,”

“Got it,”

Ace flicked his wrist, and a wave of heat burst out of him, causing everyone to close and cover their eyes, lest they dry up. When their eyes opened again, the 2 brothers were gone.

o-o

On the figurehead, Luffy waved bye to Haruta and Thatch, while stifling some giggles from the plan that they made.

He turned to the sea, and made himself comfortable to watch the sunset, when a burst of heat startled him.

Faster than the eye could see, he got up and got into a fighting position, “Who’s there?” he demanded “Show yourself!”. When no one showed up, Luffy frowned and activated his mystery power.

Once he did, he dropped his fighting stance and complained—loudly— “Geez, Ace, you don’t have to surprise me like that,”

“You were totally scared,” Ace laughed, as he shifted into a physical form.

“Why are you showing off your family jewels, Ace?” Luffy asked innocently—obliviously—and Ace just felt like someone stabbed him through the back.

“That doesn’t matter right now, Luffy, I’ve got news,” he said desperately, trying to change the subject. Good for him, it worked.

“Huh? What news?”

“Get Zoro and Usopp, and let’s meet up in the rafters at night, I’ve got news on Teach and what he’s planning,”

Luffy grimly nodded, and ran over to the mast, where Zoro was sleeping next to Usopp. Though, if one could look harder, they could see that his hand was rested on the hilt of his sword, and he was in an easy position to get up fast and fight.

“Ne, ne, Zoro!”

Zoro peeled open his eyes, “What?”

“Bring Usopp and let’s meet up in the rafters, Ace has got news on…” Luffy lowered his voice, “Him…”

Luffy gave a classic D-smile and sped away in a Soru.

Zoro stared at Luffy’s afterimage and sighed, “Oi, Usopp, get up, we’ve got news,”

o…o

“So, what is it?” Usopp drowsily asked.

Ace sucked in a breath, “Teach will kill Whitebeard,”

And just like that, time stopped.

“What?” a voice that was most certainly not theirs whispered.

As one, their heads turned around to the source of the voice, and they saw a pale Thatch halfway in the rafters.

“What?” Thatch’s voice gained a desperate tinge to it “Please tell me I heard something wrong…”

He turned to Luffy for comfort, but all he got was a blank expression, and the full force of the situation hit him.

“Oh Oda, Teach is going to kill Oyaji…” Thatch’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he saw no more.

Chapter Text

Thatch blearily opened his eyes to the blurred faces of the 5 brats they decided to keep on ship. He groaned as he got up and felt a headache split his head as the 5 brats blurred into focus.

That’s when the events of before hit him like a 40-ton sledgehammer. All of a sudden, he felt a whole lot more dazed.

“What were you doing in the rafters?” Usopp’s nervous voice snapped him out of his daze, and he firmly tried to ground himself to the ship.

“Why were you brats in the rafters?” he jabbed playfully, but the mood was too somber to even acknowledge his return with a laugh.

“We asked you first,” the one with green hair—Zoro—growled, while flashing an inch of his white katana to him.

Thatch resisted the urge to giggle maniacally, because, did that kid really think that despite being an Asura and having 3 swords, he could actually beat someone who knew the trade for as long as he?

“I was in the rafters to set up a prank on Jozu,” Thatch smiled somberly, “Instead I walk in on… this,” he gestured to the gathering he ended up walking in on, “So, tell me,” Thatch’s eyes immediately became serious, “Is what you said really true?”.

Ace pressed his lips together in a grim line, before saying, “Yes,” he hugged his knees to his chest, and let out a shaky breath, “Teach will kill Whitebeard, I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, and I have no idea what he could possibly want out of it, but he wants to kill Whitebeard, so…”

“Watch your back,” Luffy finished.

Thatch plopped down and groaned while kneading a headache with his thumb and pointer, “But, how will we tell Oyaji and the rest? I mean, they have to know…” Thatch looked lost.

“We don’t,” Zoro spoke, “They wouldn’t believe us,”

“You don’t know that!” Thatch denied vehemently, “They would believe you!” the words left his mouth before he could think about the meaning of what he said.

“No, they wouldn’t,” Usopp whispered, drawing the attic area’s attention to himself, “Over someone who’s been with them for a long time, as opposed to 5 brats who they met not even a fortnight ago,”

The implications of that sweet little piece of enlightenment slugged Thatch in the face like a forty-ton sledgehammer.

“Okay, then…” Thatch started slowly, “What do we do instead?”

Sabo chose to make his presence known to the group at that moment, “We keep a watch on him,”

“Whoa!” Thatch jumped at the sound of the unnaturally quiet blonde’s voice.

“No one, and I mean no one will be alone in his presence. Keep tabs on him,” Sabo continued, graciously ignoring Thatch’s less-than-manly yelp, “We need to stop him, and Thatch?”

“What?” Thatch turned his head towards the sound of his name.

“Watch your back; I don’t like the way he looks at you,” Sabo finished ominously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thatch yelped.

“He eyes you like…” Sabo struggled for the word, “He’s hesitating on whether or not he should… off you right then and there, or something like that,” Sabo grimaced, “I don’t like the contemplative look on his face when he looks like that.

Thatch shivered, and nodded, “Affirmative, I’ll be wearing my two katana on my waist at all times from now on,” another shudder wracked his spine.

“You have katana?” and just like that, the mood flipped, turning from grim to childlike curiosity.

“Why, yes, yes I do,” Thatch answered with a hint of amusement.

“Can… Can I see?” Zoro asked apprehensively, his eyes widening childishly.

“I left them back in my room, but I can get them, if you’d like,” Thatch offered.

Zoro frowned and sat back down, from the leaning position he had unconsciously gotten into, “No, no, it’s fine, maybe later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Thatch smiled and turned to Luffy, “Is the prank still on?” he questioned.

Luffy grinned and nodded so fast his head almost became a blur, “Hell yeah, it is!” he cheered.

“Prank?” Sabo asked apprehensively, “Do I even want to know?” he sighed and shook his head, “No, I don’t,”

Thatch began giggling maniacally, “Sabo, right? You’re brother is a genius,”

Ace smirked and muttered, “If he thinks Luffy is a genius, then I can only imagine the heart attack we’ll get this time,”

Usopp smiled, “Can I join in, can I join in?” he excitedly asked, “I want to join innnn~” Usopp whined.

Luffy and Thatch looked at each other before unanimously agreeing.

““Sure!””

Sabo groaned, “Why do I feel like I’m going to be having a headache soon?”

“Because you will be,” Zoro replied, utterly bored.

All he got in reply was another tired groan, and for another few moments, all was good with the world, oh wait—

“THAAAAATCH!” a voice under them bellowed.

Thatch promptly paled, and then started giggling, “Oops, forgot about Jozu, I’ll see you lot later!” and then he jumped down the rafters and sprinted away from a mountain of a man in a diaper and painted baby blue, with confetti sticking out of certain parts of his diaper. If one would look closer, they could see that the diaper in and of itself said in bright red letters,

“IT’S A BOY!”

Ace couldn’t take it anymore and burst into peals of laughter after Jozu left, stomping after Thatch, who was in a similar state.

Luffy just smirked, “That’ll be nothing compared for what we’ve got planned,” he said slyly.

Ace turned to Luffy, clearly skeptical about his claims and proposed, “Then, how about a bet?” he smirked, “If you can find a way to make all of us laugh for at least thirty seconds straight, then you win, if you can’t? Well, then I win,”

Luffy bounded over and got ready to shake his older brother’s hands to seal the bet, but before he could, Zoro cut in, “It isn’t a bet if you don’t stake anything,” at everyone’s inquisitive stares, he sighed and elaborated, “I mean, if Luffy wins, Ace has to do something for Luffy, and if Ace wins, Luffy has to do something for Ace,”

“Anything?” Luffy asked excitedly.

“Anything,” Zoro confirmed, and for a moment, a wave of regret washed over him when he saw both D brothers snap their heads up and grin. One was maniacal, and the other was dangerously competitive. He smashed that emotion though, before it could grow into anything else.

Sabo rolled his eyes and plopped down on the hard wood of the rafters, while groaning, “Let the games begin,”

He didn’t know how right he was, when he said that.

o…o

TWO WEEKS LATER:

“Oh. My. God,” Ace gaped at the sight of Marine HQ, or at least, the abomination that it looked like now.

“‘Oh my god’ is right!” Whitebeard chuckled, drinking in the sight of a good portion of Marine HQ’s marines acting nothing short of hilarious.

“This?” Zoro gestured towards the destruction, “Is awesome,”

“If I ever have hatchlings of my own, this is going to be one hell of a story,” Usopp murmured in reverent awe, his wings ruffling in the breeze. So that’s what they needed the pigs for… he thought absently.

Sengoku and Garp were the only Marines spared from the destruction, and both had… varying reactions to the wonderful chaos before them.

Garp was spilling his guts in damn-near hysterical laughter, while Sengoku looked ready to pop a blood vessel.

“Garp,” he gritted out, the veins on his forehead throbbing and pulsing violently, “Shut. Up,”

Garp’s only response was to burst into even more hysterical laughter, but he promptly sobered up when Vice-Admiral Tsuru’s biting voice cut through the chaos, “And how do you suppose we fix all of this, Garp?”

Tsuru fixed the Marine Hero with a glare, which probably would’ve been more effective had she not been wearing a ballerina dress topped off with a bright yellow bonnet.

It took everything Garp had not to double over in laughter at the sight of her.

Sabo, who was currently gawking at his little brother, Thatch, and Haruta, managed to gain some semblance of reality and proceeded to sit them down and interrogate them.

“How… HOW?!”

Well, it was sort of an interrogation, what with the only word Sabo saying being ‘how’.

Luffy held an expression of smug satisfaction as he looked at Ace expectantly,

“What?” Ace asked uneasily, his eyes shifting from left to right.

“You owe me, dear brother, you owe me,” and then Luffy let out a shrill laugh of delight, which honestly sounded more like a cackle, which sent shivers down Whitebeard’s spine.

Ace just groaned and jumped up to rest on Whitebeard’s shoulder before resting his chin on the palm of his hand.

“Gurarara! How about this, you tell us how you pulled this,” he gestured non-specifically towards the destruction, “at the Moby Dick, hm?” he raised an eyebrow in a questioning fashion.

“This is going to be one hell of a story,” Thatch giggled, sending meaningful looks at Haruta, who seemed to somehow understand what those looks meant.

Once they were inside the Moby, with neither Sengoku nor Garp making a move to stop them, Whitebeard gestured for the three pranksters to finish their story in the galley.

“Okay, okay…” Thatch tried to hide his giggles but failed, “It all starts… when…”

o-o

Luffy smirked and walked to Thatch, who was hanging out at a spot in the rafters. It was not quite the spot which the ASLZU used to talk privately, but a good spot nonetheless, and more or less private.

“Come on, come on!” Thatch urged while next to him, Haruta beckoned for Luffy to come up.

Nodding happily, Luffy swished aside his long hair and grappled the hand offered to him with one rubbery arm, before using it as leverage to rocket upwards.

Once up there, the three shared a secret smile, and they got to planning.

“Okay, Luffy,” Thatch started, getting out some blank paper, “You’ve got the end goal out and done,” he drew a picture of Marine HQ in destruction, identical to what would happen 2 weeks from then, just slightly less… chaotic, “But we need the path to get there,”

Haruta tapped his chin and hummed, “That’s a real complicated end goal, I’d love to see it, but are we 100% sure it’s even possible?”

Thatch gasped scandalously before glaring at his prank-buddy, “We’ll make it possible, don’t even question it!” he turned to Luffy and smiled, “Any ideas?”

Luffy did a signature D thinking pose, and hummed. After a few moments, his face turned red and smoke came out of his ears, “Thinking is hard!” he flopped his arms down to his sides, and the steam around his head dissipated.

Haruta frowned for a moment, but then he grinned brightly, “We want the marines to go crazy, yes? And then broadcast this wondrous spectacle to the whole world, yes?” Haruta grinned crazily when Thatch and Luffy nodded along with him.

“Then…” he leaned in close, the other two mimicking his action, “It’s time for a stealth mission,” he pumped his fist up, and Luffy groaned, “I’m bad at stealth, though!” he argued, “I’ll keep tripping over my hair,”.

Thatch stared at him, “Oh yeah, that reminds me, if you don’t like your hair so much, why do you keep it long?”

Luffy grimaced, “They liked the look of a crazy feral boy as their final match,” he said ominously.

Haruta pushed down his rage and offered, “Well then, how about we cut your hair for you? It would be easier for stealth!”

Luffy looked at him and nodded slowly, “Well, okay, but I like the long hair, I just don’t want it… that long,”

“Gotcha,” Thatch winked.

After that, they finished planning everything out.

“Are we sure we want to do this?” Haruta said skeptically, as they put on stealth gear.

“What? Getting second thoughts now, Haruta?” Thatch teased.

“No!” he pouted, “We just planned it out really hastily, is all, there seems to be a lot of holes in the plan, and I don’t think it’d be good for something as elaborate as this,” he said uneasily.

“Let’s go!” Luffy cheered, while jumping up and down at alarming heights, now that the weight of his hair was gone from his head, leaving what was once a bush of hair down to his feet and more, now to shoulder length.

The three snuck inside Marine HQ, like pros. Luffy included. Who would’ve thought that rubber was an insulator?! He didn’t make a sound.

Once they got to the barracks, Thatch snickered soundlessly and gave Luffy and Haruta markers he hid in his pompadour.

“Thank god that bread-hairstyle is good for something,” Haruta playfully, but quietly jabbed.

Thatch made a mock offended face and gestured towards the barracks as if to say, ‘let’s just do it already’.

Luffy couldn’t have been happier to comply. He jumped around, drawing monstrosities on the walls soundlessly, while Thatch and Haruta drew horses on the Marines themselves’ faces.

When they were done with their work, the three stepped back and admired it. What was once clean walls and pristine floors, now was purely vandalized.

“Your drawing ability could be used for blackmail,” Thatch joked in Luffy’s general direction.

Luffy just shrugged and smiled.

“Onward!” he whisper-shouted, careful to not rouse the Marines in their vicinity.

The next room they were in was slightly bigger, with a lot more decorations, and fewer barracks.

“Huh, we must be moving up the ranks,” Haruta said thoughtfully.

“Time to wreak more havoc, then,” Thatch grinned sinisterly.

In this room, Haruta drew on the walls, while Thatch and Luffy put makeup on the still sleeping Marines. The ones designed by Thatch were halfway decent, whereas the ones designed by Luffy…

They looked like demented clowns.

Thatch fought hard not to snicker at the monstrosities before them. “Next!” he cheered quietly.

The next room they were in was probably for the Vice-Admirals, considering Garp was in there and such.

“Do you want to vandalize your Grandpa?” Haruta questioned Luffy, who promptly shook his head, “Why, though?” Thatch asked.

“Fist of Love,” Luffy replied while repressing a shudder.

Thatch and Haruta shared a look and smiled, “Okay, then let’s do worse to everyone else!”

Luffy smiled in return.

In this room, they barricaded the doors, and windows, before proceeding to paint the Marines’ skin light blue, with their clothes bright orange. Thatch crossed out the ‘Justice’ on their cloaks and replaced the message with ‘KICK ME’

Haruta was nowhere to be found in this room for the moment, but when he returned: “I finished clogging the toilets, is he here yet?”

Luffy was going to shake his head, but then he felt a familiar presence enter his domain, and he smiled.

“Usopp!” he cheered silently.

Said Harpy-kid, perched on the rooftop and shot a quizzical look at his captain.

“Remind me why you need 10 pigs, 16 chickens, 5 cows, 2 horses, and 1 dog?” he asked exasperatedly, “I located them, and I dragged them here, that alone took 2 days, but why do we need them? My wings are aching,” he whined quietly.

Haruta gasped, “Why—sorry— ‘why do we need them?’ are you stupid? They’re a part of our master plan!”

Usopp bit his lip to stifle a groan and nodded, “I’ll transfer them up here, then,” he paused from liftoff, “Are you sure that I can’t ask Marco for help? His wings are more powerful than mine after all,”

“No!” Thatch whisper-shouted, “Marco must never know, he’s going to ground us for life!”

Usopp rolled his eyes, “Okay, fine, I’ll get the farm animals. Still don’t know why you need them, though,”

Then, Usopp took off into the night sky, doing a sloppy dive and plummeting down to earth before righting himself and gliding over a bunch of fields.

“I’m helping him,” Luffy resolved, before jumping out the window and rocket launching him towards Usopp.

If Usopp had been alone, it would’ve taken hours for him to go one by one with the farm animals to the Marine Base. With Luffy’s nigh-superhuman strength, however, it took less than 5 minutes.

Soon, the Marines’ room was crowded with a bunch of farm animals, all clambering for attention.

“Some poor farmer is going to wake up in the morning to find his barn emptied out, and put in a Marine Base,” Thatch said in a voice that had a mixture of regret and shamelessness, however that was possible.

Usopp huffed, but said nothing and flew away, muttering about aching wings and grooming feathers.

Luffy smiled and walked out the door, barricading it from the outside.

“Did you put in the Visual Den-Den Mushi?” Thatch asked Haruta, who nodded in response, “Yes, what do you take me for?” he huffed indignantly.

Next, was an Admiral’s room, “Kizaru” Borsalino’s to be exact.

Luffy got out an Haruta got an apple he stole from the Marines’ kitchen, and carefully shoved it into the Admiral’s mouth. The Admiral did nothing but snort at the sensation and continued sleeping.

Thatch took notice of the fact that Kizaru was cocooned up in his blanket like there was no tomorrow, and promptly began to sew both ends of the blanket together.

“Are you stupid?” Haruta hissed, snatching the needle and thread away from Thatch, who just whimpered, “Everyone knows that you’re supposed to sew it to the victim,” Haruta smiled mischievously and sewed the edges of the blanket to Kizaru’s pajamas.

“He isn’t getting out of that anytime soon,” Thatch observed, “Let me help,” he snickered and looked into Kizaru’s personal closet. Thatch frantically looked around, before locating the belts, and handing them to Luffy so he could rocket them out of existence.

Haruta tapped Thatch’s shoulder and showed him some kairoseki handcuffs he nabbed from a nearby vault.

“I managed to get three without alerting the alarms,” Haruta said quietly.

“One for each Admiral, then,” Thatch said, but faltered when Haruta shook his head.

“No, we can prank Akainu a different way, one handcuff needs to be saved for Sengoku,” Haruta whispered.

Thatch nodded in understanding, and grabbed one handcuff from his friend.

He slowly walked towards the Light Admiral and shuffled the cold handcuffs inside his blanket. The man whimpered from the feeling, and turned over, but nothing more happened.

When they got out of the room, Thatch was breathless with concealed laughter, “He WHIMPERED!” Thatch whisper-shouted, “Marine Admiral Kizaru Borsalino, WHIMPERED!” Thatch was almost yelling at this point, and Haruta had to cover his mouth with a hand to stop him from screaming.

He fixed his best friend with a scathing glare and gritted, “Yeah, I know, but right now, we’re so close, we can’t mess this up, if we do, we’ll get caught, and that won’t be good, Oyaji doesn’t know this, Marco doesn’t know this, only Usopp does, and by my bet, he’s sleeping right now, and he won’t be waking up anytime soon. If anyone ends up waking up too early, I’m blaming it on you!”

Thatch sobered up for a while after that.

It seemed that Aokiji wasn’t in the Marine Base at the moment, so they ended up having to not prank him.

Oh well, that just means more for Akainu.

When they reached Akainu, they booby-trapped his entire room with tripwire, they ripped apart all his clothes and got a Den-Den Mushi to sing “Mary had a Little Lamb” over and over when the tripwire was hit, and it wouldn’t stop.

