Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Heart of the Fire

A butterfly beats its wings in a hurricane and a new storm brews in a far away place.

A far off Marine survives a barrage of bullets, saved by a ship that was just ever so slightly closer. The wake of that ship changes a wave, that wave a current, that current drives a storm.

That storm rises the tide on a desolate island and washes out to sea a treasure chest with a prize inside that can change the world. The sea shifts and the box moans with the secret prize tucked safely inside. One storm after another blows it from one course to the next sending it from the ocean upstream of an island far off path.

Upriver and into the muddy jungle banks of a wild island unknowingly out of place in its corner of the world. There it finally rested until someone opened the box to reveal its prize.

The secret prize that had drifted so far from fate's design was but a simple fruit.

Never knowing the powers of conquerors, monsters, and men; a fruit is such a small thing to a child's eyes. Indeed it was a child's eyes that it met. A child with a powerful name and a painful secret all of his own.

A name that spoke of card games and fate.
The death card, the trump card, the wild card.

A boy named Ace.
The son of the last pirate king.

A stubborn, willful, and angry boy.
But most of all –

Hungry.


A single bite and another butterfly's wings beat. Another storm began to brew, changing the tides once more on the ever changing world.

Chapter Text

Ace bit into the strange fruit he'd found without a care. A moment later he'd wish he had perhaps cared a bit more before he took that bite.

The taste was foul and its reaction immediate. He began to cough and gag, sputtering to get the foul taste out of his mouth and spit up the piece he had already swallowed. But in spite of all his efforts it was already too late.

The warmth of the jungle air fell away becoming a non-sensation that a nine year old Ace couldn't put to words even if he'd wanted to. He couldn't fathom then the future that stole all meaning of hot and cold. And in the future he'd scarcely recall the past when he could feel the tired warmth of hot day or when a light chill didn't mean true danger.

He couldn't have known then. He was both the butterfly and its hurricane. He was in the eye of the storm.

He couldn't think of anything past the sound pulsing in his ears. A sound he that at first he couldn't even recognize as his own heartbeat. It was a familiar rhythm but a strange and new instrument played it.

Each new heartbeat sounded like the roaring updraft of a rising inferno.

As he listened to that sound his blood rushed and ran hot.

His hand caught fire. Panic seized at him. Frantically he dunked his burning hand in the stream but when he drew it out there were no burns. No burns and no pain.

The fire came back again this time he was calm. There was no pain and still no burns either.

He wasn't on fire.

He was fire.

~o~o~o~

To Ace's own surprise – and perhaps to no one else's who knew the already fiery boy – in the weeks and months that followed he liked his newfound power.

It felt good, better than good even.

It was incredible, and amazing, and wonderful and it felt...right.

He cackled with joy at Dadan's put upon groan when he showed her his shimmering flint-sparking hands.

He grinned a rare mischief filled smile when Dogra and Magra eyed him with wary acceptance.

He preened wreathed in his flames as he proudly showed Sabo. Who, after getting over his own shock, was equal parts curious and amazed. They had shared the same knowing, mischievous grin that day. They were going to get so much treasure now!

When he unveiled it to the rest of the tiny corner of the world he knew the winds of change had already begun to blow.

No one in the terminal could touch him.

He felt unstoppable.

But with the sweet came the sour.

Wonder was not without consequence.

For every pirate, bandit, lowlife and goon they stole victory and beli from there were just as many problems made. Spontaneous combustions, explosive sneezes, melted pipes, and accidental bonfires were just the tip of the iceberg.

The easy marks would grow wise and weary while the harder targets they'd avoided before would raise their heads and take notice. With newfound power the ugly side of their playground stopped holding back. Youth was no longer an excuse when they made themselves seem like a worthwhile target.

With that freshly painted target Sabo took his first steps and left the forest edge of Grey Terminal behind and joined Ace and Dadan's bandits deep in the mountain jungle they called home.

The move brought the boys closer than ever even as the skirmishes only grew harder. The rewards for when they scrapped together wins were bigger but so too were the loses. Their pirate savings had grown and shined just as brightly as the bruises that littered their skin.

It was only thanks to monstrous strength, unnatural fire, and childish cunning that they walked away as well as the did.

Each trip into Grey Terminal brought new riches, new wounds, and sometimes even word from outside.

Ace could tell the moment they arrived in the trash pile that this was one of the latter. The fetid air of the terminal grew tense and its denizens cautious. The outislanders and drifters spread the whispers that the denizens didn't. So the boys listened. The hunting dog figurehead of the Tenacity had been spotted no more than a day out from the far coast.

Grandpa was coming.

~o~o~o~

It didn't take long after Grandpa arrived for the normal one-sided bickering between him and Dadan and her bandits to start up. It was a tired old tale that would spark anew with every visit. Always to the same tune, only the subject would change – even then only just.

“GARP YOU BASTARD! You hamstring me into looking after a kid and leave me to raise a tiny arsonist!” Dadan's voice was as loud as any marine drill sergeant's and twice as grating, not that Garp showed as much. Ace sometimes wondered if his grandpa leaving him with Dadan was just as much part of his fanciful dream of a marine grandson as his training. 

“Arson? What'd he burn?" For a moment Dadan looked like she was the one who could breath fire instead of him.

Scary.

“He about set the whole mountain ablaze just the other day.” 

“I said it was an accident!” Ace's argument was just as heated as his foster mother's if only a bit more literal.

His upper body was shrouded in fire down to his tiny shaking fists while short flames spat from his mouth. The bandits gasped and ran around wildly. Dadan groaned and gestured down at him with both hands while glaring at Garp as if to say 'look what you made me deal with'.

Behind Dadan's back Magra and Dogra held buckets full of water, prepared to throw them on the boy at a moment's notice if the flames got out of hand.
Somehow, in spite all of that Garp didn't react. At first he only glanced at Ace but then did a wild double take as it registered that his eldest grandson was actually on fire.

“EHHHHH!?" Garp's eyes bugged out of his head before he could reign in his surprise.
"When did you get a devil fruit, you brat!?”

“So that's what that was.”

“You ate it and you didn't know what it was!?” Garp gaped at him. From under his breath Ace could barely hear his grandpa mutter “I'd expect this from Luffy, not from you.”

Who was Luffy?
Ace wondered silently before deciding better, shrugging the name and the judgment out of mind.

“I was hungry.”

“Hmph. And who is this? I don't remember there being two of you.”

“I'm Sabo.”

“Fine. But don't think that spares you from my fists of love.” Garp held up his fist proudly in a strongman's pose with a terrifying smile spread wide on his face. Ace smirked feeling like he had the upper hand for once. It was a rare powerful feeling. Sabo clearly didn't share his confidence as he eyed the old marine warily.

Ace wanted to crow at the powerful feeling of finally getting one over on the old man and prove his might to his best friend. He was certain he'd prove to Sabo that there was nothing to worry about.

Sadly that idea was a short lived one.

The smug knowing look on Ace's face was knocked off it when a hard fist met the top of his head in spite of being fiery and intangible. Sabo on the other hand realized his worry was exactly as well founded as he thought when a second fist met his own.

Garp let out a full bellied laugh at the look of shock on his eldest grandson's face and a matching one on the newest addition's.

“You thought you were hot shit didn't you.” Ace swallowed his surprise to glare and growl instead.

Garp only chuckled. In his eyes Ace looked just as cute and about as threatening as a feral kitten. He reached out ruffled the boy's hair while Ace warred between squirming away and leaning into it. It was a war that Garp could see as plain as the sun in the sky and one that warmed his heart just as well.

“What are you even doing here? You already had your visit.” Garp waved Ace's grumbled question aside nonchalantly

“Had to pick up a medical transfer in North Blue and pass by here anyway.”

“Besides – ” If Garp's grin from before was terrifying his current one was the stuff of nightmares.

“That Red Haired punk has been having too much fun sailing these parts, thinking I don't know.”

Ace almost felt sorry for whatever poor bastard his grandpa had set his sights on.

Almost.

Chapter Text

On the far side of Dawn Island, a world away from a young firestarter's life of jungles, trash heaps, and hoodwinked nobles, Garp's surprise visit was serving as a reminder to the quiet sleepy Foosha Village that harboring pirates was a game of dice. It was taking chances with fools and fate and the players were never who they expected.

Makino, a young bartender wiser than her years, perhaps guessed it best. She was the one who saw every walk of life that drifted through their town at their highs and lows. She knew the duality of men and monsters that wore their skins.

She knew the dorky red-haired pirate with his sea king eyes was more than the happy go lucky drifter he portrayed. Just like she knew there was more to the old sea dog with the seagull's cross on his chest than an old fool with more strength than sense.

She'd been raising one long enough to recognize them for what they really were and to know

– monsters did as they pleased.

Beings of the sea, forces of nature that walked the world as men and kept to no code but their own.
She'd never mistake kindness or contentment for being harmless. Pirates weren't good but nor were they evil and marines weren't always just.

Life and death were just games to them, the rest of the world and all the non-players in it were just set dressing. Nothing more than wooden cutouts to be knocked down and walked by with never a second thought.

~o~o~o~

Sitting,
drinking,
listlessly wishing,
and absently listening;
the song of storms and tides and marine guns made their way to the ears of the Red Force's crew and her captain.

Each and every one went about their fun as they had for weeks past but one and all were tightly wound with hair string triggers, ready to fight or flee at a moment's notice. Being within a league of Garp The Fist did that to people, especially if they were on the technically wrong side of the law.

“Chief, should we make way?”

“Nah, I want to mess with the old man for a bit.”

“Chief.” Beckman's voice was nothing short of a groan. Half chiding and half exasperation, both of which he already knew fell on deaf ears with his captain being who he was.

“Just for old times sake.” Shanks grinned with his hands held wide, the picture of boyish innocence that not a soul believed.

“You are gonna give me grey hair, Chief.”

“Come on, it'll be fun!” Benn sighed. He knew already it wasn't worth the wasted breath trying to change his captain's mind on anything.

“Grey hair!” He chided once more even though he was already turning to ready the ship for his captain's games.

“You signed on with me of your own volition.” Even all these years later, his captain was still far too cheery about that in his opinion. Just to spite the menace, he called over his shoulder to get the last word in.

“And some days I question my life choices.” It was the honest truth. But it was a choice he would go to his grave without regrets for. Childish fool of a captain or not.

~o~o~o~

The stories of Garp The Fist and his daring chase of the Red Hair Pirates would be told in bawdy tales in bars and old inns throughout East Blue for years to come.

They came and went as they pleased, raiding marine bases on curry nights and trading cannon fire like it was nothing more than friendly banter before sweeping back into Dawn's harbor like a gull on the breeze. And every return was met with dark starry eyes filled with wonder waiting to rush into the red hair captain's arms for the next set of stories to be told.

Every greeting made his heart swell and made the next departure all the more painful.

Shanks knew it deep in his bones just like his captain and vice captain before him. The sea was no place for a child. Not even one with a D's smile and sea king eyes. He knew it with everything he was and all the battles that came before, but still he dreamed a fool's dream.

He dreamed of the wind and the waves and of dark hair and dark eyes. He dreamed of showing the world he'd come to love as his captain had showed it to him so long ago. But...

No.

It wasn't safe.
It would never be safe.

A child was only at home on a ship when there was no land left to take them.

So he did what life had long taught him to do with a laugh and a D's smile.

He buried the wish that could never be and all its pain under the simplest things in life.

If only life would agree to let things be...

~o~o~o~

Life is simple when you have no plans and take every day as it comes. Its sweet when every day is an adventure. But the simplicity of it all makes men blind and when it finally catches up its the snowball that turns into an avalanche.

It started with a game.
A game became a raid.
A raid became a victory.

And that victory bore a fruit.

Once more the winds of fate blew on Dawn Island's shores as providence found another hungry child.

A new drum began to beat.
A new one...
or perhaps, a very old one.

~o~o~o~

When the shock and worry that came from the accidentally pilfered score began to die down it seemed as though everything went back to the way it was before.

The crew sang and danced and drank through the day and long into the night just as they had like so many days before. But it was different now. There was an undercurrent to the mood that didn't quite fade and every member of the rowdy crew kept a weather eye open, practicing the art of watching without looking at their captain and Luffy both.

The Red-Hairs partied hard and little Luffy tried his best to last the marriement with them. But long before the night was through they found their favorite Anchor fast asleep curled against their captain’s chest. For a time no one commented on it. It was as if the wrong breath would shatter the peace where the din of a pirate’s party hadn’t. 

It was Makino who finally spoke.

“Oh Luffy. What am I going to do with you.” She shook her head with a soft smile at the darling picture the sleeping boy and the captain he adored so much made.

