When Marco got over his initial shock that Ace had just left him behind (and that he was acting much too like someone Marco once knew), he realized that he didn't have the faintest of clues as to where Ace might have gone. Huffing in annoyance, Marco quickly changed forms and took off into the sky in search of the little hyper-defensive child. Marco's wish was granted not too long into his flight, but the sight that greeted him made the Lunar Phoenix's stomach turn painfully.

Ace, who Marco just watched get disarmed and forced to the ground by a man that could considered a half-giant if he looked to have the muscle, was surrounded by bandits on all sides, all of whom were wielding some type of anti-magic weapon. What Marco noticed first, however, wasn't Ace, but the pure blood-lust for revenge that was held in the eyes of the bandits. It was that blood-lust that made Marco see red, and before the phoenix could make a coherent thought, he had already charged at Ace's attackers in a flurry of light blue flames and deafening screech.

When Marco came back to his senses, Ace was letting out breathless syllables while staring at him with wide eyes that were just barely trembling. Marco sighed as he changed forms and looked around at the damage he had caused and winched at what he saw. Sure, Marco was strong, but he had temporarily forgotten just why he didn't get into fights. Speaking of which, Marco had to wonder since when did he start charging into things without fully thinking about them? Sure, Marco knew that the bandits didn't stand a chance against him- not for another million years or so- but charging right into things was very unlike him. As Marco turned to Ace, he idly wondered what is was about the child that could make him abandon his common sense and blindly charge into something in a Rage?

"M-Marco…?" Ace managed to get out of his system before his narcolepsy got the better of him and he passed out right there on the spot, freaking Marco out. Marco quickly ran up to Ace and picked him up, making sure to watch out for any serious injury, and began to check over him to figure out what the heck just happened. Marco was truly beginning to freak out, and when he began to hear the soft snores, Marco froze both physically and mentally. Marco blinked and let out a small sigh of relief and clutched the child in his arm protectively, relieved that Ace wasn't hurt. When Marco managed to get out his instincts, Marco frowned and he thought of one thing; why did Ace just fall asleep in the middle of a dangerous place? Did the kid have absolutely no sense of danger or something? When no answer came to Marco's mind, he sighed and sent a cold glare to the few conscious bandits that hadn't gotten charred and they quickly went running to .

Somewhat confident that he wasn't going to get attacked on his way back, Marco set a leisurely pace on his way back to the Newgate Boarding House where he knew there were people waiting for the two of them.

- Time is a skip -

When Ace managed to wake up, he found himself curled up on a rather soft and comfy bed. Soft, comfy and way to warm. Frowning at that simple fact- he used fire more often than not and could withstand standing in an inferno- Ace kicked off the blankets and sat up, making sure to look around at the room he was in.

The room's only defining factor besides the white wall paint, was the light yellow-brownish wooden bed and white dresser that held a deep blue-purplish wooden symbol. A cross with a crescent moon that was tilted to look like a grin was sitting right there on top of the dresser looking as regal as a wooden statue could.

Ace frowned, why was he at the Old Man's place? Ace shook his head and carefully got onto his bare feet and winced slightly at the coldness of the floors and walked over to the door, opening it slightly to peak out and watched as someone wearing a light pink and purple kimono- the man who had told him about the two kinds of phoenixes- stopped and turned to the door and smiled.

"Ah! You're awake, Ace!" The man sounded a little too happy to Ace and he gulped. "Oh, come here dearie. I'm not going to hurt you. Marco brought you here are you fell asleep." The man watched as Ace frowned and took a step back from the door. "I promise… Ah, by the way, I don't think I properly introduced myself. I'm Izo."

Ace debated on what to do, but finally decided to ask the first question that entered his head. "Why am I here…?" Ace asked since he figured if Marco and Izo were under the Old Man's care, then Marco must have told Izo something. Marco didn't strike Ace as the kind of person who would do something for no reason.

"Marco wanted to make sure you were fine. According to him, you just dropped like a stone while you were about to be attacked…" Izo spoke softly, and Ace almost was feeling himself get lured back into sleep with a light fuzzy feeling. "Are you alright?" Izo's voice snapped Ace out of his thoughts and he stared at Izo with a confused look in his eyes, which Izo caught and clarified what he meant. "You fell asleep in the middle of a fight- are you alright?"

Ace nodded slightly, not fully understanding why would care if he was alright or not since no one had ever cared before except Luffy. However, Luffy was Luffy, and Luffy was an enigma.

