Chapter Text
As soon as they capture the little brat, they tie Luffy to a large tree. Ace has to wonder how he gets himself into these bizarre situations. He's sure that the crybaby has something to do with it—this time. Ace is pretty clueless as to what to do with the kid. How does one prevent an idiot from blabbing about their treasure. Ace is pulled from his thoughts when the pest opens his big fat mouth.
"Ace! I didn't know that you traveled this far every day!" Luffy smiles encouragingly, waiting for Ace to reply. It's like the guy thought they were best friends or something. No matter how many times the fluffy headed idiot followed him through the woods, or how many times he's almost killed him. He still smiled at him familiarly, like none of that mattered! What was wrong with this guy?
Ace scowls at Luffy and gets in his face, "Shut up!". He snaps at the grinning menace.
Sabo distracts him from his yelling by asking a question. "Is this the Luffy that you were talking about?" Ace glances over quickly to see his friend giving the pest a contemplating look.
"Oh? You told him about me!?" Frowning, Ace turns his attention back to the idiot. That stupidly wide, gleaming smile would be the death of him. It causes something in his gut to twist and churn. It reminds him of every time the guy got up and just smiled at him. Like having someone almost kill you on a daily basis was just a minor inconvenience.
His temper was slowly building and he was headed for an explosion, "I told him how annoying you are!" Ace snaps at Luffy.
"He also told me that you're empty headed." Sabo tacks on to his insult. Which he really had every right to, he has had to endure him complaining about the kid long enough. Ace was also sort of at fault though for this whole situation. Sabo had wanted him to come live with him in the woods.
The only reason he'd not done exactly that was that he enjoyed traveling through the woods from Dadan's. It was a familiar pattern that he could count on every day. The only thing that seemed to be routine in his life and wasn't done flying by the seat of his pants. But the obnoxious voice of the little brat has him turning his attention back to the situation.
"Oh yeah?" Despite the fact they are insulting him right to his face, he still smiles that stupid smile. Ace wants to punch it off his face, no smile had ever caused this amount of irritation in him. Maybe it was like an after effect of that devil fruit he'd eaten, but that didn't make any sense when he thought about Sam. Sure she was irritating when she wanted to be, but that was just Sam being Sam.
Sabo looks stunned that Luffy is still smiling even when they were being so rude to him.
"You don't even realize that we're dissing you, do you?" Ace can hear the confusion in Sabo's voice, even he had to admit that it was pretty blatant that they didn't want him anywhere near them.
Ace interrupts the question, the exasperation he feels at the entire situation slowly building like a mounting volcano. He should have known it would have happened eventually. "He finally got me here, although I didn't take any walkable routes." Ace bites his lip as he tries to figure out how the kid tracked him all the way here. Why was this guy so persistent?!
Luffy completely ignores his voiced thoughts and starts to try and make friends with Sabo, not even thinking twice about the fact he is tied to a tree at their mercy, "Are you a friend of Ace's? Be my friend, too, buddy!" Ace frowns at the words.
Sabo looks at the kid like he's crazy, which in Ace's opinion is very likely, "Shut up! You can't call me "buddy"!" His friend shouts back at the brat for being so presumptuous. He probably feels as confused as Ace does. This kid wasn't normal.
Luffy smiles at Sabo's temper and still tries to make friends with the blond. "Then what's your name?" He asks cheerfully, completely taking the blond off guard.
"Sa… I'm not telling you! This is why I told you to live here with me! The daily round trip—training on the mountain road turned out to be bad! What should we do?" Sabo is scowling at Ace now and he does feel bad about leading the kid here. This was where he an Sam had originally set up camp and now they would have to change where they kept the treasure as well as where Sabo slept.
Ace tries to reassure his friend that there was a way to fix this, and there was only one way to do that. "He found our secret. He's gonna tell somebody if nothing is done. We gotta kill him." Ace nods his head in approval of his own plan.
Sabo is quick to agree with him, clearly seeing the logic in his words. "Alright, let's do it."
Of course the brat has to protest so loudly that they could probably hear him all the way in the North Blue! "WHAT?! Don't kill me! Help me! I don't wanna die!" Sabo is the first to try to quiet the little idiot.
"Shut up, you fool!" Sabo lunges forward to cover the boy's mouth.
Ace is starting to panic because drawing attention to this place is literally the last thing they need at the moment. "Sabo, kill him already!" He snaps at his friend, didn't Sam teach him?!