“Little tyke wore himself out. It was an eventful day.” Even she could tell that the cheer in the red haired captain's voice was a facsimile of his usual self. She opened her mouth to say more, to ask what troubled the man. But it was as if Makino’s attention had finally broken the ice and proved to the rest of the crew their captain wasn’t as fragile as they thought.

A flood of gentle ribbing washed over the man and Shanks seemingly welcomed it.

“Looks like you're a bit stuck there, Chief.”

“With that fruit the little guy really does sleep like an octopus now.”

“Don't you know the first rule of kids? If the baby is sleeping on you you aren't moving.” Yasopp grinned.

“I thought that was cats?”

“Besides, since when did you become an expert on kids?”

“I've got one of my own don't I.” Yasopp's eyes grew misty with a far off look the way they often did when he thought of his wife and son.

Shanks let them live it up and laugh but he didn’t move the child from his side. It wasn’t until Makino offered to take Luffy up to bed herself that he did anything at all.

“I’ve got it, Makino.”

“Oh would you?”

“It’s no trouble.”

Shanks followed Makino’s directions to the letter and navigated the tiny flat over the bar to tuck the rambunctious child in.

With every step he took away from the noise and din of his crew and into the quiet with nothing but his own thoughts and a child’s snores, he  fought not to answer the call of the genie at the bottom of a bottle of rum. 

Guilt wracked his mind and flashes of a moment in childhood haunted him from the last time someone he cared for ate a devil fruit. The image of Luffy's stretchy limbs overlaid with the visage of Buggy swiftly sinking beneath the waves as the ocean tried to claim her due.

It was all his fault…

Because of him another boy with the makings of a great pirate had been dealt the most dangerous weakness there was in a world of water and unforgiving waves. Buggy who had shined with a want for treasure that the sea would never let him claim and now Luffy who glowed like the sun itself with a want of adventure and sea wandering. 

His own carelessness might have ended a dream before it had even begun to burn.

“I could have swore I locked it...I'm so sorry, Anchor...I'm so sorry.”

With one last somber look Shanks turned on his heel and staggered back down to the bar. Benn was the first to catch the distant look in his eye. Or at least the first to say anything about it.

“Chief.”

“Its fine.”

“We'll shove off at first light. Just a quick jaunt to get your head straight before you talk to him again.”

“Yeah...”

“Just a quick jaunt then we'll be back by lunch for him to tell you all about his day. Everything will work out fine.”

Neither Shanks or Benn had any way of knowing then just how wrong he was. Or what would happen next.

~o~o~o~

It was supposed to be a quick run to clear their head. It was supposed to be simple. What they returned to was anything but.

It was as if every misfortune that had passed Dawn Island by in their time there came to visit all at once. Bandits, a shoot out, a kidnapping, and now this...

The bandit was gone. As dead and gone as a man could get being swallowed whole like that into the belly of a sea king fry – him and an arm. But the little boy who had become Shanks' treasure wasn't.

Luffy was alive.

That's all that mattered.

Damn the bandit.

Damn his missing arm.

And damn him too for being too panicked in the moment to wield his haki like the sword and shield his captain and vice-captain had trained it to be.

“Is Luffy gone?”

“Yeah Chief, he's gone. Makino's got him.”

“Oh good...Hey Benn...I think I need a doctor.” 

The red-haired man never heard an answer. He never heard his first mate shout and catch him as his eyes rolled back and his body swayed before the fall. He never heard the scrambled footsteps around them both rushing to save him.

He never heard any of it.

~o~o~o~

Garp's face was stern and his eyes grave as he took in the prone form of his once adversary's now grown first child.

Red-Hair's eyes were darkly shadowed, his face was pale, soaked with sweat, and his shoulders hung weary.

It was always a strange sight for the old marine to see great men laid low. So it had been when he'd seen Roger in his dying last days and so too it was now seeing the man's son sickly and crippled.

He'd rise again one day, he was sure of that. No son of Roger's – by blood or by bond – could ever be kept down for long but until then Red Hair was so shockingly mortal.

He couldn't help but sigh deeply at that. Just when did he start feeling so old?

“These games of yours were cute when you were a boy, brat. Less so coming from a grown man.”

“Its time to let this come to an end.”

“But we were just s-starting to have fun.” Fevered chills were breaking the red head's speech even as he tried to laugh off any sense of authority over him. Just like Roger use to do.

Of all the terrible habits for the brat to pick up.

“You pirates...always so concerned over your own that you never stop to see anyone else.”

“Li-ke you seagulls are any better.”

“You are old enough to remember who my damned brat is. Wise enough to match him with who he became too. With you here there's too many eyes watching this island. Too many eyes that might see something in a little boy that they shouldn't.” Shanks, even in his fevered state, recognized exactly what the old marine had just admitted to.

Something he'd suspected but never thought about. Monkey D. Dragon, the marine declared missing in action long ago and Dragon the Revolutionary were the same man.

And Garp The Fist, Hero of The Marines just admitted that Luffy – little Luffy, the sun in the sky, the little anchor that his whole crew had come to love – was the blood born son of not just a marine traitor but the most wanted man in the world.

It was treason at its finest.

It was dangerous .

Men had been hung for less. Islands had been burned for less.

There was no such thing as innocent blood to the World Government.

He knew that better than most.

“I'm asking you, Red Hair. Not as a marine but as a grandfather. Get the hell off this island and don't look back. Put Dawn Island in your wake and never let it cross your horizon again.”

“When I'm good enough to sail, we'll be leaving for the grand line again.”

“See that you do. I'll be back again soon, if you and your lot aren't gone by then I'll have you in irons myself.”

“Keep dreaming, old man.”

~o~o~o~

The days came and went, drifting by until finally the roaring dragon figurehead of the Red Force pointed its nose towards a new horizon on a day just as sleepy and unassuming as the one they arrived on.

A moment in forever, forgotten by the world and all but those who would hold that moment close, marked the end of an era turning cold in its grave and the start of something new.
As they crossed the threshold and Dawn became just another distant shore every one of them could feel it in their bones, a dream had begun to burn and wouldn’t let itself die.

An arm, a hat, a promise, and a heart; all stolen, bartered, and gifted to and for a little boy with a D's smile and sea king's eyes.

~o~o~o~

True to their words neither pirate nor marine crossed each other's paths again. When the hunting dog figurehead of Garp's ship swooped into the harbor not a trace of the pirates it had given shelter to was left to be seen.

“Makino.”

“Garp.”

“Where's Luffy?”

“He's at the beach. He's been there every day since Captain Shanks and his crew left port. Its been three days and I've barely gotten him to eat.” Garp's woolly brow furrowed at that. Never, in his tiny youngest grandchild's entire life, had he ever known the boy to turn away food.

“He put on a brave face when they were leaving but...”

“I'll talk to him.” Makino leveled the old marine with a doubtful look that anyone with eyes could see meant she didn't believe for a moment his 'talk' would just be with words. Naturally, Garp either didn't notice or elected to ignore it entirely. Were he anyone else he'd have been chewed out for his rudeness already. But Makino had lived on Dawn Island long enough to know when to pick her battles, especially when it came to dealing with the Monkey men.

~o~o~o~

Garp had always been a lucky man, some would argue unreasonably so. No fool could survive untreated narcolepsy for decades among blood thirsty pirates, cut throat promotion hungry marines, and hellish turbulent seas if they weren't born damn lucky. 

It wasn't unique to him; his father had been the same as were his damned criminal son and his sweet sunshine baby grandson. Things just tended to work out. Though whether that was for the better or worse for the people around them changed with the moon and tides.

The Monkey clan were born under a bright star. It was everybody else's stars that were the problem.

He just tended to forget that when his family were at odds it was always a coin toss of who's stars burned brighter. So really, it was no wonder that what should have been a short jaunt to the small docks of Foosha left him gobsmacked.

He stood with his mouth agape unable to think of anything else as he recognized the hat sitting on his youngest grandson's head like the terrible ominous crown it was. “That punk!”

Without even realizing it he aimed to grab the hat.

“NO! Y O U C AN T HA V E IT! ” Luffy's tiny hands gripped the frayed edges of the straw hat down over his ears. Garp paused as he felt a flicker of something. Were it coming from anyone else he wouldn't even think to consider that it could be haki of any kind. But this was his grandson.

His tiny, scrappy, youngest grandson who had just emitted a spark of barely there haki, all over Roger's damned old hat. Rayleigh ought to have put that cursed thing in the garbage where it belonged before it ever made it to Red Hair's head in the first place.

“Fine.” He scooped his tiny troubled child under an arm and began a long march.

Garp was but a simple man of simple means and when faced with problems he turned to tried and true solutions first.

Chapter Text

When the present thinks of its distant past or far future it often believes that the forces of chance that turn the hands of fate can be seen for what they are by the ones who live through them –that they can feel and know when such things happen. It is thought that there is no way such changes in destiny could ever feel so impossibly normal that they could be missed.

The present rarely ever realizes just how wrong that belief is.
After all, the butterfly can hardly see the distant storm its wing-beats brew.

Such was the case of the most auspicious meeting of several young lives on one wild little island lost in a too calm sea.

~o~o~o~

Mt. Colubo
Home of The Dadan Bandits

Garp plopped the squishy ball of snot and tears in front of them, treating it like he did everything else, like it was their problem to solve and his only job was to deliver it to them.

A fat vein in Dadan's temple throbbed violently.

“I can't stay long but I'll stay as long as I can...j-just in case he needs me.” The harsh bellow she had been prepared to let loose on Garp fizzled away before it left her lungs when she heard what was normally an obnoxiously loud and boisterous voice speak so softly in an uncharacteristically concerned whisper.

Dadan wondered at that, she wondered if he would ever tell her even if she asked. But even thinking it… she already knew that answer. Three generations of Monkey men had lived on this island in her lifetime and not a single one of them ever said a word more on anything than they wanted to regardless of if it needed to be said.

The whole bastard line could know the secrets to the universe and they'd never think to say unless it got them their next meal.

Mentally, she sighed. She could ask pointless questions that would never get an answer or she could settle in and wait for the fall out of whatever hell the Monkey had brought to her door this time. 

It was hardly a choice at all.
So she lit a fresh cigarette and waited with her eyes on the old man just in case.

While Dadan was sizing up Garp’s strange and unusual display of emotions Luffy, Ace, and Sabo were all stuck greeting each other like a band of poorly socialized feral cats forced into the same sack. There was hissing and spitting from Ace, a deluge of chatter with no sense of boundaries from Luffy, and Sabo simply left watching it all unfold.

~o~o~o~

Ace was at a loss.

When his grandfather had come up the mountain path Ace had been ready to come over and sass the old man but when he dropped that snotty drooling crying mess in front of them he froze up. An angry jealous knot was forming in his throat and he didn’t like it. Who was this brat to just show up unannounced and unwanted with his grandfather? 

His jaw clenched and his fists quaked.

The crying lump sniffled one more time and furiously rubbed away his tears with his tiny pint sized fists. He looked them both in the eye as if he thought he belonged there and opened his mouth in the loudest most obnoxious way anyone other than Garp had.
“I’m Monkey D. Luffy, I’m – ” Whatever that full chested bellowing was going to say next was cut off entirely.

Luffy.
This was the Luffy that his grandpa had mentioned? This crybaby? 

“GAH! You spit at me! That’s gross!”

“So?”

“If you are so wimpy about a little spit, why don’t you take this.” An inconveniently(or perfectly) timed stumble from Luffy made Ace’s fiery punch miss its mark completely. But instead of being scared by the rush of fire Luffy’s face split into a wide grin.

“You got a mystery power too!”

Ace and Sabo looked to one another silently asking the other if they understood what the smaller boy was saying. Neither did but luckily they didn’t have to wait long to find out. Luffy simply steamrolled through any semblance of conversation all on his own.

“I ate the Gomu Gomu fruit and now I'm a rubber man.”

“Who would call you any sort of man? You’re just a crybaby.”

“Am not! My punches are like pistols!” He clearly tried to show them but flailing stretchy limbs ricocheted uselessly and caught himself instead. The little boy crumpled under his own punch with frustrated tears starting to glisten in his eyes.

“Tch. See? Crybaby. Besides, fire is a way better power than rubber anyway.”

“Is not!” And that started another round between them, oblivious to their onlookers.

~o~o~o~

While fire blazed and rubbery limbs ricocheted Garp watched his precious grandsons with weary eyes. 

For all the bluster and sputtering going on from the bandits surrounding the boys, the happenings between them were really quite tame — barely more than play fighting really. Luffy hadn't resorted to biting anyone yet. And Ace was displaying a remarkable amount of control. Not much in the way of technique or skill yet though.
With the trained eye of a marine instructor who had taught more than his fair share of dumb new fruit users he could see the truth of the matter.

Ace was throwing fires cool enough to barely sting and small enough they were more hot air and flash than menace. 

