Author's Note: In honor of Porgas D. Ace. May he make it out of the story alive.
Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable from One Piece.
Portgas D. Ace was elder brother to Monkey D. Luffy, and widely known in their hometown, the village called Fuchsia, for this one little fact. Where Luffy was immature and energetic and disrespectful enough to make himself a name that was not only well-known in his village, but throughout the surrounding villages as well, Ace was widely known as his foil: the calm, respectful, mature elder brother who could administer (a little) control over the smaller ball of energy. This was not to say that Ace didn't have his own eccentricities—more than the average human being, in fact—but this dimmed to pale insignificance in light cof the fact that he was far less eccentric than his brother.
Another man may have felt insulted or jealous—or any other similar emotion—to realize that he was only known as what he was because of his brother. Another man would have felt that he was living in his brother's shadow. And, indeed, Ace did not deny that in the public eye, he was certainly in Luffy's shadow. However, this had never particularly affected him. In fact, Ace felt all the better knowing that he was known for his maturity more than his habit of literally falling asleep in his food—though that, too, was common knowledge in Fuchsia. Furthermore, Ace had the upper hand in their private lives. Luffy had never beat Ace in a fight; Ace always knew how to talk to Luffy's grandfather, and later to their new guardian, with the sort of respect that did not soften his training, but softened the blows he received when he did not meet expectations.
So, being the more mature one, Ace could laugh as he went to help the sinking boy every time Luffy attempted to learn to swim and failed, or as Ace patted him on the head comfortingly when Luffy was trying to hold in the tears after a long day of too hard training. Things didn't change as they grew older. Ace laughed at many of Luffy's silly blunders; the all-time greatest was Luffy's accidental consumption of the Gum-Gum fruit, thus turning his body in to that of a rubber man. Of course, the consumption of the Gum-Gum fruit in itself was nothing to laugh about. People all over the world would die for the chance to eat a Devil's Fruit and gain a power. It was usually a matter to be considered gravely and solemnly.
Luffy's consumption of the fruit, however, was hilarious, because it had been a complete accident, and had thrown the entire village into an uproar, starting with the pirates in the little bar. People had laughed for years at the incident, for how could someone accidentally eat an entire fruit that tasted so terrible?
So when, on his third day after leaving Fuchsia village, Ace consumed the Flame-Flame fruit, he swore that no one, least of all Luffy, was ever going to find out how it had happened.
You see, Ace's consumption of his Devil's Fruit had been entirely accidental. And not just a bite or two either: the thing had tasted horrible, yet he had eaten it all anyway.
He had been sailing in his little sailboat for three days, and having consumed all his water supply, he was living off only the fish that he caught when they had the misfortune to wander a little too close to his boat. So, of course, when he caught sight of an island on the horizon and pointed his sailboat toward it, the first thing he did upon coming ashore on the island was to search for water.
Unfortunately, the island was a small one with many of what appeared to be streams, but were in fact small slivers of ocean that trickled from one side of the island to the other—it was salty, and hardly drinking water material. Ace tested each clear trickle of water that he came across, but it was as though there simply was no fresh water on the island.
There were no creatures to hunt on the island—not even small ones, like snakes or frogs or even snails—and eating only the fish he caught at the beach left him with a parched throat. He considered leaving, but that would not solve his problem of lack of water. He looked around at the sparse vegetation on the island: he could, potentially, eat the leaves and moss, but the idea wasn't all that appetizing.
Ace resolved to camp on the island for the night, and dragged his little rowboat further into the island where he propped it up against the largest, strongest looking one of the skinny tree trunks. He crawled in under the boat, and sighing in relief at the coolness of the shade, promptly fell asleep.
He awoke to the sound of seagulls and leapt up, thinking that they would make a nice breakfast—and hit his head on the boat that was still propped above him.
Swallowing curses, Ace crawled out and was disappointed to realize that the seagulls were rather high in the sky and though they circled the island, none showed any sign of landing.
It was just as he was thinking wryly that Luffy could have caught one of them, what with his stretching arms and all, that he noticed something on the shore. He ran up to it and found that it looked somewhat like an orange. It was discolored, and he spent a moment wondering whether it had gone bad or was actually a sea anemone or something.
Then the thirsty young man decided that that was beside the point and he didn't care.
He peeled the thing and ate it—and it wasn't salty, but it tasted disgusting. He had never eaten anything so disgusting in his life.
In fact, after he had finished it, he realized that despite everything, it had hardly quenched his thirst anyway.
Ace sighed and decided that it was time to leave. He dragged his boat back to shore and was pushing it out of the shallows when his feet entered the water—and instantly he felt the strength leave him. Startled, he pulled his boat back out of the water—and found that he was fine the moment he was out of contact with the water—and stared at the ocean suspiciously.
Experimentally, Ace stuck a single finger into the sea and discovered that yes, that weakening effect was definitely there. He pulled back quickly, only to discover that somehow his boat had caught fire right by his hand. He hastily flipped the boat upside down so that the burning part entered the water.
But the whole affair was very confusing. Why was this-
Oh, look. His hand was on fire.
Ace stared down at his flaming hand calmly, trying to come up with some sort of an explanation for this.
It can be said that Ace took it better than Luffy did. There was no outward panicking involved. He simply willed the flame to stop, and it did. Then he willed it back. Then he willed a tree to catch fire, but nothing happened.
Ace was a quick study, and it didn't take him long to figure out how to control his flaming body. He also had to learn to push his boat out without touching the water of the sea in the process. Additionally, any time he was started awake for the first few weeks, he also wound up with another burned spot in the boat. Sometimes the burned spots began to leak, and he had to quickly find a place to dock to fix the thing before he drowned.
All in all, it wasn't that bad. Ace liked his new power, and it definitely was incredibly useful.
Maybe thirst was a decent excuse to eat a whole devil's fruit without realizing what it was. Probably, in the normal world.
Still, he was determined that no one find out how his powers had come about. On a deserted island it had happened, and on that deserted island it would stay.