*Author's Note: YO guys! This is my first fanfiction and I hope you guys like it.

I've always wondered what happened the time between Ace leaving Dawn Island to become a pirate and before he met Luffy in Alabasta, and I hope it will be explored one day. For the time being, I wanted to write an Ace saga to imagine what happened. N̶o̶w̶ ̶I̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶l̶e̶e̶p̶

I will try to keep this story close to canon as possible, because the story won't feel real unless I do so. I'll release chapters at least every two weeks or maybe even sooner, depending on the time I have available. There will be some original characters to enhance the story, but I promise there will be no romance. Read this while listening to matching One Piece OSTs! Have fun reading, I squeezed my brain like lemons to produce this chapter ಥ⌣ಥ

Chapter 1: Commotion at Calico House

Just off the shore of southwest Yotsuba Island lay the harbor town of Stark Worth, a bustling hub of trading activity. Merchants were milling about, going off tangents about high-quality products displayed on their stalls to potential buyers holding clipboards and papers. Some of these buyers were inexperienced and got scammed for their money, while others were more skeptical and tried to read between the lines of what was being told to them. That was how the world worked; most traders didn't care about the common code of morals; if profit was made, that was all that mattered. The more money they got, the better it was.

Like all big towns, there were coined "good" areas where high-end restaurants, luxury boutique shops, and hotel resorts were, while seedy districts simultaneously existed. The southern and center parts of Stark Worth were known to have positive reputations among the people, and it was the eastern part of the town where even residents were wary to step foot in, unless they were involved in the shady business there. It was known as Death's Peak, where gambling and black-market trading flourished. It was the place where you could get intel on upcoming human auctioning events and unlawful products on market. The recent boom in the district was due to the introduction of artificial devil Zoan-type fruits, brought from all the way from the Grand Line. There weren't much of them, but a few were enough to make black market traders all the way from the other side of East Blue to come sailing by.

Yet, it wasn't as if there were no laws present like the infamous Mock Town, where money that above-average pirates spent practically build the whole town. Marine 157th base possessed a strong presence in the town, upholding common law established by the World Government. That is, for most of the part. For some illegal activity, a blind eye is turned by Marine Captain Charles, who secretly prioritized how fat his wallet was over his duties. He essentially ignored anything unlawful if someone bribed him to do so.

The boundaries of Death's Peak weren't concrete, as they changed in response to where the hotspots of crime occur. Once, there was a well-known pirate crew called "Raging Bulls", that became successful by selling stolen items taken from clueless merchants. Their downfall came when they got into a skirmish with a foreign group. Both sides had high casualties, and in the end, all of them were caught by Captain Charles, who was tipped off by a defect. The Raging Bulls' former base was cleaned out by the marines and every trace that they had been there had vanished. The place had now merged into the non-seedy area.

In Death's Peak, walking down Red Carp street, also known as kake-dou, one could hear loud voices just near several blocks from an intersection. It came from the sort of building you could walk past without noticing: three stories high, chipping brown paintwork, with ivory climbing up to the roof that was originally intended to contrast the color of the building, but was neglected over time. On one side, there was a pawnshop and on the other was an apartment block whose residents often complained about how loud the inn was. The name of the place was written in discreet black letters. It read: CALICO HOUSE. And beneath, a brief motto that said, "Gamble, Eat, and Stay!".

Inside, the inn was sparse with people. All the noise was coming from a corner of the inn. It was occupied by a pack of unshaven middle-aged men huddled around a table playing Chuck-a-Luck. One man howled in jubilance as the number he bet on appeared on the set of dices, and the other men tried to hide their anger in ugly grimaces. Otherwise, only several people sat quietly eating the food they ordered, scattered throughout.

The owner, a thick man in his forties, stood behind the bar table smoking a cigarette. It was a slow day of business, even though the time only being noon. Usually, the place was littered with people who came to gamble while they ate, all the way from early morning to late night. He had his fair share of disturbances, which was to be expected, operating a business in Death's Peak, but the money that he made from this inn was more than enough to make up for it. If anything happened, so be it. The inn was too popular to be destroyed anyways.

His eyes flickered to a crumpled figure a few meters away from him. The boy had just came whipping in twenty minutes before and called for five orders of Calico's Special Extra-Spicy Beans with Beef after perusing through the menu for several seconds. He probably ordered the first item that his eyes processed. He looked like he was in his late teens, but most of his face was concealed by the way he tipped the orange cowboy hat he wore.