His grumbly angry boy…somehow in spite of bringing home a stray of his own he was going through only child growing pains. He knew that Ace had grown stronger than the bandits that surrounded him at a far younger age than he should have. And he knew from that moment on Ace had never had to share anything he didn’t want to with anyone.

This sort of reaction wasn’t all that surprising when he bothered to remember that particular detail.

He sighed heavily to himself, wondering where to go from here.

He wasn't a good guardian. He wasn't a good grandfather and he hadn't been a good father either. Dragon was proof enough of that. The best he'd ever been able to do for any of his family was prepare them for the world that waited for them.

Ace and Luffy both were wild things, perhaps even more than he or Dragon had been. 

Ace...his ten year old spitfire of an eldest grandson.
The one who was once that tiny swaddle of blankets he’d held so tight the day he was born.
The one he’d swore on both Rouge and Roger’s graves that he would love and care for as his own. 

Ace, who was every bit as much an exercise in contradictions as the very fire he was made of. Someone who was fierce and angry, who barely understood right from wrong and yet… he was loyal and protective. 

Ace, he understood. The same fire that warmed you in the winter and cooked a good meal could forge steel and burn forests to desolation.

Luffy…
Luffy was different.

He didn’t think he’d ever understood Luffy. Some days he didn’t think he ever would.
In spite of the blood they shared from birth, Luffy had come to him older than Ace had and though they had bonded they'd never connected quite the same.
Every now and then he was struck with the feeling that the world he was trying to prepare Luffy to face wasn't even the same as the one his grandson saw.

Before Red-Hair’s sneaky visit he'd taken solace in the thought that even if he understood nothing else then at least he still knew how to talk to him. He had thought Luffy and Ace to be cut from the same cloth. He was candy and sunshine when he wanted to be but he'd been quick to anger, easy to rile and full of childish pride — things he knew how to deal with in a young man coming into his own.

But now?
Now he wasn’t so sure.

It felt as though something had happened in between the moments he looked and the curtain had been peeled back to reveal something he'd never even realized.

He'd spent years trying to teach boys who would one day be monstrous men only to see Roger's red-haired brat having made more progress with his youngest grandson in a single year than he ever had in all the years before.

Red-Hair…
Roger's first child.

Red-Hair was no monstrous man. He walked the world with the face of a man but he was more monster than man. In some ways he was more a monster than even Roger had been. A monster that chose to be gentle when it suited him but no more a man than a trained lion was a house cat.

He would never admit it to the brat's face but maybe Red-Hair was right.

He'd tried it his way.
He'd tried teaching monstrous boys to be good and honorable monstrous men.

What he needed to do…
What he'd needed to do all along was to train them to be the monsters they already were.

~o~o~o~

And so the wild old marine faced down the challenge of his even wilder grandsons. They ran circles, yelling between them, trading barbs and blows alike. Each blow that landed escalated the next and the next after that. A blazing fist was answered with a rubbery one that was answered in  turn with a steel pipe’s resounding blow. 

Around and around they went ever increasing the threats to the bandit clan’s meager property and their queen’s flammable clothesline.

“AGH! Napkin guy!”

“What! Don’t hide behind me; he wants to burn you, not me. Leave me out of it. And my name’s Sabo, not ‘Napkin-Guy’.”

“Damn it, Garp! Do something useful would you.” Dadan roared, finally fed up enough to give herself at least enough bravery to demand that he stand up and step in with the boys running rampant all over her property

Garp rubbed at the ringing in his ear. “Alright brats, that’s enough of that.”

THUNK!
THUNK!
THUNK!

“GRAMPS!” All three boys whined with tears in their eyes clutching their now sore noggins. All of the hissing and fire that had been aimed at each other died back and focused on the old marine. As an afterthought he remembered he didn’t need haki on the blonde one but shrugged it off, choosing to scoop Ace up and over his shoulder.

“Hey put me down!”

He side eyed Luffy and Sabo into staying put at least long enough to stomp into the brush without them at his heels.

His little firebug was squirming and swearing all the way but considering he hadn’t actually tried to ignite himself he wasn’t trying to get away too hard. It was a good sign that his oldest grandson might be willing to listen at least for a little while.

Eventually Ace just let himself hang over his shoulder without much complaint as he marched on.

The river was as good a spot to talk as any. Unceremoniously, he dumped Ace to the ground next to him before dropping to sit on the ground himself.

Together they watched the water flow as he gathered his thoughts.

“Are you going to say something?” Ace’s childish glare barely had any heat to it at all. It was more of a pout than anything.

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Are you mad that I spit at that brat and tried to set him on fire.”

“Eh? What for?” Garp waved the notion away. “You missed anyway.”

“If you aren’t mad then you can just take him back, we don't want him here. He’s just a lame crybaby anyway.”

Ace's protests were met with silence.

“Why’d you bring him here?”

“He’s my grandson, same as you. And he’s on his own now. I figured you might be able to help with that.” If it felt like there was more to that than was said Ace chose to ignore that feeling entirely. He didn't know, he didn't want to know, and he didn't care. Some stupid baby that he had to share his grandfather with didn't matter anyway.

“So?”

“He’s in a similar situation as you are. .”

“I doubt it. At least he doesn't have to deal with having a demon for a father.”

“Eh? Who said he doesn't? My idiot son is just as much trouble as Roger ever was — probably more. And he knew just as much as Roger did that he was no place to raise a brat. Might be the only smart thing that boy's ever done.”

Ace scoffed. “I doubt anyone could be as bad as that bastard.”

“Oh? How about Dragon The Revolutionary.” Ace looked up at his grandfather, eyes wide with both horror and understanding. Even as young as he was he understood. Sabo had heard stories about the revolutionaries in spite of how taboo it was to even whisper them near the gates of High Town. In turn, he had told them to Ace.

That meant…
He wasn’t alone…
There really was someone like him. Someone else who the world didn’t want but existed anyway.

But…Dragon was alive.

Slowly it began to sink in what that really meant.

The world – that didn't even know if he existed — hated the very idea of him and wanted him dead for daring to have the blood of a dead man. If that very same world knew a still living and breathing monster like Dragon had a child...

They wouldn't just kill Luffy…
They'd use him. 

Just like he’d seen and heard the worst of the worst doing in the darkest corners of Grey Terminal. They'd make that weird seven year old idiot into a leash to control a dangerous man. 

If it even worked…

He had seen what happened in the Terminal when it didn’t too.
It was never good.

It felt like everything he knew and felt was being upended and he didn't know what to think or feel about it.

For one rare moment that was starting to feel all too common this visit — and too big for his ten year old mind to fully grasp — Garp looked subdued under the weight of all his years. He met Ace’s horrified understanding eyes with a sad defeated look all of his own. Ace couldn’t help but think such an  expression didn’t belong on his normally boisterous grandpa’s face. Garp was supposed to be dumb and smiling with a too loud laugh or yelling at him for something stupid. 

He wasn’t supposed to be…this.

“I wish the world was better and that you boys didn't have to learn so young just how much it isn't.”

Ace rolled his eyes trying to ignore the knot that was tying itself in his throat. The weight of the knowledge he'd been given was so heavy on his shoulders. His mind was spinning and it kept coming back to that one thought.

He wasn't the only one like him anymore.
There was another one and he didn't even know it yet.

“You should have just left him wherever he was. Bet he had people who wanted him there.”

“The world would be a much easier place to live if I could just do that and leave things as they were but...I couldn't.”
“He adores that damned red-headed punk too much. It isn't safe for him to stay there anymore.” Ace narrowed his eyes at that. 

The old man had mentioned some red-haired punk before. He assumed whoever it was was just some lowlife but that lowlife was the reason that squishy ball of snot had invaded his home. He didn’t think he liked whoever that was too much.

“That's why I brought him here. I know I'm not the best Grampa and Dadan isn't exactly the picture of motherliness but its the best I can do. I need you both to be safe.”

“You can stop crying, old man.” He sassed his grandfather like it was any other day, carefully ignoring the fact that he had no idea what to do if the old man actually started crying over this sort of thing.
“I've made up my mind.”

“He's mine now. I'm gonna be the best big brother ever. So you can't take him away.” Ace froze as he realized what he just said. Why did he say that? Did he really mean to say that? He barely knew anything about Luffy and all he'd done the entire time they had known each other was fight but...

A bright proud warmth entered Garp's old eyes. Though he tried his best not to show it, he liked how making his grandfather proud made him feel. It felt like being wanted.

That settled it.
He wasn’t going to take those words back in the slightest. If the old man was going to be proud of him for that then he’d make him proud.

Like hell was he going to tell the old man that though.

“What would I want with him at this age? I've got years left to train you both up to be the best marines in the world.”

“Not on your life, old man.”

Garp grinned warmly and ruffled Ace's hair with his oversized palm. "Watch your mouth, brat."

~o~o~o~

With Ace and Garp gone all the spark went out of Luffy leaving Sabo to sit with him in unnerving silence. All of the loud bravado and chatter that he’d come to them with was gone and Sabo didn’t know what to think of the kid or what the kid thought of any of this in return.

“Ace is really cool.” The silence breaking words might have been out of left field but at least they were something.

“Yeah. He really is.” Sabo couldn’t help but agree because it was true. His best friend was the coolest person he knew. He just wasn’t sure why the new arrival who had nearly been barbecued thought so too.

Luffy didn't add anything else. If anything he seemed to be listening to...something; maybe the bandits, maybe it was the sounds of the forest, maybe it was some unnamed thing that only he had noticed. Either way seemed to be proving something. Luffy was more like Garp than Ace but still a far cry different even from the old man. He could chatter away about things if he wanted to but if he didn't feel like adding anything he wouldn't even if it would be normal to do so. Not that he suspected anyone in that particular family knew what normal was in the first place.

Sabo simply sighed and took off his hat to run his fingers through the snarls in his hair.

"What are you doing here anyway?" At first he wasn't even certain the smaller boy would answer him at all or just continue to stare off into the forest depths. But then he made a complicated sort of expression, one that looked so impossibly foreign to Luffy's face even to someone who had just barely met the boy.

“I don’t know…I think grandpa is sad that I’m sad. Maybe he thinks Ace will help?”

“I don’t know how to tell you this but... that’s not how things usually go.” He liked Ace and even he could admit that Ace’s personality wasn’t exactly what most people would call nice or approachable. To call the other boy prickly would be a gross understatement.

“I don’t mind.”

“Why?”

“Because grandpa is going to leave again and if I’m with you and Ace I wont be alone anymore.” Those words felt like they were hinting at something far deeper than anything he'd seen from the younger boy's personality had prepared him to expect.

“Is that really that bad? We do sorta live with bandits.”

“I don’t like bandits but I hate being alone. Besides, if they are mean I’ll just kick their ass.” Sabo couldn’t help but stare at that. This little boy was more than a full head shorter than him and Ace and yet managed to have just as much attitude as his friend. It would have been easy to laugh it off as nothing more than childish bravado but... something about the look in his eyes and the tone he took when he talked about loneliness struck a chord. He got the niggling feeling brewing in the back of his mind that this little kid - Luffy - would do just about anything not to be alone.

“If you say so.” There wasn’t an answer this time, just a firm nod as those dark eyes remained fixed on the treeline.

They sat quietly on a log waiting for Garp and Ace to return for some time before they spotted the pair of them. Garp’s giant silhouette shaded the treeline before Ace’s smaller one this time walking next to the man rather than being toted like a sack of potatoes. Each of them had an alligator on their back as a peace offering — probably for the distressed bandits still milling around picking up the pieces of their squabble.

Luffy was up in an instant and gone in a blur of motion the next shouting all the way as if the long stretch of silence they had just shared never happened.

“Ace! You came back!”

“Course I did. I – “ The wind was suddenly knocked out of him as a rubbery-limbed cannonball tackled him into a hug he couldn’t avoid.

He didn't know why he was being hugged or what was going through Luffy's mind to make him want to. Considering that they had still been fighting when he'd left he thought he'd have to explain something at least to get the other boy on board with anything. But apparently not.

Helplessly he looked to Sabo who only shrugged. It seemed like the only one who knew why Luffy did the things he did was Luffy and it didn't seem like he was going to be telling.

“I just had to think of some things.”

“Hn! You sound better now.” Whatever that was supposed to mean Ace had no idea.

“Whatever. Gramps said there’s nowhere else to send you so… If you are going to live with us and I'm going to take care of you then you gotta listen to what we say.”

“Okay!” The response came far too quick to be trustworthy but he supposed it was good enough.

“Good.”

~o~o~o~

“They look like they are getting along now.” Dadan side eyed Garp distrustingly. “What did you do?”

“Why do you think I did anything?” He refused to meet her eyes but Dadan was having none of that.