Sabo looks stunned that he even suggested such a thing. Well he didn't mean to offend him. "What? I've never killed anybody before! I don't know how! You do it!" He snaps back at Ace.
Ace frowns right back, because he didn't know how to kill someone. Sure he'd seen Sam shoot someone in the spine when they threatened her. But he didn't have a gun and the kid was made of rubber so his pipe would do absolutely nothing. "I've never killed anyone before either! Where the hell is Sam when you need her!?" Ace runs his fingers through his hair in frustration, ignoring the dark look Sabo sends him.
Of course the kid has to make it easier than stealing from the trash that lived in Gray Terminal. "Don't throw me into water!" He shouts in panic as he kicks and screams at the air.
But it sounds easy enough to just drop the pest into the river. "Okay, let's head to the river!" Ace announces as he places his hands on his hips. But Sabo and his logic have to get in the way of a perfectly good plan.
"Why did he tell us that?" Sabo questions him as he tilts his top hat further back on his head to look at Ace in utter confusion. The answer is really not all that complicated.
"Because he's an idiot!" Ace snaps as he crosses his arms defensively against his chest. The kid was getting louder and louder, it was making Ace nervous. If anyone else found this place their years of hard work would be ruined by all the money being taken.
"Help me!" The menace kept whining, and Ace has had it, he wants to just shut the kid up. Sabo seems to be in agreement because they shout at him to be quiet at the same time. Couldn't the pest see that they were having a conversation that didn't concern him.
Ace ignores the fact that they were essentially talking about how they were going to kill him. Who needed logic anyway? But the cries of the kid eventually draw unwanted attention and Ace grits his teeth in frustration. Nothing seemed to be going his way today and it was all that fluffy headed freaks fault.
"I hear someone near the forest!" Ace goes white as he realizes that people were in the forest and they could potentially hear everything they were saying. He couldn't let anything happen to either Sabo or the brat. It was his job to kill Luffy, no one else's!
Ace is distracted from his thoughts as Sabo starts to panic. That was the last thing he needed, the one person with a brain freaking out on him. "Oh no! Somebody is coming!" Sabo hisses as he gets closer to Ace.
Making a final decision, he gives his orders, he was the oldest and it was his job to protect these two. "Set him free for now! We gotta move from here or they're gonna find our treasure!" Ace helps Sabo untie the ropes, and they make a run for it.
An older man's voice spoke out above the rest and it had Ace's heart beating faster and faster. He recognized that voice..."Everybody knows those kids around here. Ace and Sabo. Are you sure it was Ace who took the money?"
"Yes. We're sorry. We shouldn't let our guard down." Ace bites his lip hard, because he knew that was the voice of one of the men he stole from this morning. If he was chasing after him with the older man, he knew they were screwed.
The older man begins to speak again and Ace listens carefully. "How outrageous that kid is! He can't just steal our money! If captain Bluejam finds out about this, he's gonna kill us all!" Ace's heart drops at the information. These guys were pirates, like real pirates with huge knives and totally okay with killing little kids.
"Damn it! I didn't know that those thugs were working for Bluejam!" Ace curses his shit luck and knows that he would have to find a way out of this. Thinking faster than he ever probably ever has, he tries to focus on the situation. These were the times he wishes that Sam was with them, even more than usual, because she was the most helpful in running damage control. And man did they need exactly that at the moment.
"You mean you stole that money from them?" He could hear the high panic in Sabo's voice and it did nothing to help the same panic he was feeling. It wasn't like he did it on purpose, they weren't wearing the jolly roger anywhere on themselves. How the hell was he supposed to know they were part of a pirate crew. Even if they were part of a crew, they were extremely weak, why would they trust them with a ton of loot?!
"I shouldn't have stolen that money… He has a real sword. That's Porchemy who works under Bluejam." Ace admits, yeah, they were pretty screwed at the moment.
Sabo looks at him like he just committed a high crime, and he should have his head checked for the amount of stupidity it took to steal from Porchemy. "He's crazy. Did you know that? He strips off your scalp alive after you lose a fight with him!" Ace purses his lips at the thought and decides on the easiest course of action.
"Let's just let them pass for now." He was pretty confident in that choice, it would keep the two away from danger. They could come up with something else when they had more time and weren't running on nerves. Of course, the kid had to cause even more problems.
