Hello Everyone! I am sorry about being so behind on updating but, to help make up for it I've got a 2K chapter. It's part filler- part plot build up and with a good dash of brotherly fluff.

Thank you so much for your reviews and encouragement.

GreenDarkness, Thanks Makino is fun to write. Sorry, No ASL yet at least. They would have been to much a target, three little kids sailing out as pirates.

Nala1220, thank you for that review and it's good to hear from you again.

Blackthorn Ashe, thanks for the review.

Lacus01, Thanks for reviewing.

Syluk, Thanks for reviewing. I'm glad you like it so far.

Guest, Thanks for reviewing. Glad you like.

LostDog200, Thanks for reviewing. I'm happy to hear you like it. PS, that's a good name. You should see about creating an account with that name or as close to it as you can.

Reminiscence Awry, Thanks for the review and appreciating the work that goes into it.

Rin- s666, Thanks for reviewing. Happy to hear you still like it.

gabrielsangel23, Thanks for reviewing. I'm pleased to hear you like it.

Guest, Thanks for reviewing. It won't hurt the plot any to say that Ace's father was human and his mother well, wasn't. As for the rest, we'll all just have to wait and see.

Love-this-smuch, Thank you for the review. Ah, where would we be without Ace and Sabo flying off the handle and getting overprotective.

Okay, before we dive into this new chapter, I wanted to tell everyone that I've put up a new poll. I'm having trouble deciding something and rather than fry my last remaining brain cells agonizing over it, I though I'd see what everyone else thought about it.

Do you want...

The Whitebeard Pirates to catch up with the brothers now-ish, while they are still young.

OR

For the Whitebeard Pirates to run into/ meet or otherwise find them when they are a little older say, early teens.

OR

For neither of these things to happen quite like that. Come one Get creative!

OR

No preference. Let whatever shall be, be.

I can see the plot benefits, extras, complexities, twists, turns, etc for all of these directions. Except for the last one. I do have to sort something out. Rather than melt my brain trying to figure out what everyone might want I figured I'd save me from the meltdown and just ask. Poll will be open from now until June 20th.

Now, with out further delay ... I don't own One Piece, just my ideas OC's and two unmatched socks.

Despite the distressing circumstances for their flight, the three brothers couldn't keep the smiles off their face at getting to their first island. It wasn't very large, the whole island being the same size as the jungle back on their home island. Nevertheless, it was their first island exploration.

They had circled the island once before choosing the best location to land.

Given Ace and Sabo's excited state, they did not have the proper grip on the youngest to prevent him from running off. With a shout of "Yes! Island adventure!" Luffy was off, running into the bushes before either boy could grab him.

Sabo and Ace exchanged glances. "What trouble could he possibly get into? We're the only ones here and Dandan said there wasn't any real big predators on this island." Sabo reasoned.

Both boys considered that statement for all of three seconds and came to a conclusion based on three things.

One...

Luffy's ability to get into and/or have trouble find him no matter how 'safe' the situation is.

Two...

Their bad luck as of late and the fact that Luffy didn't even think to take his pipe, as usual.

Three...

"Luffy!" Both boys, as one, shouted as they chased after him.


Marco mentally prepared himself for the talk he needed to have with Oyaji as the den den mushi rang. Across from him, Thatch waited, ready to listen in.

"Whitebeard speaking." Marco and Thatch smiled hearing their fathers voice. Though they liked making errand runs, they did miss their family when they were away.

"Good afternoon Pops." Marco said.

Whitebeards laughter erupted from the den den mushi. "It's always a good day when I hear from my traveling sons. I assume Thatch is there as well?"

"Hi Pops!" Thatch called out cheerfully.

"We have an update for you about the rouge pirate we were hunting down." Marco informed his father.

"You managed to catch up with them then?" Whitebeard inquired.

"Not exactly. We managed to make landfall on the last island he came to but, someone else beat us in taking him out." Marco let out a frustrated sigh.