"You sure kiddo?" At Ace's nod and slight huff that Izo almost missed, he continued on. "You want anything to eat? I was just on my way to join the family for dinner. Why don't you come along?" Izo extended his hand out for Ace and after a little bit of an internal debate with himself, Ace bolted out of the room and latched onto Izo, almost knocking the sakura-demon look-alike over. Ace buried his face into Izo's kimono and got a strong whiff of cherry blossoms, which only strengthen Ace's determination that Izo was a sakura demon.

When Izo got over his lost sense of balance, he gently rubbed his hand up and down Ace's back, humming softly with a knowing look on his face. "It's alright, Ace" Izo began softly, "We're not leaving you."

"W-what do you mean?" Ace asked after looking up at the man, confusion written plainly across his face.

"You'll see, little one." Izo smiled softly and led Ace down the hallway and into the somewhat giant dining room where there were fifteen people all sitting down at a round table. When one of the people noticed Izo, it was a man with a highly strange hair-style (who the heck puts all their hair in the front of their head?!), he let out a whoop and motioned too two empty seats- one next to him and the other right next to Marco. When Izo took the seat next to the man that wasn't Marco, Ace figured that he was supposed to sit next to Marco. That thought was proved correct with the Old Man told Ace to take a seat and enjoy dinner.

Ace was confused and a little terrified. He was confused because he was taught that eating at a table with other people was something that was only done if you were family and directly invited (which he was invited, but he wasn't family) and he was terrified because he didn't want to let it be known that he was starving.

"Brat, come on over here." The Old Man laughed at Ace's pale face, "Please don't think you can hide your hunger." Ace was confused. His stomach didn't grumble, and despite being starving, Ace was thankfully not as skinny as most of the worse-cases. That was mostly due to being able to have a somewhat reliable food-source as the river and pond Ace normally fished at never fully froze, and when it did it was only an inch or two, and the fish liked to be near the bottom of the pond.

As if sensing Ace's confusion, Newgate continued on. "I'm a father of many who have once lived in poverty and hunger, child. You don't need to be wary of me; I was hoping you would even take up my mark, little one." There was something about that last part that made Ace feel rage inside and made him cast his gaze to the floor. Wasn't Garp his grandfather and wasn't he taking care of Sabo and Luffy? Speaking of which… why did Garp leave Ace on his own? Was it because of his blood? That was the only logical thing Ace could think of. He knew who his parents were- Rouge and Roger. Garp never fully hid it from him, nor did Garp really try to hide it. Roger was the world's devil that was wanted dead. Any and everyone who was related in any form to Roger were wanted dead. Friends, family, neighbors, you named them- if they were related to Roger in any way they were hunted until the government could put their severed head on a pole and paraded it around.

Before Newgate could say anything more, Ace took off out of the dining room and ran straight out of the boarding house and down the streets and into the forest- someplace that Ace knew.

The forest didn't change much. It was green during all times of the year except the months of severe drought and rainfall. During the times of drought, the forest became yellow and brown, and Ace had to be careful of his fire or else he'd start a wildfire that could envelop the entire forest before one could even blink- Ace had done it before and it wasn't fun to try and hide from the firefighters or the government. During the months of sever rainfall, the forest went from being green and brown, to being full of colors.

Bright pink and purple flowers would bloom that would emit a sweet alluring smell that drew animals in to help pollinate it. Light blue and gold flowers would sometimes bloom during the night and Ace was lucky if he got to see one before they closed back up during the early hours of the morning. Sometimes even bright red flowers would bloom, but Ace didn't like those flowers since they emitted a foul smell that repulsed him and seemed to make flies hyper. There were even these little black berries that grew big in the rain and when Ace accidently bit into one, made the sweetest mistake he could have; not only were the berries sweet, but they grew everywhere in the forest and didn't make Ace sick afterwards.

Strangely though, Ace could vaguely remember a time when Sabo and Luffy had tried to eat those berries and got deathly ill. Garp had given all three of them a good scolding before getting the three kids to the hospital and then complaining about the medicine that was going to be needed to make sure that the berries didn't have any other ill side-affects.

In the forest, there were also these bright weird fruits that would grow once a year during the rainy season that were swirly. According to Garp, those fruits were the spawn of the devil (Ace had a laugh with that when people started calling Roger's son the devil's spawn) and should never be eaten for they killed everyone that ate them. It was a shame, really, since Ace thought the fruits looked pretty and greatly wondered what they would taste like.