“Ace hates everyone except Sabo. I’ve fed and clothed him his whole life and he barely tolerates me and my men on the best of days. So for him to suddenly be like that to a boy he’s never met before today…you did something.” 

Garp ran a big hand through his greying hair.
“I gave up.”

“Heh? What’s that supposed to mean?” Dadan nearly spat her cigarette out.

“Just what I said. I gave up.”

“On what? That nonsense about turning Ace into an upstanding marine? Bout time I say. It was never going to happen anyway.”

“What? Of course not! My boys will be great marines one day just…not the way I’d planned it. I appealed to the monster in his heart rather than the boy. I gave him something like him to claim as his own.”

“Well that explains it. You can’t give that boy anything. Especially if you think you might want it back later. More likely to lose fingers than get what you wanted if you tried.”

Garp had the nerve to chuckle at that.
“Luffy’s the same. Greedy little thing.”

Dadan glared at the old marine for daring to bring another temperamental little monster to her door but sighed in a puff of smoke. Nothing she said would have made a difference anyhow so she was stuck with the littlest Monkey.

She sighed once more and turned to the growing pack of little hellions she had in her care.
"Well what are you brats waiting for might as well come in and introduce yourself already."

"Why should we? We already know each other."

"Do it anyway."

They were suspiciously passive when they marched into her cabin. They were even quiet while she had her men make and distribute tea — not that she thought Garp deserved any with the way he breezed into her life all the time.

Her suspicions were validated half a moment later when Luffy opened his mouth wide and gave a full chested introduction.

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy and I'm going to be king of the pirates." Garp instantly sprayed hot tea all over the bandits sitting in front of him. Ace's eyes narrowed and Sabo already knew why.

"The hell you are!" Garp seemed to catch himself and sputter while grappling with something mentally until he seemingly deflated. With the lack of further protest Luffy simply sat unopposed but didn't really seem victorious either. It felt oddly like a facade in ways neither of the older boys could quite name.

At least for a moment the bold statement was put out of everyone's minds as the bandits all milled around preparing the alligator meat that Ace and Garp had brought back.

Unfortunately with the Monkey family no peace could last for long. For every fire they doused it seemed as though a new one ignited between them at every turn.

"Eat something." Garp rumbled gravely with that heavy look in his eye. Luffy seemed unfazed by it.

"I don't want any."

"You not eating is not going to make Red-Hair turn his tides and come back." The blank stare Luffy fixed upon Garp was indescribable. It felt like disbelief but also...something more.

Garp was the one who broke the staring contest first. "I'm not calling that punk to tell him when he finally left."

Sabo and Ace both carefully watched the newest little resident. From the maelstrom of tears he'd arrived with to the eerie silence he'd shared with Sabo to the strange clinginess he'd shown Ace when he came back. the both of them could see that there was something going on with the boy but they just couldn't figure out what.

The meal carried on how bandit meals usually did but through it all Garp's eyes never left Luffy who hadn't touched his serving.
By the end of it Dadan gave her orders, the men began to clean up and the trio of children were sent elsewhere — where didn't seem to matter too much to the bandit queen so long as they weren't under foot.

~o~o~o~

Ace listened at the door to the rumbling tones of Dadan and Garp both. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying so he pressed an ear closer.

"The little brat needs more food that a grown man several times his size just to keep going and that was before he went and helped himself to Bloody Red-Hair Shanks' war spoils. Then I come home to find him wearing Red-Hair's hat and has barely eaten a thing in three days. What was I supposed to do? Makino's a sweet girl but she can't muscle Luffy into taking care of himself when he won't listen to her talking."

"So you brought him here. And hoped Ace would take a shine to him."

"Or something."

"I use to think him and Ace had the same fatal flaw, a lot of wrath for a pair of little boys — but now? Luffy's might just be loneliness and I don't know what else to do for that. I can teach my boys to point their rage in better directions. But loneliness? I can't train that away."

Ace backed away from the door with his thoughts spinning over what he'd heard.

"Hey." Ace nudged Luffy with his foot. The smaller boy barely looked up but at least he seemed to notice he was there.

"I heard the old man talking to the old hag about some red haired pirate."

"That's Shanks!" That had to be the first real smile that reached his eyes that Ace had seen from him. It was such a stupid expression but...maybe it meant something

"I guess he was important or something?" Luffy nodded wildly at that.

"Shanks is the best." His voice was soft and warm as he raised a hand to his straw hat. 
"This is his hat. He left it with me as a promise." Ace wondered what kind of promise a hat was supposed to be but in the end it didn't really matter to him.

"You can't keep a promise if you let yourself waste away." Just like that he watched Luffy close himself off again as if the life he'd just seen in the other boy had just been some sort of mirage all along.

"..."
"Food isn't as good alone."

"Well, you aren't anymore. So maybe..." Ace ran his hand through his hair. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to get through to Luffy. "Just eat something, kay?"

Luffy didn't say anything this time either which bugged Ace more than a bit. For a kid who could chatter non-stop when he wanted he could be weirdly tight-lipped. Ace growled to himself until an idea hit him.

"You know what. Grab Sabo and tell him to take you to the overlook. I'll meet you both there." Dark eyes stared at him blankly for a long moment before their owner nodded and stood on his own.

~o~o~o~

The sun had set but the air was still warm and the jungle backdrop sang.
Its song cradled the world that drifted to sleep and welcomed the one that was only just beginning to wake.

It was to all of that that the boys were surrounded by when Ace finally arrived, coming up the hill with something held in his arms.

"Why do you have that?" Sabo eyed the over sized bottle.

“I stole this from the old hag."

"That explains nothing. What is all this for?"

"Solidifying a promise. They say if you share sake with someone you become brothers. Brothers...they look out for each other right?"

"Yeah? I guess so..."

"That's what I want to promise. To both of you. That we don't have to do anything alone because we'll look out for each other." There was something like a light finally beginning to burn in Luffy's eyes. It was that that told Ace more than anything he'd made the right choice.

This was how he could get through to Luffy.

All three boys drank from their cups and made faces as they forced the drink down.

“Blegh!” Luffy sputtered and gagged loudly but slammed his empty cup to rest alongside Ace and Sabo's.

“We are brothers now"

“I'm the oldest so what I say goes.”

“What! No you aren't! We are the same age!”

“Oh yeah when's your birthday?” Sabo blinked. Somehow in spite of the years they had known each other it had never once come up.

"March."

Ace’s smug smile never made Sabo want to hit him more than that moment.
“January.”

Before either of them could start a scrap anew Luffy cocked his head at the pair. “Does this mean you are twins?”

“Wha – ?” Ace and Sabo paused their bickering and blinked looking back at each other. Each opened their mouth to argue and explain that that wasn't how that worked but closed their mouths and looked at each other again. It wasn't how that worked, right?

“You know what – yeah, we are twins. Portgas D. Ace and Portgas D. Sabo.” Sabo gasped, all annoyance from the moment before was washed away with tears beginning to bubble in his eyes. He knew just how much Ace's mother's name meant to him. For Ace to share it with him...there was no higher honor that he could think of.

“You bastard.” Sabo punched Ace’s arm and wiped his face with his sleeve.

“Sabo’s happy crying.” Luffy chimed in.

“Hey! Stop that! We only have room for one crybaby brother and Luffy’s already got that spot.”

"So...I've never had a real brother before...what do we do now?"

"Whatever we want. But first we raid the pantry."

"Didn't you just eat?" Ace pointedly glanced back at Luffy. Sabo rightly picked up on his meaning and found himself nodding along.

"Right...Then I suppose Operation Snack Thief is a go."

The trio snuck back to the bandits' cabin -- or it would have been sneaking if Luffy weren't so excited.

"We're like ninjas!"

:"Shhhh!" Both of his newly dubbed older brothers slapped their hands over his mouth before he could say anything else.

"Shishishi." Luffy giggled quietly behind their hands.

Ace noted that there was quite a lot more left over than usual but thought better than to question their luck. He and Sabo quietly made sure to pick out the most filling things for Luffy while Luffy himself just seemed content to grab a bit of everything.

The three of them together snuck back with their prizes. They sat around their stolen feast and built up a little picnic spread between them. Luffy seemed content to just poke at what was put in front of him but he hadn't yet noticed that for every bit he ate Ace or Sabo managed to replace it with something else.

They shared food, juice, stories, and soon plans for the future yet to come.

“I'm gonna teach him like the cool big brother.” Ace decided aloud.

“What!?”

“You are not! I'm the cool one, you are the trouble making one.” A new scrap between the freshly claimed twins brewed and they playfully swatted at one another. All the while Luffy stuffed his face with a growing smile, pilfering from Ace and Sabo's plates while they were distracted by each other.

It was with one last crunch and a gulp of crackers and juice that Luffy crowed to the world and the brothers paused to look at him — really look.

“I have brothers! I'm so happy!” Luffy's smile lit up the world and Ace blinked. It just hit him that he didn't think that silly smile was annoying or stupid anymore. Suddenly that smile was a precious fragile thing. Something that could be ripped away at a moment's notice should the wrong people discover the secret Luffy didn't even know he had.

"That...that's good."

Unfortunately for them Luffy's jubilant volume seemed to summon Dadan.

Dadan looked between the three of them gobsmacked. "One, two, three...snack." "One, two, three...snack?" "What the hell are you brats doing stealing food in the middle of the night!?"

"To bed with the lot of you." No arguments were made this time as all three of them scooted out the door.

"Miscreants the lot of them." Dadan muttered, justifying herself when she caught sight of Garp leaning against the doorway.

"As if you didn't bash your men over the head to leave them leftovers to steal in the first place."

"What are you talking about, I don't care one wit about that little menace."

"They got him to eat then?"

"Course they did."

~o~o~o~

Garp, Luffy, and all the bandits lay sleeping for the night with a cacophony of snores echoing between them one and all. The only souls left stirring were the pair of newly dubbed twins both wide awake with the trials of the day still churning in their minds.

They each wanted to hear what the other wouldn't say leaving them at an impasse only broken by whoever caved to ask first.

It wasn't Ace.

Even as young as they were, Sabo had already learned long ago it never was. So it was his hissed whisper that cut through the snoring band around them.

“Hey Ace?”

“Hn?”

There were any number of things he could have asked in that moment but there was only one question that stood out, gnawing at his mind, taunting and begging to be asked. It was the only question that mattered.

“What made you change your mind?

“He's a monster like me.”

For a long moment silence backed by the din of snores sat between them. Sabo waited for any more to come – context, an explanation...something. But Ace had said what he wanted and all he was going to. Sabo could only sigh at that.

“I don't think either of you are monsters.”

“That's what makes you good.” As much as he loved Ace, that answer made Sabo's fiery disappointment with the world burn brighter, stoking embers of something he didn't have a name to put to yet.

Something dark and bubbling like tar.
Something that told him the world was wrong .

If only he knew how much…

~o~o~o~

When the sun rose the next morning it was signifying the dawning of a new era all their own — the very first sunrise on their lives as brothers. Ace and Sabo woke to seeing their new strange little brother watching it with a smile.

Luffy looked back at them with a small laugh and not another word more.

They joined the bandit breakfast like they had for every day before and readied for the day ahead just like they always had. But this day and all the days after were different.

Garp seemed to have shaken off whatever funk he'd been in the day before and tried to corral the three of them into training with him. They would dodge his attempts and take off to the forest and the terminal with their new squishy brother in tow with a set of matching mad laughter echoing as they went.

Such became their new routine...at least for a little while.

~o~o~o~

All his life, for as long as he could remember, the world had hated and berated him for something he'd had no say in. He was born a monster and the world demanded he either lie down or be strong as recompense for being born at all..

His bastard father's blood gave him strength and later his fire gave him power. Sabo gave him a goal to live for but Luffy...Luffy gave him something else.

Even though they hadn't known each other long, it felt as though he was learning as much from his strange little brother as Luffy was learning from him.

Luffy taught him the kindness of monsters.
How to be gentle in the way monsters were.
That being a monster didn’t make you wicked.
That even as a monster — he had a choice.

It was a good lesson. One he was slowly beginning to treasure.

Luffy and Sabo both they made him want to be better.
Better than what he was.

Better than what the world made him.

As bold as they had all been and as many snap decisions as they had made they were still the same boys they had been before they came together. Just as mercurial and flawed as they ever had been. As sweet as life had seemed for a moment it was no different.

As high as they could rise it did nothing to erase just how low they could fall.

And Ace...
Ace's lows were staggering.

They were all consuming lonely wanders into dingy bars with rough patrons and foul words. They were questions asked that he already knew the answers to.

What if Roger had a child?

He'd ask it again and again each time the answers battering his mind and his heart until he could take no more. Then he'd fight, he'd scrap, he'd burn. Eventually he'd stagger his way back to the bandits' hut to his brothers expecting nothing to change.

Oh how wrong he was.