"Yet something is still troubling you and your brother about it. What's wrong, my sons?" In his cabin back on the Moby Dick, Whitebeard frowned. His sons were not easy people to unsettle, something very disturbing must have happened to get to them like this.

"The situation had become... somewhat complicated." Marco paused, trying to come up with the best way to explain things.

Thatch came to his rescue. "How does us coming home with three potential sons sound."

There was a slight pause before Whitebeard responded. "It sounds like you and your brother have had an eventful trip. Are these new brothers with you now, I'd like to speak with them."

"No, Pops." Marco sighed again, rubbing his temples. "That's where some of the complications come in. We're on our way to track them down right now. They should be on an Island a few days ahead of us."

Marco, with a few comments from Thatch, brought their father up to date on their recent findings on Dawn Island and the little they knew about their soon-to-be new brothers.

With every new revelation, Whitebeard could easily understand his sons distress and frustration at the situation. If he closed his eyes, Whitebeard could almost see three small figures out on the ocean, all alone. The sea could be a cruel at times to even the most experienced sailors. The vast ocean was much to wicked for three small brats to be out alone on, not to speak of other people they would encounter out there. There were worse out in the world than Bluejam.

"I'll have Namur change course and head for paradise so we're closer to your location." Whitebeard informed his sons.

"Thanks Pops." Thatch said on both of their behaves.

"Keep safe and give another call when you find the brats. Let me know if you need any assistance."

"Thank you, Pops. We'll let you know when there is any change in events, specifically when we find them. I know you'll want to talk with them." Marco said. He knew his father liked talking to potential sons and daughters in person but this was an unusual case.

After that, their talk drifted down normal pathways. Mostly detailing anything noteworthy that their siblings had been up to.

Soon, all three were laughing at the tales of their siblings lees fortunate occurrences, smiling with pride at some of their recent deeds, while some left Marco questioning why he thought it was a good idea to leave some of his siblings unsupervised for such a long time. Oh yes... Because letting Thatch go off on his own would have been much, much worse.

Ah, to be back home again. Hopefully, they would be heading there soon and with three new brothers to add to the crazy mix.


Some astonishing things happened to the three young brothers.

A terrible wild beast did not appear to try and eat Luffy. There was in fact, nothing big enough on the island to qualify as dangerous to the three brothers.

Sabo found a fresh water spring with worrying ease. The only difficult part Sabo and Ace had was rolling their water barrel to the spring without aggravating any of their injuries.

Ace and Sabo sat leaning against the barrel in the shade. Normally, Ace did not need to avoid the sun but in his currently weakened state it did effect him some.

"You didn't re-open any wounds. Did you?" Sabo asked, glancing at his brother.

"Nah. How about you?" Ace asked, looking over at Sabo.

"No new damage but not much change, I'm afraid..." Sabo trailed off, at Ace's raised hand. A signal Sabo knew meant that someone, in this case Luffy was approaching. The older brothers were doing their best to keep Luffy's worries over them to a minimum. They were the older brothers, after all.

Soon the flop-flop of Luffy's sandals could be heard by both brothers as he made his way over to him.

"Well, since we're all here..." Sabo began to speak as Luffy wormed himself between his two brothers. "We might as well talk about a few things before we go hunting..."

"What stuff?" Luffy asked, twisting and tilting his head back to better look at Sabo, his usual smile in place. The older brothers had long ago gotten used to Luffy's ability to stretch at angles that would have broken a normal persons bone. It still amused them to no end watching the expressions on other people's faces when they witnessed Luffy's ability for the first few times.

"Things like how many days we can stay here." Sabo looked over Luffy's head at his other brother. "Ace?..." Sabo inquired.

Ace winced at the question. "How many days until the next populated island?" Ace asked.

"The next island is a week away, if the good weather holds." Sabo informed him.

"Neh, A week is forever! Why can't the next island be closer!" Luffy wailed. Sabo laughed and flicked his hat off so he could mess Luffy's hair up.

Ace smiled at his brothers antics, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. He wished he could give Sabo more time to rest and recover. But, if they stayed here to long he would need to feed and his brothers were not healthy enough yet to handle that.

