A/N: Beta by Navigator101, updated on 9/10/18.

Chapter 9

You will do foolish things,
but do them with enthusiasm.

- Colette

The day after they left Fishman Island, Luffy was back to his normal cheery self. The night they left, before going to bed, he promised himself that he would do as Otohime said: "To forget the bad and remember the good." He'd always remember her beautiful sound and her kindness.

Now he would challenge his brothers to spar with him almost every day, in order to get stronger. He and his brothers were determined to keep their promise to be strong enough to protect everyone important to them.

They even asked some of the crew members to help them. Of course, Ace and Sabo made sure to stress to them that Luffy was not to use any weapons. The older men shrugged them off as being over protective brothers and made fun of them for that. Even though they teased the boys, the men did as requested and only helped the boy strengthen his muscles.

One afternoon, the boys were on lookout duty together in the crow's nest when a small black bird flew by. They were quite proud of themselves when Whitebeard trusted them enough to let them do something more official than cleaning duty.

"A bird! A bird! Marco! It's a bird!" Luffy cried out as he pointed to the bird flying towards the ship.

Marco woke up from where he was napping against the main mast, where he was also secretly keeping an eye on the boys, and looked up as the bird swept down and hovered near him until he lifted a hand for it to land. He took the envelope the bird was carrying, and the bird flew back to where it had come from.

The First Division Commander opened the envelope and took out a couple of papers. He looked at them before he smiled. Rather than calling the boys down from their post, he turned his arms into fiery blue and gold wings and flew up to them.

Once he landed on the edge of the crow's nest, he eyed the boys' clothes in pride. Izo had the nurses help stitch variations of Whitebeard's symbol onto all of their clothes so that everyone would know who they would be messing with if anything were to ever happen to them. It was also on the slight chance that it would deter Doflamingo from kidnapping them again.

"Hey, brat, this is for you-yoi," Marco handed Luffy the papers.

Luffy took the papers and tried reading the top sheet. "For…Luffy. That's me!" he pointed to his name and continued reading. "Use … this … if you ev..er need … me." He looked at the other sheet of paper that only had the letter D written in the lower right corner. "Wha's this?" he waved both papers at Marco.

"This one," Marco pointed to the almost blank sheet, "is a vivre card-yoi. If you lay it flat on the ground, it'll move towards the person it's connected to." He placed it on the floor for them to see it twitch and shift a little to the left. "If you follow this paper, it'll take you to Dragon-yoi."

"Dad?" Luffy tilted his head.

"That's right. Dragon is your dad," Sabo ruffled the boy's hair.

"After all this time, I'm surprised he even remembers you," Ace huffed with his arms crossed and a small smile on his face.

"Dragon is a busy man-yoi, always on the run from the government and all that. Garp must have told him where you boys are. He must have been very worried for you if he sent you a sheet this big-yoi. Normally, you would tear these into smaller pieces and give them away," Marco grinned. Luffy held the paper close to him with a large smile.

"Keep that safe and make sure not to tell anyone you have it. Dragon's wanted by the Government, and he has a lot of enemies. Why don't you go put that somewhere safe? I'll take over until you get back-yoi," Marco shooed them off the nest.

-*/-*/-*/

They were docked at an island full of large trees and other greenery a few months later, just days after they restocked the ship. The boys thought it was strange that they would dock at another island so quickly but didn't say anything about it. Ace and Sabo had their hands full with trying to get Luffy to calm down. They'd never hit landfall so soon before, but this could be normal for all they knew. The boy was too excited about going out and playing in the jungle.

"You boys can go have fun. This place is uninhabited, so it should be safe. Just remember to not go too far from the shore," Whitebeard said as everyone else brought things off the ship and started setting them up on the beach.

"Yay!" Luffy cheered as he took off into the jungle with his brothers chasing after him. They laughed as they swung from branch to branch, making as much noise as they wanted. Once they were tired, they laid on the ground, staring at the blue skies that peeked through the trees. "I wish I was a bird," Luffy said as one flew overhead.