Luffy was wrath and fury somehow for him instead of at him and Sabo...Sabo who knew his worst parts, he looked at him with calculating eyes.

Ace tried to explain himself.
He tried to explain the need he felt to do this and why it was fine.

He tried to calm Luffy's ire but somehow explaining it made it worse.

“Don’t say that! Ace is my big brother. I picked him all by myself so you don’t get to be mean to him.”

“What the hell Luffy! And you didn’t pick me, I picked you.”

“I gotta say I agree with him, Acey. We don’t let dumb people talk shit about our brother even when that dumb person is himself.”

“I’m not dumb!”

“Then don’t do dumb shit.” Sabo spread his hands wide in a shrugging 'what can you do' sort of gesture that pissed Ace off more than a little.

"But they are right. I'm that bastard's son and -"

“I don’t care about any of that. I’m going to be the pirate king so it won't matter if you were his son cause you’ll just be my brother.” There was a long quiet between the three of them at that.

The Pirate King’s brother huh?” Ace leaned back and looked to the sky. Somehow saying it like that lifted a weight from those words.

When his brothers finally believed he wouldn't go back and left him to his thoughts his grandfather seemed to appear out of thin air.

“I won’t say anything else. Your new brothers seem to have said enough for me on the matter. But Ace…you can’t do that anymore, not to yourself and not to Luffy.”

“I told that Red-Haired brat and I’ll tell you. Don’t give someone a reason to look for a resemblance they didn’t know was there.” A stone fell into the pit of Ace's stomach. He...He had forgotten...it wasn't just him anymore. He wasn't alone and...

It wasn't just him that could be hurt anymore.
Someone could hurt Luffy because of him.
Someone could take Luffy away.

His brothers were right.
He'd been beyond dumb doing what he just did.

Gramps was right too.
If he had done the wrong thing and that led back to Luffy...then everything he'd promised himself and Luffy in the last days was nothing but ash in his hands.

"I-I wont."
"I promise."

~o~o~o~

"I don't want to train with grandpa." Luffy stomped his tiny feet, making his rubbery legs jiggle oddly.

"Too bad. We are going to...at least for a little while."

"Why?"

"Because." Because he owed the old man for getting through to him when he was drowning so deep in himself he couldn't see his brother? Because Garp was strong and could help them grow stronger? Because sometimes even when he didn't want to admit it he just wanted to spend time with his loud dumb old man?

It could have been any of those reasons or countless others. It didn't matter though whatever reason he decided on he still wasn't going to say.

Luffy leveled his usual odd dark-eyed stare on Ace.

Neither Ace or Sabo could ever decide if such a stare was completely blank - a void with nothing to speak of - or if it was somehow seeing more than the average person could. Sabo thought it was a bit of both. That their little brother didn't quite get the normal happenings around him the way the usual folk did but that he made up for it by seeing deeper into something the rest of the world couldn't. Ace personally thought there was something that wasn't all seeing or empty but instead was just too different from the norm for anyone else to fully grasp.

Whatever the truth behind that odd look was Luffy seemed to reach a conclusion from it in the end as he finally nodded and said okay.

~o~o~o~

It had merely been the first of several days that the boys had begun to split their time between the trash heaps of Grey Terminal and the intense sparing Garp offered. They never won of course and getting the three of them to work as a unit was an impossibility at the moment. But still they did it and every evening they went to bed tired and sore but plotting ways to get back at Garp.

When their final day arrived it was without warning, a day like any of the ones before. They fought Garp futilely until they were gasping for breath. Their only reprieve came from a person appearing up the hill. 

“Sneaky Guy!” Luffy crowed as if he hadn't just been panting on the ground with his brothers. He launched himself into a familiar fedora and trench coat clad figure. Surprising to anyone who didn't know the enigmatic man; he wasn't jarred, surprised, or even winded by the rubbery human shaped cannonball that had just launched into him.

“Bogard.” Garp nodded to the man.

“Vice Admiral.”

“Headquarters has called.” Garp's visage tightened before he closed his eyes in reluctant acceptance and sighed. He had known from the beginning that he'd never get as long as he'd wanted but he hoped he'd managed to stay as long as he had needed.

“My time here is up, boys. I can't stay any longer.”

Luffy dropped from being Bogard's human spider monkey and stepped forward, meeting his grandfather's eyes.
“I still miss Shanks but I've got Sabo and Ace now so I'm not so lonely anymore.”

“...I'm glad.” Garp looked at his youngest grandson misty eyed and ruffled his hair. He looked like he almost wanted to hug the boy as well but on that at least he held himself back. But something in Luffy's eyes told the old marine that he knew the sentiment was there.

~o~o~o~

Quarterdeck
Marine Ship Tenacity

“Vice Admiral Garp Sir!”

“Eh? What is it?”

The cluster of marines huddled in front of him shuddered and the poor unfortunate soul that had drawn the short straw of giving him the news looked faint.

“The...er...um...the ship's advanced troop training manual is missing, Sir.”

Garp looked back out at Dawn Island fading into the horizon.

Cheeky brats.

“Eh, its fine we'll get a new one.”

“Sir! Vice Admiral Tsuru and Fleet Admiral Sengoku won't be happy. That's marine eyes only.”

“Just tell them I spilled coffee on it and knocked it overboard.” The division of reactions ranging from exasperated to horrified was split precisely along the lines of just how long his men had been serving under him. The realization made him chuckle.

They were a good bunch.

As his men began to clear away he turned to the shadow that he expected to haunt every doorway.

“Curious that that particular book happened to be aboard. Don't you think, Bogard.” The wry grin on his face said it all.

“A real mystery, Vice Admiral.”

~o~o~o~

Outtake

Captain's Ready Room
Marine Ship Tenacity

“I suppose I should ask you why.”

“If you get your way then they'll have a stellar head start at the academy. And if you don't consider it a personal investment in your emotional wellbeing.”

“It can't be good for an old man's heart to see his beloved grandsons in chains.” Though the words were said with half a chuckle the sentiment behind them was a heartfelt one. A sentiment that Garp naturally elected to ignore entirely and barreled through with all the grace of a drunken ox.

“Never going to happen.” Garp's deep bellied laugh rattled the window panes in its wake.

“My boys will be first rate marines in no time. Old farts like us will have no choice but to retire.”

“The marine in me says they are good boys and so long as they stay on the right side of the law they'll be fine.”

“The agent in me says that little things like right and wrong don't mean much in the face of orders.”

“Bah! Who's gonna give orders over a scrappy pair of youngsters on a little piece of nothing island.”

“...” Bogard's shadowed eyes felt like they carried the weight of the world under the brim of that hat. Garp's own narrowed over the absence of an answer. Bogard had been his close friend and second in command for over thirty years. He had always flowed with whatever tide Garp's whims took by storm. When he spoke Garp listened. He didn't always do as the man said but he listened.

“Just what does your 'inner agent' see, Bogard?” Even for Bogard it was always a jarring sight to see when Garp's mantel of foolish whimsy fell away and left only the might of the officer. It was as if the world warped in his presence, making the big man seem even bigger while his the thousand and one whims were all abandoned to give unnaturally keen attention to his single target.

“Points of interest, potential assets, maybe targets.”

“Even without knowing the kinds of things that would make heads roll; a pair of prepubescent fruit users both living on the same island in a sea that thinks Devil Fruit are a myth – that would already be worth a look. And that's before accounting for the pair of them living on the island that spent a year being frequented by the infamous Red Hair Pirates.”

“Maybe if it had just been one of them it could have been passed off as a fluke, sometimes things just happen. But both of them? In Cipher Pol's eyes that looks too much like conspiracy...too interesting.”

“I'd put them on a pirate ship myself before I ever let Cipher Pol get their hands on them.”

“I want to protect my grandsons not turn them into weapons.”

~o~o~o~

Outtake 2

“What's that?” Ace looked over Sabo's shoulder to get a better look.

“A book, obviously.”

“I got frustrated so I picked the old man's pockets when he was busy training us.”

“Anything interesting?” Admittedly what Ace found interesting and what Sabo found interesting weren't always the same but he still liked to listen when his blond newly sworn brother went off on a tangent.

Sabo just shrugged noncommittally. “Just this and a bag of rice crackers.”

“I want rice crackers”! Luffy's excited cry surprised no one and for the time the book was set aside and forgotten as Garp's favorite snack was dished out among the boys.

Chapter Text

With Garp's ship fading into the distance and his visits becoming memories once more life began to take an easy pace for the newly bonded brothers.

It wasn't idelic in any way any normal civilized child would recognize but for the two little wild things wreaking havoc who became three it was a world of wonder all its own. Every day was adventure with new reaches of their jungle home left to explore.

For the denizens of the Terminal and the towns the transition was so seamless many began to forget that the monstrous trio had ever been a member less.

Ace and Sabo both felt it.

They didn't have words to describe it – perhaps there were no words – but they felt it.
It was as if something about Luffy's presence was changing the world around him.

The people.
The jungle.
...them.

Through a brand new set of eyes every day's struggle to survive became an adventure waiting to be met with the rising sun.

Days were measured in successful hunts, wins and losses, wild chases, and things that gleamed.
And through it all they learned that not all treasure was silver and gold.
Sometimes it was a battered smile or a tattered old hat.

The love of a brother couldn't be measured, not even with the weight of all the gold in all the Goa Kingdom

Luffy carved out a place for himself in their world and left no room for any objections.
But that was the way of him, they learned.

They learned a lot about him — so much more than they had first thought could ever be.

~o~o~o~

Time marched on. As the eyes of children so often do it was made to seem long and slow, unhurried with the sticky heat of the jungle. Even as days began to grow longer and the cold crept in — at least for everyone other than Ace — the boys grew closer and wiser — at least to each other.
They each learned who the other was and bit by bit together they learned of and began to share their burdens.

In Ace it came in secrets of his birth, the heights of his rage, and the depths of his despair.
In Sabo it was shame, a loss of belonging, a hunger for a world bigger than anything he knew, and burning sense of injustice.

Luffy was the blank book among them. He held hardly a secret to bare but in their place it was dazzling stories of pirates he missed and tales of life in a quiet village where he didn't belong, all underpinned by a yawning chasm of loneliness and the desperate need for anything to hold it at bay.

All their secrets, wants, and desires spilled between them but there was one they shared.
That shared craving for a freedom that clawed and ached...

Together their broken pieces became something almost whole.

It was that whole with all its jagged edges and flaws that made the brothers come together and decide to set out on their own, away from the bandits' cabin that had housed Ace all his life and further from the dregs of civilization still.

Into the jungle wilds they went.
The closest to freedom land had to offer anyone or anything.

In the tallest and greatest tree of the forest they built their new home. Bit by bit and plank by plank they managed far better than anyone could have expected. Their hunts brought them food enough and the expeditions into Grey Terminal gave them everything they needed to build a corner of the world all their own.

And what a world it was...

~o~o~o~

Together they taught Luffy the laws of the jungle they called home.

If it bites you its trying to eat you.

Only kill as much as you can eat.

The Great Bear fears fire, the Tiger Lord does not.

And Luffy taught them his own rule if he called it a friend it wasn't allowed to be eaten.
They found out the hard way it was best not to try convincing him otherwise.
There were some things you just couldn't unhear.

~o~o~o~

It wasn't perfect or sweet. 
But it was theirs.

Removed from civilization — even the limited niceties that bandits afforded themselves — the fierce jungles of Dawn took three wild brothers and turned them wilder still.

They fought and scrapped like wild animals and bickered as brothers do.
But it was good.
It was good, even when it wasn't.

When childish tempers flared and left feet too small for their strength stomping apart. But they always came back even if it took a bit of mediating along the way.

Sometimes it was Ace who's temper was as fiery as he was at the best of times. When it was, apologies took longer than scuffles and were negotiated with more cunning than force. Guilt and childish pettiness were far stronger against him than Sabo or Luffy could ever be.

“Fine what do I need to do to apologize?” The scrawny too-strong ten year old growled to a pair of singed eyebrows rather than meeting the gaze of the eyes beneath them.

Sabo and Luffy shared a look deciding their brother's fate with matching grins

“Marshmallows.” Luffy held up a back of marshmallows he'd grabbed in their mad dash through the High Town market.

“You are both jerks.” Ace would hiss later, sitting cross-legged on the jungle floor wreathed in flames as his brothers roasted their marshmallows over his shoulders. Even as he scowled and grumbled he let it happen because all was forgiven.

Sometimes it was Luffy, who — in spite of all the worldly lessons of pirates learning to let trivial matters slide — was still just a seven year old boy who could keep petty grudges alive.

While his brothers took the lion's share of spats between them Sabo wasn't without either. The rare moments when it was him who stood on the other side of his brother's demands he was far more diabolical - at least as much as a ten year old could manage - in getting them to see things his way. But even he had to admit he was wrong sometimes and half hearted appologies where in order. Even if it meant dealing with his brothers crowing victory over 'I told you so's.