Luffy repainted all of Akainu’s clothes a bright green and purple, before setting up a bucket of water for him to trip over once he got out of bed. All in all, Akainu Sakazuki was going to be trolled.

They had some preparation before this particular night, and they checked out what the Admiral was allergic too. Turns out, one particular allergy was cinnamon.

Haruta was sure to sprinkle an abundance of that all around his room. Thatch carefully handcuffed the Marine Admiral in kairoseki, while Luffy kept channeling some of his own Devil Fruit energy to fill in the empty gap.

Once the cuffs were on, he slowly drained out the amount of Devil Fruit energy he was channeling into the Admiral, and they left.

“What was that?” Haruta questioned, just before they got to Sengoku’s room.

Luffy frowned, “They made me awaken the Devil inside my Devil Fruit, now, I’m a monster,” he smiled, “I will protect you, though!”

Thatch smiled, “Okay, but first, we break down Marine HQ,”

Then, he opened up Sengoku’s door.

Haruta opened a pocket in his bag and carefully took out 24 eggs, a roll of toilet paper, hot pink glitter, and a pair of bunny ears.

Thatch took out a permanent marker, and drew on the wall, ‘WHITEBEARD PIRATES FOR LIFE!’

“Was that really necessary?” Haruta questioned.

“It is always necessary,” Thatch droned, before bursting into a fit of silent giggles.

“You’re right, it is,” Haruta handed 8 eggs to Thatch, and 8 eggs to Luffy.

“Woohoo!” Luffy quietly cheered, and began throwing around the eggs, letting the whites stain the walls, while he gathered the yellows and dumped them on Sengoku’s sleeping form.

Turns out, Sengoku was sleeping in his office, on a pile of papers, must’ve clocked out from the overdose of work and stress.

Haruta threw toilet paper and made the lines hang from the rafters like confetti streamers.

Thatch sprinkled the pink glitter all over the walls and on top of Sengoku the Golden Buddha himself.

The three stepped back to admire their work, “Marine HQ is going to be so destroyed next morning,” Haruta remarked.

“Agreed,” Thatch said with pride, while Luffy giggled in response.

o-o

“…And then that brings us to today, in which Marine HQ is in more shambles than ever before,” Thatch smiled, looking at the gaping galley of pirates.

“So that’s why you were so quiet with your pranks,” Marco said with a look of absolute horror on his face, “You were preparing for… this,” he gestured to Marine HQ which was nothing more than a speck on the horizon by the end of the story.

“Oh yeah, by the way, that was all recorded,” Haruta tacked on, much to the growing horror of their blond phoenix brother.

“And broadcasted,” Luffy said proudly.

Marco promptly fainted.

“Ah! Marco died!” Luffy gaped, before Zoro smacked him upside the head, “Idiot! He’s not dead!”

Haruta turned to an idle Den-Den Mushi, which he spoke to in a mysterious tone, “I ask this of you, adoring public—”

o…o

SOMEWHERE IN SABAODY:

“Adoring masses? He’s getting too carried away,” Silvers Rayleigh chuckled and shook his head.

o…o

SOMEWHERE ON THE GRAND LINE:

“That was ingenious,” The Revolutionary Dragon commented, while recording the film of Marines running around like headless chickens wearing hot-dog costumes.

“Was it truly that easy to infiltrate Marine HQ? If so, then why haven’t we done it yet?” Koala asked.

“Because we’re still a growing movement, we barely have enough resources, let alone people to infiltrate Marine HQ, and even if we had the chance before, it’s gone now. They’ll no doubt be upping security measures after this,”

“At least we know that Akainu is allergic to cinnamon,” Koala remarked.

“…Yes, that was a… sweet piece of information…” Dragon smiled.

o…o

SOMEWHERE IN THE CALM BELT:

Boa Hancock sniffed imperiously and looked down on the Den-Den Mushi before her, before grudgingly proceeding to admit, “Okay… So maybe not all men are bad…” she turned to her gaping sisters, before hastily tacking on, “But only the young one, he’s so cuuuute!” she gushed.

Sandersonia and Marigold felt a strong feeling of foreboding in the future yet to come…

o…o

“—We would like to propose an offer!” Haruta announced, practically feeling the audience lean forward in anticipation, “If the Whitebeard Pirates ever come to your island, those who want another sweet piece of hell, should come to me or Thatch and give us your vote. We will be counting them up. If by 3 months we have more votes to stop pranking, we stop pranking the Marines, and vice versa,” He smiled warmly.

“This is Haruta, 12^th Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates—”

“And Thatch, 4^th Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates—”

“And Luffy—”

“““Signing out,”””

Haruta hung up the Den-Den Mushi and sighed before turning to his father.

“So,” he clapped his hands together, “Any questions?”

“Never… ever… do that again,” Marco wheezed, while leaning on Jozu for support.

Thatch shrugged, “No promises,”

Marco groaned and buried his head in his hands.

Whitebeard smiled and looked at the 5 brats he took in, This is going to be fun…

Chapter Text

Ace moved silently through the rafters, just barely touching the wood. It had been three days since the Marineford Incident, and things were silent on the ship for a while. He took this as a perfect opportunity to spy on Teach, so he discarded his clothes, turned into the invisible form, which he smartly dubbed ‘candleflame’ and ran across the rafters at Mach 2.

Honestly, he thought, It’s pure luck that I haven’t burned the ship down yet.

To the 3 brothers, it was common knowledge that the flame itself wasn’t as hot as the space around it. After all, that’s where most of the heat is expelled. How they figured that out? Yeah, well, they wanted to forget that, but the knowledge was good to know.

Now, what happens when the hottest part of a flame meets something flammable? Nothing good, that’s what, Ace snorted, jumping down onto solid ground, smack dab in the middle of Teach’s room.

Hopefully he won’t be coming inside anytime soon, Ace prowled around the room and solidified his feet, so as to not burn anything. He knew that this had a risk of being found out, but it’s not like he had a choice. He was too slow to move around in Candleflame without burning anything.

And if he did, Teach would immediately know it was him. The fatso seemed to be a little more cautious these days, always checking out his surroundings before washing his hands, or doing other things. Credit to him, he’s smart.

Too smart, Ace grimaced and then carefully opened one of the drawers near his desk. A Devil Fruit Encyclopedia? What…

Ace lifted the heavy book up with one arm and stared at it confusedly. Why would he need a Devil Fruit Encyclopedia… Ace frowned, and carefully put the book down back into the same place he left it, noting down to check that later when Teach was out on a mission.

I think this will be enough information, Ace smiled and geared up for takeoff, before something caught his eye, and the tension around him dissipated into smoke. “What…”

Ace grabbed a planner and thumbed through the pages continuously, before he stopped at one page whose date had been underlined thoroughly.

“CHANGE MONIKER TO BLACKBEARD”

Clearly, he doesn’t seem to like originality, a small dark corner of Ace’s mind snarked, Ace ignored that small part, and wondered, Why does he need to change his name to Blackbeard? So much so, that he will underline the day that he’ll do it?

Ace shut the planner and shoved it back into where he found it, before rocketing off into the rafters once more. Whatever it is, it could be important.

He bounded across the ship silently at supersonic speeds, before stopping in the room that was given to him and his brothers. He shifted into a solid form and began shoving his clothes onto his body.

Blackbeard… he frowned, before walking off in Haruta’s general direction.

o-o

Luffy grunted and threw another punch towards his opponent, before nimbly rolling out of the way from an overhead slice. He spun around and delivered an axe kick to his opponent’s shoulder, before the hilt of the sword he was using jabbed him in the stomach.

“Oof!” he staggered backwards as the wind got knocked out of him, and in his moment of inattentiveness, the green-haired opponent struck, pinning the scarred preteen to the ground with a sword sinking into the wooden deck next to his head.

Luffy took one look at the sword and then into Zoro’s eyes before conceding, “I yield,”

Zoro emotionlessly got up and pulled Wado out of the deck before sheathing her. After a few moments of silence, he asked, “Why do you go easy on me?” he tried to hide his hurt undertone.

“Why do you go easy on me?” Luffy retorted, brushing off the dust from his shirt, and instinctively running his fingers through his hair; he used to do that to get dust out of the long locks after a fight was over back in the colosseum.

“I go easy on you because you go easy on me,” Zoro returned.

Luffy grimaced, “I go easy on you because if I don’t, you will die,”

Zoro showed his indignance, “Do you think so low of me that I will die should you go hard on me?”

Luffy blankly looked into Zoro’s silver-grey eyes reflecting his own obsidian orbs, “I will eat you alive, Zoro,” he said simply, “If I let loose on you, I will eat you alive,” Luffy stressed, before walking away.

“It’s not that I think you’re weak, it’s just that I am afraid,” Luffy turned his head sideways, and a somber smile showed on his face.

Zoro looked down for a moment before meeting his captain’s eyes, “Then, I will become strong enough so that you don’t have to worry captain. I will be someone who deserves to be called your first mate, Pirate King,” he said with conviction flowing through his words like a rushing river.

Luffy smiled, “Okay, then!”

o-o

Sabo was strolling through the top deck, keeping his heightened hearing activated just in case anyone was to come near him. He was feeling especially paranoid today, I wonder why… Sabo was cut off from his musings, when he heard heavy, slow footsteps walking near him.

Sabo turned around and tipped the rim of his hat forward to shadow his eyes a bit. He could always see better in the darkness. He never knew why, though.

He resisted the urge to run when he saw just who was approaching him.

“Hey, little guy,” the man crouched down, pitching forward to balance out all the extra chub on his belly, “How are you liking it on the Moby Dick?” the man smiled widely, showing all of his missing teeth.

Sabo took a step back and fought the urge to bolt as the man stepped a bit forward in response, his smile, somehow widening at Sabo’s reaction.

“Come on, why don’t you tell Uncle Teach how you like it?” he held out a big, meaty hand, which Sabo eyed dubiously.

“First of all,” Sabo praised himself for not stuttering, “You are not my ‘Uncle Teach’” I won’t be living too long, will I? A small dark corner of his head whispered resignedly, “Second of all, don’t treat me like a dog, because I’m not one,” Sabo scowled, to hide how he cowered on the inside.

“Ah, that’s right,” Teach retracted his hand, much to Sabo’s relief, before it was dashed once more, “You’re a vampire, right?” Teach smiled widely again. Nothing in his demeanor screamed dangerous, and even the smile itself was friendly, but the words didn’t match that.

Sabo’s heart was beating so fast, in a bout of morbid amusement, he wondered if it would just beat right out of his chest. Sabo couldn’t resist the urge to run anymore, and he flipped on his heel and bolted, ignoring the call to come back from the fat man, and the protests of the people he pushed past.

He knows! He… Sabo’s eyes widened, and he belatedly tried to stop rocketing forwards, before ultimately crashing through the wall of the Captain’s Cabin.

He shakily got up and put his top hat on before smiling sheepishly, “Oops?” he directed towards the bewildered, colossal man sitting down not even two feet away from him.

“GURARARA! It’s fine, mind telling me what happened, though?” Whitebeard asked, intrigued.

Sabo thought back to Teach and grimaced, “It was nothing,” he turned around and walked away.

Whitebeard hummed, clearly not believing what he just heard from Sabo’s mouth, but didn’t ask any more.

When Sabo made it to a small, secluded spot on the ship, he curled up into a ball, and began crying on his knees. “He knows…” he sobbed, “He knows…”

Sabo buried his head in between his knees and cried silently, cursing himself for no apparent reason. It didn’t seem to strike him just how Teach found out he was a vampire. After all, they’re all out to get him, right? They’re all out to get him, and his brothers are the only ones he can trust.

“Hey, ‘bo, you okay?” Sabo stopped crying, only letting out a small whimper before meeting the concerned eyes of Ace above him.

Unable to hold it back anymore, he glomped onto Ace’s leg and began sobbing uncontrollably. “Ace… They’re out to get us, Ace! They’re out to… mrrphm…” Sabo buried his face into Ace’s skin, his last words coming out as a muffle because of that.

Ace was unamused, “Hey, ‘bo, the hell do you mean ‘they’re out to get us’?” he deadpanned while trying to pry the ball of fur from Ace’s leg, “And also, would you care to explain how you managed to turn into a werewolf again, without going mental?”

Sabo either did not hear the question, or ignored the entire thing altogether, instead opting to squeeze Ace’s leg tighter.

“Look, if you want to glomp someone, glomp Luffy, at least he won’t feel the pain of losing blood flow in the legs,” Ace said exasperatedly, leaning against the wall, before sliding down.

After a few moments, Sabo seemed to gain some semblance of reality again, and he cleared his throat before speaking, “Teach knows, Ace, he knows,” he whispered hoarsely.

“What do you mean?” Ace tilted his head quizzically, that distantly reminded Sabo of sunshine days on Dawn Island.

No. They gone now. No live in past. A scratchy, growling voice whispered in his ear. Sabo jumped and nervously looked around, completely discarding Ace’s irritated questioning.

Who are you?

…

No matter how many times Sabo asked, the voice didn’t reply, instead staying silent. So silent, that Sabo almost thought that it was a figure of his imagination. Sighing, he looked forward, only to find a shimmering form of a wolf with unnaturally large fangs and bloodthirsty red eyes standing uncomfortably close to his now concerned brother.

“Who are you?!” Sabo began hyperventilating, and he became distantly aware of the starting confusion, then mounting panic erupting in Ace’s eyes.

The wolf stayed silent and stood closer to his brother, grazing two of his front fangs against the nape of his neck, and all went silent. Ace froze, his eyes wide, and his back shivering, as a chill made its way down his spine.

The wolf looked into Sabo’s eyes, as if taunting him, with those evil orbs, before opening wide and preparing to snap Ace’s neck.

Sabo’s eyes snapped open wide and in horror, he held out one pale, shaky white hand and yelled, “NO!”

The voice wasn’t as loud or as intimidating as his brothers’ when they really tried to get people to listen, but it had the same impact nonetheless.

The wolf stopped, the tips of his saber-like fangs just barely touching the skin of his brother’s neck. Sabo gulped, and looked away from the terrifying sight, and turned his gaze to the wolf’s eyes.

They had a question in them.

Not that sort of curious question, no. Nor one of those knowing questions either. It was a taunt. Just like everything else this wolf seemed to be doing to him. ‘Why should I?’

After a few moments of horrified silence from Sabo, the wolf took it as a sign to continue, and continue he did. The fangs were just about to pierce skin, when Luffy came waltzing into the room with the grace of a hippo, and the rage of a berserker.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but laced with so much fury and Conqueror’s, that it made the wolf shiver.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Luffy put one foot forward, and the wolf quickly retracted his mouth from Ace’s neck. Ace let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, and looked in awe towards his little brother. When he turned to where the wolf was, however, he was confused. Where did that chill come from? He knew there was something at his neck. He could feel the hot breath of an animal and the scent of blood behind him, but he couldn’t see a thing.

“What did you think you were doing?”

To the werewolf-vampire and the Voice of all Things, they saw the wolf cowering in a shaking ball on the ground in the face of pure unadulterated fury.

“Answer me NOW!” Luffy erupted, screaming out to the heavens, his skin dulled into a dead gray, and his sclera turned black, his pupils and irises nowhere to be seen, but in there place, a glowing red orb filled with rage, that promised nothing but destruction for the object of it.

In response, the wolf cowered even more, and placed his head on the ground, and looked up with wide eyes, as if pleading for mercy.

When it became clear that no mercy was to be spared, the wolf frantically bobbed his head up and opened his mouth, “Wait!”

Luffy’s fist froze, moments away from completely obliterating the being in front of him, apparition or not.

“You have 10 seconds. Give me a good reason, and maybe I won’t blow you to bits,” Luffy growled.

Taking this as his cue, the wolf’s ears perked up and he began babbling with the grace and dignity of someone who was facing down death itself for the first time.

“Wolf-child, there, he very important. Has my soul inside. Unfortunate has Vampire soul too. Must purge. Needed to make him fear. Vampires don’t fear. Have too much dignity. Thought that would make him expel Vampire soul from him. If he fear, then vampire soul un-merge with me, and he become true wolf,” he was panting by the end of it.

Luffy raised an eyebrow, “And I care, why? You were going to kill my brother,” Luffy said matter-of-factly, cocking his fist back to strike.

“Vampire children kill those they love!” The wolf blurted out, “I trying to protect you! First few years of being vampire, bloodthirst uncontrollable. Feed on whatever near, just kill and eat, and grow strong. That what vampire children do. If he continues with vampire soul, he will kill you, even if he don’t want to. Activates on its own, and kills us all, takes over vessel, and Void Century 2 will begin,” that last part was slightly sarcastic, but the message got through.

“Wait…” Sabo frowned, “You almost killed Ace… to purge me?”

The wolf let out an irritated growl and waved his head around agitatedly, “How many times I say? I not kill freckles-boy, he your pack-mate. I only scare you, so you purge vampire soul from body,”

“Okay, I have no idea what’s going on, CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON?!” Ace yelled hysterically, his pupils contracted and his right eye twitched a bit.

Sabo grabbed Ace by the shoulders and looked him in the eye, Never thought I’d be the one doing this, but oh well, “Ace, there’s a psychopath wolf—”

“HEY!”

“—and he wants to save you,” Sabo breathed, “And Luffy. And everyone else too, now that I think about it,”

“Except for Teach,” a new voice butted in.

“Except for Teach,” Sabo confirmed before yelping and turning around in the direction of the new voice.

“So… Mind telling me what’s going on?” Thatch was crouching on the rafters, eating a chocolate chip cookie as if nothing was wrong with the world.

“Oh yeah, and I brought Usopp and Zoro, too,” he said nonchalantly, before swallowing.

As if on cue, Usopp’s head popped out, followed by Zoro’s. The harpy-child floated to the ground, gracefully, while Zoro just unceremoniously dropped himself down, while landing on his feet.

“So, save us all from who, exactly?” Usopp said after a moment of silence.

Sabo’s reply was as grim as Luffy’s expression.

“From me,”

o-o

At the same time, a meeting was held in the Captain’s Cabin. Thatch was unavailable, so he unfortunately could not attend, so that left Kingdew, Haruta, Marco, Jozu, Vista, Izou, Blamenco, Rakuyo, Namur, Blenheim, Speed Jiru, Atmos, Curiel and Fossa.

They were contemplating to include Teach in this meeting as well, but seeing how Sabo reacted to him, they opted to leave him out.

Whitebeard’s expression was solemn, before he spoke, “I saw Sabo earlier today,” he rumbled.

“Yeah, the kid crashed right into your room, didn’t he?” Vista stroked his moustache contemplatively.

Whitebeard grimaced, “He did, and when he did, he looked…” Whitebeard hesitated. Whitebeard hesitated. Whitebeard hesitated. That isn’t something you see every day. So, his children, were, understandably, worried.

“What happened?” that was Namur, who seemed to have taken a liking to the blond boy. In two words, he perfectly summed up the stray questions going on in everyone’s mind.

“He was afraid,” Whitebeard forced out, “It was like, he was afraid, not of me killing him, no, he was afraid of something else. He was afraid that telling me that, would sign his death warrant,”

Small gasps and chatter was heard around the room, and after a while, it was Marco who spoke up.

“Why would he feel like that?”

“My question exactly,”

“Maybe we should keep an eye on them?” Jiru offered, “I could do that,”

He was silenced by a glare from the titan in front of him. It wasn’t a terrifying glare like the ones he gives his enemies, but a sort of glare a reprimanding father would give to his son.

“No. They were recently pulled out of a facility, where their every move was monitored, and they had no free space at all. They’re on this ship to gain just that. We will give them the freedom that they so greatly need, without a guillotine hanging above their neck at every precipice,”

Curiel picked his ear and grinned sheepishly, “Look, Oyaji, I love ya and all, but I didn’t even know what half those words meant. What the hell is a guillotine?”