"Why?" Ace rolled his head to the side to look at Luffy's wistful face.

"Birds are free. They can fly and go anywhere."

"Maybe you can ask Marco to take you flying one day," Sabo suggested. "Must be awesome to be able to fly."

Luffy got up excitedly. "Let's go ask him now."

"He's busy, Luffy," Ace said. "You can ask him when we're back at sea, and he has nothing better to do."

"Aww, but he's always busy," Luffy pouted.

"That's because he's the First Division Commander. As the captain's right-hand man, he has a lot of responsibilities," Sabo explained. "But I'm sure he'd make time for you. What's wrong?" he asked when he saw Luffy look towards their right in confusion.

"There's people here. Ten of them that way," Luffy pointed.

"Old man did let us go off on our own," Ace said thoughtfully, "so they shouldn't be dangerous. I'm sure he'd know if there were dangerous people here."

"He also said the island is uninhabited and to not go too far from the shore, which we're already pretty far from," Sabo gave Ace a glare.

"I wanna go see," Luffy said, still pointing.

"Why? What if they're bad people? No one's supposed to be on this island," Sabo said worriedly.

Luffy tilted and hummed in thought before answering, "Just because?"

"Fine," Sabo sighed. "But we're going to have to be quiet just in case."

Luffy nodded and led them to where he felt the presences. Luffy finally stopped at the edge of a clearing and pointed at all the men who were asleep. There was a mess of empty plates and mugs and the stench of alcohol in the air.

"They must have partied all night," Ace whispered. "Hey, look." He pointed to a treasure chest.

All three snickered quietly to themselves. They snuck past the sleeping men and stole the treasure chest. Ace stopped just before they entered the jungle and lightly shook the box. "You guys? I don't think there's any treasure in here. It's too light, and look, there's no lock." He opened it up to find two strange looking fruits.

"Dessert?" Luffy drooled. "I'm hungry."

"Now that you mention it, I am too," Sabo said.

"I guess a snack wouldn't hurt. Hold on," Ace quietly ran back to grab a knife he saw stabbed into a tree trunk. Once he came back, he cut the orange one in half and handed a piece to Sabo. "Here, Luffy, you can have this one," he gave his brother the purple fruit whole.

"You sure we should stay here?" Sabo looked at the sleeping men.

"They're drunk off their ass. I don't think they'll be up anytime soon," Ace said as he brought his half of the fruit up and took a bite. Sabo followed suit. They both nearly spat it back up but forced themselves to swallow it.

"That was disgusting," Sabo eyed the rest of his fruit warily.

Luffy looked disappointed. "But Thatch says not to waste food," he said with a look of determination and swallowed his fruit whole. Ace and Sabo nodded in agreement and did the same with their fruit. They looked at each other with tears in their eyes, looking like they were ready to puke.

"Why would they put something that disgusting in a treasure chest?" Ace coughed.

"What are you boys doing out here?" someone asked from behind them.

"Wishing we not eat dessert," Luffy said, trying not to gag. "But we don't waste food."

"Dessert?" the man's eyes widened when he saw the empty treasure box. "DID YOU EAT THE FRUITS IN THAT BOX?!"

The disgusting taste was quickly forgotten as they finally realized one of the men had woken up and caught them eating their treasure.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THAT WAS?!" the man continued to yell at them. He then picked Luffy up by the legs, shaking him up and down. "SPIT IT OUT! SPIT IT OUT RIGHT NOW!"

"LET GO OF LUFFY!" both of his brothers yelled at the man. The man's eyes widened at the flames sprouting from both of the boys' shoulders.

"I think 'm gonna be sick," Luffy complained with his hands over his mouth. Then he face-planted onto the ground while his legs were still high up in his captor's hands. "Wha…what happened?" he asked with tears in his eyes.

"I. Said. Let. Him. GO!" Ace yelled, before unleashing the most underhanded attack that he'd perfected after his many short years of fighting Goa thugs. It didn't take long for the man to let go of Luffy's legs, and they both dropped to the ground. Luffy watched as the red-haired man curled up on his side and grabbed his groin in pain.