"Where is he!?" Sabo hisses to Ace and he turns his head to notice that Luffy was no longer hiding next to them. Something akin to panic curls in his chest. He quickly turns his head to the noise the kid was making.
"Let me go! What do you want from me?" Ace grits his teeth at the idiot. This was a new level of stupid, even criminals knew when to hide, especially against stronger opponents. Ace ignores the fact he regularly challenged stronger opponents, but even he didn't go up to pirates!
Both Sabo and Ace hiss in unison, "How could you get caught?" Even though they knew the kid couldn't hear them it still dumbfounded them that he could be captured so quickly.
"Let me go! You bastard!" He kicks out at Porchemy and Ace has to admire his energy.
Porchemy shakes the kid and asks his men, "Who is this little shit?" Ace was trying to keep a cool head and he thinks so long as the kid says nothing about him he should be safe and they could get out of here, no problem.
"Help me! Ace!" Said boy clenches his fists in frustration, this kid could not get more troublesome! How many times was this guy dropped on his head when he was a kid. Ace decides that no matter how many times he's sent humongous trees rolling at the brat he was not at fault for his stupidity,
Ace whispers to Sabo about what's going on when he notices that he is giving him a confused look. "That fool! He's calling my name!"
Porchemy pauses for a moment and looks the kid straight in the eye. "Did you just call for "Ace"?" He asks slowly as he brings Luffy closer to his face.
The brat has enough idiocy to actually back sass the guy with the incredibly sharp sword. "So what?" He stares defiantly back at the man and Ace has to wonder when this kid would get a shred of self-preservation.
"Do you know Ace?" Porchemy asks leadingly as he eyes the kid with interest. Ace is sweating because this answer could either make or break the situation.
"Of course! I'm his friend! Oh, but he just tried to kill me."
Ace facepalms and has to suppress the need to shake the stupid out of the kid. "That fool! He's such a big mouth!" Ace hisses to himself.
The smile that creeps across Porchemy's face has something uncomfortable settling in his stomach. "I don't know if you know this but I heard that Ace stole some money from us and ran today. You don't know where it is now, do you?" Ace grits his teeth at the threat of losing all of their progress in their pirate fund, and they would have to make Sam wait that much longer.
"Oh no! They're gonna take all our treasure away!" Sabo seems to be on the same wavelength as him.
"I hope that fool doesn't tell them!" Ace echoes his thoughts, because they were so screwed if the brat decided to spill his guts like he seemed to love to do.
Porchemy waits patiently for the kid to start speaking. "Well, do you know?" He prods as he shakes the brat a bit.
"I-I don't know?" Ace silently groans at Luffy's inability to lie. They were so screwed.
Porchemy is less than pleased at this. He grips the kid's leg tighter and starts to walk away. "Alright, alright! It can't be helped if you don't know. Don't worry, I'll help you bring back the memory." The mad laughter that comes from the guy is bone chilling. The kid would probably spill his guts, but if they could move the treasure fast enough they would have a chance of making it out of this situation with their money intact.
The brat starts to struggle in earnest and something in Ace screams at him for letting them take him away, but he shoves that voice down because he has things that need doing. Like protecting the treasure before the kid started blabbing.
"What are you doing?! Let me go! Where are you taking me?! Damnit! Stupid! Let me go!" Ace ignores the kids yelling and struggling to start planning with Sabo.
Sabo adjusts his top hat and asks, "What should we do?" Ace looks over to him with a serious frown.
"You know what we have to do…" Ace tells him before running for their treasure.
Sabo was concerned, not that that didn't happen often after Sam was taken, but it was rare for him to be concerned about a stranger. At least since Sam dragged Ace into his life. "They still don't know where we are? I thought they would know by now… Oh no!" It clicks in his head then, with all the force of an exploding firecracker. Sabo runs, faster than he's ever run, because he can't have another's blood on his hands, not again.
Sabo shouts his friends name as soon as he approaches the new hiding spot for their treasure, "ACE!" Sabo is hunched over his knees, panting in exhaustion. He sincerely regrets not finding breakfast earlier this morning.
Sabo is drawn from his self-castigation when Ace responds to his calls, "Sabo! What's wrong? Have they shown up to look for the money?" He can hear the concern in his voice. But there is no need for it, because the idiot, Luffy, wouldn't spill their secrets.