Marco sighed and facepalmed, “A guillotine,” he droned, as if he had done this at least a hundred times, which, when you consider it, was probably true, “Is an execution tool in which they attach a blade to a pulley-lever system,” At Curiel’s lost stare, Marco sighed and dumbed it down.

“A guillotine is a machine that lops your head off when someone pulls a stick, got that?” Marco said exasperatedly.

Curiel nodded triumphantly and punched his open palm, “That sounds like a good weapon,”

Marco stared at him for a moment, before sighing, knowing that this is the best he could get out of him.

“So, what do we do, Oyaji?” they heard Izou question.

Turning to their father with expecting stares, they saw the great Whitebeard sigh.

“We will try to support them best we can, Haruta!” he called.

“Yes, Pops!” Haruta saluted.

“Go dig up anything you’ve got on the facility. Everyone else, try to give them some space,”

“““GOT IT!”””

One by one, everyone filed out of the room, leaving only Marco and Whitebeard.

“What weren’t you telling them?” Marco asked.

“What do you mean?” Whitebeard tried to play off.

“Don’t do that with me. I know that look in your eyes, what were you hiding?” Marco countered.

Whitebeard sighed and looked out the large window in his cabin, watching the waves roll against the hull of the Moby Dick, “I’ve got a bad feeling, Marco,” he breathed.

“I’ve got a bad, bad feeling,”

Chapter Text

After that ominous message his father gave him, Marco spent all his time keeping a more or less watch on the brats. Although, he would always get the slip. He didn’t know how or where they found out how to hide their auras, but they found out, and that just made it infinitely harder.

And that was saying something if Marco couldn’t find them. Haruta was half-sure that the apocalypse had begun.

“I’ve got a bad feeling Marco” Marco grimaced, remembering the words his father had told when he asked what the man was hiding.

Marco walked around the deck of the ship, nodding his head and waving a hand in greeting to whoever passed by, before he noticed something slightly empty about the ship. Haruta had been less creative with his pranks recently, and they were always half-done when people triggered them.

Why? Marco frowned, This is Haruta, we’re talking about, one of the masterminds of the Marineford Scenario, so why is he pranking… badly?

Marco froze mid-step, Could he be planning something? No… then he wouldn’t be pranking at all… he resumed walking, WHAT AM I MISSING?!

Thatch.

The name just popped into his head without welcome, and out of nowhere, but it was enough to make him trip over his own foot. Either way, that got him thinking. Thatch, who was Haruta’s pranking buddy, hadn’t been seen for a while now, and he had been recently disappearing during these times too. He wasn’t there during the meeting either, and he was almost 100% sure that he would be there during the meeting.

Come to think of it, Haruta had been slightly more sober these days than when he was with Thatch. Not to mention, Thatch had managed to get closer to the 5 brats within 6 days, than anyone could in the 3 weeks that they had unofficially joined. So, how?

Down a ways, he spotted Thatch prowling around. Better now than never, Marco resolved and hid his aura expertly. He activated his Devil Fruit ability and flew across the sky, landing just a ways behind Thatch.

It was far enough to deem not-suspicious, and close enough to listen and see what he was doing.

o-o

Haruta was bored. He wasn’t creative to come up with pranks on the go, like Thatch could. He was good only with execution! Where was Thatch, anyways? After that one time they pranked Jozu into a diaper, he had borderline disappeared!

Haruta frowned, and filled up the bucket with water.

Thatch was his best friend. They both had bonded over their love of pranks, but… where was he now?

Haruta scowled and began throwing hot pink and purple glitter into the water, having no care whatsoever if some fell on him.

Where are you Thatch? He thought as he put the bucket in place, It’s no fun doing all these pranks without you.

Haruta launched himself up into the rafters into a safe spot to watch his prank smoothly be executed.

Soon enough, angry curses from one certain speedy commander Jiru floated itself up into his ears. Haruta hid a snicker, and silently bounded off.

o-o

Marco silently stalked after Thatch’s retreating form, sweating in anticipation. Show me your secrets, Thatch…

Thatch stopped about 2 feet from a blank wall, before shaking his head and muttering something under his breath, that Marco just couldn’t catch.

What…? Marco narrowed his eyes and analyzed as Thatch began sounding out a series of taps on the wall. After what seemed to be about, twenty taps, or so, Thatch walked forward—

Wait what? Marco blinked.

Thatch walked forward. And disappeared… Disappeared…

Marco sighed, I need some sake, he thought while kneading a headache.

o-o

Thatch looked over his shoulder and frowned a little before making his way to the secret entrance to the secret base. Why do I feel like someone’s watching me?

Thatch grimaced, stopping just in front of a blank wall. Can’t afford anyone finding us.

Thatch looked up and scanned the sky with his eyes, before meeting eyes with one certain freckled pyromaniac, and he nodded. All of a sudden, Ace disappeared.

Thatch had no doubt that the kid was probably hovering around him right now, so he quietly murmured, “I’m being followed,”

He could feel the air heat up a little, before rapidly cooling down. He smirked and squinted his eyes, seeing a hazy outline of where the air rippled around Ace’s presence.

Thatch stepped forward and began tapping the wall at random, to try and throw his watcher off. After 22 taps, he walked forward, and subtly held out his hand.

One moment, he was walking on wooden ground, and the next, he was searing through the air at rocket-speed with a human candle dragging him along.

“Heyo!” Ace teased, “Wassup, Thatchy?”

Thatch pouted and stuck his tongue out, “Oh, shut up, you,”

Before Ace could retort, they reached the spot in the rafters that they all had coined as their own base.

Sabo stepped forward, as Ace was making a show of dusting himself off, and threw some cloth at him, “Here’s some decency, Ace,” he teased.

Over the span of the few days that Thatch knew their secret, they became inseparably close, and the ASLZU felt safe enough to lower their guard in his presence.

Once everyone was settled down and Ace got some clothes back on, Sabo rested his forehead on the heel of his palm, “It just keeps getting harder and harder,” he groaned.

A cacophony of agreements and murmurs floated up from the 5 people before him, and it was true. It had been getting harder. There’s the enlightenment of Teach’s murder plans, and the new vampiric scourge resting in Sabo’s body, waiting to kill them all.

“Okay!” Sabo dragged his hand down his face and sighed, “Wolf-dude come out now,”

On cue, a shimmering light blonde wolf—almost white—phased into existence. It looked ethereal, and it gave off an aura of protection. Its mere presence lit up the entire ‘base’ with its radiance. It was so beautiful. It was so stunning. It was so, so—

“Stop shining, you’re giving me an eye ache, and you’re going to give away our position,” Sabo deadpanned.

The wolf grumbled a little, and the beautiful radiance turned down until the wolf was nothing more than a wolf with a pale ghostly aura shimmering around it.

o-o

In hindsight, Thatch should’ve been expecting this. He was told about the wolf, and its otherworldly aura around it, but it was one thing to hear it, but to actually see it…

It was beautiful.

Then his worldview shattered when Sabo deadpanned something so casual to such a… a… magnificent being!

Then his worldview turned to dust when the said magnificent being grumbled—grumbled—and proceeded to shift into a considerably less magnificent form.

“You can see him, right?” Sabo questioned, scanning the ‘base’.

Luffy nodded, but then again, he’s got the Voice of all Things, of course he could see the wolf, so that wasn’t much of an epiphany.

Zoro hummed in affirmation, and Usopp’s eyes were tracking the wolf’s every moment, with his talons unsheathed, ready to fight at Luffy’s word.

“So, you were the one that was about to snap my head off?” Ace looked and sounded thoroughly unimpressed.

“What you expecting?” The wolf questioned curiously.

“Something bigger,” Ace said sassily.

The wolf’s eyes darkened and his lips were pulled into a thin line, “Stop making comments about my size,” after a moment he tacked on, “Please,”.

Ace shrugged, “Well, now that you’re so polite,” he sneered, “I guess I won’t make any comments about your size,”

The wolf relaxed.

“Everything else is free game, though,” Ace sang.

The wolf’s eyes flew up to meet Ace’s, “Are you crazy?!” he snapped.

“Yes,” Ace muttered, loud enough for the rest of the room to catch it.

Thatch hid a wince, So hopelessly blunt, that kid, he shook his head.

“Okay, okay,” Sabo gestured grandly, “Settle down,” he held the rim of his top hat gently between his two fingers and frowned, “We’re here for a reason,”

All at once, the mood in the room darkened, and Luffy’s face was dangerously blank, it sent chills down Thatch’s spine.

“So, how do we get rid of this… Vampire?” Sabo got comfortable and sat down, staring the wolf dead in the eye.

The wolf fearlessly met Sabo’s red and blue eyes and—to his credit—only sweat a little bit under the intense gaze.

“So?”

The wolf yelped and flipped around, baring his teeth in a snarl, but almost forcefully relaxing when he saw Ace’s flaming face not too far from where he was prior.

“Are you going to tell us or not?” Ace deadpanned, “Or do I have to force it out of you?” for added effect, he lit the tip of his finger on fire, and carelessly waved it around in front of his face.

The wolf made an expression something akin to a grimace and said, “You think that just because you have Fruit of Demon, you have all the power. When you truly see the world, you realize that you not as powerful as you once think,”

Ace’s face darkened, and he snuffed out the flame on his finger, “Oh well, are you going to talk or not?”

Thatch got a nagging feeling that the wolf just mentally rolled his eyes before the ethereal being spoke, “We need to go to Kuraigana island. Known as ‘Gloom Island’ in your language. We go there, and we go to underground runes. We purge Vampire spirit there. Outside of there, I cannot talk about purging process, or we all die,”

“And why, pray tell, would we die?” Ace responded sarcastically.

“Vampire don’t like losing their hosts,” was the only ominous reply.

“Wait, if we’re talking about purging the Vampire here out in the open, won’t the Vampire inside me, I don’t know, try to stop it?” Sabo questioned.

The wolf gazed solemnly at Sabo, “He will,”

“Then why would you tell us?” Zoro questioned.

“The second you transformed into Vampire-wolf form-- you were on a time crunch. We have to make it to Kuraigana within one month, or…”

We’ll all die, was left unsaid, but the message was heard.

“Well—” Luffy got up and stretched his arms, “What are we waiting for?” he smiled a D-centric smile, and the mood in the ‘base’ marginally brightened.

o-o

After Luffy let loose his D-centric smile, Zoro stopped playing with the hilt of Wado and took a good look at the kid Usopp chose to be his captain. Scrutinizing him from top to bottom, picking him open and searching his insides.

Zoro let a small grin creep onto his face, and unhanded the hilt of his sword.

He approved of Usopp’s choice. That kid will make an amazing captain. Most likely better than Whitebeard himself. Zoro sighed silently, but then froze.

Why does it feel like I want to go with him?!

Zoro dug his nails into his arms, and bit back the screeching of the Asura inside him. No. he told himself firmly, I have my own dream. And that dream has no place for him in it.

He forlornly looked at the straw-hatted teen who was making jokes with Usopp.

No matter how much I want to.

Who cares? Zoro startled at the voice ringing out in his mind. He carefully, mentally reached out the strings connecting him to the Asura. He was… apprehensive to say the least. The Asura had never talked to him before. Most of the time it was bloodthirsty screeches and howls for carnage. So, Zoro was rightfully apprehensive.

Hello? Zoro’s mental voice was guarded, and for a moment there, he could almost hear the Asura’s crackling laugh.

Oh wait, he wasn’t imagining it.

‘Who’s there?’ You’re faced with a demon and that’s the best you can come up with? The Asura cackled.

Zoro’s spirit bristled at the jab. He couldn’t tell whether it was lighthearted and friendly, or an actual threat with a sneer hidden somewhere within the words.

What’s your point? Zoro’s spirit spoke coldly. If that Asura has bad intentions, then he could be possessed and used to hurt Luffy! That absolutely cannot—

Even through everything, you’re still thinking about that child, the Asura quietly spoke.

Zoro froze, a vehement denial right on the tip of his tongue, before he stopped to actually think. Why was Luffy the first thing that came to mind on who he wanted to protect? Why him? Why not Usopp?

Any sort of rebuttal died in his throat, and all of a sudden, his currently nonexistent mouth became very, very dry.

My point, as you so barbarically said earlier, the Asura snarked, picking up the silence, Was for you to suck it up and join the kid. You know you want to, and really—It’s best to chase what you want now instead of regretting it later, the Asura went quiet.

I should know.

All of a sudden, the dark void of his mind flickered for a bit, before Zoro snapped back to reality, and felt pain blossoming in his stomach. He hacked and gagged for a bit before sucking in a deep breath and looking whoever was in front of him in the eye.

“What the hell happened?”

o-o

Ace was trying, and failing to look nonchalant, but really, he was sweating under the pressure. After Zoro didn’t respond to a question that was directed his way, everyone assumed he was just napping. But then, when they failed to hear the snores, they really got worried.

Usopp in particular was panicking, which was completely understandable, considering Zoro was the first person after the Facility that cared for him somewhat.

Under Usopp’s panicking and everyone else’s peer pressure, Ace buckled and began panicking as well.

“Zoro? ZORO?!” he ended up punching the moss head in the stomach to try to get him to wake up. A few moments after the punch, and when Zoro did not stir, Thatch began crying, and Sabo began literally planning out a funeral, while Luffy kept looking at the one he decided to be his first mate with blank, unreadable eyes.

All of a sudden, Zoro burst into a fit of coughing and hacking, and Ace almost screamed because he was 100% sure that Zoro was dead.

Zoro sucked in a deep breath and looked Ace dead in the eye, and for a moment, Ace was sure his heart stopped.

“What the hell happened?”

Ace pressed his lips together and proceeded to turn into his intangible form before replying, “I kind of punched you in the stomach because I wanted to wake you up, and I thought you were dead when you didn’t reply, and—oh my god YOU’RE OKAY!”

As if a switch was flipped, everyone created a dogpile over Zoro, who was completely and thoroughly confused.

“What…”

o-o

Zoom to Marco and Haruta for a sec.

They both kind of wanted Thatch back into the crew instead of being virtually, well, gone. Therefore, they were holding a secret meeting to discuss their observations. In Marco’s defense, it was all Haruta’s idea. It was definitely not his idea to be wearing mock-sunglasses just to be cool.

Nope.

No sirree!

Marco felt like an idiot wearing those glasses, but his sulking was interrupted when Haruta cleared his throat.

“Okay, so what do we know so far?”

Marco made to open his mouth and answer the question, before Haruta glanced at him and lazily waved his hand in a motion that simultaneously meant both ‘quiet’ and ‘sit down’.

Marco silently closed his mouth, and lowered his finger, patiently waiting for Haruta to go on.

“You! The One with the Pineapple!” Haruta pointed a finger towards Marco who was getting much less patient by the second.

“Okay,” Marco stood up, “Thatch disappeared,”

“Yeah, genius, we kind of know that already,” Haruta rolled his eyes.

Marco noticed something about Haruta that he didn’t before. Without Thatch, Haruta became very, very grumpy. Thatch needed to come back soon, otherwise Marco was genuinely frightened that someone might die by Haruta’s hand.

“I mean, that he literally disappeared. Walked two steps on deck and immediately vanished into thin air,” he paused, “That’s the best way to describe it, at least,”

“Wait, you mean, he literally vanished?” Haruta’s jaw dropped at Marco’s nodding.

Haruta’s jaw trembled and a fire lit in his eyes, before he screamed out, effectively bursting Marco’s eardrums, “THERE IS AN IMPOSTOR AMONG US!!!!!”

o-o

Whitebeard heard Haruta scream something unintelligible, and for a moment, wondered if he should go check on him before shrugging it off and noting it down as something his son could handle on his own.

It was definitely not because Whitebeard was actually frightened by Haruta’s psycho-ness after Thatch began mysteriously disappearing daily.

Nope!

Whitebeard threw away his worries, and guzzled at another sake gourd, silently contemplating if he should be worried for Thatch.

Oh well, he shrugged.

o-o

After the meeting was over, Thatch dropped down into his room, waving off the ASLZU with a smile on his face. He hummed a cheery tune to himself and got his spatula ready to cook dinner for the entire ship.

He opened the door, and was immediately smacked in the face by a fist.

He doubled backward in pain, and through his haze, he tracked the owner of the fist as Marco, who was wearing an extremely horrified expression on his face, while his hand was stuck in a knocking position.

“Oh my god, Thatch, I’m so sor…” Thatch held up his free hand, stopping Marco from saying anymore, and took his other hand off his nose, smiling brightly, “It’s fine!”

Before Marco could say anything, another person burst through the door. This time, it was an extremely grumpy Haruta.

“Hey, Thatch,” Haruta put a saccharine sweet smile on his face, “What’s going on, my man?” Haruta’s face shifted into a much darker expression, “What’s going on that you can’t even play PRANKS WITH ME, DAMMIT! I’m lonely…”

Haruta looked at Thatch, who was currently feeling his heart clench at Haruta’s teary face, “Why, Thatch, WHYY?!”

Thatch stepped backward and reflexively put a hand over his heart, and said, “I promise you, we will mass-prank the entire ship. I promise,”

As if a switch had been flipped, Haruta’s expression went from teary to unimpressed, “Am I seriously supposed to believe you’re Thatch, impostor? Your impression is terrible,”

Thatch mutely looked at Haruta in mock horror, before saying, “You don’t believe me? I thought… I thought we bonded. All three of us, you know? The pineapple, the smol bean, and the bread head,” Thatch couldn’t fight the smile on his face, while he cried exaggerated tears.

“You shame me,”

Haruta’s face brightened, “Never mind! Hey, Thatch,”

“Hmmm?” Thatch opened an eye to stare at Haruta questioningly.

“Let’s go prank Oyaji!”

Thatch felt his blood run cold, “Seriously?”

Haruta nodded, carefully gauging Thatch’s reaction, which was quickly turning into adrenaline-enhanced bliss, “Well, what do you want to do?”

Haruta hid a smile, he really is Thatch. Good. If he were an impostor…

Haruta refused to finish the thought.

o-o

Whitebeard shivered a bit, and paused in his guzzling of the sake. Why do I get such a bad feeling in the near future…?

Chapter Text

“Hey… Oyaji?” Whitebeard was broken out of his musings when he heard the voice of one of the brats, he took in.

“Yeah?” He said while absently noting that there wasn’t much sake left in the gourd he was rolling around.

“Do you think…” Sabo-brat bit his lip, “That we could go to… Gloom Island?”

Whitebeard would have doubled over laughing, and dropped his sake gourd for good measure, too, if he hadn’t heard Gloom Island come from that kid’s mouth.

“Why would you want to go there?” Whitebeard asked, his eyes imperceptibly wide, because, well, Gloom Island, he mused, would be the last place I would’ve thought a child to want to go.

Sabo frowned and skillfully (for his age) avoided the question, “That’s not the point, the point is, can you go there, or not?”

Whitebeard frowned, “Well, yes, but—”

“Can we go there, then?” Sabo interrupted anxiously, shifting from side to side.

“but, why would you want to go to the island where Dracule Mihawk is living?” he questioned, long having forsaken the sake bottle, sitting on the armrest of his throne.

Sabo-brat frowned and tilted his head quizzically, “Dracule Mihawk?”.

Whitebeard yawned, “Yeah, Dracule Mihawk, that one Warlord that is coincidentally the Greatest Swordsman in the World, too. Why do you want to go there?”

Sabo gaped before schooling his expression into a blank poker face, which would have been impressive to anyone that didn’t know Observation Haki. Whitebeard could feel his unease spiking up every second he stayed silent.

“Well, if you want to go there, who am I to deny you?” Whitebeard shrugged.

“You’re Whitebeard,” Sabo pointed out, crossing his arms and staring skeptically at the old man, “‘nuff said,” he said sagely.

Whitebeard paused for a second, before letting out a hearty laugh, “GURARARARA!”

…

Sabo be shooketh.

