Chapter Text
When Luffy had first emerged at the Shore of Nascency, they were sure that their name was Luffy, and weren't sure of anything else. They didn’t even know what a name was, they just knew that they were Luffy and that this was an indisputable fact.
Sensei called them “Antarcticite” and Luffy wasn’t able to correct him for the longest time. They didn’t have the proper language to.
As they learned to talk, they tried to tell Sensei that they were Luffy, not Antarcticite. For a moment, Sensei had frozen up at what Luffy said, seeming terrified. But quick as a flash the tenseness of his shoulders left. “You will be called ‘Luffy’ from now on then.”
——
Luffy was incredibly lonely. They could only exist during winter when the rest of the Lustrous were hibernating. And while they did have Sensei, he didn’t accompany them for their various outside assignments. And even if Sensei were to accompany them, Luffy doubted that it would entirely eliminate the empty feeling that they had.
It was like they were missing something. Something that they should know, like how they knew their name.
——
“One day I’m gonna get everybody back from the moon,” Luffy decided after learning that another had been taken. It wasn’t fair what the Lunarians were doing, and they’d make everything right.
“I’m sure you will,” Sensei said in return. Luffy was sure that he was just humoring them.
Not that it would stop them. Luffy had already decided what they were going to do after all.
——
One winter (where the temperature had started dropping much sooner than normal) Luffy was able to form in time to catch the other Lustrous before they all went into hibernation. Luffy had only briefly conversed with a few of the other Lustrous at the tailend of their hibernation when they were all starting to wake up and when Luffy was starting to lose their solid form. There was never really much time for concrete conversation.
This early winter however was the perfect opportunity to try and get to know some of them!
Luffy was looking around at the many unfamiliar faces that were setting up the hibernation room, when two of them caught their eye. Bort and Diamond.
Luffy had never spoken to either of them before, but according to Sensei they were both excellent fighters and dangerously competitive. That wasn’t what had drawn Luffy’s attention to them however. They both felt…strangely familiar. Almost like their very being resonated with the two.
And so they decided to approach them.
“Hi! My name is Luffy. I take care of winter and I’m going to get everyone back from the moon one day!”
Diamond and Bort both turned to face them. At first, it looked as if they were going to laugh at them for their ambition (or perhaps their name, it wouldn’t be the first time) but their expressions quickly melted into a more contemplative shock.
Diamond was the first to snap out of it. “You said your name was Luffy?” they asked conversationally with a slightly forced smile. “I’m Diamond. This battle freak here is Bort.”
“Hey!” That snapped Bort out of their stupor real quick.
Luffy laughed a bit.
“Anyway,” Bort huffed. “What do you mean you’re gonna get everyone back from the moon?” They looked skeptical.
“Just what I said. I’m gonna get everyone back from the moon.”
——
Luffy continued to talk with Diamond and Bort as they helped with the preparations for hibernation.
“Why don’t we join you for winter this year?” Diamond suggested one day.
“Really?” Luffy practically lit up at the suggestion.
“Yeah,” Bort was the one who answered. “Figure it’ll be a hell of a challenge, trying to stay awake with the poor light quality.”
——
Bort and Diamond took to destroying the ice floes like fish to water. With the three of them working at it, they were taken care of in record time. Both Bort and Diamond were exhausted by the time they were done.
“Alright!” Luffy chirped, still full of energy. “Now we just have to clear the school out of snow!”
“...How…?” Bort asked incredulously. “How do you have so much energy?”
Luffy looked over to them. “I’m really only awake during winter. I’m just used to it,” they explained with a shrug. Luffy turned back and started marching back to the school, beckoning the other two to follow. “Let’s go!”
——
They had been working together for about two weeks. Luffy found that the time they had spent working with Bort and Diamond just felt…right. Like it was beginning to fill that empty space inside of them.
Once again, they were shoveling the snow away from the various corridors of the school.
“Hey Luffy?” Diamond called out as they worked.
“Yeah Dia?”