~o~o~o~

Through it all they missed the worried marches through hostile terrain of a bandit queen and a little village's bar matron.

Dadan would hiss and grumble as was her norm but caring in her own way — so much like the boy she'd raised even though neither of them would acknowledge as much.

Chapter Text

When it rains it pours.

But every so often you get caught out in it ― caught by surprise even when you should have seen it coming.
Sometimes fun in the sun overshadows the caution rolling storm clouds should bring.

Such was the case for the brothers, tucked away in their jungle and guarded by their mountain and all its beasts.

Just out of sight trouble was brewing.

~o~o~o~

The brothers came down the mountain and meandered through the terminal like any other day. It would be a slow day, just some treasure hunting through the piles of castoffs. Even Ace didn't plan on picking any fights that day.

It was slow, simple, and uneventful.
In a word, it was boring.

Certainly so for an adventurous seven year old with a short attention span and an eye for interesting bugs. It took no time at all for Luffy to wander from his big brothers' sights following one of the terminal's special beetles. He wandered happy and carefree, straying deeper into the terminal and off the beaten path, humming off key to a song only he knew.

"That one?"

"Pint sized with a scar and a straw hat? Yeah. That's one of them."

Oblivious to the lurking threat, Luffy continued his aimless wander and meandering tune only to be cut short as shadows became figures stepping from the labyrinthine trash piles to surround him.

His little head tilted and looked up at them with a blank stare.

"I hear you're Ace's little friend."

"He's not my friend he's my big brother."

"Is he now?"

"You know Ace?"

"Oh yeah we know Ace all right."

"And that blonde one..."

"Sabo? He's Ace's twin. You sure are dumb to not know that. Are you sure you are their friend?"^[1] A thick vein throbbed in the pirate's head and bulged down his neck.

"Grab him."

~o~o~o~

Back in the more civilized trash rows of the terminal Sabo and Ace were wrapping up for the afternoon with their sacks filled with bits and bobs, passed over treasures, and odd mechanisms.

"Alright we've had enough for the day, lets go home Luf." The sound of the wind whistling between the mountains of trash was the only answer he heard.

"Luffy?"

Ace and Sabo shared matching looks of concern.

~o~o~o~

In a decrepit little Grey Terminal shack Porchemy, the nominal first mate of the Bluejam Pirates, talked over the smallest and youngest of the monstrous brothers that had long been a thorn in the group's side.

"Your big brothers have stolen a lot of money from me and my men. If you tell me where they hid it I'll let you go." Little dark eyes studied the burly pirate with a face set as if he was listening to something no one else could hear. Porchemy scowled with dark intent as he the little brat he'd strung up clamped his mouth shut.

"The hard way it is then."

"Rough him up."

Kicks and punches were thrown. Bats were swung. But to no avail. Every impact was met with a rubbery squish that left little to nothing to show for their efforts

"What the hell is this?"

"He's a freak like his brother...like he can't be hurt."

"No." Porchemy grabbed the boy's jaw and forced him to look him in the eye before throwing him away to swing in lazy loops like a morbid little pinata.

"I've heard stories about these. Devil Fruits, right? they say you eat one and you get the power of a god or at least one of a devil."
"I always thought that if they were real they'd end up in a ...more imposing package."

"Yeah! What we got here's just a little one!"

"Tough luck little god. I guess this just means I'll have to try a little harder." His words were framed in a menacing grin as he pulled on a pair of spiked gloves.

For all the ineffectiveness of all the blows before every one that rained down now left its mark. Again and again Porchemy would demand to know about the brothers' treasure hoard and again and again Luffy would clench his jaw and bite his quivering lip and say nothing.

Each set became more brutal than the last as Porchemy lost his composure in the face of a stubborn seven year old. A fact that only added to the large man's growing ire.

Blood dripped and Porchemy huffed. He discarded his spiked gloves and picked up a sabre.

"Boss? We still don't know where the other two hid the treasure."

"Clearly asking this brat has been a waste of time. He's of no use to us." He raised the sabre intent on eliminating the source of his frustration once and for all but then ―

With an explosion of heat and sound a pair of diminutive shadows leapt from the flames, pipe staves in hand, and a matched set of raging eyes ― one cold and one fiery.

“ACE! SABO!” It was Luffy's joyous cries that filled the shack, drowning out the goons around them.

"LET HIM GO!" Ace roared with the howl of rising flames behind him. A wave of inexplicable force washed over the ragtag pirate cronies. One after another they dropped to the dirt floor either unconscious or dead to the perspective of everyone else -- not that anyone was checking.

Ace's pipe glowed forge hot red and still he wielded it with wild precision casting ever worsening wounds on ever poor soul left standing between him and his little brother.

When the pair of them closed the distance Porchemy was all that remained to face the thundering blow of Sabo and Ace's pipes striking in unison. The towering beast of a man collapsed under the blow in an instant.

Together they wasted no time getting what they came for. Ace waved a low burning hand against the ropes that held Luffy in place and Sabo scooped their youngest member onto his back. Luffy, a trembling rubbery ball of snot and tears, clung weakly to Sabo's back.

With the forms of fallen pirates littering the ground around them they left unobstructed.

With every step further they took the crackle of fires lighting and timbers creaking began to fill the air.

Sabo looked back only once seeing the blaze reflected in Ace's eyes as the fire bombed shack Porchemy had beaten their little brother in was engulfed. Neither of them looked any further for survivors but the silent backdrop to those crackling flames said enough for both of them. ^[2]

Not a word was shared between them but the matching fire in their eyes stood in agreement.

For Luffy...
They regret nothing.

~o~o~o~

“Lets go home and get you something to eat. You're probably starving by now aren't you?” Ace tried to breath through the inferno burning in his ears that was his own heart and blood rising.

“I don't feel hungry right now.” Luffy hummed from Sabo's back giving his brothers pause. Ace and Sabo shared a look. Was this another big feelings moment? Ace felt like he'd lucked his way through Luffy's big feelings hunger strikes in the past. Sabo was way better at dealing with the actual feelings part than him.

“You're always hungry. You have to eat something.”

“But I feel like I already ate?” Again the twins shared a baffled look between them. There was just no way...but Luffy couldn't lie for shit either so...

“What do you mean you feel like you ate? There is no way those thugs fed a little glutton like you enough to be full.”^[3]

“Hmm...its a mystery!” Ace and Sabo both let out a groan at their little brother's cheery smile ignoring and tried to ignore the anger they felt at every little bloody scrape that caught their eye.

~o~o~o~

“Owchie!” Luffy flinches once more and fire burns hot in Ace's eyes and his fists as he silently watched Sabo diligently dabbing away blood and smearing salve over their youngest brother's wounded flesh.

They had been too cocky – he had been too cocky.

They had been so proud of themselves, so certain they were the best. They had thought they were untouchable and it took an attack on his little brother to prove just how wrong they were.

Just the thought of that made him grit his teeth as he came to terms with the terrible truth that he'd been nothing more than a big fish from a small pond suddenly let loose in sea king infested waters. ^[4]

It left a bad taste in his mouth to admit it but when it came to their fruit powers he was just as lost as Luffy. Maybe even more in some ways.

While neither of them knew the limits to what they could do or even if there were limits at all they were leagues apart in how they had handled it. He could see that now. They were a pair of ships without a course to set but where he had simply begun to drift where the current took him Luffy went looking for adventure at every turn.

He never used his silly powers in just one way.
He tried countless different things.

Even if they rarely worked out the way he intended, the fact remained that Luffy was weirdly inventive with his powers in a way that he doubted anyone would ever fully understand. There was just something different about the way his little brother saw the world around him and everything in it.

Even though it was lame, it was special in a way.

He felt ashamed of himself.
He felt like he should have known more.
Should have done more.

He was older.

He had his fruit longer.

And yet... it was his dumb baby brother with his silly powers that kept showing him there were endless ways to use fruit powers more imaginative and crafty than he'd ever thought to. It made him feel like he'd been carelessly relying on his fruit being powerful enough on its own to coast by.

Just the thought of that burned.

~o~o~o~

“Something's got you worked up and its not just what happened.”

“Tch.” Ace tried to turn away. Sabo could only sigh. As much as Ace wanted to be alone with his thoughts, Sabo refused to let him just as much.

That was simply how their dynamic worked.
They were both either codependently independent or independently codependent and he had no shame in admitting as much.

“We've known each other basically half our lives. One day we'll have been friends longer than we were ever apart and eventually we'll have been brothers longer than we were ever alone.”

“What I mean to say is I know you and I know how you get. So... spill, what is it?”

Knowing he would get no peace if he didn't, Ace told his brother and former best and only friend everything that was crashing in his mind.

For a moment Sabo was quiet, contemplating exactly what needed to be said.
It was one of the traits Ace envied about him.

Sabo always knew just what to say.

Sabo twirled his pipe thoughtfully a few times before he finally spoke.
“He's basically a baby, everything's a game to him. My theory is he either doesn't know enough about the world to know he's in danger or somehow he doesn't care. Truthfully, I don't know which one scares me more.”

Ace was different than Sabo. He didn't plan ahead, he thought about his words as they came. So it was no surprise to either of them when the moment Sabo finished Ace butted in.
“Maybe that's it."
"Life's a game to him so survival would be playing.”

“I'm not sure I follow but sure.” Sabo gave a loose shrug as if that was as good a theory as any when it came to Luffy. He wasn't wrong. Figuring out Luffy wasn't really something that anyone just did.

“We need to make up a game to get stronger.” Ace said it in the voice of a general preparing to go to war and watched as Sabo's eyes lit up when everything finally clicked into place.

“You want to train him by 'not training'.”

“Exactly.”

“I mean he's weak and wimpy but he's creative.” The gears in Sabo's mind were clearly spinning now.

“And I'm strong and you're smart.” Ace added fuel to the fire.

“So we make a game that uses all those to get better.”

"You with me?" Ace extended a hand to his twin.

"Always." Sabo grabbed the outstretched hand and held tight in agreement and promise both.

They were in this together just like they always had been.

~o~o~o~

Convincing Luffy to be on board was going to be the harder part.

“We weren't strong enough. We aren't ready to sail yet. We aren't even close.”

Even before he finished he could already see angry tears starting to spill from their little brother's eyes. For someone like Luffy just the thought of giving up his dream was as if someone had asked him to die. He couldn't leave it at that.

“We'll get there. We'll train until we are ready and we won't set sail a moment before then.”

“Nobles have their coming of age at eighteen.” It went unsaid what would happen if he was still there when they reached that point. It went unsaid because it didn't have to be. They all knew. If Sabo didn't free himself by then he would never be.

Ace nodded “Gramps will be back to take us to be marine recruits by then too.”

“Seventeen then. We'll set sail at seventeen so no one can take our freedom away.” Ready or not that was the end of their line. That meant that there would be at least a thousand leagues between them and this island by the time the chains of civilization came calling for them. They'd either fly free then or crash and burn but either way staying wasn't an option.

“We'll use everything we can to get better and stronger. That includes Grampa's stupid marine training.” A book that had been ignored since Garp left Dawn Island's shores was pulled from somewhere and set between them.

"I read it over. It won't be easy. This sort of thing...I don't think its normal marine training. I'm pretty sure its meant for elite officers or something."

"We can do it."

~o~o~o~

Saying that ended up being a lot easier than doing it. Sabo had been right about the book's techniques. Each and every one felt like it was designed to break their bodies.

Even just the most basic warm ups in the book hit hurdles along the way. A pouting Luffy-shaped one being the most glaring of all.

“I don't want to. I told grandpa I'm not going to be a marine so I'm not.” Luffy had said for what seemed like the thousandth time before plopping to the dirt arms and legs crossed defiantly -- clearly trying to say he wasn't moving another inch and they couldn't make him. Ace was fully prepared to prove their idiot little brother wrong But Sabo stepped in before he exploded.

“Lu...it isn't smart to give up on something that could make you better just because of where it came from. Besides wouldn't it be funnier to take the old man's training and use it to be better pirates.” That did the trick. Luffy's eyes sparkled with mischief at the very thought.

One hurdle cleared.

Thank the sea and stars for Sabo.

The next hurdles came from the odd realization that Luffy's rubbery body simply couldn't move like a normal persons. What was a grueling challenge for him and Sabo was an impossibility for Luffy.

More than once it led to Luffy plopping himself down in the dirt and refusing to do it anymore. Thankfully for Ace's sanity Sabo was there to help get him back on track every time.

“You're made of rubber, there's all kinds of rubber in the world. A balloon isn't the same as a rubber mallet after all. Maybe you won't be able to do those techniques exactly right or maybe you will. I don't know. But I bet if you can get a handle on this technique you'll be able to have a lot more control over your rubber powers.” Inwardly Ace was cheering. Sabo was golden. He knew exactly how to get through to Luffy this time.