(AN: XD Sorry I couldn’t resist!)

…

“What?” Sabo shrunk in on himself, “Did I say something?”

Whitebeard felt a pang of worry in his heart, Once, this kid might have been bold enough to banter with Sengoku freely, even if he were a pirate… he scowled, I only have one regret:

Not finding that facility and burning it down myself.

“You said nothing wrong,” Whitebeard assured, “Although, I personally, cannot bring you to Gloom Island, so you’re going to have to travel with Shanks for the time being,” he paused, “Are you okay with that?”

Sabo beamed a bright smile, “Yeah! That’s good! Thanks!” and with that, he turned around, and disappeared in the crowd on deck.

Whitebeard looked up at the sky and savored the taste of the sake on his palette, before he choked on air, He called me… Oyaji!

A gushy, warm feeling arose from within himself, and he didn’t bother hiding the look of pride and love on his face, He called me Oyaji!

o-o

TIMESKIP—

After an extremely tense call from Yonko to Yonko, Shanks agreed to arrive at the Moby Dick, if only because ‘Anchor asked,’.

Marco sighed, he was not looking forward to seeing Shanks again, in fact, he was actively avoiding Shanks. Seeing him once was more than enough of a toll on his sanity. He still didn’t understand how Shanks’ liver was still intact what with all the drinking he did.

Mihawk, he could understand. He was still hanging on the inane theory that when the Swordsman was born, he was fed sake instead of milk. That’s not even accounting for the insane healing factor the guy had!

Like, you give him one deep gash across his stomach, so deep that his insides would spill out, and the next day, when you arrive for a rematch, not even a scar is left behind!

In short, it was freaky.

Marco opened his eyes, to the sight of the vast Grand Line sea, and his heart swelled with some unidentifiable emotion. He loved this sea, he loved sailing on it, and he loved his brothers with whom he sailed it with. Even if the sea didn’t quite love him back, what with the fact that he had a Devil Fruit and all…

Marco frowned, when a blip appeared just on the edge of his Haki. It could be a threat, he reasoned, momentarily forgetting that they had spent two hours asking Shanks to come over to the Moby Dick, repeatedly assuring him, that no, this was not a trap, and spending an extra half hour just explaining why Shanks had to come there to begin with.

For someone who was so carefree, he was deceptively paranoid.

He closed his eyes and zoomed in. It seemed to be a ship, filled to the brim with 30 people, but that wasn’t what worried him, no. It was the fact that each of those people were insanely powerful, and one person’s aura towered over everyone else’s there. Most likely the captain.

Marco frowned, confusion and hesitation momentarily clouding his Haki, Who are these people? He wondered, stretching his arms and taking to the sky.

He followed a mixture of his instincts and the blip on his Haki, uncaring as it got bigger and bigger. No one could reach him while up in the sky. It was times like this, when the Phoenix inside him sang in praise of the wind against the flaming feathers attached to Marco like it was a second skin.

Marco gave a lazy smirk and evened out his wings, half floating, half gliding on the air. Contrary to popular belief, Zoan Devil Fruits weren’t like the soul of the animal was living inside your body, no. More like, a fragment of that soul.

Enough to give you heightened instincts, enough to give you their form, enough to give you a distant sensation of what it would feel like if you were the real thing, but no. There was never a living guidebook attached like two souls housed in a body only meant for one.

Having one Devil Fruit alone already adds to your soul immensely, filling your body to the brim with power. But the backlash means that you won’t be able to add anything else to your soul. It just can’t happen. There’s no more room.

Marco sighed, floating on the air, his mind having cleared from this day’s worries. The kids’ reaction to Teach, the blonde one calling Whitebeard ‘Oyaji,’ almost running into a Grand Line Cyclone… Having to call… Shanks… Marco’s eyes opened wide, and he drastically paled.

How did I forget?! He panicked, and that split second lapse in concentration… was the end of him.

Or at least it would have been, had he not been saved from a watery grave by one very elaborately placed ship on the sea. One elaborately placed ship whose captain was one very certain Red-haired Shanks.

“Hey, birdbrain!” Marco suppressed a groan, “Join my crew!” and a smiling, scarred, dangerous face clouded his vision before all went black. His only thought—

Why do I have to see his smiling face before I pass out?

o-o

Marco woke up with a groan, he clutched his head, which was currently experiencing a splitting headache. He frowned, and tried to recall what it was exactly that he was doing, before it all came rushing back to him.

He gasped and sat up, distantly noting the arguing of two extremely powerful Yonko, over one Phoenix.

“I didn’t hurt him, you delusional old man!” that was Shanks.

“Silence!” that was… Oyaji.

In his haze of befuddlement, Marco could only say the first thing that came to mind. Oh yeah, and his brain-to-mouth filter wasn’t quite working at the moment, so…

“Would you two kindly, please, not go to war? And before you say anything, I’m pretty sure half the world, plus the heavens agrees with me as well,” he said dryly.

A few silent moments passed, before Marco registered what he said, and the haze of befuddlement cleared.

“Uhhhh…” he said, so very intelligently.

Shanks looked at him blankly, before breaking out into a wide smile and laughing, “Yeah, he’s right! I’m pretty sure we gave Sengoku quite the big heart attack, no?”

o…o

“Grab all your weapons!” Sengoku ordered, “We’re all going to die!” he said resolutely when he saw absolutely no one move, still too entranced and fearful of the toiling heavens, the telltale sign of two Yonkos having a squabble. Mostly, it was Shanks and Whitebeard. Never Big Mom and Kaido, those two would always use their crew to fight for them.

They were firm believers of the saying ‘what’s the point of ruling, if there’s no world to rule,’.

Shanks and Whitebeard, however, were not. And if those two were actually fighting, then Oda help us all.

Garp, too, was grim through all this, and that alone, made Sengoku almost pee his pants. We are so screwed, he felt like laughing like an idiot.

Then, all of a sudden, the toiling stopped, and the heavens became docile once more. Or at least, as docile as the heavens could be considering they were in the Grand Line… Either way, the change was so sudden, that it left the marines (read: Sengoku) reeling.

“What the—”

“POTATOES!” Garp blurted out, and Sengoku frowned.

“Why did you do that?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Garp just gave a disturbing wink and giggled conspiratorially, “Gotta keep it for the kids, you know?”

Sengoku didn’t talk to Garp for the rest of the day after that. Or the entire week, for that matter.

o…o

“So…” Shanks drawled, “Gloom Island, you say?” he raised an eyebrow at Sabo, who was fidgeting under the gaze. Gotta keep it secret, gotta keep it secret, he repeated like a mantra.

“I suppose I can bring you there,” he nodded resolutely, “Yeah, it won’t take too long, we’re pretty close as is, we can make it in around… a few days or so,”

Sabo frowned, I don’t have that much time, “Any way we can get there faster?”

Shanks raised an eyebrow, “Why are you so eager to get to Gloom Island though?”

Sabo’s eyes widened, but before he could give away any more tells, he schooled his expression, “Personal reasons,”

Shanks took one look at him and got the message that he didn’t want to be asked, so he just shrugged noncommittally and left it at that.

“Well, there are a few ways, but we’re going to have to directly cut through the Calm Belt, and unless you’re okay with seeing Sea Kings the size of the Moby Dick…?” Shanks trailed off into silence, just to let it sink in for his audience.

Sabo was silent for a moment, seemingly doing an internal debate with himself, before speaking up, “Sure, let’s go. As long as we can get there fast,”

Shanks raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on the badly-hidden desperation in the kid’s tone. He must’ve slipped on concentration, Shanks absently mused.

“Okay! Let’s go!” Shanks got up from his crouching position, and began walking towards his ship, sending a few small flares in his aura as a signal.

In the three years that he was looking for Anchor, him and his crew created a means of signaling each other without actually speaking, and such a signal, that it worked within their range of Haki. Basically, you had to suppress your aura, then flare it periodically, like, for example, if Shanks flared his aura once, for a period of three seconds at full power, that meant he was in trouble.

Not like he ever had to actually use that signal though.

Once Sabo was on his ship, he yelled, “Hoist the sails!” there were a bunch of grunts, growls, and in general, responses that sent an affirmation.

Within seconds, the ship was far, far away from the Moby Dick, and setting a course for the Calm Belt. Then, Shanks heard a few noises.

“…Lu…sto…” then a grunt, and three children fell out of a barrel. He took a few moments to analyze their faces, which were currently stuck in a deer-in-the-headlights expression. One was Ace. Another was the Green-haired one, whose wrist seemed to be tied with some sort of string to Ace, and the last was Anchor. Nodding in affirmation to himself, he closed his eyes.

“What are you three doing here?”

“Make that four,” Benn strode up to meet his captain.

“What?”

“Found this one hovering over our ship, cap’n,” and then his first mate lifted up Usopp, who had all of his feathers out, and was currently smiling sheepishly.

“Hi?”

Shanks felt a headache coming on, Is this how Marco feels most of the time?

“Okay, what are you four doing here?” he amended.

Luffy stood up and puffed up his chest in pride, “We came here to spy on you!” he said shamelessly, and for a moment, Shanks thought he felt his heart stop.

The green-headed one—Zoro— groaned, and slapped a hand on his face, “That was a joke, Luffy, I never actually meant that we were going to spy on him,”

Luffy tilted his head and quickly fixed his words, “Sorry!” he said unapologetically, “Ignore what I said,”

Shanks felt like choking on air.

Then Sabo came along, “Luffy?” he muttered, then his eyes widened, “WHAT’RE YOU DOING HERE?!”

Luffy puffed his chest up in pride again, before Ace pushed him down and spoke, “We’re here to escort you to Gloom Island,”

“Oh… Okay,” Sabo hesitated, “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

For a moment, all was silent until Ace spoke up, “Yeah, Zoro, why didn’t you say anything earlier?” he accused.

Zoro, let out an indignant screech of rage, and unintentionally shifted into Asura form, before jabbing three pointers into Ace’s flaming chest, “What do you meant ‘Zoro’? That was Usopp’s job!” he said, accentuating the statement by pointing three pointers at Usopp’s form, which was perching on the rail.

“What?” he said dumbly, looking at his friends, before catching onto the feud, “That wasn’t my job, that was Ace’s,” he lied flawlessly, before going back to work, spying the fish swimming in the ocean.

So, tempting. He licked his lips, before flying up, trying to catch enough wind, but ultimately falling back down.

He frowned and tried again, this time flapping more wholesomely, being sure to catch the wind currents, but when he didn’t feel so much as a breeze, he looked up with a look of confusion on his face.

And he was met with a Giant Sea King which was probably twice the size of the Moby Dick now that he thought about it, or maybe that was just his inner liar talking.

Either way, he screamed. Which was an extremely bad move, by the way, considering it caught the attention of the Sea King, causing the overgrown fish to lunge towards the ship, before it froze.

Then, it exploded. I kid you not, Usopp mentally announced a nonexistent crowd, The 500-ton sea monster—exploded.

Huh, he thought, absently flicking off a stray drop of blood on his eyebrow, My hero, he looked at the blurred form of someone on the edge of the ship, no doubt the one who had destroyed the entire Sea King.

The figure strode towards Usopp with long, regal, imperious strides, before stopping in front of him. The glare from the sun was still too bright to see the person’s face, but that was quickly remedied when the person bent down, probably to get a better look at Usopp’s face.

He saw a person who looked much like him, minus the fact that he had blonde hair, and a smaller, more normal-sized nose. He could hear the other man’s breath hitch.

“Usopp?” he said in wonderment, “Is that you?”

Usopp’s throat was too dry to say anything, so he just settled for a numb nod, and he became vaguely aware of the other man crying.

“You have your mother’s nose, that’s for sure,” the other man—Yasopp—said, and all of a sudden, Usopp felt really proud.

o-o

Soon, they made it to Gloom Island. Over the trip, Luffy had an eating contest with Lucky Roo, Zoro sat with Benn, Usopp and Yasopp had some father-son bonding, and Shanks told Ace real, true stories about Gold Roger.

Still didn’t change the little firecracker’s opinion about the man, though.

All went silent on the ship when the Red Force pulled up next to an island, which could only be best described as… purple. And Gloomy.

At least it’s well-deserved of its name, Sabo thought morbidly, because there is no way this island can be anything but Gloom Island.

“Well,” Shanks announced, comically cheerful against the dark and gloomy atmosphere, “We’re here!”.

“Yes, Captain,” Benn smiled amusedly, “Thank you for pointing out the obvious,”

Shanks’ smile dimmed for a little, before it returned in full force, “You’re welcome!” then, he did a 180^o on his mood so fast, that Sabo almost got whiplash, “I’ll try to distract Hawky, you do your business here, and then we leave, okay?” he looked over at the lone castle on the island, “I have a bad feeling about this place,”

You’re not the only one, Sabo silently agreed.

Shanks put on a resolute face, and strode fearlessly towards the castle, mentally formulating a reason to tell Mihawk as to why he just suddenly showed up, on Gloom Island, no less, out of the blue, because even for him, that was out of the ordinary.

Especially if it was Gloom Island.

Just the name gave people shivers. Except maybe Whitebeard. But then again, that guy could sink the entire island at his own leisure, so he doesn’t count. Marines, though, actively avoided the island. Big Mom and Kaido chose spots in the New World, just to avoid it. Shanks… had to constantly remind himself who he was here for, so as to not turn tail and run.

There was a rumor… about that island… that the one who lives in the broken castle is a monster who can and will suck you veins dry, and eat your heart as an appetizer. That those… who enter that island… never come out.

“Why are you here?” a dry voice spoke.

It was all Shanks could do, not to pull out his sabre, and cut whoever was behind him head off. Although, given who lives here, Shanks mused, he’d probably block me instead.

“I’m here for a spar!” Shanks cheerfully announced, inwardly worrying and hoping that Hawk-eyes would take the lie.

All Dracule Mihawk did in response was raise an eyebrow. But that was all he did. So far so good, Shanks thought.

“A spar?” Mihawk said slowly, “I suppose… It’s been a while,” he reached for his sword, but then stopped. His dull golden eyes, which were normally half-lidded, were now fully open, and more alive than Shanks had seen them in years.

Huh, Mihawk has pointed ears, he mused, Never noticed.

Said pointed ears were twitching at random moments in time, listening to something that Shanks couldn’t hear. After a few moments of silence, Mihawk lunged towards Shanks at superhuman speeds.

“Wha--?” Shanks tried to dodge, but failed miserably.

In seconds, he was pinned down, and too confused to move, “Hawky?” he ventured cautiously, still looking at the heavily panting form of the Warlord above him, who was looking the most disheveled Shanks had seen him in ever, “Mihawk?” he said quietly, “What’s--?”

“Shut up,” the Warlord snarled venomously, and if Shanks was a lesser man, he would’ve flinched.

“What?”

Mihawk ignored him, “Where is the Werewolf?”

“What werewolf?” Shanks asked calmly, “Mihawk, take a moment, breathe, and explain,”

Mihawk did neither, “Where is the Werewolf?!” he screeched, an almost animalistic rage taking over his features, which looked terrifying on his normally prim and proper face. Couple that with the fact that his eyes suddenly turned red, and his canines suddenly sharpened into fangs, and yeah. Shanks was completely befuddled.

Shanks was about to flip and ask, ‘What Werewolf?!’ when his question was answered for him in the form of a howl.

It was harmonious. It was loud. It was blood-curdling. It caught Mihawk’s attention.

That was the direction where Sabo, Anchor, and their brothers went, horror mounted in Shanks’ stomach as pieces clicked together. He dared to take one more look at Mihawk, and what he saw chilled him to the bone.

His face was spread in a ghastly smile showing off sharpened fangs, and his ears were fully elongated, but all of that paled in the face of what he said,

“Found you, mutt,”

Chapter Text

“Found you, mutt,”

Shanks’ eyes widened and he cursed under his breath, “Hawk-eyes, listen to me! What is going on?!”

“Silence human,” Mihawk hissed, “You harbored that… mutt. You are not worth my time,”

Shanks winced at the feeling of diamond-hard nails digging into his shoulder before snarling out, “Yeah, I did, Mihawk,” he spat, “What are you going to do about it?”

Mihawk stared at him impassively with one blood-red eye, “I don’t need to dignify your answer with a response, now do I, you worthless blood-bag?” he questioned, before letting go of Shanks’ shoulder.

“Although, out of respect for you,” he drawled out, unsheathing Yoru, “I’ll give you a warrior’s death,”

Then, with a snarl and a flash of white fangs, Mihawk attacked. Shanks fumbled to parry the blow, and winced when his right arm started throbbing like hell.

Sometimes I hate the fact that the only arm I have left is my non-dominant one, he cursed.

Jumping backwards, he settled into a fighting stance mid-air, and not a moment too soon. Mihawk met him in the air and they had a clash of blades. After around ten minutes, Shanks could see that Mihawk was getting frustrated.

I could always stop you in your tracks and kill you now, but that would be an insult to our friendship, Hawky, Shanks thought grimly, I might as well hold you here till they’re done.

MEANWHILE—

Ace, Sabo, Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp were trudging through the dark ruins of Kuraigana, when all of a sudden, Luffy stopped in his tracks.

“Lu?” Sabo hesitated, “Is there something wrong?”

Luffy nodded stiffly and pointed to the cave embedded into a cliff in the far distance. Once, maybe a long time ago, there might’ve been a beautiful waterfall covering the cave from sight, but that was not now.

Now, there was nothing but the air of death and despair around it.

Sabo gulped, “Well then, I guess that’s where we’re going first.” His hand trembled minutely before he steeled himself and began moving forward.

For a few moments, Luffy stayed rooted to his spot, before jerking and robotically moving forward. It looked like it took all of his being, every ounce of who he was to not turn around and walk away.

I don’t like this, Luffy grimaced, But if Sabo has to go there, then I will be there too.

He wasn’t about to lose another brother because of his careless mistakes this time. But… he thought as he looked around and subtly crouched down into a barely-there fighting stance, It wouldn’t hurt to be on guard.

Zoro peeked at Luffy through the corner of his eye and frowned, before settling into a similar fighting stance, and resting his hand on the hilt of Wado. If you looked closely, you could see the haze of a shadow on the ground next to Zoro with six arms and three heads.

The trek up the waterfall mountain took only 25 minutes, but it felt like 3 hours. The entire way, Luffy kept tensing and jumping around at every little thing, Zoro actually drew his swords, (not just one or two, all three of them), and Usopp couldn’t take the assault on his instincts, and offered to scout up in the air.

(Everyone knew he just wanted to get away from the broken waterfall).

Once they reached the cave, Zoro’s grip on his katana was so tight that his hands were white, Luffy was snarling like a rabid dog, and Ace was literally on fire.

“Sabo,” he said, much too calmly, for someone who had a nearly homicidal look on his face, “You get your business done fast, and then we leave and never come back,”

Sabo gulped, “Agreed,”

Then, Zoro hacked away at the overgrown vines obscuring their vision of the cave. Once the last vine fell, Usopp seemed to get the message, and against every fiber and piece of his being, he landed next to them.

“So, Usopp,” Zoro drawled, “What did you see?”

Usopp gulped and ran a finger through his feathers, plucking out any bad ones and breaking them in between his fingers, “Most of it was dark,” he confessed, “But I saw something… It was big, slightly grayish-blue and cube-shaped. Also, it had these weird symbols on it.” He added.

“A poneglyph,” Sabo breathed.

“Ne, what’s a poneglyph, Sabo?” Luffy asked, half looking at Sabo, half looking at everything else around him.

“It’s a big rock, and inscribed on it is ancient history, but it’s written in another language that no one can read. As far as I know, the only one who can read it is Nico Robin of Ohara.” Sabo replied, still staring into space with a far off look on his face.

Ace groaned, “Are we going there or not?” he demanded, “Because you need to decide fast, Sabo, I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself together.”