“‘Luffy’ isn’t a gemstone that I’ve heard of before.” They stopped shoveling to look over at Luffy. “So why’re you called that?”
“I’ve been wondering that too actually,” Bort chimed in, stopping as well.
Luffy continued to shovel. “That’s cuz Luffy’s my name.”
“So Sensei named you that?” Diamond asked.
“No,” Luffy responded. “He wanted to call me Antarcticite, but I told him that my name was Luffy and he’s called me that ever since.”
Diamond and Bort were silent for a second as they contemplated this new information.
“So like…” Bort began, trying to think about how to phrase their question. “How did you know your name was ‘Luffy’ then?”
Luffy too stopped shoveling as they considered this. They turned to face Bort and Dia. “I don’t really know,” they admitted. “I just remember emerging and knowing that my name was Luffy.”
Bort and Dia were silent once more at this.
“So…” Bort broke the silence, strangely hesitant. “In that case…call me Ace.”
Luffy cocked their head to the side, a bit confused.
“I don’t know if I knew Ace was my name when I emerged like you did but,” they looked Luffy in the eyes. “I know that that’s my name. Ace.”
“I think…” Dia cut in. “It might be the same for me. Call me Sabo.”
“Alright Ace, Sabo,” Luffy said with a nod to each of them.
“Luffy,” they said in return.
With that, the feeling of correctness that came with spending time with Ace and Sabo increased, as if their new names enhanced the feeling.
Luffy was going to miss them when spring inevitably came around.
——
Sensei didn’t have that moment of terror when Sabo and Ace had proudly told him about their name change, and easily agreed.
——
A few more weeks passed by.
“Hey Luffy,” Ace had called once they had taken care of the last ice floe.
“Yeah?”
“When you introduced yourself to us, you said you were gonna get everyone off the moon some day.”
“Uh-huh.” Luffy didn’t really see where this conversation was going.
“Why’d you say that?”
“Because I’m going to do it, duh!” They were getting irritated now.
“Do you even have a plan?” Sabo was being a smug ass.
Luffy clammed up at that.
“Honestly,” Sabo sighed. “You need a plan for something that damn ambitious.” They grinned and puffed out their chest proudly. “Luckily, I can help you with that!”
“Hate to admit it, but Sabo’s right,” Ace explained. “They’re always coming up with convoluted plans. If anyone can help ya it’ll be them.”
“I feel like I should be insulted.”
“So you guys’ll help me?” Luffy asked somewhat incredulously.
Both Sabo and Ace nodded.
“First thing we’ll need to figure out,” Sabo began brainstorming, “is how to keep you solid on the way to and on the moon. We don’t know what the conditions’ll be like.”
“Oh yeah!” Luffy gasped in realization.
“You…really didn’t think about that?”
——
For decades they kept up that routine. The three of them would tend to winter and discuss possible plans for getting to the moon while they worked.
The biggest obstacle for any plan that they made would of course be their complete lack of knowledge of what it was actually like on the moon. They couldn’t properly plan to retrieve everyone from the moon if they knew nothing about its surface. Where would they find everyone’s pieces? How many Lunarians would they have to fight? So instead they discussed how they could prepare for the unknown.
The second biggest obstacle was the question of how they could manage to keep Luffy’s form solid for as much of the mission as they could. It would be inconvenient (and most likely impossible) to bring something akin to a tank that would be big enough to carry their liquified form in. The general solution was rather obvious, keep Luffy cold enough for their form to remain solid. But how? Simply put, they lacked the technology for it. Even Sensei had said so when they had asked him (without the context of wanting to go to the moon of course, there was no way he would allow that).
Then there was of course the issue of somehow getting back to Earth from the moon.
None of this stopped them from brainstorming as they worked however. The Lustrous couldn’t die, so they had an eternity to figure it out.
——
The year had started off like any other.
As the temperature began to chill, Luffy’s body began to crystallize and reform. Slowly but surely as their body grew more solid, Luffy gradually pulled themself to sit upright in their storage tub.