"No, they haven't! And I bet they won't!" Sabo screams up to Ace. The clenching in his stomach feeling more like a vice grip.
Ace pauses as if trying to register that the kid did them a solid and didn't give up the location of the treasure, which could very well mean his life if they did nothing. "What do you mean?" Sabo feels the buildings of panic.
"That kid, Luffy… He hasn't told them anything! I'm sure that they're torturing him! I thought that he'd just tell them because he's dumb and cries so much! It doesn't make sense! If nothing is done, he'll…" He can see when Ace connects the dots.
Sam could feel her anxiousness turning in her stomach as the Red Force came closer and closer to Dawn Island. Taking in the sight of the island through the periscope, she bites her lip.
"Feeling anxious, Sam." She looks over her shoulder to see Shanks with a light smile on his face. Rolling her eyes she turns her gaze back to the approaching island. Was she nervous? Perhaps only a little, she hadn't seen her brothers in so long. Was Luffy now a part of their group? Would she be welcomed back? All these questions and more were racing through her head.
"Well, there is not much time left to worry. We're heading inland. Are you ready?" Sam swallows hard and nods before stealing herself for the onslaught of memories.
Ace had just about ran the gamut of emotions. From shock, fear, anger, happiness, protectiveness, and so on. But now all he felt was exhaustion, and the crybaby's tears were doing nothing to help his mood. Sabo was also taking the time to bitch at him about his promise to never run away from a fight. Sure, it was a dangerous motto to live by but it suited him to a 'T'. It also assured him that nothing would ever happen to his friends if he stayed behind and had their back while they escaped.
But Ace had other things on his mind at the moment, like the fact Porchemy had ruined his favorite pipe. He was pissed because the one he had now was so uncomfortable in his grip. He hadn't had a chance to break this one in like his other one, but he continued to wrap it and swing it to get a better grip on it.
"Do you have a death wish or something, Ace?" Sabo complains as he leans against the new treasure tree.
Ace ignores everyone in the little clearing as he surveys the pipe in his hand. "It still doesn't feel right and I liked the other one I had." He grumbles as he starts swinging and twirling the pipe.
"We made a mistake and the Bluejam pirates will not forgive us." Sabo bites his lip and Ace actually takes the time to briefly look at him, he wasn't the biggest fan of pirates after the whole Sam situation. But Ace had managed to convince him that they could be different. They wouldn't attack little kids or hurt people who didn't deserve it. It was possible, he was sure of it. But Sabo still had reservations on such claims. The last thing he needed tonight was convincing Sabo that they would never become as trashy as Bluejam and his gang.
"It was scary! I thought I was going to die if I wasn't saved by you guys!" Ace is snapped out of his thoughts by the cry baby. The twinge of irritation at the blubbering is all that it takes, he has officially reached his limit on the little pest. There was only so much Luffy he could handle in a day and he had surpassed that over an hour ago.
"You're so annoying, shut up, and stop crying! I don't like cowards who cry so much!" Ace screams at him and he's surprised that it actually stops his crying. He's unsure what to feel. Luffy always kept him off balance, and he didn't like it.
"Thanks for helping me." Ace can see that the kid is struggling not to cry anymore and he rolls his eyes and continues to fiddle with the pipe in his hands before a question pops into his mind, well, it had been on his mind for a while he just hadn't gotten the chance to ask with all that was going on at the time.
"Why didn't you give up the treasure in the first place. They are the type of people who kill women and children without hesitation." He tells him not even bothering to look at him. But by the end of his answer he feels like something inside him is squeezing. He remembers the only other time he's ever felt that feeling was when he was a five year-old and shouting at a weird blonde kid in an alley.
"I thought that if I said anything that Ace wouldn't be my friend. It's better than dying, isn't it?" The clueless look in his eyes and the complete trust makes him feel violent urges for making himself so vulnerable. The brat should be more careful on who he trusts!
"Why the hell do you want to be my friend so much!?" Ace asks in dumbfounded shock.
"Because," Luffy looks at him wide-eyed and trusting. As if that explained anything!
"Didn't I give you a hard time until now? How could you follow me this far?" He asks frustrated. All he wanted was a straight answer. What the hell was the kid after, he had to be after something that he put up with so much shit. He finally finds his answer when the dam breaks.