Sabo nodded, “Yeah, we’re going there,”

“Good,” Ace replied, then grabbed Zoro’s arm and began walking towards the waterfall.

“Hey, what are you doing?! I can walk myself!”

“Uh huh, sure you can,” Ace replied in an utterly bored tone.

After all of five minutes of bickering, they made it to the poneglyph.

“So, this is it,” Sabo said, moving towards the poneglyph. He raised his hand to touch the stone, but flinched a few inches shy of touching it. He then pulled back his hand and looked at it as if it had just talked to him.

“Sabo? Could you hurry up?” Usopp shivered, “I want to get away from here.”

Sabo grimaced and nodded, “Yeah,” he pressed his palm against the cold stone of the poneglyph, “I’ll do that.”

For a few moments, nothing happened, then a shock passed from the stone and Sabo. It was tiny, just barely noticeable. Sabo raised an eyebrow at it, “I wonder what that was,” he commented, and removed his hand from the poneglyph.

The second his hand left the poneglyph, thunder boomed across the sky and lightning struck the ground in front of him.

“What?” Sabo took a step back and hit the poneglyph.

Luffy’s face contorted in rage and worry, “SABO!”

Sabo looked around at the horror and fear mounting on his brothers’ and friends’ faces, and then felt the poneglyph move behind him.

Sabo whipped around, and unstrapped his pipe from his back, only to drop it in fear of the golem he was facing.

“What… are you?” he whispered in (almost) misguided awe.

“I… am… Goliath.” the golem slurred, before snapping his head towards Sabo with frightening speed, “And I… will kill… the vampire… in you.”

“Ah…” Sabo nodded in complete understanding, “I see, just one question though,”

The golem tilted its head to the side.

“Is it going to hurt?”

The golem smiled with way too many teeth, and the runes inscribed on it glowed an eerie green, “Yes.”

Sabo winced and muttered in resignment, “Of course, what did I expect?” he threw his arms open and sighed, “Well, let’s just get this over with,”

The golem pulled back a stone arm, and the runes on it went from glowing green to a blood-red, and it groaned something unintelligible, before grabbing Sabo’s body with the same frightening speed it showed earlier.

In the few seconds that the purification process began, Sabo felt that he extremely underestimated the pain that would have been given to him. Then he blacked out.

“SABO!” Luffy punched away a miniature stone golem, and tried to run towards his unconscious brother, before he stopped, “Sabo?” he asked tentatively, watching as his brother’s limp form rose up into the air like a puppet.

Then, Sabo turned into the same form that he took when he went berserk so long ago, and let loose a blood-curdling howl. That howl, scream, thing was so vicious, that Luffy had to take a step back and fall into a defensive position.

“…What’s up with him?” Zoro asked, now fully in Asura form and fighting off baby golems.

“We can only guess.” Ace replied grimly, scorching 12 baby golems in front of him.

BACK TO SHANKS AND MIHAWK—

“Why won’t you just die?!” Mihawk shrieked, swiping Yoru in an arc towards Shanks’ right arm side.

Shanks grimaced, but didn’t falter, “I’m too stubborn to die, Hawky,” he quipped instead.

“Stop… calling me… HAWKY!” Mihawk seethed, before lunging towards him and thrusting Yoru forward.

Shanks laughed and dodged out of the way, “Make me, Hawky,” he teased.

Mihawk shrieked once more before going silent. He didn’t move, he didn’t speak, and the only tell of how angry he was, was the white-knuckled grip he had on the hilt of Yoru. Despite his seemingly calm, and now-docile demeanor, Shanks was not fooled.

During this entire fight, he knew he had been poking the sleeping dragon, and now it was awake, and now, it was mad.

“Forget giving you a warrior’s death,” Mihawk said quietly, before snapping his head up and baring his fangs, “I’m going to turn you into a piece of empty flesh,”

No explanation to find out what that entailed.

Shanks grimaced, and switched his grip on his cutlass. Things were just starting to get serious. Mihawk sped towards him with even higher, more inhuman speeds and let loose a volley of air strikes.

Shanks cut through all of them with ease, but was too preoccupied with them, that he failed to notice Mihawk using his distraction to sink his teeth into his neck.

Thankfully, he managed to block it just at the last second, and push Mihawk away from him. Mihawk only took one step backwards before righting himself and lunging towards Shanks with a vengeance.

In the face of this imminent threat, Shanks did the stupidest thing that came to his mind, because, he had sailed with the Roger Pirates, so why the hell not?!

“You mad, bro?”

Mihawk snarled, and swiped Yoru into a downwards arc and when that failed to hit Shanks, he twisted around and slashed him from the right.

Shanks parried the blow just in time, and kicked Mihawk’s shin in a counterattack. What? He was backed into a corner, and he could literally find nothing else to do.

Mihawk jumped backwards and hissed in pain before shooting a glare at Shanks, “What the hell was that for, human?!”

Shanks frowned, “First off, my name is Shanks,” he watched with open amusement as Mihawk’s face contorted into indignant rage, before he continued, “Secondly, I am not a swordsman, I am a pirate. We never fight fair.”

Mihawk frowned in contemplation and nodded, “Yeah, I’ll give you that.”

Shanks failed to hide a smile, “Thanks Hawky!”

And then the fight began again, but this time, it was less life-threatening and more like the spar that Shanks had come for.

“STOP CALLING ME HAWKY!”

BACK TO ASLZU—

Luffy punched 5 more mini-golems out of the way, and rested his hands on his knees, “How many more of these things are there?” he whined, “I’m getting hungry.”

Ace grimaced, “I don’t know, and they don’t seem to be stopping.” He let loose a wave of fire and melted 7 more.

Usopp sniped three more from the sky, and yelled down, “Is Sabo done yet?!”

Zoro cut one of the baby stone golems in half and looked at Sabo’s limp form which was still excreting this red aura, but in a much less abundance than before, “I think he’s almost done, we just got to wait a little longer.” He grunted.

Luffy hummed in affirmation and geared up to go semi-demon style. He gave a bloodthirsty smile and cackled, “Let’s do this.”

Then, everything descended in a red and black haze for him. It wasn’t enough for him to lose control, but it was more than enough for his strength to mutate enough to cause mass-genocide.

He let out a distorted snarl, and pounded the ground. Within seconds, two spiked vines jutted out of the ground, and curled around his ankles.

Wordlessly, Luffy pointed a clawed finger towards the horde of mini-golems surging towards them, and uttered two words.

“Destroy them.”

Almost as if a dam had been broken, the two vines grew longer, bigger, stronger, and sped towards the golems, curling around them like boa constrictors, and crushing them.

Zoro cut two of the mini-golems in half and shifted out of his Asura form. He took a look at the battlefield before discarding it, trusting the vines to do their work, and instead limped over to Luffy.

“So, now what to do, Captain?” Zoro asked.

Luffy spared him a small glance before going back to focusing on his vines, “Regain your strength. My vines won’t last forever, and once they’re gone, I’ll be deadweight, but at least most of the baby stone things will be gone too. Once my vines are gone, finish them off.” Luffy replied.

Zoro nodded without hesitation, and wiped the hilt of Wado on his shirt, “Aye Captain.”

 For around three more minutes, the vines did their job, but then the toll of the backlash was seen on Luffy. His arm was shaking, and his breaths became faster and shallower. Then, he collapsed and his vines wilted before disintegrating into nothing.

Zoro unsheathed his swords and lunged forwards to the golems without giving them a chance to regain their strength, and began hacking away at them like a buzzsaw, Ace lit himself on fire and went on a path of destruction, while Usopp kept sniping from the air.

Then, everything stopped. The mini golems broke into pieces and became part of the ruins once more, while the big golem shifted and contorted into the poneglyph again.

“It’s done.” Zoro voiced the unspoken thought in between them. Luffy nodded and stepped forward, “Sabo?” he asked tentatively, tapping his brother’s furry shoulder, “Are you okay?”

For a moment, all was silent before Sabo groaned and got up, “Is it done?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” Usopp exclaimed, landing next to Luffy. He stumbled forward a bit before righting himself and putting on an inquisitive expression on his face.

Sabo put one clawed hand to his head and sighed, “I feel a lot less… bloodthirsty now?” he ventured hesitantly, “I mean, well, what do you think?” he casually diverted the topic to them.

Zoro gave him a once-over and shrugged, “You look fine to me.”

Usopp groaned and slapped his forehead, “Your definition of ‘fine’ is questionable at best, Zoro.”

“Shishishishi!”

Ace groaned, “Yeah, yeah, can we go now, I’m starting to feel nauseous from prolonged exposure to this island.”

Sabo smiled, “Seconded,”

Then, another kid, around the age of Ace, slightly younger, maybe, stepped into view from behind one of the ruins.

He wore a white suit with a black top hat, and strangely enough, he had a pigeon on his shoulder as well.

He gave the group a long, hard look and then sighed, “Gold Ace, you are under arrest by order of the World Government for crimes of Arson, theft, and Murder. You are to either cooperate with me and come with me of your own will, or I will be forced to detain you and take you by force. So, what will it be?” The kid looked at him through half-lidded eyes.

Ace rubbed his chest a little, where a very prominent circle-shaped scar was.

o-o

The facility was dark. He had recently been fed his devil fruit, and they were trying to make him awaken it.

“Hm, I wonder if I should just not do that if only to spite them.” Ace hummed to himself.

The first small signs of insanity were beginning to show on him, and Ace could see it. But even then, he couldn’t stop it.

As of that moment, he was chained to the wall, and shackled with kairoseki. He hated it. Whenever it touched him, he would feel sluggish and weak.

He heard the clack of footsteps against the wet stone, and the scurrying of rats above him. He grimaced, “I can only imagine how much disease there is here.” He muttered.

He was never a clean freak before this. Not even when he saw people die of infection, with pus leaking out of their wounds in the Gray Terminal. But maybe that was because he believed himself to be too strong for that to be possible.

Infection… was never something he wanted to experience. Ever. He shuddered at the thought of it.

The person opened his cell door and grabbed him by the arm, slapping kairoseki cuffs on him, and undoing his other ones.

In either an extremely intelligent or idiotic state, he chose to remark, “Wow, I feel so loved. All this Kairoseki? For Me? Ah, thank you.”

The only warning he had was the flashing of his ‘benefactor’s’ eye goggles, before he was on the floor clutching a bruised cheek.

“You’d do well to not comment on this, you know,” the scientist berated him.

Ah, so this is one of the more careful ones, Ace thought, Seems to be one of the nicer ones too.

“Hey kid,” the scientist murmured after a few moments of silence, “You might want to brace yourself for this next experiment. I don’t think it’ll be a fun one.” Then he was silent.

I was right. He is nice, Ace hid a smile, “Chill man!” he said coolly, “I’ll be fine!”

The scientist’s goggles flashed again, but he said nothing.

Then came the time for the experiment. The other scientists set him on a table and chained his feet down. Ace quietly watched everything happen. He didn’t react, nor did he fight back. It just wasn’t worth it, and besides. The scientists figured out his connection with his brothers.

They couldn’t lose Luffy, he was too valuable and that made Ace want to laugh. Just what suffering is he going through? I don’t want him to… Then there was Sabo. He… In the scientists’ eyes, he was expendable.

That made Ace want to retch.

For a moment, nothing happened. Ace looked up in curiosity. What’s going on? He looked around, then the sound of guns being clicked and loaded, sounded out behind him.

Ace’s eyes widened, and he twisted around, but not before the gun went off and tore through his chest—!

Everything muted around him. He could feel himself fall backwards and cough up more blood. What a lousy way to go. He closed his eyes. Ace could feel the fire simmer underneath his skin, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never mend his skin together. He was really done.

Then he felt the shackles come off, and his skin mend together almost instantly, and the first thought he felt and thought when that happened? Was Freedom.

o-o

“Ace, are you okay? You’re being really quiet, and you’re doing that nervous tic thing you always do, you know, when you rub that bullet scar on your collar,” Sabo remarked quietly.

Ace jerked, then smiled, “Ah, Sabo, I’m fine,” then he turned to the Cipher Pol kid, “You know, did you learn nothing from that broadcast we did the other day?” at the Cipher Pol kid’s quizzical look, Ace felt his insanity take over, and he gave a bloodthirsty smile, “Your World Government can kiss my—”

“Goldilocks!” Luffy blurted out, and everyone looked at him oddly.

Luffy kept a finger to his lips and winked conspiratorially, “Got to keep it for the kids, you know?”.

Ace shook his head in fond exasperation, “Okay, discarding that, you know what I mean, don’t you?”

The kid grimaced, “Yeah, I do, and really I, too, kind of want that to happen, but unfortunately, I’m tied to the WG whether I like it or not, so by extension, you’re coming with me whether you like it or not,” he got into a fighting stance, and tacked on, “My name is Lucci, by the way.”

“Cool!” Ace replied, getting into a similar fighting stance, “My name is Portgas D. Ace,”

The now named Lucci raised an eyebrow to the change in name, but said nothing. Tension mounted on the battlefield and it was almost stifling. Both parties were gearing up to start the fight, and their presences, small as though they were, compared to the others of the era, filled the battlefield.

Then it all broke.

“Hey! Join my crew!”

WITH SHANKS AND MIHAWK—

At the end of the spar, the two were giggling like little schoolgirls on the ground, and sweating as if they had just ran up to the sun and back within an hour.

“You, you seriously, did that?” Mihawk wheezed, unbridled amusement twinkling in his now golden eyes.

Shanks made a weird cross between a happy and a sad expression on his face, but nodded nonetheless.

“Ha! I thought Emperors of the Sea were supposed to be smarter!” he said dryly.

Shanks smiled weakly, “You set your hopes too high, Hawky,” he paused, “You mind telling me what all that earlier was about?”

Mihawk looked at him through the corner of his eye and scoffed, “That was terrible grammar, but sure, what do you want to know?”

Shanks looked at the World’s Greatest Swordsman with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, “What did you turn into?”

Mihawk stared at him for a moment before wincing, “Yeah, I suppose you’d want to know about this. Well,” he sighed, “Let’s start with this. This island was never named ‘Gloom Island,’. It was Kuraigana.”

Chills went down Shanks’ spine at the name.

“And?” he prompted.

Mihawk shot an irritated look at the Red-haired Emperor of the Seas,

“This is the island of the former Count Dracula.”

Chapter Text

Shank’s mouth dropped open, “Count Dracula?” he tested the name in his mouth, “Sounds edgy.”

Mihawk gave an ungainly snort and turned over to his stomach, “Yeah, I suppose it does. Well, actually, Dracula was a nickname for him that came out of multiple rumors about him. In reality, his name was Dracule Vlad, ruler of Kuraigana, and all that crap.”

Shanks hummed, “And what does that have to do with you? Besides your name being Dracule Mihawk, you know, the obvious?”

Mihawk rest his head in his hands, “Hmmm. What do you know of Vampires?”

Shanks leaned in closer, “Not much. I was obsessed with them as a kid, though.”

Mihawk got up, “Well, they almost fully went extinct in the Void Century. That’s what the ruins of Kuraigana are all of. But the select few that remained were scattered across the world. They also are in some minor noble bloodlines, such as… Outlook? I think? I don’t know, never bothered to check.”

“And werewolves?” Shanks prompted.

Mihawk stiffened up, “Ah, them. They live on a different island on the Grand Line called Lycan. They weren’t quite our allies, nor were they, our enemies. More like… rivals. Until they sold us out that is. And set up a vampire-killing machine on our island. To this day, I still can’t find it.”

Shanks raised an eyebrow, “Why do you want to find it?”

“So, I can destroy it.” Mihawk hissed “That thing is the bane of my existence.”

Shanks nodded, “Understandable.” He paused, “You know, I remember Sabo saying something about his sperm donor being named ‘Outlook.’ That have anything to do?”

Mihawk’s eyes widened, “I’m about 90% sure that Outlook is one of the more diluted bloodlines. Not quite fully vampire. Although… the werewolf is a surprise.” He commented mildly, “Didn’t see that coming.”

Shanks turned his head from side to side and opened his mouth to say something before he was cut off—

“It’s not like Vampires were all nice either. We hunted each other with fire and brimstones. We were prideful, and in any ancient texts you read, they will tell you that pride is a flaw. We didn’t listen, and we fell because of that. Also, we’re kind of…” Mihawk hesitated, “Mean?”

Shanks snorted, before devolving into a full-on hysterics, “Mean is an understatement, Hawky!” he howled, wiping a tear from his eye.

Mihawk blushed furiously and got up, putting his hat back on his head, “We will never speak of this ever again.” He muttered.

“Why though, Hawky?” Shanks teased relentlessly, “It was quite fun. Also, the first time I’ve seen you smile like that!”

Mihawk glared at Shanks fruitlessly, “Just… Don’t tell anyone, okay?” he asked, so, so done with his life.

Shanks nodded and gestured a thumbs-up, “I promise, Hawky.” He paused, “That doesn’t mean I’ll stop teasing you though.”

Mihawk groaned and Shanks laughed.

WITH THE ASLZU + LUCCI—

“Join my crew!”

Immediately, everything on the battlefield stilled.

“Luffy, what the hell?” Ace blurted out, his fire momentarily dissipating.

“What the hell.” Sabo parroted, shooting Luffy a confused look.

Luffy smiled, “I asked him to join my crew!”

“Yes, I can see that.” Ace ground his teeth together, “Tell me why.”

“He’s really cool! I want him to be on my crew!” Luffy replied, still smiling.

Lucci shook his head, “Unfortunately,” he said with genuine regret, “As much as I would love to join your crew, I’m stuck serving the WG, whether I like it or not. So—”

“Let the fight commence?” Usopp announced questioningly, soaring in circles above them.

“Yeah.” Lucci put his fists up, “Let the fight commence.”

“Finally.” Zoro grumbled, shifting fully into his Asura form, and launching himself towards the now half-cat half-human kid in front of them.

“Shigan.” He announced, almost boredly as he stabbed his pointer finger deep into Zoro’s chest.

“ZORO!” Luffy thundered, black tendrils of something swirling around him, he turned to Lucci, “LET HIM GO!”

Then, a shing of a blade swinging through the air caused the entire battlefield to stop for a moment, and Lucci’s eyes to open wide in surprise.

“What…” he looked to his shoulder, where three swords, attached to three left hands, were sunken into his skin, “How… I thought I killed you?”

Zoro looked up and smiled with way too many teeth to be nice, “Luffy.” He commented, “This is me formally agreeing to join your crew. Now let me kill this guy.”

Luffy smiled, “Ah! That’s great Zoro! But don’t kill him. He’s cool.”

For a split second, the moss head adopted a confused look before shrugging it off, “Mkay. I’ll just… hurt him then.”

Luffy’s smile abruptly sharpened into something deadly, “All yours, Zoro.” He replied flippantly.

Zoro smirked around the 3 swords in his mouth for a split second, before launching himself towards the cat-man again, keeping careful watch of his fingers, evading any shigans that Lucci would launch at him.

“Onigiri!” Zoro growled, launching towards him with three times the force than what his normal attack would be.

Lucci strained under the pressure of blocking Zoro’s attack, before a tiny niggling in the back of his mind made itself known. On a whim, he pulled back, and sidestepped as fast as he could, and just in time—a fireball zoomed and exploded on contact with the ground next to him.

Usopp cursed his aim, “I need to fix that.” He muttered, “I shouldn’t miss so easily.” He circled like a vulture around Lucci, watching for any openings he could exploit.

“OUT OF THE WAY!” Zoro’s eyes widened, and he stumbled backwards, just nail-breadth away from Ace’s warpath.

“HIKEN!” Ace punched a flaming fist the size of the Golem towards Lucci.

I… am severely outclassed, aren’t I? Lucci watched numbly as the flaming fist got closer and closer, before his body snapped back to attention, Not like I’m letting myself die yet, though.