“Welcome back Luffy,” a familiar voice greeted them as they became more aware of their surroundings.
“Sabo,” they greeted with a weak smile. They really weren’t at top form yet. Luffy looked up to find Sabo sitting on the left side of the storage tub, Ace sitting on the right side. “Your hair’s shorter,” Luffy noted as their gaze slid to Ace.
Ace startled a bit at being addressed. “Oh…yeah.” They ran a hand through their hair. “There was a weird organic creature that the Lunarians dropped off. Tried to slice it with my hair, and some of it melted off. So I decided to just cut off the melted parts.”
“Why didn’t you use your sword?” Luffy asked with a bit more energy.
Ace glared at them, though it didn’t have much actual weight to it. “It was an unexpected attack,” they insisted through Luffy’s snickers.
——
The norm quickly got derailed as Phosphophyllite asked to stay awake and take care of winter with them.
Luffy was more than willing to let them try, as was Sabo for the most part, but Ace was much more skeptical.
“You’re always the first to sleep and the last to wake up,” Ace insisted. “Why the sudden urge to stay awake?”
Phos clammed up at that. “W-well…”
Ace impatiently raised an eyebrow.
“I want to push myself.” Phos looked down at their agate striped legs. “These new legs are fast but I…I was too scared to use them when I needed to.” They looked away to the side. “The Amethyst twins insisted it was their fault but…it was mine. And I didn’t get in trouble for it. It’s frustrating.” They tried to square their shoulders and meet Ace’s eyes. “I heard that it’s hard to stay awake in winter and I want to push myself.”
Ace smirked (perhaps a bit cruelly) at their determination. “Alright then. It’s not gonna be easy though.”
——
Phos was certainly slower on the uptake. Compared to Ace and Sabo at least. They would crack more often than not whenever they tried to properly take out an ice floe, and they traveled incredibly slow due to their exhaustion from the poor light, but they still pushed on. Sabo found their newfound determination to be admirable, keeping up even when they insisted that they couldn’t go on.
Ace felt a bit differently about it.
“If you’re gonna keep whining about it,” Ace seethed as they all trudged through the snow. “Why don’t you just go back to the school and hibernate with the others!”
Phos flinched at the volume of Ace’s voice, before glaring at them. “I can’t do that!” they yelled back, standing up straight despite their exhaustion. “I said I was gonna do this, and if I give up now….it’ll prove everyone right.”
Ace gave a frustrated huff. “Then stop complaining and hurry up!”
——-
“That’s seven for me!” Sabo called out as they shattered another ice floe.
“Damn it, I’ve still only got four!” Ace shouted in frustration.
“Me too, you’re totally a liar Sabo!” Luffy cried out.
“Liar!” Phos echoed Luffy.
“Maybe if y'all didn’t complain so much you could actually catch up!”
“Mean Sabo!” Luffy yelled childishly.
“Jerk Sabo!” Phos joined in.
“Bastard Sabo!” Ace added.
——
“You know Ace used to be the worst sleepwalker during hibernation,” Luffy revealed to them all one night.
“Oh yeah?” Sabo asked, interest piqued.
They all leaned in around Luffy.
“I’m pretty sure they were fighting something in their dreams,” Luffy laughed. “Ace would start breaking things if I didn’t stop them.”
“And how did you do that?” Ace asked, mortified by their past sleepwalking escapades.
“I would throw a sheet over ya,” Luffy explained. “I actually have no idea why that worked.”
——
“Maybe I’m remembering wrong since I lost a lot of memories with my legs but,” Phos started as they were all shoveling out the school. “Didn’t you two used to be called Bort and Diamond?”
“You’re remembering right,” Sabo assured them. “One year we found out what our names actually were, so we just go by them now.”
“Ah,” Phos said in a way that indicated that they didn’t fully understand.
“Don’t think too hard about it,” Sabo laughed. “We don’t really understand it either.”