The teen boy ate at an alarmingly quick rate. He seemed to gobble all the food down without swallowing, as if it was his first meal in a week. On his fifth plate, he suddenly collapsed into a heap into the plate that was in front of him. The owner went up to him to see if the customer was dead, but it was clear that he wasn't dead, as his back slightly rose and fell. For some weird reason, he had simply fallen asleep. His face was oddly immersed into the plate of beans in front of him, like an unintentional facial.

The door creaked.

A group of men walked in with a chubby man in front. It was clear that he had the authority among them. His name was Pickett. He wore a long tan coat, black gloves, and a yellow turban. A brown silk scarf hung clumsily around his neck. He was an ill-tempered man, and you could see it in his extraordinarily intense eyes, heavily lidded, with thick black eyebrows. His flesh had the color and the vitality of a man lying dead in his coffin. His face was unlined, his mouth a narrow gash. Looking in front, one could make out the edges of a tattoo on the side of his neck: a nutmeg skull with a canary star in the left eye.

The gambling men had noticed the skull, and grew silent. Instantly, they knew that those people were the ones you didn't want to mess with. The few people that were eating had already scrabbled away.

The newcomers were part of the Curry Bark pirates, evinced by the tattoo that they wore on the sides of their necks. It was an infamous crew known for being the ones to hold a monopoly on the town's human auctioning events. Stark Worth was close to Goa Kingdom, a country steeped in affluence and prosperity. Nobles or royalty who needed servants could easily obtain one at human auction that took place in the center of Death's Peak every month. Prices, depending on the type of human, reached as high as a hundred million berries. Since important people were regular customers of this trade, the marines couldn't do anything about it. However, the trafficking here was nowhere as serious as the one that was on Sabaody Archipelago, next to the Holy Land Mariejois, where there were requirements for it to take place. There weren't just humans for sale, but also Merfolk, Devil Fruit users, and other rare species.

Pickett walked further into the inn with his men trailing after him. He settled on a table in the middle of the room and propped his feet up on it. "Three barrels of sake, six cups. Make it quick!", he snapped loudly. The owner and an employee retrieved it, and placed it on the oak table, making sure they didn't spill a single drop.

It had been an irritating day for Pickett. Captain Curry had just thrown a fit at him earlier this morning for having a lackluster inventory for the upcoming human auction. They were mostly prisoners taken from the aftermath of ship battles, and they were mostly thin and unattractive. At most, the price they would fetch would be 30,000 berries. But it was difficult to get these slaves. Although the auction was overlooked by authorities, snatching a random person on the street to be held for sale was strictly forbidden. If it was legal, there would be an uproar. He was the one who oversaw the securing of more slaves for sale. Time was running out. He had to do something about it, or something bad would happen to him. The way some members had been killed by Curry… Pickett shuddered at the thought alone. He guzzled down some sake and smashed the cup on the ground. Slanting back on the chair, he peered around the inn. The group of gambling men were now quickly packing up their things to leave. They knew that nothing ever good happened around any members of the Curry Bark affiliates. At the bar, a boy crumpled over the counter, his back facing them. That annoyed Pickett. He decided to pick on the sleeping boy. "You, behind the counter." He spat.

When he got no response, he walked over to the bar and repeated his words, obviously vexed. "Hey you!"

No response.

Stupid little shit, the overweight man thought. Pickett reached for the boy's head, but before he could even touch it, the boy's hand blocked his attempt, as if he had eyes on the back of his head. He lifted his head.

"Eh?" His eyes were half open as he took in his surroundings, with brown-colored beans dripping down from his face: his hand grasping onto a fat man's greasy wrist, the cook who had served him Calico's Special Spicy Beans cowering behind the counter, his lips moving rapidly into a Den-Den Mushi, and the whole inn looking at him in disbelief. The clique of men who were playing Chuck-a-Luck stopped in their tracks on their way out.

"What's going on in here?" He yawned and cursorily let go of the man's wrist, who then fell, losing balance after struggling to free himself of the wavy-haired boy's grip.

Pickett's eyes switched instantly from surprise to understanding and then to black, seething fury as he stood up again. Didn't this stupid boy know who he was? Ever since he had entered Curry Bark's pirate crew, no one had dared to even lift a single hair of his.