He leaped out of the fist’s path, and attached himself to the nearest vertical surface he could. “Okay. Let’s test this out.” He pressed his lips into a thin line, and started scaling the wall.

He barely moved 10 feet before he felt a lead pellet hit his back. Oh, you have got to be kidding me—Lucci’s eyes widened and he fell down.

Then, Sabo joined in, and Lucci had never felt more fear for his life than in that moment. “I am a rather big idiot!” he howled, “NOW STOP WATCHING, KAKU, AND HELP ME!”

For a split second, Luffy heard a breezy laugh on the wind, before Lucci was snatched out of the air by a…

“Is that a giraffe?” Zoro blurted out, squinting his eyes.

Usopp stumbled a bit midair, before righting himself, “Yep. That’s a giraffe. Apparently.” He said numbly, rapidly blinking, trying to confirm that what he was seeing was actually true.

“Hey! Lucci!” The giraffe smiled, or at least, Zoro thought it smiled, “So, how’s life?”

“Stop snarking,” Lucci hissed, grabbing his friend’s collar, “And help me already!”

The giraffe laughed, and landed smoothly on the ground, “Roger that!” he trilled, seamlessly shifting out of his giraffe form.

Lucci raised an eyebrow at the end transformation, “Your legs.” He stated, “Haven’t fully shifted yet.”

Kaku made a noncommittal noise, and put one foot forward, “It’s fine, it’s not like it’s going to hamper my fighting style.” He smirked.

Every time you shift into your human form, a piece of your devil fruit comes with you. Lucci eyed his carefree friend settle into a fighting stance, and unleash his four swords, Maybe I’m just worried about the inevitable day when your brain will be what’s forgotten. I don’t want to lose you.

“OH MY GOD ZORO, HE HAS FOUR SWORDS!” Usopp exclaimed, “That’s one more than you.” Usopp smirked, “Can you take it?”

Zoro grinned around the hilt of Wado, “What kind of question is that?” he grunted, “Of course I can.”

Luffy kept a small distance from the fight, waiting to replenish his Devil Fruit energy, but then Kaku caught his eye.

“Ah.” Luffy murmured, “It’s not that you’re bound to the WG, that you won’t join my crew. You just don’t want to leave him.” Luffy bowed his head in understanding, “I get it.”

“ZORO!” He shouted, grinning when Zoro turned to look at him, “I CHANGED MY MIND! LUCCI IS NOT GOING TO BE PART OF OUR CREW! HE IS OUR OPPONENT RIGHT NOW!”

Zoro felt confused from the abrupt change of heart, but that was quickly remedied when Luffy shouted that he would explain later.

Well. The Asura inside his head commented mildly, That just happened.

Could you not? Zoro replied mentally, veritably annoyed at the Asura choosing now to butt into his fight.

The Asura hummed noncommittally, You know, when you fight using my power, you still fight as if you only have two hands and one head.

Well, how else am I supposed to fight? Zoro snarked, as he slashed at Kaku again, watching the giraffe-dude block his strike again.

Frustration welled up in his gut, What will it take to just hit. Him.

All of a sudden, a calming feeling washed over him, and Zoro yelped out of confusion, before needing to raise his sword to block an overhead strike from Kaku.

It’s not good to let frustration take over your movements when you fight, the Asura advised, You need to keep a level head. Rage will do nothing for you.

I know that. Zoro replied petulantly, I don’t need you to tell me.

You know. Where I come from, there’s something like a code of honor. We call it Dharma. The Asura spoke, seemingly twirling around Zoro, righting his grip on his katanas.

Dharma…?

It is the decree that you have a singular duty in your life, to yourself, and the Earth, and you must fulfill it to the best of your abilities. The Asura helpfully informed, Also, it involves following your moral compass, but you’re shaky, so… Zoro felt that the Asura was looking at him,

What is your purpose?

Zoro closed his eyes and thought for a moment. The world almost seemed to slow down, and mute around him. When he opened his eyes, it was with a steel tone, that had nothing to do with his eye color.

I will be the Greatest Swordsman in the World to serve the Pirate King. Zoro promised.

The Asura grinned, or at least, Zoro thought he did, Then, what kind of voice would I be if I didn’t help you? The Asura said loftily, before directing Zoro’s arms, You still use your body as if you have 2 arms and one head, he repeated.

I don’t, though. Zoro growled internally, blocking Kaku’s sword, Do you plan on making any sense? Or maybe, I don’t know, giving me some advice?

Well… The Asura mused, I could help you, but I need to give your body the feeling of how an Asura fights, meaning, I kind of have to possess you, so. The Asura clapped, Give me your body!

…Ew. Zoro deadpanned, going in for a slash on Kaku’s knees.

Not like that, dammit! The Asura sputtered, You know what I mean!

Zoro sighed, Yeah, okay, fine. But just this once. And you’d better give me my body back when you’re done.

I wouldn’t have it any other way, The Asura gestured solemnly, before taking the control pilot of Zoro’s body.

o-o

Kaku was confused. Rightfully so. His instincts—which were never wrong, no matter what Jyabura says—were telling him that the green haired kid was strong.

But, he was already having him on the ropes, even when the other kid had like, said that he would defeat him no problem.

Kaku shook his head and went for an overhead strike, Why do I feel like something’s wrong though?

Then, it seemed as if his opponent had zoned out. Kaku smirked and sang, “You shouldn’t have done that~” before he went for a horizontal cut across his chest.

Before the blade could hit the moss-headed kid, though, his eyes snapped up with so much steel, Kaku froze and leapt backwards. He started being even more careful with the kid after that.

Then, the air around the kid changed, and the other six arms on him, that had all been laying dormant, started moving, with a strange sort of practiced ease that sent chills down his spine.

“Who are you?” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, “You aren’t who I’ve been fighting with until now, so who are you?”

The kid grinned, all three heads of his, in an unsettling fashion, before speaking in unison, “We haven’t changed. We are still Roronoa Zoro.”

Then, the kid(?) launched himself forward, and cut him from nine different angles, before zooming around him, and attacking Kaku’s arms.

What… happened to him?! He was so shaky before, now he feels like… Kaku’s eyes widened, and the giraffe in him was soundly cowed, A Demon.

Before he knew it, he was on the ground, his four swords either broken or scattered around him, and with a rather sharp katana being pointed at his throat.

“Do you yield?” Roronoa Zoro rasped, and Kaku looked down, before smiling somberly, “Sorry, Lucci,” he murmured, “I’ve lost.”

Zoro let his arms fall down to his sides, and the air around him immediately reverted back to normal.

“WHOA ZORO, THAT WAS SO COOL!” Luffy jumped on him, and pulled his cheeks, “Do it again! Do it again!”

The moss-headed kid sputtered and blushed, but raised his other four arms again, as per Luffy’s request.

Kaku watched them with wide eyes, Okay, what the f—

“KUNG FU PANDA!” Ace blurted out randomly, before explaining rather sheepishly, “I had a feeling to keep it for the kids.”

Luffy nodded sagely, “Yes. Good job Ace. The kids are the most important.”

“Will someone please explain to me what you two mean?” Usopp groaned, kneading a headache.

“Just don’t question it.” Sabo groaned, sounding equally as done as Usopp, “Trust me, I learned that the hard way.”

Kaku blinked at the exchange done before him, almost ready to put in a contribution of his own, before he felt a gentle tugging on his arm.

“Lucci?” he said softly, “What’s up?”

“You lost.” Lucci whispered, a strange lost look in his eyes, “You lost, Kaku.”

Kaku winced, “Yeah. I know.”

“Do you know what they’ll do to you?” Lucci hissed, “You’ll be killed, Kaku, or worse. I failed in my mission, and that’s bad enough, but you’ve lost a fight. Do you know how bad this is?” Lucci stressed.

Kaku groaned, “Yeah, I do.”

“Why aren’t you panicking then?” Lucci almost screamed, “You’re a failed experiment. The only reason they kept you alive was on my orders, but even that won’t matter, if you lose… your worth…” Lucci sobbed quietly,

“I don’t want to lose you.”

Kaku smiled grimly, “Neither do I.” he replied, rubbing Lucci’s back in slow, soothing circles. I promise you, I will figure something out, Lucci. Kaku’s eyes hardened, I promise.

Once Lucci calmed down, he staggered to his feet, and hauled Kaku up on his shoulders, slowly walking away from the poneglyph, “Hey, you know.” Kaku commented, deceptively carefree, “Next time I see that green haired kid… I’m going to beat him.” He smiled loftily.

Lucci grinned, “You’re one stupid brother, aren’t you?” he asked rhetorically.

“Always have been, since we exchanged sake that day.” Kaku informed cheerfully, laughing the whole way to the Cipher Pols’ ship.

“So, did you succeed?” Jyabura questioned, taking his weight off the rail.

“No.” Lucci said blankly, “But we saw a real werewolf. And I must say, now that I’ve seen that, your devil fruit power seems rather lousy in comparison.”

“HEY!”

Kaku giggled disturbingly, “This is awesome.”

o-o

Luffy grinned, “Let’s go! We came here, we did our business!” his face soured, and he hunched in on himself protectively, “Now let’s leave.” He hissed.

Almost immediately, the happy air around them dissipated as the air around the entire island became heavier and heavier, and carried an even more distinct promise of Death.

“Yeah.” Sabo’s throat felt a little dry, “Let’s go now.”

For a moment, everything was silent, before, “Last one there is a rotten intestine!” Usopp yelled, before taking to the sky.

“Intestine? Why Intestine?” Zoro questioned, before running after him, and then, subsequently getting lost.

TIMESKIP—

“Ha!” Luffy panted, pulling up next to the ship, “I win, Ace.”

Ace scowled, mainly because he was salty that he couldn’t strip down and then go into high gear, but yeah, “No, you didn’t.” he stubbornly refused, “I won.”

Sabo pulled up after them, wheezing, “No, none of you won.”

Usopp dived down from the sky, “Yeah, that honor belongs to me!” he cheered.

“No, not really.” A deep, baritone voice said, “That honor belongs to Zoro.”

Many things flashed across Ace’s mind at that moment, many, many emotions, he ended up summarizing with, “What.”

Benn smiled around his cigarette and showed everyone Zoro’s sleeping form against the mast, “He came here around ten minutes ago.” Benn smirked, “He had no clue where he was, but when I told him that he was on the ship, he looked like I just gave him all the sake in the world.”

Luffy groaned, “Okay, so Zoro won—”

“Somehow.” Usopp interjected.

Luffy pouted, “Stop interrupting me!” he whined, before continuing, “Okay, so Zoro won, then who lost?”

Simultaneously, everyone’s eyes turned to Sabo’s wheezing form, “Yeah, yeah, I get it, I lost.” He groused, still wheezing from overexertion, “Man am I out of shape.”

“—ut up, Red-hair.” A voice made itself known.

“Come on, Hawky!” Shanks teased, “What’s wrong? You flustered?”

All he got was a growl in response.

“Ah, hey! Anchor, brothers, and friends!” Shanks exclaimed, “You ready to go?”

“Yeah.” Sabo wheezed, “We did it.”

Mihawk stiffened, “You’re the… werewolf… aren’t you?” he said carefully.

Sabo nodded, “Why?”

“Where is the poneglyph?” Mihawk asked innocently.

Sabo narrowed his eyes, “Why do you want to know?”

Mihawk’s smile became bloodthirsty, “Ah, no reason, I just want to destroy it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s leeching off my life force, and so long as it is on this island, I physically cannot leave for more than an extended amount of time.” Mihawk confessed, “I want it gone. Your purpose with it is done, so I want it destroyed.”

Sabo blinked, “Sure, whatever, although, I’ve got to know.” He leaned in closer, “Poneglyphs are invincible pieces of rock, how do you plan on destroying it?”

Mihawk grinned, “I’m not physically destroying it, I’m just… recoding it, if you will.”

Sabo nodded, “Ah, understandable.”

“Now, please, get off my island. Every moment you are in my presence, I feel like killing you.” Mihawk said dryly.

Sabo grinned, “It’s somewhere in the north, in a cave that leads to a weird oasis of sorts. And be careful. It’s literally created for killing vampires.”

Mihawk nodded, “That’s good to know. Now get off.”

Sabo rolled his eyes, and gestured to Shanks, “Let’s go.”

Shanks smiled, “UNFURL THE SAILS! WE’RE GOING BACK TO THE MOBY!”

Omake:

“So that was the World’s Greatest, huh?” Ace commented mildly, while heating up hot chocolate.

“World’s Greatest what?” Zoro questioned, doing another pushup.

 “World’s Greatest Swordsman.” Sabo informed, practicing his shifting into Wolf Form.

“What?!” Zoro shrieked, falling on his face, “I could’ve challenged the World’s Greatest Swordsman?!”

“Yeah, I suppose you could have.” Usopp blinked calmly, making modifications to his slingshot.

“I could’ve challenged the World’s Greatest Swordsman!” Zoro scrabbled up to his feet and ran to where Shanks was.

“TURN THE SHIP AROUND RIGHT NOW I NEED TO CHALLENGE MIHAWK!”

“Zoro, be quiet.” Luffy groaned softly, “You can challenge Mihawk later, just let me sleep.”

Zoro backed down with a mild curse, “…Fine Captain.”

“Anchor already has a crew.” Shanks wiped a mock tear from his eye, “I’m so proud.”

Benn looked at him for a moment before snorting, “Yeah. Of course, you are.”

“…I feel like you just snubbed me, but I don’t know when.”

“I did.”

Chapter Text

Luffy grinned and attached himself to Marco’s leg the second they returned to the Moby Dick. “PINEAPPLE!” he yelled happily, “hehe…”

Marco groaned and slapped his hand to his forehead, but that did nothing to conceal the fond smile that was twitching at the ends of his lips, “How’s it going, kiddos?”

“Yeah!” Thatch butted in, slinging his arm around Marco’s shoulder, “Find any vampires?” he teased.

Zoro yawned and stared at Thatch for a second before nodding sluggishly, “Yeah.” He murmured, grumpily, “Apparently Mihawk is a vampire… And the world’s greatest swordsman.” Zoro muttered darkly.

At Thatch and Marco’s questioning looks, Sabo elaborated, “Yeah, Zoro wants to become the World’s Greatest Swordsman one day, and so, he kind of wants to challenge Mihawk, but he didn’t realize that Mihawk was the World’s Greatest, and once he did find out, we were already pretty far out at sea.”

“Ah.” Thatch nodded sympathetically, “I see.”

Zoro just grumbled and sat down for all of five seconds before he was snoring his life away. Marco stared at him longingly, “I wish I could easily go to sleep like that too.” He confessed, “Unfortunately, I’m kept up all night with worries that someone,” he glared not-so-subtly at Thatch, who was whistling too loudly to be honest, “is going to dye my hair pink.” He finished.

Usopp stared at Marco critically, stroking his chin, “I don’t know.” He commented, “I’d think you would look surprisingly well in pink, depending on the shade.”

Marco did not gape at Usopp. No. He was much too dignified for that. The fact that he just barely opened his mouth before snapping it shut means nothing! It means nothing!

“Yeah. Fine. Sure, whatever.” Marco muttered, waving them off, before prying Luffy off his leg and leaving.

Ace stared at Marco’s retreating back and questioned, “What’s got his feathers falling off?”

Thatch stared at Ace for a moment before quirking a dry smile, “Ha. Nice pun. But really, he’s all grumpy because…” Thatch looked around for a moment, before beckoning the small group into a huddle, “It’s because he’s grumpy since tomorrow is his birthday and ‘no one remembers’.”

Luffy frowned, “That’s mean.” He said brazenly, before continuing, “I’m going to go wish him happy birthday!”

“NO!” Thatch shouted, before quieting down and the slight glares and rubbing ears of his brothers around him, “No. We’re trying to make a surprise party. You know? Marco hates his birthday for some inane reason. We’re trying to make it so that, you know, it’s an occasion to be remembered.”

Ace looked down, “Can we help?”

Thatch grinned widely, “Of course you can!”

Luffy smiled, before frowning, “But what are we going to do?”

Thatch grinned, “This isn’t common knowledge, but there are two kitchens on this ship. One in the galley, where me and my division cook for the entire crew, and…” he pressed one finger to his lips in the universal ‘hush’ motion, “One in my room. Commander Quarters can always be personalized in their own special way to reflect the commander it holds. I put a kitchen in my room. Heh.”

Luffy frowned, “Yeah, so?”

Usopp choked on his spit and almost fell over, “Luffy.” He made a strangled noise with his throat, “He means that he’s going to let us cook in his kitchen.”

“Oh.” Luffy said dumbly, “But why?”

“For Marco’s birthday.” Sabo benignly explained.

Luffy grimaced and clutched his head, “But why do we have to cook?”

“For a cake, stupid.” Zoro yawned, before getting up and stretching, “Marco needs a birthday cake or something to eat for his birthday. Call it a mystery.”

Luffy made a slight ‘oh’ sound with his mouth and grinned, “Yeah! Mystery cake here we come!” and with that, he rocketed off in whatever he presumed to be the direction of Thatch’s quarters.

“He… He does know he’s going the wrong way, right?” Thatch asked, as he watched Luffy rocket off in the direction opposite of the commanders’ quarters.

“Eh.” Ace grumbled, “He’ll figure it out eventually. It’s Zoro you need to worry about.”

“Hey!” Zoro roared, clutching his katana so hard his grip became white, “I resent those implications!”

“Good.” Ace deadpanned, before sending a pointed look at Thatch who gave a slight nod and walked in the correct direction of his quarters Zoro grumbled annoyedly, but followed along wordlessly.

Once they made it there, Thatch slowly clicked the door shut. “Okay, listen closely.” He whispered, before pausing, and opening the door again, letting Luffy fly inside, “Okay, now listen closely.” He clicked the door shut once more. “So, here’s what we’re going to do.”

Sabo nodded along, occasionally inputting ideas as Thatch talked. “But how are we going to do that? Unless you haven’t noticed, Luffy’s motor control is trash unless he’s fighting. In which case, his intelligence somehow goes up by 9,000.”

Thatch tilted his head and conceded, “Maybe, but we’ll figure something out. Somehow. Some way.”

Ace tilted his head, mirroring Thatch, “I have a question.” He didn’t wait for Thatch’s response, and instead forged on, “You can’t celebrate everyone in the crew’s birthday, right? And it wouldn’t be fair just to celebrate the commanders’ birthdays. So why is The Roasted Duck’s birthday so special?”

Thatch snorted and shook his head, “Roasted Duck…” he muttered, before graciously answering Ace’s question, “Marco has always hated his birthday. He hasn’t told most of the crew why, save for Oyaji, me, and perhaps a few others. That information is not mine to disclose, but we wanted to show him that his birthday isn’t something to be hated.”

Ace narrowed his eyes and shook his head from side to side, conveying his irritation beautifully, “And how is this scheme going to help him?” he grumbled.

Thatch smiled. It wasn’t a big, wide, eclipsing smile that could only be bested by Luffy and a few others, but rather a small smile, a content one, that seemed like it just belonged on his face, “This scheme isn’t going to help him, Ace. It’s going to show him that we are happy that he was born, and that he is loved because of it. He is loved, so, so much.”

Sabo shot a meaningful look towards Ace, before schooling his face into a blank expression and nodding. Ace tilted his head to his side contemplatively and nodded, “Yeah.” He sighed, “Okay.”

Thatch’s smile abruptly widened into its usual form and he teased, “Careful Ace, you wouldn’t want anyone to think that you care.”

Ace snorted, and shook his head, but said nothing. Sabo grinned, “Aww, Acey.” He said in baby-voice, “You care!” he attached himself firmly to Ace’s leg like a child, and one would actually think that… if Sabo weren’t nearly Ace’s height. “Coochy Coochy, Coo.” Sabo blubbered in amusement.