——
One day, Sabo and Phos were working on the ice floes while Luffy and Ace cleared snow. Sabo got knocked in the face by a stray ice floe piece and it managed to break off a good chunk of their face.
“Son of a bitch,” they muttered as they gathered up the pieces. “Took my eye out too.”
Phos couldn’t help but stare. “You’re…”
At first Sabo wasn’t sure what Phos was so shocked about, but then they remembered. Without the powder… “Ah yeah,” they sigh. “I lost quite a bit of my left side to the Lunarians. Luckily, we had enough ruby on stand by to replace all that I lost.”
“I mean…I saw that your eye was ruby but I didn’t think…”
“It’s ok,” Sabo said. “That was the last of the ice floes, let’s head back so we can reattach these.”
The walk back was silent at first.
“Did you…lose a lot of memories?” Phos broke the silence.
“It’s not like I’d really know,” Sabo laughed humorlessly.
“Oh yeah.”
“I know that I lost a lot of memories of Ace though. Not that it ended up mattering that much.”
“How do you know that?”
“Cuz that stubborn ass was insistent on rebuilding our bond after I woke up barely remembering who they were.” Sabo’s smile was warm.
——
The delicacy with which Luffy handled Sabo’s pieces as they worked to reattach them said a lot about how they cared for the other. It was also astonishingly out of character, which was impressive on its own.
“I thought Rutile and Sensei were the only ones who were any good at this stuff,” is what Phos said out loud instead.
“I’m not as good as either of them,” Luffy admitted as they finished fixing Sabo. “But Sensei thought it’d be good for me to know, since I used to be on my own during winter.”
“So you had to put yourself back together?”
Luffy shrugged. “Sometimes. Whenever Sensei was asleep.”
——
When Phos fell into the water, Ace was the one to pull them out before diving in after their arms.
Ace emerged from the icy depths seeming panicked. ”They weren’t…” they gasped, dragging themself out onto the ice. “They were gone and…” They threw their newly detached hand and leg out onto the ice as well. “I couldn’t swim well without my leg but…” They let out a frustrated sound and punched the ice with their remaining hand. “Damn it!!”
Sabo grimaced. “Phos’s arms are brittle, they’ve probably already been ground up,” they said. “Let’s go back to the school for now.”
Luffy carried an unconscious Phos and Sabo carried Ace back to the school.
——
It was decided that they should go to the Shore of Nascency as soon as possible. Finding Phos a suitable replacement for their arms could take a while, so it was better that they started searching right away.
Ace stayed behind at the school to be repaired by Sensei. They all decided that there wasn’t a need to wait for them, since Sabo and Luffy made a perfectly fine team if the need to fight arose.
The Shore didn’t have much to offer beyond a chunk of ruby (that they’d for sure have to remember for later, perhaps Padparadscha could use it) and a lot of gold and platinum alloy.
“The ruby for sure can’t be used,” Sabo explained. “It’s too different in hardness.” They picked up some of the gold alloy with a bit of effort. “And this is too heavy and malleable but…gold has been used before. It could serve well as a temporary replacement.” They looked up at Phos. “Would you like to try it?”
Phos thought for a moment. “I want to help with the rest of winter. So I’ll try it.”
Sabo nodded and went to attach the metal to Phos’s arm stump. As soon as they let go, it thumped to the ground in an unmovable heap.
“Your body didn’t reject it,” Luffy said. “Now you just gotta get it moving!”
No sooner than Luffy had said that did the alloy start shifting and creeping and growing.
“Woah,” Luffy said in shock.
None of them had seen anything like it before, and none of them saw the sunshine starting to peek through the clouds.
“Do your inclusions….like it?” Sabo asked.
“I don’t…” Phos struggled to respond. “I don’t know…I can’t…” they looked at Sabo. “I can’t move…”
The sun glinted off of the alloy, catching Luffy’s attention. “Look out—!”
An arrow shot through the air and straight through Sabo’s neck, beheading them. Their head rolled a bit in the snow as their body collapsed to the ground.
