Sooo yeah, Stronger Than Titanium, The Bonds of Brothers is starting to get big enough to qualify (in my eyes at least) to have a place for it's own random series of one-shots. They will be mostly shots from before they left Dawn Island, as I wanted to get them off to sea in my main story ASAP and little plot bunnies that wouldn't fit into the way they story shall unfold or you know, things I thought up after that fact.

I'll take requests and do as many as I can. I'll also give you an idea of when/if and why these one shots happened. You don't need to read them to understand what's going on in the main story but, it will probably add to the fun of reading it.

This one is set before the brothers set out to sea and a little bit before Bluejam came to their island.


Why Ace is never, ever allowed to cook again.

Ever.

And

Why Luffy is never, ever allowed to help Ace cook again.

Ever.


Sabo stood at the entrance to the brothers tree house home, trying desperately to remember that he loved his brothers and didn't really want to kill them. It was a hard thing to remember given the state of their home.

Their kitchen is the first room you enter, as it was better to be able to bring their catches and other food strait to the kitchen, rather than to drag it all the way through their home.

Right now, their kitchen was the biggest mess Sabo had ever seen it in and he'd only left them alone for two hours to pick up some supplies from the bandits.

Smoke was still drifting out the open window and a terrible burnt smell filled the air in the room.

"What. Did. You. Do!?" Sabo asked in a strained voice.

Their small, wood fueled, oven door was open and... what could only at this point and time be called a substance had set on the wire rank and oven bottom with a consistency only found, until now, in cement.

In front and to the side of the oven stood Ace. He was grinning, rather worriedly and holding a pan. Their only pan. It looked like it had a brownish rock fused inside it.

"Uh... Well, um making a cake." Ace's reply sounded more like a question that was left hanging there, like a hangman's noose.

"I helped!" Luffy cheered. He was standing at the counter with what looked like every dish they had sitting on it, covered in various forms of yuck. Something that Sabo didn't even want to try and identify was dripping on the floor.

"Making a- how do you even know how to bake a cake!?" Sabo could feel a headache coming on .

"Out of a book, you always said I needed to read more. They have books just for telling you how to cook things! You've been holding out on me!" Ace accused. "You could have mentioned that, reading wouldn't have been nearly as boring."

Sabo groaned, wishing he had thought of that when he was trying to get Luffy and Ace to improve their reading skills. Although, given the results of Ace's effort to cook something it might be just as well it didn't occur to him.

Another thought occurred to Sabo. "Where did you even find flour?"

Ace and Luffy gave him a rather odd look. "There's loads of flowers out in the jungle. It wasn't that hard to find enough to fit in our two of our cups." Ace told him.

"I helped pick them!" Luffy added, hopping up and down.

Sabo smacked his forehead, not doing his oncoming headache any favors with the move. "No, not flowers. F-L-O-U-R. It's not that same as- oh never mind." Sabo gave up trying to explain in the face of his brothers uncomprehending looks. "I don't suppose you used hens eggs in the recipe either."

"That's not fair!" Ace exclaimed. "The book didn't say what kind of eggs, just three large eggs. So, we got some anaconda eggs."

Sabo sighed. That was probably true. The author of the book couldn't have imagined anyone like Ace would ever read the book let alone try and use it. He really didn't want to know anything else that his brothers did to the 'cake', he didn't think his sanity could take anymore.

"I brought back a bunch more!" Luffy informed them.

"You did what!? Where are they?" Ace shouted.

"More eggs, more cake! I put them in the living room." Luffy told him.

"Luffy, those other eggs had a live baby snake in them! That's why I said we couldn't bring them!" Ace exclaimed, heading for the living room with Sabo hot on his heels.

"So, we get to eat the egg twice then." Luffy said as he followed after his brothers.

There was plenty of egg shell in the living room, all broken and cracked. No sign there was however, of the baby anacondas that were inside them.

For months afterwards on occasion, when the brothers opened something a small anaconda would come slithering out. It would lead to Sabo shouting at his brothers all over again while they tried to get the snake out of their house since it was too small to eat. Never after this were Ace or Luffy allowed to cook anything more complicated than meat.