Ace groaned and swatted Sabo’s hand away, “You bring that appendage near me one more time, and I swear, Sabo. I will burn it.” Ace intoned after Sabo crawled his fingers to Ace’s cheek and squeezed it once more.

Sabo pulled his hand back with a pout, “Fiiiiinneee…” He grumbled.

Luffy burst into raucous laughter at the sight of Sabo’s pout, and wouldn’t stop, even with Sabo’s weak protests. Usopp, being Usopp, had no idea what was going on, and ended up laughing along with Luffy because of his intrinsic desire to fit in with the crowd.

That was a liar’s best strength after all. Their ability to fit in with a crowd. And besides. Usopp grinned, I’m going to be Luffy’s sniper. I need to know when and how to stay hidden and not.

Thatch clapped his hands, “Okay.” He smiled amusedly, “Let’s do this.”

Zoro huffed out a laugh and got up from his formerly relaxed position, and rested his hand on the hilt of Wado, “Okay Chef.” He mumbled, stretching his body into wakefulness, “Where’s the locations?”

Thatch shook his head, “Oh no, no, Zoro. You won’t be leaving this room. You and Luffy are going to stay here and do the cooking in my personal kitchen.”

“What?” Zoro stared at Thatch incredulously, “Why?!”

“Zoro.” Thatch stared at the moss-headed kid, decidedly unimpressed, “You get lost in a straight line. There’s no way I’m letting you leave this room. For all I know, you might end up in West Blue.”

“THAT’S HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD!” Zoro roared.

“And logic is nonexistent in the Grand Line.” Thatch smoothly countered with a cocky grin, “Now, if you please, I have to show Usopp and Sabo to Haruta’s secret Prank Storage.”

Zoro screeched incoherently for about ten seconds, before Luffy dragged him into the kitchen and put an apple in his mouth, “Calm down, Zoro.” Luffy grimaced and sticked his finger into his ear, “You’re making me deaf.”

Zoro grumbled incoherently under his breath, before flipping the recipe book Thatch gave them open to that one page that had Chocolate Mousse Cake…

o-o

Ace walked out of the room with silent steps, and the intent to stay hidden in the shadows. Unfortunately, a flame can’t hide in shadows, for it exudes light. That was why he was currently being cornered by a fuming Haruta, who was coincidentally holding out one of his blades.

“I know you know who raided my PrAnK caBiNet~~” Haruta crooned, sharpening the two blades together, “Tell me, AcE.”

Ace gulped and shifted into his Flame Form before creeping away. Unfortunately, his mild fear was rather telling, and Haruta could pinpoint exactly where he was.

Haruta stomped down on the tail end of one of Ace’s flames, that was also, coincidentally, his foot, and grinned, just a tad crazily, “Now, now, Ace… No RuNnInG aWay.”

Ace grimaced, This better be worth your crazy plan, Thatch! Ace shook his head, “No. Haruta.” He lied, “I have absolutely no idea who raided your Prank Cabinet.”

Haruta tilted his head contemplatively for a moment, almost appearing sane, but the glint in his eyes was telling, “No, no, no. Ace. You know. I can SeeEe IttTTtTt~~”

Annnnnnd we’re screwed. A small, dark part of Ace’s mind sarcastically remarked. Shut up. Ace mentally retorted.

Haruta sunk one of his blades into the ground and grinned, “No one tAKES MY PRANKS FROM MEEEE!”

Ace yelped and dodged the next blade coming his way, before turning tail and running. I’m fighting Haruta. He justified; I can run away. And besides. This is fair. It’s Haruta. THATCH THIS BETTER BE WORTH IT!

o-o

Thatch shuddered, and sped up his pace a bit more.

“Whoa! Slow down!” Sabo panted, as he ran after Thatch and Usopp, who was flying next to him.

Thatch shook his head, “Nope, sorry can’t slow down. I get the feeling that if I slow down something very bad is going to happen to me.”

“Ooohh. Foreshadowing.” Usopp nodded in understanding and sympathy.

Sabo groaned, and sped up to accommodate for Usopp and Thatch’s pace, “Fine, whatever. You do you. Totally not a pained semi-werewolf running after you.”

Thatch snorted, “Exactly. You’re a werewolf. You can keep up.” And Thatch sped up just a bit more to accentuate his point.

Sabo huffed and he puffed… and he fell down on his face, “I SWEAR THATCH!” his voice was muffled by the deck, but Thatch knew what he was saying nonetheless, “I WILL GET YOU BACK FOR THIS! YOU HEAR ME?!”

Thatch grinned, “Looking forward to it, Wolfy!”

Sabo groaned, and pushed himself up from the deck, before running after Thatch. Soon, they made it to Haruta’s Prank Cabinet.

“Okay.” Thatch muttered, taking a small list out of his back pocket, “We need confetti, streamers, all the standard party materials, but it’s Marco, so we also need feathers. Preferably blue and yellow. Also, we need pineapples.”

Usopp stroked his chin with a thoughtful expression on his face, “How do you think Luffy and Zoro are doing?” he questioned.

Thatch shook his head, “Truthfully I don’t care what they’re doing.” He revealed, “All that I want to make sure is of two things. One: They do not leave the room. Two: They make a cake.”

Sabo grimaced, and stretched his body out, before walking to a crate, “You know you’re probably going to have to room in another Commander’s room for a while after this while your room is being repaired, right?”

Thatch nodded with a happy smile on his face, “Worth it!”

Usopp flew back to Thatch and shoved three buckets in the pompadoured man’s face, “Here!” he stated triumphantly, “Three buckets of feathers!” Usopp paused, pulling the buckets back, “Why do you even have three buckets of feathers to begin with?”

Thatch smiled, “So there’s never a shortage of feathers.”

Usopp stared at Thatch confusedly, “But why do you even need the feathers to begin with?”

Thatch’s smile widened, “For Marco!”

Usopp tried to wrap his head around the statement, “But wait… Marco already has feathers?”

Thatch’s smile widened even more, “You’ll see.” Usopp shuddered and stared at Thatch contemplatively, “I am afraid of those implications.”

Sabo snorted, “Haha. Now could someone help me?! I didn’t know confetti and streamers could be this heavy…”

Thatch grinned, “Awww… Come on werewolf, can’t lift it?” he teased, only to be pleasantly surprised when Sabo growled in defiance, shifted into his half wolf form, and hefted one huge crate over his shoulder, before sending a cocky smirk Thatch’s way.

“Well played.” The chef muttered, “Very well played.” Thatch picked up the second crate with great effort and walked to the door before stopping, “Wait… Now that we’re in here… How do we get out without anyone noticing us?”

Sabo shrugged, and turned to Usopp, who abruptly started panicking, “WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME?!”

Thatch grinned, “You have wings.” He pointed out, “You can ferry the crates over and—”

“ARE YOU STUPID?!” Usopp shrieked, “HAVE YOU LOOKED AT MY ARMS?! I’M A SNIPER FOR A REASON!”

Thatch tilted his head, “Which is…?” he prompted.

Usopp groaned and slapped his face, “My strength is garbage. What I don’t have in that, I make up for in stealth and aim. Now. With that knowledge. Just how do you expect me to carry two huge crates, plus the three buckets I gave you?”

Thatch tilted his head, “Using your arms?” he hesitantly offered, “You know, like a normal person?”

Usopp stiffened before dissipating into what could only be described as a human-bird puddle, “I’m surrounded by crazies.” He moaned, “And superpowered individuals. Why Oda? Whyyyy?”

“Don’t question the Great God.” Thatch replied condescendingly, hefting the crate over his shoulder, “Now come on. If we can’t get you to carry it, all that we can hope for is that Ace is distracting Haruta sufficiently.”

Usopp nodded with trepidation, and inched towards the door, “Should we… open it now?” he asked, looking back at Thatch and Sabo.

“Yeah. The faster we get it over with, the better.” Sabo urged.

Usopp gulped and nodded, before swinging the door open, and shielding his eyes from the light, “Well?” he questioned, “I’m not going to stay here forever.” He prompted.

Sabo and Thatch sent a nod in Usopp’s direction, before running out of the Prank Cabinet, and to the Commanders’ Quarters section of the ship. Usopp watched their retreating backs and grinned hysterically, “Marco. If we die by Haruta’s hands, I just want you to know that it’s your fault for not loving yourself stupid!” he muttered, before spreading his feathers and taking to the air.

o-o

Back with Zoro and Luffy…

“Uh… Captain?” That was Zoro.

“Yes?” Luffy asked tiredly, without taking his eyes off the mess that was Thatch’s kitchen.

“Don’t you think we made plenty of mousse cake?” Zoro, too, was watching the chocolate slide down the wall.

Luffy turned to his First Mate with haunted eyes, “We did not make that monstrosity.”

Zoro stared at his captain, through the corner of his eye, “But—”

“We did not make that monstrosity.” Luffy stressed.

Zoro relented, “Okay… But how are we going to get all of this to Marco?”

Luffy perked up before groaning and banging his head on the countertop, “First order of business when we go back to East Blue: FIND A COOK!” his voice may have been muffled by the granite countertop, but Zoro could not mistake the frustration and content of what his captain was saying.

Zoro grimaced, “Aye aye…” he paused, “But seriously, captain. How do we get this to Marco?”

Luffy got up and stared at the chocolate sliding down the walls before reaching a conclusion, “We are not going to get this to Marco. We are going to bring Marco here! We just need to coat the entire room in Chocolate Mousse Cake!” he grinned excitedly, “Then everything will be best!”

Zoro stared at his captain for a moment before nodding and unsheathing Wado, “Okay. Let’s start.”

10 minutes later…

“Perfect!” Luffy grinned, as he watched the Chocolate perfectly coat the walls of Thatch’s kitchen. “Now all Marco will have to do is get the Chocolate off the walls and eat!”

Zoro nodded lazily, cleaning the chocolate off of Wado with much effort, “What I still don’t understand is how the Chocolate Mousse came alive the first three times we made it, made babies with each other and started projectile vomiting strawberries at us.” He commented offhandedly, before freezing and shuddering in fear.

Luffy mirrored his first mate in his shudder and replied, “We never speak of that again.”

Zoro nodded, sheathing Wado, “Agreed.”

o-o

Marco didn’t like it. Not one bit. Everyone was acting suspicious. He knew he dared them with making an awesome birthday party for him, but this was way too quiet.

Way too quiet.

Marco was just about to go talk to Oyaji, when he saw Thatch and Sabo run across the deck, each with a huge crate hefted over their shoulder. Then Usopp came zooming out not long afterwards, holding three buckets.

How… Why… You know what? For the sake of sanity, I won’t question it. Marco just shrugged and continued on. Around five or so minutes later, he was encountered by the sight of Haruta looming over a cowering Ace who was backed away in a corner, wearing a smile that could make the Akainu shudder, and Gold Roger wheeze. And so, reasonably, like a reasonable person, Marco reasonably decided to interfere.

“What in the actual name of Oda is going on here?” Marco deadpanned, stepping in between Haruta and Ace’s little… spat.

Haruta twisted his head a little and his smile widened dangerously, “This little cHiLd knows where the key to my PraNk CabIneT is… He knoWs… he KnoWSSSss… WhO tOok IT!” Haruta softly whispered.

Marco shuddered at the sound of Haruta’s voice, “Look, Haruta.” He reasoned, “Ace doesn’t know.”

“And how are you so sure?” Haruta challenged, the fog momentarily clearing from his eyes.

“Because I saw Thatch, Sabo, and Usopp run away from your direction of the commanders’ quarters, with three buckets of something and two buckets of something.” Inwardly, Marco was panicking because he just dumped all of the blame on Thatch.

Haruta tilted his head, “Thatch?” He parroted, before narrowing his eyes, “Tha—”

“PLAN 64!” Ace unexpectedly squawked. At Marco’s incredulous look, and Haruta’s face of dawning realization, Ace grinned sheepishly, “My apologies. Just had to keep it for the kids you know?”

“The kids? What kids?” Marco felt slightly out of his element.

Haruta was also befuddled for a moment before his mouth made a small ‘o’ shape in realization. Grinning, the shorter man slung his arm over Marco’s shoulders and commented, “What kids? Marco, can’t you see? There are KIDS. So many kids…”

Ace nodded understandingly, “Exactly. There are so many kids. They are very important. So, we keep it child friendly.”

Marco stared at the two for a moment before huffing and flying off, “Of course…” he muttered, “Now I feel like my sanity dropped a little bit more…”

Once Haruta and Ace watched Marco fly out of earshot, Haruta turned to Ace and tweaked his ear.

“Owowowowow—”

“Where is Thatch?” Haruta growled, “He has some explaining to do.”

o-o

When Thatch reached back to his quarters, five seconds before he was about to open the door to the kitchen, he shuddered in near-physical pain.

“What’s wrong, Thatch?” Sabo teased, “Can’t carry the crate? Oh! I expected a commander to be stronger than that!”

Thatch groaned, “I’m a commander, yeah, but I focus more on precision not strength. It comes with being a cook! And… I just have a bad feeling… is all.”

Sabo nodded in understanding, “Ah.”

Then, Thatch opened the door, took one look, and shut it again, “I am not dealing with that mess.” He muttered.

Then, Haruta came crashing into him, “HOW DARE YOU THATCH!” he howled, before grabbing the sides of Thatch’s face and shaking him forwards and backwards, “HOW DARE YOU PLAN MARCO’S BIRTHDAY WITHOUT ME!” a silent pause, courtesy of Thatch who had absolutely no words to say whatsoever, “Whatever.” Haruta snorted, before getting off.

“Guess what?” Haruta grinned and folded his arms, “If I knew what you were doing, I would’ve let you take from my Prank Cabinet. However. You lied and didn’t tell me. Therefore, your punishment.” Haruta sucked in a deep breath, “I’m helping you!”

Thatch stared at Haruta before blurting out, “Wait, hold up, I didn’t tell you?”

Haruta scowled, “No, now anyways. Ace told me that Zoro and Luffy were working on the cake, so let’s see.”

“No wait don’t open the door—”

Haruta froze. Sticky chocolate painted the walls of Thatch’s quarters, and a few strawberries here and there. Not even a centimeter of space in Thatch’s quarter’s wasn’t filled with chocolate.

“Heyyy!” Luffy pranced up to them, as Zoro snoozed on, “How’d you like the cake?” and he spread his arms grandly to convey the chocolate coated room they were now standing in.

So, with all the articulation and intelligence in the world, Haruta perfectly summarized his thoughts in one word:

“What.”

Chapter Text

“What.”

Thatch grimaced, and tried to tear his eyes away from the… scene that currently coated his walls. “Mind telling me what this is?” he questioned dryly. Luffy grinned widely in response, “It is Marco’s cake!” he announced, and Zoro (who was now awake) dipped his chin in agreement.

Thatch’s hand twitched minutely, as if he wanted to strangle either the rubber-kid or himself, but instead, he slapped his forehead and sighed, “We need to clean this.”

“Why though?” Luffy questioned confusedly, “I think it’s pretty good.”

“Luffy.” Sabo grumbled, “There is a reason you’re the one eating the food and not cooking the food.”

Luffy tilted his head blankly, “I don’t get it.”. Zoro nodded in agreement. “It’s reasonable.” The mosshead said, “The cake is everywhere. All he has to do is hug the wall and/or lick it.”

Haruta shuddered, “Lick the wall?”

“Uh,” Luffy eyed Zoro confusedly, “Yeah. What’s so bad about that?”

“Luffy.” Ace made a strangled sound with his throat, “That is so unsanitary.”

“Well, I don’t get it.” Zoro interjected, eyeing everyone confusedly, “It’s perfectly reasonable to cook like this.”

“Zoro—” Thatch began, but another voice interjected.

“What is on your wall, Thatch?” an impressively tall individual with a moustache eerily similar to the former Pirate King peered in and looked around.

“Vista! Vista, hey, Vista!” Thatch yelped and turned around, dragging him inside and motioning for Haruta to shut the door behind them. The moment Vista was fully in the room, the door shut with an ominous click.

If he was nervous, he didn’t let it show.

“Thatch, what are you doing?” Vista paused, “Please, please, please don’t tell me this is a prank.”

“A prank? Wait, what? No, it’s not.” Thatch shook his head.

“Oh, okay.” Vista nodded, before looking around, “By the way, what have you done with the place? It smells…” Vista took a deep sniff and his face contorted, “…unique.”

Thatch groaned, burying his head in his hands, “Please don’t remind me.” He moaned.

“Okay, seriously, what’s going on?” Vista grumbled, “Why does everyone look semi-depressed?”

“Marco’s birthday is tomorrow, and we’re trying to give him a surprise party!” Luffy chirped, seemingly the only person in the room that was cheery.

“A surprise party, you say…” Vista stroked his moustache, “I don’t suppose I could join in?”

Haruta grinned, “Oh yeah! We got another joining us! Welcome to the party.” He punched Vista’s forearm good-naturedly.

Vista rubbed his forearm slightly, “Ah yes, but before we do anything, could someone please tell me…” his eyes shut and he kneaded a headache, “Why it smells so bad in here?”

“…The chocolate cake is starting to dry and spoil.” Thatch said faintly, still cradling his forehead in his hands, “That was half our chocolate supply and now it’s just gone.”

“Oh.” Luffy tilted his head apologetically, “Sorry.”

“Luffy.” Ace pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, “Okay, can we all take a vote to never let Luffy in the kitchen again? All in favor, say ‘aye’”

Everyone in the room save for Zoro and Vista practically yelled out ‘Aye’.

“I abstain from the voting. I do not even know what happened.” Vista said.

“I don’t get it.” Zoro grumbled, “It was perfectly reasonable what we were doing. I don’t see you doing any better.” He snarked.

Thatch snapped his head up so fast, a crack sounded throughout the room. Vista’s eyes widened in disgusted fascination, and Haruta winced from second-hand pain.

“Ooh…” Haruta hissed, “That’s gotta hurt.”

“You don’t see us doing any better?” Thatch giggled disturbingly, hairs from his pompadour falling onto his face, giving him a more crazed aura about him, “YOU DON’T SEE US DOING ANY BETTER?!!?”

Zoro stepped back, but didn’t deny what he said. “I don’t.” he said firmly, even as his hands trembled and his grip on Wado becoming a stark white.

Thatch laughed, and Ace felt his arm turn into fire, “Uh, Thatch?” he questioned, the ends of his hair combusting, and hissing with heat, “Are you okay?”

“No, Ace, I am not okay.” Thatch grinned, and a few more hairs fell on his face, “I want my kitchen clean in 5 minutes. Do you think you can do that? 5. Minutes.”

Sabo nodded so fast, Ace wondered if his neck would snap from the speed, “Yes, Thatch! We can do it, Thatch!” he smiled widely and stepped forward to the 4^th Division Commander, pushing him back, “Just sit down and let us do the work!”

Usopp, who was silent till now, watched the chocolate on the walls with mild disgust, “That’s going to stain my feathers for sure.” He nodded. “Ah well, nothing a good preening will… cleanse.” He tacked on hastily after Ace pinned him with a warning glare.

“I’m counting~” Thatch sang, scraping two cleavers together for no reason (except to maybe up the fear factor, in which case, mission accomplished).

Flames licked around Ace’s body as he sped between the cooking stations, scraping chocolate off the walls, and dumping it in a bag. Usopp swooped down and grabbed a broom, before scrubbing. “How did you guys even get it up this far?” he murmured in fascination, smacking the wall with his broom.

Sabo grabbed two knives from Thatch’s kitchen set, and sucked in a fearful breath when he saw Thatch’s eye twitch, “I don’t know!” he called out to Usopp, “Let it forever remain a mystery!” and he scraped at the walls.

Haruta wiped a bit of sweat from his brow, “How much time we’ve got left, Wolf Kid?”

