Thatch looked at the woman in front of him. No fear, only a healthy portion of respect. She truly knew, what and who she was dealing with.

"They won't calm down, as long as we are surrounded and so close. You can stay, but get the others quite a bit away. The lion can stay close to you, if he wants."

"It that a…"

"Sicilian! Tell them to go away a bit. He as lowered his weapons and I know, that as long you don't attack or give a reason to attack, a Whitebeard pirate won't attack, right?"

"As long as you stay where you are, I can guarantee, that my boys won't attack, get closer and they will." With a hand sign, the animals backed off, causing the boys to lower they guard minimal, now clawing the fabric of Thatch's trousers. The savage presence vanished, the second they clawed themselves to Thatch.

"That's better. That wasn't a comfortable presence. Now, how did you end up on Zou?" Thatch blinked, before frowning, trying to remember, where he heard that name before. Scratching his head, Thatch sighed.

"Well, that's something I'd really like to know too. We were just sailing along, when I suddenly felt this huge presence, which now is gone again, and then everything was black. The boat shattered under the water pressure, after that I was in the air again, before crashing into the water again. Then you guys attacked." He could see the looks of disbelieve in the faces of both lion and woman.

"That's what I call bad luck. I only ever heard of that once and that man died." Another voice said, jumping down onto the clearing. A jaguar, with long wavy blond hair stood close to Rouge, but still far enough to not threaten the boys more.

"Glad we somehow survived. I don't really want to fight. Just want to get back home." Thatch kneeled down, putting the blades aside, before pulling the boys close to his chest. He kept an eye on the three people in front of him, but tried to calm down the two boys. He could feel their completely tensed muscles and feel their fear.

"Calm down. Luffy Law. It's okay. We won't fight anymore, just calm down." It seemed to do the trick, as he could feel their muscles loosen and them pressing closer to Thatch, whimpering and grumbling.

'Dangerous and strong.'

'Thatch be careful.'

"It's okay. I'm careful and I know first hand how strong they are." Thatch looked back to freckled woman and the two animals, who looked absolutely shocked.

"Pedro, Sicilian, what's wrong?"

"How?! Why on Zunisha can two children speak the language of animals and you-gara understand it?!" The woman, who Thatch reminded himself was called Rouge, seamed surprised and slightly shocked.

"Now, that might be a good question. My name is Rouge, but I believe you already got that."

"Thatch. Well I found them, I believe, about two years ago on an island, alone. It was uninhabited by humans and I was badly wounded and they took care of me. It was hard to get of the island and we have been on sea for about 3 weeks now. You are their first encounter with other humanlike people, after years of living there. I don't know how long they were alone, but when I met them they couldn't speak a word. So, I guess I picked up the language, while I taught them the human one…"

"Thatch!" It seemed that Luffy didn't deem them a threat anymore, as he reached for the wood piece. Thatch grabbed his hand before it got to the wood. "Leave it, Luffy."

"Thatch! Wounded, need help!" Sighing Thatch just ruffled through Luffys hair.

"It's okay, -OW!" Thach yelled, when Law pulled out the piece of wood, throwing it away before using a piece of wet cloth to clean it.

"Damn it Law! Is just…OW! Stop that!" Ripping the bloody cloth out of Laws hand, he sighed, before wrapping it around the wound. Glaring lightly at the boys, which they just ignored, he gently rubbed over the cloth.

"Happy now?"

""Yes."" Thatch just rolled his eyes, causing Rouge to laugh.

"They really love you." Thatch laughed at that, before pressing the boys to his side, after he stood up.

"Come, sorry for all the hostility, we thought you were here to attack."


Thatch let himself fall onto the futon, fully enjoying having something soft, other than animal fur, to sleep on. He lifted the blanket up, letting the boys crawl in and cuddle themselves to his side. He was kind of glad he used the animal fur as blankets, so even if it was a different fabric the boys got what to was. The grinned when he saw the boys fall asleep immediately. Water was their greatest weakness and the stress from the encounter with the minks, just completely tiered them out. Well that wasn't planned, but he was really curious about the woman. He remembered her from being on Rogers ship once or twice, when they had clashed and as well the two animals from Rogers crew were similar to the minks, so it wouldn't be a surprise if they had taken her in to protect her from the government. But somehow, he couldn't shake of the feeling that something bigger was behind it. Yawning, he listened to his body, he put his hand around the boys and let himself drift.


Feeling two presences running towards them, woke up Thatch, as well as Luffy and Law, though ladder wasn't really in the mood to move. Something Thatch could relate too, feeling rather tried as well. He couldn't really put the presences to any of the minks he had encountered hours before, neither did they feel strong, more like children… Thatch nearly jumped at the sound from the door to their room being thrown open. Luffy hissed loudly, while Law growled deeply from being disturbed. Thatch quickly looked at Laws eyebags, that made him rather grim looking, before looking to the two boys, who were standing now in their room. Thatch pulled up an eyebrow, when he saw a freckled, raven-haired boy and the blond one. The freckled one was definitely Rouges child, while the other one could have been, but probably was not.

"Who are you?"

"That's what we should ask." Thatch gave back to the boys question.

"Ace and this is Sabo…"

"Don't tell them so casually! Those are Whitebeard pirates!"

Ace looked to his friend, before looking to them and asked: "How do you know?"

"Can't you see the mark on his side?! It's the mark of the Whitebeard pirates!"

"So, you think they'll slaughter us?"

"Well… I don't know!?"

"Thatch?" said person looked to Luffy, signalling him that he had his attention.

"Think, kill for fun?" Sighing, he ruffled though the boy's messy hair.

"Some think of us as bloodthirsty demons, we kill, that is the truth, but never really out of fun and because we just felt like it. Okay, does that make sense to you?" He saw the gears in Luffys head work, before he nodded, looking back to the boys.

Ace looked to Sabo before raising an eyebrow. "Dangerous? The boy can't even speak straight."

"Ace, that is not the point at all!"


Next chapter. We're getting closer and closer to the end. Does anyone play Monster Hunter? Since I've gotten the spin off, I've been playing all of mine again and it's eating up my time. I've got every title since Tri, other than World, since it is not out for PC yet. A bummer. I'm really looking forward to it. So, another pretty useless information about me.

To Esra: Thank you for your two Reviews. Here's the next one. To the longer chapters. This story was pre-written. So, it was actually finished before I started to publish it. Which makes it pretty hard to make chapters long after they were finished. So yeah… sorry about that. And it is not as easy as many believe to firstly make a chapter that you like, that you think your readers will like and to not put too much in. Don't get me wrong. I love writing, if I spent the half of the time I spend on writing on school work, I'd only write A's on my tests. And I like rather 'short' chapters for this story. But for another story that I am planning, I've got long chapters planned.

For everyone who just read that. Thank you very much for reading it all.