"Because I have no one else to trust! I can't go back to Windmill Village and I don't like mountain bandits. If I didn't follow you I would be all alone! Being lonely is more painful than getting hurt!" He shouts and Ace sees an image of himself being smaller and staring at the families that dotted the outskirts of Edgetown. Parents holding their kids hands and pushing them on the swings, laughing, and hugging each other.
"Where are your parents?" Ace asks as he stares at the little kid who was essentially dropped off with mountain bandits he's never once met. The puzzle pieces were coming together. He just needed a few more questions answered.
"Gramps is all I have." Luffy tells him and the final piece clicks into place and he realizes that kid had never had a family, a mother, father, or anyone else. Shitty Gramps was not a parent in any shape or form.
"Is it easy for you when I'm around? And hard when I am not?" Ace asks genuinely curious at his answer.
"Uh-huh," the brat, which he would forever be, nods and something warms in his chest. He asks the one question that he hadn't asked since Sam had stormed her way into his life.
"Do you want me to live?" Luffy looks completely confused at the question, but gives him an answer nonetheless.
"Of course I do!" He shouts and Ace narrows his eyes in frustration. This kid was so confusing.
"But I hate spoiled kids like you!" Ace drops down from the tree limb he was sat in and gets in Luffy's face to start arguing. That was something he could handle.
"I'm not spoiled! I'm strong!" Luffy yells back. Ace grits his teeth at the stupid kid. He could remember all the times that he sent the kid flying after kicking down trees. He also remembers all the boulders he had sent chasing him down hills and cliffs.
"Strong?! You're not strong at all! You cry like a girl!" Ace shouts red faced, getting in close to make his point. He doesn't even notice the slight ruffling of trees. But the voice sure as fuck gets his attention.
"Maa, let's not bring gender into this Ace, yeah? Last time I checked your bounty was approximately zero. I don't think you have the authority to criticize girls at this point."
Ace feels all the blood drain from his face and his heartbeat stops for a couple seconds. He slowly turns his head to look over his shoulder. His jaw drops when he sees the girl with long strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a bandanna. One hand removes the glasses covering familiar piercing ice blue eyes. A slim finger then pulls the white mask from her face revealing a wide wild smile with a small scar on the upper lip. He barely registers the short overalls she was wearing and the black undershirt. Ace didn't even notice when he dropped to his knees in shock.
"...Sam...is it really you." Ace is drawn from his shock when his best friend stares frozen at the girl. It's then he really notices the similarities between the two. The same wavy hair, wide smile, small nose, and round eyes. Their eye color completely different and Sabo still had a missing tooth while the other had a full set of teeth.
"Well, yeah, who the fuck do you think I am?" The look of 'are you a dumb ass or something' is pure 100% Sam. His head can't take the changes today has brought, and he faints.
She would never admit that her heart just about fell out of her mouth when she was met with the sight of her brothers. However, she would forever hold it over Ace's head that she made him faint. Sam looks over to the fallen frame of her best friend and scratches her head. How troublesome.
Sam hadn't gotten to the island until later that evening. A logistical error with a waterspout, a sea monster, and a whirlpool. She's just glad everyone was in one piece and no one was missing any limbs or, you know, lives. She had managed to track the worn footprints from their previous hideout to some new tree. It wasn't half as nice as the previous place but they could make it work. She would need to teach them about hiding their tracks though, because it was pretty simple figuring out how to find them. But perhaps that was because she knew her twin and Ace.
A mass of a human body that slams her into the ground is not at all unexpected, and she hugs him back just as tight. She feels the tears soaking her neck and she holds him even tighter and runs her fingers through the short tufty hair he had, the top hat had fallen to the ground when he slammed into her.
"Maa, Sabo, there's no need to cry. You know I suck at this emotional stuff." Sam tells him softly, if a bit uncomfortably, but she makes no move to get rid of him and actually holds him tighter to herself.
She hears movement and she watches as Luffy sits crossed legged next to her head. Taking a finger, he pokes her in the head and it has her freezing. Sam takes a moment to take in his appearance, and it was a bit underwhelming. He was just a short scrawny kid, but she could still feel the same raw power she felt from Law, but it was about ten times stronger.
"Who're you? Are you important to Ace, too?" He asks innocently. Sam blinks and is unsure how to respond to such a question. She supposes that she was important to Ace. He was her brother and best friend.
"Name's Sam, Ace is my brother." Luffy's already large eyes widen even further as he takes in the information.
"Really?! That's so cool!" Sam smiles at his excitement and nods in agreement.