Sabo closed his eyes, “Three. We need help.” Ace made a sound of agreement. “Wait a second.” Usopp muttered, turning around from his spot high up the walls, “Why aren’t the people who caused this nightmare helping?”

Everyone turned to Zoro and Luffy in eerie synchronization, only for disbelief to color their expressions.

“Are they… playing cards?” Usopp voiced, completely befuddled with his situation at the moment.

“No.” Ace growled, the ends of his hair sizzling, “They’re playing with fire.”

o-o

Zoro felt the hairs on his neck raise, and the Asura in his head suddenly go quiet. “What do you think you’re doing?” he glared at Ace, in full Asura form, Wado and his two training swords unsheathed.

“You.” Ace growled, his voice nearly unrecognizable, “Are helping us. Both of you.”

Zoro furrowed his brow, “You could’ve just asked, instead of threatening us.” He muttered, sheathing his sword, and flowing out of Asura form. He turned around, and faced Luffy, entirely uncaring of the way Ace screeched in rage behind him.

Luffy blinked, before shrugging, “Oh well. Shame no one could eat it though.” he grumbled, before jumping forward, and raking his clawed hands at the walls.

With the addition of the swordsman and the future Pirate King, the room was clean exactly 26 seconds before 5 minutes ended. Thatch looked the room up and down, surveying everything with a careful eye.

He rubbed portion of wood near his stove area and sniffed, “Not bad.” He conceded, “Good job. Okay. Let’s do this again,” he clapped his hands together and grinned, no longer homicidal, “But let’s do it differently.”

Everyone made noises of agreement, save for Vista and Zoro, who just grunted, then looked at each other appraisingly, before grunting again.

“Haruta, Vista, you two go distract Marco. Usopp, Luffy, go decorate. Zoro, keep an eye on everyone. Ace, Sabo, you two are helping me cook. Is everyone cleared?” Thatch grinned, “Cool! Let’s go!”

Usopp raised a hand, “Uh, where do we decorate?”

Thatch stopped and stroked his goatee, “Hm… good question. Go for his cabin. Usopp, do you know where it is?”

Usopp nodded, The upside of being a liar. He mused, is the ability to read other people pretty damn well. He eyed Luffy, before amending his thoughts, Luffy’s unbeatable though.

“Okay, everyone!” Thatch clapped, and Usopp’s attention snapped to him, “Operation Marco’s Birthday is a go!”

Usopp smiled and walked out of the cabin, breathing in the fresh scent of the air. “Hey, Cap’n.” Luffy turned to him questioningly, before yelping as Usopp grabbed the back of his shirt, “Hold on.” And with those two words of warning, he unfurled his wings and shot into the sky.

From then on, the only sound in his ears was the sound of Luffy whooping in excitement. He circled around in the sky a few more times, just for fun, before spotting Marco out on the deck. “Luffy!” He yelled over the wind.

“YEAH?!” Usopp grimaced, his eardrums ringing.

“Could you yell a bit quieter?!” he yelled.

“SORRY!” Usopp groaned, as his head started spinning.

“I found his cabin! Now just… hold on…!” he grunted, and stood upright in the air, before aiming for a low-down swoop-dive. Which was a really, really bad idea, because his head was spinning and he was carrying Luffy on his back.

So, he ended up crash-landing on deck. And, a testament to their amazing luck, Marco happened to spot them falling, and rushed over.

“Are you kids okay, yoi?” he checked them over for any injuries.

“Uh…” Usopp stared off into space for a few moments before snapping to attention.

“Oh yeah, we’re fine!” Luffy giggled, “We were just about to—”

“I was carrying Luffy on my back, while I was flying.” Usopp interjected smoothly, “He wanted to fly for a while. I was fulfilling that request.” Technically not a lie. This was true. Luffy had been driving Usopp nuts, latching onto his back and asking if they could fly. Usopp had always screeched indignantly in response.

Marco raised an eyebrow, clearly confused with what he was hearing, “Usopp, you do realize that you’re not strong enough to carry someone with you while flying yet, right, yoi? Especially if said someone is Luffy- yoi.” Usopp knew this. Marco knew that Usopp knew this. Usopp knew that Marco knew that Usopp knew this.

Shoot. It took all Usopp had to not start sweating, I’m screwed. “I…” he swallowed, “I know, but Luffy’s nagging was driving me nuts.” Again, not quite a lie. It was driving him nuts. “I just decided that I would fulfill his request today. It’s sunny, no? A light breeze… Perfect conditions for a flight. And besides, the Moby’s Anchored here for a while, so…” Usopp glazed over on a few of the details, and prayed that Marco wouldn’t call him out on it.

Unfortunately, he did.

“Usopp. You can fly.” Marco deadpanned, entirely unimpressed, “You and I both know that if Luffy starts bothering you, you can literally just fly up to the top of the mast and camp out there for the next 2 hours. Luffy can’t slingshot that high without risk of himself, nor can he directly jump up there. He’s not strong enough. Why now?”

Uh… Usopp’s eyes widened when he noticed Haruta and Vista staring at them incredulously, I… “I was about to take off on my own, but then my hand snagged on the back of Luffy’s shirt. By the time I noticed, I was already 3 meters off the ground, and Luffy was already on my back, and I was riding up a wind current.” Half-lie-half-truth.

Marco’s eyes narrowed, SHOOT! Usopp panicked, DID HE NOTICE THE HALF-LIE?! He stared at Haruta and Vista’s panicked faces behind him, before crossing his two fingers very purposefully.

Haruta’s eyes widened in realization and he nodded grimly. He grabbed Vista’s arm and dragged the man over to the Division Commanders’ Cabins row.

“What are you staring at?” Marco questioned suspiciously, before huffing and directing his next question at Luffy, “Luffy. What was he staring at?”

Luffy whistled a little and rocked back and forth on his heels, “Noth…ing…” he replied, the words stilted. Usopp felt fond exasperation rise in his chest. Why is he so bad at lying?

Marco made a sound of frustration, before glowering at Usopp, “You’re not going to give me a straight answer, ever, are you?”

Usopp grinned wickedly, and rocked back and forth on his heels, “Nope. But I can give you a curved answer.” He retorted smoothly. After all, he, like most others in the Facility, in the beginning, tried to rebel with verbal taunts. He stopped, though, when they showed him the rotting, half-decayed tongue of the last person who attempted to talk back to them.

Usopp swallowed down the deep-ingrained fear and shot a guileless smile at Marco, who was progressively getting grumpier and grumpier, “So.” He hummed, “Any questions?”

o-o

Haruta stomped as lightly as he could through the halls, before stopping and staring at Marco’s door. Grinning, he used his other hand to yank the doorknob down and open the door. He threw Vista inside as unceremoniously as he could, and closed the door.

“Haruta.” He hissed, “What are you doing.”

Haruta shushed him and brought out a few pieces of confetti from Oda knows where. “Let’s decorate.”

“What?” Vista’s face adopted the trademark confused look that was becoming rather common everywhere on the ship, “What do you mean? Isn’t that Luffy and Usopp’s job?”

“Yes, it was.” Haruta nodded, “But then again, they got caught. So we’re swapping our jobs.”

“Really.” Vista raised a brow skeptically, “And how do you know this?”

Haruta froze, “I… Usopp signaled to me. It was the swap signal. Means different things under different circumstances, but it wasn’t too hard to put two and two together.” Haruta sighed, “Come on, let’s just decorate,” a slow grin overtook his features, “I mean, unless you want Marco’s room to be covered in pineapples…”

“NO!” Vista all but shouted, “Okay! Let’s go!” He smiled cheerily, grabbing a deflated balloon from Haruta’s hand.

o-o

“Sabo, cut this!” Thatch threw a stick of butter at the blonde. Sabo fumbled for a moment, but grabbed the butter stick and cut it cleanly in half. Oh god. I don’t know how much more my wrists can take… Sabo smiled disbelievingly, How can cooking be this hard?

“Ace!” Thatch commanded, “Turn up the heat!” Ace grunted in affirmation, and his hair burst into flames.

Why oh why… Sabo nearly cried, Why did you and Zoro have to destroy the oven, Luffy? Why? I swear to all the Gods, holy and not out there, I will never let you in a kitchen again.

“Sabo!” Thatch dropped a heavy bag of flour on the counter, “Measure twenty-seven cups.”

Sabo nearly dropped the knife, “Twenty…seven?” he whispered, and impending feeling of dread creeping up at the back of his mind.

Thatch stared at him like he was stupid, “Uh, yeah, twenty-seven.” He snarked, clearly still frazzled from the previous state of his kitchen, “What, did you forget we’re cooking for a crew of… 1,500-ish?” Sabo felt a little faint. Thatch didn’t notice, and continued on, “Granted, a few of them may be on their own missions right about now, but…” he made a slight motion with his hands, “There will be at least 1,000 people at Marco’s party. Most from the main crew, and then there are the allied crews…”

“Will… twenty-seven be enough?” Sabo asked shakily, “Or do we have to add more?”

Thatch shook his head, “It won’t be enough. But we’re only making one big cake. For Marco’s inner circle of brothers. The ones closest to him. Honestly? This is the easiest part. It’s cooking for the rest of the crew that’s hard.”

Sabo stumbled, and Thatch caught him just in time, “Whoa now! Can’t have you falling yet! We still need to cook that cake!” Sabo envied Ace for being caught up in his being a human oven. At least then he wouldn’t have to actively do anything but focus on regulating temperature.

“Oh my god.” Sabo whispered, “What have I agreed to?”

Thatch eyed him concernedly before huffing in amusement, “Don’t worry. Now come on, let’s go.” And so, that is the story of how Sabo had to shift into his werewolf form just to keep up with Thatch’s tasks.

Many, many years in the future, he would never hesitate to bow down at the feet of the cooks of the Revolutionary Army. Clearly, they had to deal with hell.

o-o

Zoro was bored. It was taking all that he had to not fall asleep. He grumbled a little and shifted positions so his katana was jabbing him in the ribs. Pain (and the prospect of sleeping in an uncomfortable position) was more than enough to stop his eyelids from falling shut.

Okay. This is boring. He mused, I’m pretty sure Thatch put me here because he didn’t know what to do with me, and he didn’t want me to enter the kitchen again. (AN: Or, because the author had no idea what to do with him, lol.)

He got up, You know what? Imma go talk to the Old Man. As such, he walked towards the biggest section of the ship. The one section that he was sure held Whitebeard. Oh come on. There’s no way I’ll get lost… he took one step forward, and all of a sudden, his surroundings shifted and he was at the rail of the ship. “OH MY GOD YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!” he screeched.

He turned around, and stomped off, only for his surroundings to shift again, to the railing. He seethed in silence, and turned around again, only to face the railing 2 seconds later. Zoro snarled like a rabid dog, and his shadow morphed into the Asura’s.

Oh? The Demon stirred to life in the recesses of his mind, Why do I feel you calling on my power in frustration? It asked curiously.

1. AM. SO. DONE! Zoro raged, I AM SO DONE! FOR SOME ACCURSED REASON, I KEEP ENDING UP AT THIS STUPID RAILING! WHAt’S sO gOoD aBoUt tHe dAmN rAiLiNg?!?! His spirit’s voice screeched in discordant tones, and Zoro could feel the Asura in his head take a startled step back.

Whoa, whoa, calm down. The Asura said warily, That… Your lack of direction… Is strange. The Asura seemed confused, I was a perfectly fine navigator in my time. How about this, you let me take control—

No way. Zoro interrupted, glowering at the Asura’s form, Nice try.

The Asura sighed dramatically, Shame, then. I suppose you’ll have to settle for the railing. I mean, unless you can lower your pride just so, so that someone can help you…?

Zoro froze, You’re right. He said calmly, I will lower my pride.

The Asura crowed in satisfaction, Yes! So will you let me—

I’ll ask the Fish-guy for help. I mean, he’s right there. Zoro grinned victoriously, before snapping back to reality and stepping forward.

Aaaaaaaand finding himself at the railing again. He stared down at the rail like it was the bane of his existence, Oh my. The Asura murmured in his head, This is actually quite bad.

“Hey…” a new voice interrupted Zoro’s train of thought, “Are you okay?”

Zoro turned around, and was met with Namur’s concerned face, “No. I am not okay.” He grumbled.

Namur raised an eyebrow, “What’s wrong?”

Zoro’s face soured, and a dark look overtook his eyes, “I tried to get to the Old Man. I tried. For some accursed, stupid, dumb reason, I always end up at this… RAIL!” he screeched, grabbing the rail so hard, it dented a little under his grip.

Namur felt his heart drop a little when he saw the dents on the wood. That’s… Adam Wood… he gulped, This kid… “Hey, you want me to bring you to the Old Man?” he offered.

Zoro eyed him blankly for a moment, before nodding, “Yeah.” And taking Namur’s hand. They both took one step, before Namur had to turn Zoro around by force before he ended up back at the rail again.

o-o

Whitebeard rolled his sake gourd in his hand, and stared off into space. The air around his ship had been… different ever since those brats arrived. It was a very slight difference, one whose origin he could not pinpoint amongst the sea of sons he had.

It was almost like a… hurried air. A worried emotion, permeating the sea of love, joy and fondness. There was even a hint of… fear.

Whitebeard stopped rolling his sake gourd, and took a sip, his eyes narrowed in annoyance, If only I could pinpoint it…

“Pops!” he was snapped out of his musings by Rakuyo, “Repaired a few of the rafters.” He drawled, in a South Blue accent, “Strange, though. Was almost like they were being… sat on. Or burned, a few of ‘em.” He seemed to get lost in his own world for a moment, before returning.

“Pops?” he questioned, “A few from Marco’s division wanted me to tell you that we’re gonna hit land soon. I…” he hesitated.

“Speak, Rakuyo, my son.” Whitebeard said softly, putting his sake gourd down.

Rakuyo smiled gratefully, “I was worried, pops.” He revealed, “This island is fairly close to Sabaody Archipelago. Only a few island hops away. Would only take a day or two to make it there with a good boat. It’s a perfect location for…” he trailed off, but didn’t need to finish his sentence.

“Slave traders.” Whitebeard growled, “Keep a watch on the brats.” Especially the Green-haired one. Whitebeard mused, I’ve been watching that one try to get somewhere, only to end up at the same railing 20 times in the past 5 minutes.

Rakuyo nodded, “Yes, Pops.” He did a mini-salute and left.

Whitebeard sighed, Marco… he smiled, I’m sure you’ll be surprised tomorrow.  

It’s time you learn to love yourself.

Chapter Text

Marshall D. Teach wasn’t a monster, contrary to popular belief (he was). He didn’t want the brats off the ship. (Especially that Fiery Kid. He had uses in mind for him-)

But, he sighed, How unfortunate it can be. Just imagine it! He grinned, The brats on the ship got caught by the Marines, and are now being shipped off to Impel Down!

Of course, that’s not actually where they would be going. (Teach didn’t trust the Luffy-brat. He was too, too unpredictable-)

“If all goes well.” He murmured in the dead of night by his study, his desk lit only by candle, “If all goes well.”

o-o

Somehow, by some strange twist of fate, Zoro finally made it away from that wretched, accursed railing, and snuggled up against whatever wall he attached himself to.

“I promise you, Luffy.” he swore, “I will fix this problem.”

Luffy snored in response.

3 hours. The Asura sounded tense. 3 hours. How?

What do you mean? Zoro frowned and closed his eyes, entering the shared Mind Space.

The Asura remained silent, but Zoro heard… something-

STOP LAUGHING AT ME!

HAHAHAHa- WhOOweEYa! The Asura burst into maniacal cackling and Zoro felt incredibly affronted, NEVER! It wheezed, NEVer in my HuNdreds of Years of living have I had a host so bad at Navigating as You! Ha!

Ha ha, laugh it up. Zoro grouched, before shutting the Asura’s discordant voice out of his mind.

o-o

Sabo stared at the night sky, unblinking. In the constant presence of his brothers, he wouldn’t relapse into old habits that the Facility had ingrained into him.

(This time, his brothers weren’t around to chase the Demons in his head away. He was left to his own devices-)

“What are you thinking?” Sabo jerked awake, hazy memories flitting by and settling in the back of his mind once more.

“You.” His face soured, “What do you want?”

The Wolf Spirit sat down next to Sabo, sighing (could wolves even sigh-?).

“…I’ve seen through your memories. Tell me, how long do you believe you’ll last?”

Sabo froze, and suddenly felt cold all over. Every one of his senses heightened, and distantly, he noted that he started breathing quicker.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sabo said evenly.

“This.” The wolf got up abruptly and waved a paw in such a manner that Sabo couldn’t help but choke out a laugh, “This is what we call denial.”

Sabo shook his head, “What do you mean?”

The Wolf Spirit smiled, and however unnerving that expression was on a full-fanged Giant Wolf’s face, Sabo felt slightly warmer inside.

“The first step to overcoming ‘it’ is talking about ‘it’.” The wolf said serenely, and before Sabo could retort, the Wolf bulldozed forward, “And, Sabo, I assure you, I am physically unable to rat on you, so anything you say is safe in my paws.” The wolf smiled, self-satisfied.

Sabo closed his eyes, “You’ve already rifled through my memories. Why do you want me to tell you everything of my own will?”

The wolf got up, yawned, and looked Sabo in the eye, their right ear flicking, “It is not I who needs to Overcome. It’s you.” They paused, “I assume you’re going to need time to process all this. If you ever wish to speak, well, we literally share a Spirit. You know where to find me.” And the wolf vanished.

Sabo felt so many words clog in his throat, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t string any together to form a coherent sentence.

Eventually, he just cried himself to sleep.

…

Sabo was back at the Facility. This time, there was a visitor. A strange occurrence, given the fact that not many knew where this place even was. The image of the visitor was a little bit hazy, but there were a few things he remembered…

“BRAT!” a scientist thundered, grabbing him by the hair, and pulling him up. “This is your patron! The only reason you’re not dead yet is because he’s been endorsing your survival.” The scientist grinned, all his teeth showing. Then, the visitor grinned, and Sabo’s heart stopped.

“Hello, little one.” The visitor cooed in a honeyed voice, “My name is—”

“Sir, we need to administer a dose of Ketamine to the Subject, I’m going to have to kindly request you to leave.”

The visitor stopped smiling. Sabo’s heart was beating so fast, he was sure it’d burst out of his chest.

The visitor scoffed, turned around, his pink feathered coat billowing behind him and sang “Toodles~!”

Then, he felt a needle jab into his neck and everything turned gray and blurry.

He stopped remembering much after that.

…

Sabo woke up wholeheartedly expecting the dank stench of his cell, and the shackles around his wrists.

So, when he sucked in a breath and ended up inhaling copious amounts of sea-air, he was both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised.

Pleasantly because ‘Ah yes, I’m not there anymore’.

Unpleasantly because ‘Crap, I think I snorted some weird salt water up my nose-‘

…

Usopp circled the ship pensively. From the rough direction of the ship, he could tell they were going to some Island with a primarily spring-climate. However…

Usopp stared sharply a few degrees East of their direction. Contrary to what most may think, when he was in the Facility, he couldn’t help but Observe. He observed everything. From the Scientists’ conversations, to the number of rats scurrying in the cell opposite to his. He observed everything.

That being said, he noticed that every 1 in 26 conversations, the Scientists always mentioned Sabaody Archipelago.

Usopp narrowed his eyes.

They got a good portion of test subjects from that place. Usopp mused, circling around the ship again, That must mean there are some Facility Agents there, so… he jerked midair, there is a possibility we might get caught.

Usopp stayed stationary for a while, before the Pirate in the crow’s nest called out to him and he snapped back to reality.

“You good, kid?” he called, and Usopp’s wings started flapping ever so slightly more vigorous.

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine!” he responded, as loud as he could without his voice wavering, and darted off, circling the ship considerably faster than he was before.