Luffy turned a murderous glare on the forming sun spot. “Stay here,” they murmured to Phos as they launched themself into the sky.
——
“I won’t let you steal my memories,” Luffy seethed after the Lunarian took their hand. “Not of Ace and Sabo!”
——
Luffy, to put it quite bluntly, was a mess. Their body was practically falling apart after that last Lunarian exploded. But they did it! They had warded them off, and no one had gotten taken! “I…I did it!” they cheered tiredly to themself as they hobbled over to where Phos and Sabo were.
Phos’ new arms had formed into a hard protective cube. Sabo’s head and body lay beside it undisturbed.
“Hey Phos!” Luffy called when they reached it. “You ok in there?”
“Yeah!” Phos called back. “I’m just sorta…stuck.”
“Lemme try to,” Luffy grabbed onto one of the cube’s slates. “Get you out!“ They braced themself with one of their heels and pulled. “I need your help to carry Sabo back to the school.”
“So they didn’t get Sabo?” Phos asked. “Or any part of you?”
“Nope!” Luffy chirped. “I mean, parts of me are kinda scattered everywhere, but I got them before they could take anything!”
Phos sighed. “I’m really glad that you’re—“
Another arrow cut through Luffy’s neck. The impact had the rest of them falling to pieces too.
Phos cried out, and a sea of golden hands kept them silent. They could see Luffy’s shocked expression through the slates of their prison.
They were falling.
“Please Phos.”
Luffy pleaded in their last moments of consciousness.
“Don’t let them take my brothers.”
Their head hit the ground, as did the rest of their shards.
It was too bad that they had only remembered now, as they were about to be taken. But Luffy didn’t mind.
As their consciousness faded, their mouth stretched into a contented smile.
At least they had gotten to see Ace and Sabo again.
——
Please, Phos begged with their arms as they saw the Lunarians collecting Luffy’s pieces. Please.
They couldn’t move in the sea of gold that consumed them.
I need to fight, they reasoned. Luffy is counting on me. Please.
Nothing changed.
There was a bright glint through the slates of their prison. One of the Lunarians had grabbed Sabo’s head, and the sun was reflecting off of their hair.
Luffy’s words echoed in Phos’ mind.
“Move, you junk!” they yelled.
——
In the end, Phos had managed to keep Sabo safe, but Luffy was still taken. No matter how much they changed, no matter how strong they got, it was never—
Phos cut their hair. It was mostly so that they could fill in the fragments they were lost to the snow, but it also made them look a bit like Luffy. It felt right in a sense.
Ace hated them now. More than they had before. Ever since they were repaired and Phos explained what happened to Luffy. Phos was lucky that Sabo hadn’t regained consciousness yet. They would probably hate Phos too.
They worked together at the various tasks that came with winter (they were the only two awake to do so), but everything was carried out in a heavy silence.
Phos tried to take comfort in the fact they had fulfilled Luffy’s last wish at least. They were pretty sure that Ace and Sabo had been the ‘brothers’ that they’d been referring to. Who else could they have been talking about? Certainly not Phos.
But it wasn’t enough, it was never enough, they were never enough—
Phos couldn’t really sleep anymore. The few times they did, they would see Luffy falling apart all over again, Sabo and Ace being taken along with them.
But winter was already exhausting, and they’d grown used to it.
——
Sabo woke up a few days later. Apparently, their body being made up of two different gems sometimes delayed them in waking up. They hadn’t recognized Phos for a second.
And after everything was explained to them, Phos’s prediction was proven correct.
Sabo’s resentment was not often outwardly shown, but they no longer treated Phos with any warmth or kindness. Instead they were ignored. Cut out.
Phos had expected this but it still hurt.
At least they didn’t have to work with Ace anymore. Instead they split the tasks. Ace and Sabo worked as a team and Phos worked alone.
Phos was incredibly lonely.
And though they still had Sensei to talk to, he wasn’t able to fill the gaping hole that Phos felt in their chest.