Ace quickly was pulled out of his remembrance when he ran head-first into one of the oak trees that scattered the forest, and he rubbed his head with a pout. He really needed to stop doing that- going into deep thought while moving around. It would only lead to a concussion one of these days. As Ace was about to run off again, a voice and a hand caught him.

"Ace, wait, yoi!" Marco's voice came forth and Ace almost did a double take. Why the heck was Marco following him around like a little chick? He wasn't a newborn! "What's wrong?" Marco knelt down so he was eye-to-eye with Ace and looked the child in the eyes as he asked the question.

Ace couldn't look at Marco when he knelt down, and felt a little bad for running off without expressing his thoughts, but then again, if the Old Man was anything like Garp, if Ace stated how he truly felt he'd be rejected and that was a fate worse than death to the child. Marco seemed to notice this reluctance to speak and figured out the cause, for he smiled softly and embraced Ace into a hug.

"Pops isn't like Garp, yoi. I assure you that no one is going to harm you." Ace nodded slowly at this and relaxed in the Lunar Phoenix's grip, confused as to what the heck Marco was doing.

"…What are you doing…?" Ace asked shakily, not entirely sure if Marco was speaking the truth. Ace knew that Newgate treated his 'children' with the greatest care Ace had even seen, but that didn't mean there wasn't any ulterior motives.

"Pardon?" Marco seemed confused as to what Ace meant, and when Ace motioned to Marco's arm, he blinked, and before his mind could form a solid thought, he spoke up.

"You don't know what a hug is?"

Ace blushed at this and shook his head. His grandfather had 'hugged' him plenty of times, but almost all of those times it had been painful and ended up with Ace barely holding back tears and screams. When Ace had watched other people get 'hugged', that painfulness was never there, so Ace had assumed that Garp wasn't really hugging him or just didn't know how to control his own strength. Since Garp was always hitting him, Luffy and Sabo, Ace assumed it was the later and not the former. After all, Luffy wasn't always ready to burst into tears when he got hugged by his grandfather.

Marco, on the other hand, was beginning to worry. Just what all had the boy's grandfather done to him? Besides signs of obvious neglect and abuse, Marco was also seeing signs of withdrawal- at least he hoped it was that. Running from people, being cranky around people, only relaxing when an Animal was nearby… Marco was beginning to wonder if Garp should even be allowed custody of children. Maybe he should get the kings help- he had a daughter and understood the fragileness of children. That wasn't to say they were glass, Marco almost chuckled at that for he knew children could be just as resilient as the Life lily- a bright blue and light green flower that could be trampled on and ripped from its roots and still not die.

"Pops wants to give you a place to call home and people to call family, yoi. We're not trying to take away anything from you." Marco lightly rubbed Ace's back and closed his eyes, not entirely sure of what he was doing. Sure, he took care of his brothers, but they were adults (even if pops called them all brats) and Ace was just a child. Izo and Thatch were better at caring for children then he was. Still, when he felt Ace shift to get closer to Marco and relaxed, Marco knew he had to be doing something right- even if he had gone about it in a slightly wrong way.

"… Sorry…" Ace mumbled after a little, and then for the second time that day, his Narcolepsy got the better of him and he passed out blissfully, fully aware that Marco wasn't going to let anything happen to him.

- This is a skip -

When Ace woke up, he was vaguely aware that he was back in the room he had woken up in earlier since Ace's shoes were still were they were left before Ace had bolted out of the Boarding House. Ace glanced out of the window and saw that the sky was dark, but he could faintly hear the sounds of what Ace assumed were a party going on from the door. Marco's words and Izo's and Newgate's- but Ace was wondering if he should start calling them man 'Pops' as well- floated idly into Ace's mind, and with them, Ace smiled again and curled up into the bed. Feeling that he could trust them, even if it was what he was raised against, Ace closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

- CHAPTER END -

AzureSea8: Well, here you go!

Mad Y u e: Thanks, and maybe. I don't know if I can summon forth a guardian for you like the people in this story… *sad face* I'd like to, really, but I can't. Besides, reality says I can't have a blue pineapple-headed chicken for a guardian… *sniff* Also, don't mind the typos. I can still understand what your trying to write.

XxFire-PhoenixxX: Here you go, a new chapter!