Apparently that pep talk was all Luffy needed to throw himself back into the training full force.

They each found their strengths with the techniques even if none of them were nearly masters of them.

Iron Body came easiest to Ace who was use to his impossible strength. Sabo and Luffy both just managed.

None of them could quite muster Storm Leg. Sabo thought he'd read something about master swordsmen being able to do something like it but he wasn't sure if using it with kicks was really all that feasible. Still they practiced its motions just the same. Ace mostly just ended up sending accidental arcs of fire off in whatever direction he kicked rather than whatever it was he was supposed to. It was still a better result than Luffy's wild flailing limbs stretching haphazardly into the distance.

Luffy and his already weirdly flexible body excelled at Paper Art in a way that Sabo and Ace simply couldn't. Sabo considered himself passable at it while Ace they found was more likely to accidentally turn intangible than super flexible.

Somewhere along the way though; Luffy, in that weird brain of his, started figuring out that if he stacked Iron Body with a few of the other techniques he could almost manage them as well as his brothers.

How he managed to make Paper Art and Iron Body work together to even simulate Shave, Ace and Sabo couldn't even begin to fathom.
But somehow it worked...sometimes.

They all decided Moon Walk was likely forever beyond him. His silly rubbery skin stretched and deformed rather than staying in place and pushing the air like the technique needed. He'd need some absurd way to keep his weird skin from stretching but also keep moving. Whatever that imaginary skill looked like Ace couldn't imagine it.

“What do you think?” If the question came out more as a grumble than real words Ace didn't particularly care. He knew Sabo would know what he meant.

“I think he's unnaturally good at some of them but also weirdly exactly as good as expected.” The fact that it took an elite technique to teach their brother how to get his body to move like a regular person's wasn't lost on either of them.

"Weird how that worked out."

“Maybe I was right all along about rubber being more flexible than we thought.”

Ace looked at his blond brother skeptically. “No way are we going to admit that his weird rubber powers might be cool right?”

“Of course not!” Sabo's laugh alongside his own filled the early morning gloom of the jungle air.

The next hurdle to clear was the hardest. Luffy took one look at the book and refused. Ace and Sabo both already knew why but it was important that they at least try so once more it was Sabo's job to coax and sooth the baby brother.

“I don't like this one.” Luffy was adamant about that. For as much as he called his punches pistols an ability that seemed to really turn his hands into the force of a gunshot seemed to be something he wanted no part of.

“That's ok. Once you master it ^[5] you'll never have to use it again if you don't want to. And I promise you will never have to use it on people if you don't want to.”

"Guns aren't for threats." The steely tone of their happy go lucky baby brother's voice took them by surprise but after that they didn't push it.

As much as Sabo struggled to get Luffy to train from their grandpa's book Ace had it that much easier crafting games to teach Luffy without him realizing it was training. If he, like Sabo, happened to take a page out of their grandfather's book in training himself and their youngest menace...well he wasn't going to tell Luffy or the old man that.

They might not have had battleships to use as sandbags like in the old man's stories but they did have Dawn's ancient forests and seaside cliffs. It was easy to take a bucket of paint and a few grilled crocodiles and make strength and endurance into a aiming game with lunch as a prize. 

With his 'games' Luffy at least improved rapidly. His strength was still developing – he was still practically a baby after all, but his aim and his skills were leagues better than before.

When he saw the utter delight on Luffy's face when he realized that all his little punches had made the perfect little niche for a family of squirrels to nest in; even he forgot that their game was training for a moment

It kept him on his toes, constantly trying to think up new moves to use or show Luffy. Everything he thought of, his little brother absorbed it all like a sponge; leaving him feeling strangely lax in his own skills.

If it weren't for the sheer joy the games seemed to bring he would have sunk deeper into those dark thoughts until they consumed him. But his brothers' delight at the games soothed his spirit and brought back a sense of joy he had been missing too. It turned the training masquerading as games into real games to be played and fun to be had. It in turn made him strive for more than he'd ever tried for before.

So he swore not just to get stronger but also to become craftier with his powers.
Even if trickery wasn't usually his style he'd learn it.

He'd learn everything he could...even if the knowledge came from weird places.

~o~o~o~

Brothers were decidedly one of the weirdest.

Sabo was the perfect sounding board for experimenting with his powers ― especially on the more technical side, despite being younger than him. His questions were almost always answered with a covert trip into Upper Goa and more books that even with Sabo's help he had trouble comprehending.

When he told Sabo his plans to learn about his fire his twin disappeared with a thoughtful look before appearing again hours later.

SLAM!

A hefty crate that sounded like it was full of something broken was set in front of him by his blond twin.

“What's all this?”

“Glass.” Sabo panted laying across the crate he'd just carried. That made sense of the sound at least...

“But why?” Sabo held up an overly thick book that he seemed to pull from nowhere. Ace wondered where he kept finding them all or where he was hiding them. As Luffy would say 'it's a mystery power'.

“Because glass making requires precision control of heat.”

Ace eyed the box, the book, and his brother doubtfully.
“We live in a tree house made of wood.”

“Yeah...don't do it there.” Sabo just scratched his neck sheepishly.

A wide grin spread on his own face as an idea came to him. He called over his shoulder already knowing exactly what was going to happen.

“Oi Luf! We're going to the beach!” There was a crash and a fumbling behind him and Sabo's look of amusement before him telling him all he needed to know.

“Wait for me!”

It was the first of many such beach trips for the three of them and the beginnings of countless glass beads that would come to be scattered all over the Goa Kingdom. Luffy would play in the sand searching for shells or crabs while Ace learned just how hot he had to make the fire in his hands to melt broken glass enough to mold it like clay. All the while Sabo took notes and made plans that even they didn't know.

~o~o~o~

His beads and marbles weren't the only thing he trained his fire on though. He trained to control his element surrounding him, not just the fires he created but every fire. It felt like progress was slow but he was certain he could. He wasn't sure why exactly he thought he could but he did.

With his control improved he could put out and absorb fires he didn't set ― a nifty skill for sure.  It left him with an odd feeling, almost like eating a good meal or waking from a good sleep.

He didn't quite understand it but it sure made Dadan yell a lot less about the fires he set or the ones that got out of hand too.

All around a skill that made for a peaceful life.

Or as peaceful as his life was ever going to be.

~o~o~o~

On a lazy day picking through the odds and ends that ended up abandoned to the trash piles of Grey Terminal Ace found himself laying back, pipe in hand and flicking burning pebbles while his brothers hunted for treasures.

It really was a slow sort of day so no one expected it when Luffy jumped up excitedly as one of Ace's pebble fires turned bright green instead of the usual orange. “So cool! How'd you do that!”

Ace found himself blinking at the odd pebble. “I dunno.”

“Sabo?” Both Ace and Luffy turned to their brainier brother for answers. In response yet another book was pulled from whatever nowhere place Sabo's books came from to answer his brothers' questions.

“It says certain elements and compounds when burned at specific temperatures will burn different colors.” It didn't go unnoticed by any of them that the answer came from a book on fireworks.

“So...can you do it on purpose?” Luffy prodded the formerly burning pebble with his pipe.

That...
That was actually a good question.

~o~o~o~

It turned out that he couldn't make colorful fires on command to entertain his little brother. Which led to one set of hi-jinks after another that ended with them yet again tearing through the streets of High Town with the constable force after them and a quick get-away staged by a collection of marbles Ace had made. He was still a bit sore about that but at least they had been sacrificed for a good cause.

That all led to this moment.
This terrible unfortunate moment.

“Maybe he should try eating it.” It was the voice of his dumbest baby brother that dared to suggest that over a sack full of weird powders they stole from High Town's festival planning building ― or at least that's what Sabo said it was.

“What!”

“You got to feed a fire, right? So if you eat it maybe you get to make the cool colors again.”

“No way! I'm not putting weird stuff in my mouth.” Ace crossed his arms and stood firm.

He was putting his foot down this time.
He was.

Sabo gave a solemn shrug as if to say 'what's the worst that could happen'.
“You both already ate a devil fruit so I'd say that ship has sailed.”

The jerk.

Just as Ace was about to give his impish twin a piece of his mind it was Luffy who scooped up a handful of the powder and stuffed it and his rubbery fist into his mouth. Ace gagged and sputtered before igniting himself to glare at his brothers. Even with the wave of heat that came off him his flames never once touched them. But neither of his brothers looked particularly repentant. Two sets of dark eyes ― that looked too startlingly similar to one another for boys not related by blood ― stared excitedly at his wreath of fire.

His flames, which were dancing with eerie green light.
He had to admit it was pretty cool

But damn if he was going to give them credit for that.

“I hate both of you.” He glared at them both with far less heat than before but that didn't mean he'd forgiven them for their shenanigans.

~o~o~o~

His first attempts after the-incident-they-shall-not-name were more or less just pretty light shows of colorful flames in simple shapes. His marbles and beads taught him steady temperature control and after refusing to ever repeat the experience of the-incident-they-shall-not-name he found that he could make different kinds of flames by unfortunately remembering the awful tastes he'd been subjected to.

He had wanted to rest on his laurels for a bit after that. He'd meant to anyway.

Too bad his big mouth and his too smart brother got in the way of that.

It had been another lazy day after a successful hunt shared between them that Ace wondered aloud.
“What do you suppose is hotter than fire? Magma?”

Sabo's brow furrowed a bit. Ace hadn't expected that one. He thought it would be a quick answer or something.

“Hotter than a campfire, sure. Magma's melted rocks. But you aren't a campfire you're just fire.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Fire isn't a specific temperature or anything is just what happens when something is hot enough to burn^[6]. Different things do that at different temperatures."

“So I just need to burn hotter?”

"I guess? Anything can burn if its hot enough."

That line of thinking was what would lead to more and more daring trips to questionable places following the guidelines of Sabo's weird books. He learned to burn hotter and hotter still. If he wanted he could weld the metal scraps of Grey Terminal with just his fingers ― and a dark set of goggles, Sabo was pretty adamant about that one.

For a time he thought even that to be his limit. Until Sabo brought home one particular stolen book ― stolen of course because they never really got around to returning anything they 'borrowed' in the first place. It was that that led to a brand new move being created.

Hydrogen fires – hot and practically invisible, a perfect sneak attack.

Sabo and Luffy each had their own dumb suggestions of what to call it. He was torn between naming them Mirage Flames or Trick Fires himself.

Playing with his new move and controlling his intangibility he found he could make himself practically invisible too.

That was admittedly pretty cool.

That was only the start of just how interesting his power could become.

~o~o~o~

Oddly and yet somehow also unsurprisingly it was Luffy who inspired the direction his next experiments would take.

It came to him one simple breezy day while they were all laying on the ground in a ring with arms stretched wide as they watched the clouds roll past.

“Hmm...what if you're just an Ace shaped fire?” As odd as Luffy's normal non-sequiturs were, this one threw both of his brothers for a loop. Ace and Sabo looked at each other and back at him waiting for an explanation...or at least some kind of context.

They were in luck that time at least because Luffy did have something more to say.

“I'm a rubber man." He rocked back on his toes and heels not really looking at either of them as he spoke.
"Rubber always has a shape. Fire is fire-shaped though.”

"Okay?"

“If you're already fire pretending to be person shaped then you picked how you look.”

“Weirdly that does make sense.” Sabo eyed Ace speculatively and Ace could only sigh. He really would let them try just about anything.

The things he did for his brothers.

~o~o~o~

One thing led to another and his intangibility experiments and Luffy's words niggling in the back of his mind led to playing with the extent he could control how his fire solidified.

With focus and will he managed to control how his body manifested with his flames. First he played with how he looked; molding his child sized body into different shapes, growing smaller or larger, taking on a likeness of an adult appearance, even turning into a girl if he wanted – Luffy and Sabo had laughed so hard at that one.

Mastery over his form came oddly quickly compared to his other skills. It was as if once he understood what it was he did to become tangible and intangible everything else was as easy as breathing. It was almost disappointing. He still had trouble trying to mimic real people – there were a lot more things to try and remember there. Only Sabo, whose face he knew as well as his own, came easily.

The discovery that the pair of them really could look like twins if he wanted was one that warmed him in a way that he hadn't felt since he'd eaten his fruit. It really was a glorious feeling to see the face in the mirror as someone he loved rather than a pale imitation of the blood he hated.

That particular delight soon soured as it awoke a legion of feelings that he didn't want to face relating to it all bubbling to the surface. It was very purposeful when he set those experiments aside and chose a new direction as he tried to reach further; experimenting with making other fires manifest. He thought if he could put them out then surely he must be able to do other things with them.

That was a power that brought both challenge and delight.