The bean boy stood up and turned around, facing Pickett and his men. Now that he had wiped his face with napkins, and a strikingly handsome face came into clear view. He had wavy black hair, cut short, and dark eyes with just the faintest traces of hazel. Playful freckles dotted his cheeks, making him seem younger than he actually was. He wore an unbuttoned yellow collar shirt that hung loose at the sides, exposing his stomach and muscular chest. His hands loosely lay curled by his sides as he looked at the men with a blank expression. At that moment, he didn't look seventeen. He could have been twenty-two.

"What do you guys want?" The fair-skinned boy tipped his hat back and stretched nonchalantly.

Pickett had already reached for his gun. He pointed it with contempt at the teenage boy. "No one ever disrespects me. You don't know who I am? I'll tell you. I'm part of Curry Bark Pirates." The chubby man paused to let that fact sink in the boy. He sneered. "If I hit you, you let me. If I choke you, you don't do anything. You don't have the power to resist me. So, I've got a fit punishment for you."

The expression of the boy's face still hadn't changed. He stuck his hands in his pockets and lazily let his spine relax. "And that is what, may I ask, monsieur?" He said in a mockingly polite tone.

Another wave of rage flared through Pickett. He had enough of this silly boy. He shot right where the boy stood.

Bang!

But the shot had missed. The boy had already disappeared where he was. "Otto, that was dangerous!" Pickett heard near his left ear just as a fist came flying into his cheek. It was so painful, he was sure that he had never been struck that hard before. As if that wasn't already enough, the boy twisted his body around and drove his elbow into the side of the man's head, just below his ear. Pickett cried out, as he fell, snapping his neck at the wooden oak floor.

What happened next was complete mayhem.

Pickett's men threw themselves at the teenage boy, who had his back to them. One of them caught the boy by the arms, but it was only for a moment before he went flying, crashing into the wall near the entrance. Two men attempted to fire shots at the wild child, but they missed, and the bullets littered the wall with holes.

Click. Click.

They had run out of ammunition. Cursing, as the duo tried to frantically reload their pistols, their foreheads were suddenly smashed together like pounding mochi. The remaining man, sickly and horse-faced, was already creeping towards the door, deciding whether to run away or fight. He was making second-quick calculations. If he ran, his career with the Curry Bark pirates would be over. The rule was you couldn't leave the crew even if you wanted to. Once you joined, your fate was to die with them. Running away meant that you would be hunted down and killed. Therefore, only one solution remained.

He dashed and dove at the boy. But the boy had already seen it coming; he lifted a table where a meal with rice was abandoned by someone earlier and threw it at the man. The man's head crashed into the table and he propelled back into the wall, near where his comrade had fallen. He shrieked and went limp.

The teen boy dusted his hands as he stood in the middle of the inn, which was now deserted except for the owner and fainted members of the Curry Bark crew. "Anyone else?"

There was no answer.

He went back to his former seat in front of the bar counter. Scarfing down the leftover of his meal of beans, he turned to the owner who looked horrified, reviewing the heinous disarray that just happened. The previous disturbances that happened here was nothing to this extent.

"I donth hath money. But thankth por the meal!" Ace grabbed his green backpack and clicked two his fingers together toward and back at the owner as a gesture of gratitude.

The owner said nothing as he stared at the seventeen-year-old start towards the door of the inn.

A pained voice rang out.

"Wait!"

Pickett lay on the floor, holding his head in clear anguish. He seemed to have broken his neck. His face was contorted with a mixture of infuriation and discomfort.

"Say your name. I will come back for you!" Pickett hissed, trying to croak out the words with the initial confidence he had earlier.

"Before athking por shomeone else'sh name, shouldnth you sday your own firsth?" The boy replied as he swung his backpack on.

Before the chubby man could say another word, the young boy ignored him.

"Ath. Potgath D. Ath." He said with his mouth full of beans, and waved one hand in the air as he continued to chew on his way out.

"I won't forget this!" The chubby man screeched in fury, drawing back his lips into an evil scowl.

Then Portgas D. Ace was gone.

It was a long moment until the inn owner moved again. He muttered underneath his breath as he reached for the Den Den Mushi again, "Dine-and-dash…". The damages to the property would be immense.

Esoteric Vocabulary

*monsieur – sir (French)