Ace could not, would not do anything to hurt his brothers. Sabo needed to recover more and Luffy was just too small to be able to give him much blood. It still amazed him that they wanted to be anywhere near him after learning what and who he was and to want to be brothers with him...

"I can manage two more days here. After that, we'll need to move on. I'm sorr-"

"Don't you dare apologize for something you need." Sabo cut in. "We'll make it okay. Besides, we'll be able to get a hold of more supplies."

"And I bet the other thing you want to talk about is what we're going to do and where we're going to go now that we have some time to think." Ace said. He noticed the brief look of surprise on Sabo's face and grinned. "Hey, give me some credit. I've been around you long enough to know how you think, besides it's logical. We haven't had time to really talk about that yet and we need to."

"Okay, now that's just creepy. You're starting to sound responsible." Sabo teased.

"Ew, no thanks." Ace said, making a disgusted face. "That's your job, being the boring one. So, any ideas?"

"Can we go see Shanks? He'd help." Luffy asked, his smile brightened to match the sun at the idea of seeing Shanks again.

"I'm sure he would Luffy..." Sabo smiled gently at his brother. "But, he's bound to be back on the Grand Line and we're not strong enough yet to go there."

"And we can't just start asking people where he is or anything." Ace added. "You know not everyone likes pirates and they might hate Shanks. We can't risk it, Luffy promise you won't mention Shanks to anyone unless we say it's okay."

"But why!? Shanks is so cool!" Luffy wailed, waving his arms frantically.

Both of the older brothers grinned.

"We know Luffy, and we look forward to meeting him. But, it's as Ace says. Not everyone likes pirates, no matter how 'cool' and nice they are." Sabo said.

"Fine. I promise, even if it is stupid." Luffy said, sulkily.

"Good. So, any realistic plans? I think it would be a good idea if we got out of the East blue. Sabo, what do you think?" Ace questioned.

Sabo nodded. "That's probably for the best, if gramp's or anyone else comes looking for us we'll be an easy target hanging around here. I don't think it would be a good idea to go to the North blue, we're not used to dealing with freezing temperatures."

"So, that leaves the West or South Blue." Ace commented.

Sabo unrolled the maps he brought with him in preparation for this conversation and studied them for a moment.

"Well," Sabo began. "The logical route would be to go to the South Blue. Most of the island chains in our part of the East Blue here lead that way. However, if anyone is following us..."

"Following that route would make us an easy target." Ace surmised.

"Exactly. If we break out of our pattern to soon though, it'll make it obvious where we are headed. So, what we could do is this..." Saboe said, pointing to an island on the map. "Once we get to this island, we make a u-turn and start heading west. The next island from there heading south is three weeks away."

"Ah," Ace nodded. "So, anyone following us will be way off course."

Neither older brother spoke of it yet, they both knew that between part of Ace's heritage being reviled and the chances of Sabo's parents sending someone else to drag him home, the odds were good that someone would come after them. Not to mention what may happen when Garp heard about it...

"Yeah," Sabo grinned. "Just in case anyone is still following us I thought we should break out of our habit of hitting the closest island. But the problem with that is after we make the u-turn, the second closest island is two months away."

"Hum, I don't think that will be a problem." Ace said "Not if we start planning for it now. We could start getting extra supplies, like an extra water barrel or some rope and put aside money to buy more food. It looks like that U-turn is a few weeks away yet, right?"

Sabo nodded.

"Great." Ace grinned. "I should be feeling well enough by then to do some fishing to help spread out our supplies. We might have enough supplies to really out fox them and stay in the open waters an extra month if we can keep Luffy entertained."

"What do you think Luffy, does it sound like a good plan?" Sabo asked.

Luffy looked up at his brothers, a look of serious concentration on his face. "Will there be meet?"

Ace and Sabo sighed in unison at the exasperating yet, endearing question.

"Yes Luffy, there will be meet." They answered their brothers favorite question togeather.

"Yes!"