With practice he managed to switch his body between flames, turning intangible in one and reforming again in another, in a pale imitation of teleportation but he had proven with his control fires he hadn't set that he wasn't just made of fire, he was fire – any fire.

He could only manage it within his line of sight but it was still cool.

With his manifesting trick he began to explore further even beyond what Sabo had books for ― true uncharted territory. This was a whole new frontier all his own. First creating extra limbs reaching out from lanterns or campfires that he'd jokingly called Fire Lilies before culminating in an eerie technique he dubbed Shadow Puppet.

It took a lot of effort and focus to manage. It gave him a splitting headache at first and he really couldn't control it well enough to use both it and attempt to mimic anyone else at the same time but he didn't think he'd ever want or need to.

He was at peace and content in a way he could scarcely remember being.

If only it could last...

~o~o~o~

Grey Terminal
Pirate's Cove

Menacing eyes lit the gloom of a dark room as a ramshackle door closed on the exodus of a man who's belt buckles were worth more than anything the den of iniquity had to offer.

"You think he's telling the truth?"

"Does it matter if he isn't?"

"How's one a noble's son and the other isn't? They're twins aint they?"

"They're probably both bastards and the high born is just picking the less obvious one of the litter."

NOTES:

(because I talk too much and ran out of room in the notes section provided)

 

1. _{Ah the beginning of the ASL brothers gaslighting the world into thinking they are biological brothers all along. [back]}

2. _{Yes, Sabo and Ace 100% think they just killed someone. This probably isn't the first time just by nature of how their dealings with the denizens of Grey Terminal go but it is the first time they have done so with intent. It will be touched upon more in one of the later parts of this AU but for now they aren't really acknowledging it beyond the Blujam Pirates hurt Luffy and they stopped it.[back]}

3. _{Subtle Nika fruit being a god at play. Worship feeds gods and doing anything 'for them' is a form of worship. [back]}

4. _{Fun Fact: Ace's existential crisis about small fish in sea king infested waters was actually one of the very first lines I wrote for this entire AU and has absolutely been the driving force behind a lot of the plot points.[back]}

5. _{As far as this is concerned no the brothers aren't on CP9 level or anything, they know of the techniques but they aren't masters of them.[back]}

• ^{Luffy is fast and flexible, and he finally learned how to throw a punch without accidentally hitting himself along the way.}
• ^{Sabo is good at dodging.}
• ^{Ace is good at controlling his strength and accidentally learned how to will himself intangible with his fruit power.}

6. _{I've had this thought for a while now. More or less the nature and limits of various fruits and how certain fruits that could be objectively powerful get nerfed by having incompetent wielders or how otherwise silly fruit powers become terrifyingly threatening in the hands of someone creative enough. We got told out of narrative that the reason Akainu counts as a more powerful fruit because magma is hotter than fire. But the thought occurred to me that Logias have some limited control over their tangibility. Following that line of thinking Ace didn't die because magma was hotter than fire, Ace died because he chose to stay solid and take the hit to protect Luffy.[back]}

 

Chapter Text

With the turning season the jungle grew and the wild set of brothers that resided in its depths grew with it. They had trained and fought the wildlife and among themselves and were stronger and more confidant in themselves and grew more so with each passing day.

The stormy season came and went and the brothers made many treks down the mountain and into the trash pile, city, and town for the things they needed to restore their tree house home. They were cautious but unsuspecting.

They had no idea that every trip through the Terminal was one narrow miss after the next.

The brothers didn't... but those that hunted them did.

~o~o~o~

They had no idea what it meant to plot against two D's or the strange amalgamation child that had adapted to them and thrived at their side.

Day after day they hunted for the boys always only just missing them as if they were ghosts

It was as if fate or the island itself was against them.

They tried threatening the terminal denizens into telling them when the brothers were spotted. The cowards, the poor, and downtrodden quaked and hid in the shadows, wanting no part. The ruffians would weigh their options between Bluejam's fury and Ace's fire. Old crones and fishwives would spit and say a prayer not to draw a sea king's eyes as if that meant something other than irritating the volatile captain further. Even the lowest of the low in their eyes ― the working girls, the beggars, and thieves ― narrowed their eyes and tightened their lips.

The plundering crew had no idea what mess they had trodden upon.
The terminal kept to laws all its own outside the writ of men in high towers.

In a pit of the world where no one had anything and they all fought tooth and nail over scraps it was agreed that words were more valuable than gold. There were few rules in that world but none held higher than the the creed no one talks to outsiders and no one deals in traitors. And everyone knew to heed wise old crones who said to listen well and never ever draw a sea king's eyes ― ones that walk the land or ones that swim the tide ― less you get caught in their path.

It was approaching the final straw for all of the Bluejam Pirates. The thought of what they would do if they were ignored one more time crossed all their minds and more than a few were already tightening their grips on their battered and cobbled together weapons.

Before anything came to that one of their scouts came running hollering for all to hear. when the man finally came to a stop before his fellows he doubled over clasping his knees gasping for breath.

"*Huff* Brats *Huff* Spotted at *Huff* Midway Forest *Huff* heading for the terminal."

Finally was thought by each and every one of them.

"Don't any of you dare let these brats give you the slip again. We are down to the wire as it is."

~o~o~o~

For a wild set of brothers descending from their mountain home they unwittingly walked right into a trap.

The three of them banded together back to back each of them with eyes on the gang that surrounded them.

Ace glanced from side to side, studying faces and searching for insignias — anything to tell him who got the drop on him and his brothers and most importantly...why.

He got his answer before the big boss even showed himself. A jolly roger marked a bandana hanging from a worn out belt like the banner it was.

Blujam Pirates.
Or what was left of them.

The largest pirate band that use to run the Terminal was nothing more than a shadow of its former self — reduced to a fraction of its size and the brothers they thought they could corner were why.

One with a nasty barely healed burn on his face sneered. It was an ugly melted thing two inches wide, barrel shaped, and ran in a straight line down the fleshy part of his cheek. It looked exactly like the sort of brand one might get from being struck with a super heated pipe. 

— a move Ace had only lost control enough to use once before.

Ace snarled with teeth bared - every bit the wild and feral thing the jungle had made him.

This was one of the men who had taken Luffy.

~o~o~o~

"Why don't you brats settle this peaceably. We only want the blond one. The other two can go about their merry way." Every word that slipped from his mouth felt like one oily lie after the next.

With Ace's back to his Sabo could feel the temperature of the air around them begin to soar and sweat began to bead at his neck. He knew without looking that his twin's pipe was already beginning to glow with firelight in his hands.

These were the men who had taken Luffy and now they had come for him. His stomach clenched.
There was only one reason anyone would want him.
Only one person that would pay an opportunistic coin-shot like Bluejam to bring him in.

Father.
Outlook.

"Sabo's our brother! You can't have him!" Luffy roared over the blood rushing in his ears.

"I have just about had it with you brats."

Sabo's eyes widened in terror as everything seemed to happen in slow motion but he couldn't move to stop any of it.

Shots rang out one after another ricocheting off Luffy's stretchy skin and passing harmlessly though Ace's flames. Each of his brothers' impossible powers rose up to protect them.

They were safe.
They were safe but he wasn't.

For all his strength and all his skill, Sabo was still just a fragile mortal boy. A fragile mortal child with bullets whizzing past his ears, just barely missing him in the fray.

"What the devil is this?!"

"One of you stop them! Stop them you buffoons! What am I paying you fools for!?"

The thugs clustered and tried to shore up their numbers each and every one of them brandishing whatever found and makeshift weapon they could menacingly.

One of the goons weapon of choice was a spade that looked like it had been cobbled together out of piping and a chunk of ship's hull.

They fought like the devils the terminal called them.

A flurry of burning fists and hot iron. A rain of rubbery punches and the clang of another pipe matching the drumbeat of his own strikes.

And then his became a solo.

Something so normal it was impossible happened.

"NOOOO!" Sabo howled as both his brothers dropped like stones. He fought to get to them, ducking and weaving between grown men many times his size and strength, thrashing any who got between them with his pipe.

Bullets didn't matter.
Pain didn't matter.
Only his brothers.

Only his brothers...

Shock set in soon after. His legs crumpled beneath him.

No.

He couldn't leave them.

Not like this...

His legs wouldn't listen so he tried to crawl to them. With his belly to the ground and his arms pulling him through the dirt he inched closer.

"L-leave my brothers alone a-and I'll go with you."

"About time."

"Get moving little princeling. Your palace — and more importantly my payday — awaits."

Ace.

Luffy.

He hoped they could forgive him. Or at the very least he hoped they stayed alive to hate him.

~o~o~o~

SLAM!

"Don't you dare break that door! I've fixed it enough as it is with the likes of Garp and the boys always storming in as they please." Dadan gave the sort of glare she'd practiced on her boys. It had yet to work on them but it cowed bandits and lesser men like nothing else.

Her subordinate mumbled and sputtered for a moment.

"Well? spit it out."

"The Terminal is on fire!"

Dadan sighed.

Of course it was. It was a day ending in Y and an island that was home to one Portgas D. Ace.

"He knows how to put himself out now its nothing of mine he's caught up in." She wouldn't say as much but she was plenty thankful for those brothers of his encouraging him to figure out how to put out the fires he started. Ace was a right terror when he knew what he was doing, he was a calamity when he didn't.

"Its the whole Terminal and its headed towards the midway forest!"

"WHAT!" The table was flipped and she was on her feet before she knew it.

Dadan and her bandits raced through the jungle towards the forest edge of civilization. The air grew hotter and dryer with every step and already smoke clung to their every breath.

The light of a blaze of impossible size light the distance in ominous orange light.

"Ace...what got into you." She took in the sight she could barely understand and couldn't help but whisper aloud.
It was Dogura who answered it.

"I don't think it was him this time. If it was..." The rest went unsaid. It didn't have to be because they all knew there was only one thing that could make Ace lose this much control.

"Spread out!"

"I want each and every one of you bastards looking for those boys!"

"If it's Ace behind this I'm going to beat some sense into that boy but if its not... we better find Sabo and Luffy before it really does become him."

Please don't let it be him.

Please let those boys be safe.

~o~o~o~

Ace's eyes were blurry and his head ached as his vision swam into focus as if fighting back a dark cloud.

"Luffy?" He called out to his baby brother but he didn't stir. Ace felt panic rise and the flames surrounding them crackled and snapped as if in response.

Maybe they were...
He didn't know.

He only knew three things in that moment.

They were surrounded, trapped by walls of fire and mountains of trash.
Luffy was unconscious.
And he couldn't feel the heat to tell how long or strong the fire had burned.

A knot formed in his throat.

It was his power at fault.
The thing that he had fought and scraped to improve beyond all measure.
The thing that he'd grown stronger to protect his brothers with...

It was his power that made him unable to know just how much danger his baby brother was in.

The land that had been their playground, treasure hunt, and training ground was engulfed and looked like some level of hell.
and they had wanted to burn him with it.

They wanted to but...

He was a fire man...
He couldn't be burned.

He couldn't... but Luffy could.

Wrath filled his heart like never before.

Sabo was gone and they had tried to take Luffy.

They wanted to play with fire...

Then lets play.

He had never tried to take in a fire so large before.

The moment he touched it — the second he started to consume it — he could feel it.

He could feel it stretching, rising, and billowing. A yawning hunger looking for more and more to consume. All the way from pirate's cove to the high town walls, he could taste everything it scorched in its path. the wood and rubble, the trash and the stone, and...and meat he didn't want to think about.
Meat that was familiar in a way he refused to acknowledge.

He didn't have time to think about that.
Not that or anything else.

All he could do was pull.

From the coast to the city gates every flame that rose and spread was pulled back as if caught in a singularity's grasp.

He swayed on his feet and his head throbbed violently.

He couldn't stop.
He couldn't fail.

If he failed...

That wasn't an option.

In all his rage Ace took all of the blistering inferno he'd absorbed from Grey Terminal and launched it as a burning pillar reaching for the heavens.

Luffy was safe now.
Grey Terminal still stood.

But Sabo was still gone.

~o~o~o~

Across the wall barring his exit Sabo stared up at the sky and the plume of fire that screamed into it. 

Ace.

That was his brother. His brother had done it; he'd swallowed the flames and let loose his battle cry for the nobles to see. He had beaten them at their own game. There was no fire stronger than his own.

He was victorious.
But most of all, he was alive.

Ace was alive and fighting for their home.

His brother…
A wildfire made flesh.
A living bonfire.
The soul of the candle that lit his way.

Ace and Luffy both…they gave him hope.

Hope for today.
Hope for the morrow.
And hope for all the days after.

Hope to drive back the despair this island sowed deep in his bones.

Tomorrow.
Tomorrow would be a new dawn.

Tomorrow he would sail.