"Luffy," Sabo pointed to the man, "that's how you take down someone bigger and stronger than you. You attack their family jewels. The harder you hit it, the harder they fall."

"What's going on here-yoi?"

"Marco!" Luffy cheered at the voice.

"Marco! That guy tried to hurt Luffy!" Ace and Sabo pointed to the man.

Marco looked at the state the boys were in with narrowed eyes. Luffy seemed fine. Then there was Ace and Sabo, both of them were on fire, but it didn't seem to bother them. More like they didn't seem to notice the fire. If it wasn't bothering them, he'd just ignore it for now. Maybe he'd get answers from the man writhing on the ground.

"Congratulations, boys. You've taken down one of the Four Emperors-yoi. Well, Akagami? Care to explain-yoi?" he asked calmly. Akagami whimpered before slowly shifting himself to look at Marco.

Seeing the man move, Luffy ran over to hide behind Marco's leg.

"Marco," the man grunted, "those boys are evil." There was a pause as he collected as much of the dignity he had left and sat up. "Man, it's too early for this. And that was dirty!" He pointed his finger at Ace, who grinned with his arms crossed.

"It's a little past noon-yoi," Marco deadpanned. "Your damn fault for partying like idiots every chance you get. So?"

"Your kids stole and ate two of our Devil's Fruits, the reason for the party last night, or was it the night before? Whatever," he waved his hands as if the reasons were no longer important.

"Boys?" Marco turned to give the boys a stern look.

Ace and Sabo looked to the ground, the fire gone. Luffy looked at Marco as if he didn't understand what was wrong. Sabo finally answered, breaking under Marco's look.

"There was a treasure chest right there, and we couldn't help it," Sabo explained sheepishly. "But there was no treasure, just two disgusting fruits. We were hungry, so we ate them."

"Two?" Marco raised an eyebrow. "And the three of you ate them-yoi?"

"Me and Sabo split one, and Luffy ate the other one," Ace mumbled.

Marco sighed in frustration. "This has got to be the first time this has ever happened. Which fruits were they-yoi?"

"Gomu Gomu no Mi and Mera Mera no Mi," Akagami sighed as he flopped onto his back.

"Your fault for leaving it out in the open like that, you drunk-yoi," Marco kicked the man's leg.

"Yeah, whatever. No one here wanted to eat them anyway. Was going to sell them. No biggy," the man rolled onto his side to mope.

"So we're not in trouble?" Sabo asked hopefully.

"You guys are still in trouble. You were told to not go too far from the shore-yoi, and here you are stealing another pirate's treasures." He smacked each of the boys' heads, causing Ace and Sabo to flame up and Luffy's head to bounce back and forth.

"That hurt!" Luffy whined, clutching his head, before confusion filled his eyes. "No, it don't."

Ace and Sabo looked at each other and pointed while yelling, "You're on fire!"

"Right. You two ate the Mera Mera no Mi, you both are the embodiment of fire-yoi. Never before has there been two people with the same fruit powers. Good job-yoi," Marco smirked at them, causing a shiver to go down their backs. Now what have they gotten themselves into? "And you," Marco bent over to pull on Luffy's cheek, "Gomu Gomu no Mi. You're a rubber man. This should be interesting-yoi. Too bad you boys won't be able to swim anymore."

"Aww," they all moaned.

"By the way, Akagami, Pops sent me to invite you to a party-yoi. You should come and join us. The more the merrier. Let's go boys. You need to get cleaned up before we can start the party-yoi." They left without waiting for an answer.

"Who's that? Seems like you know him," Sabo said as they walked.

"Akagami Shanks, one of the Four Emperors like Pops-yoi. He's the captain of the Red Hair Pirates. He and his crew are on good terms with the Whitebeard Pirates. He's very laid back and very annoying-yoi, but he's also very strong."

"So, about this Devil Fruit…" Ace said as he found himself aflame again, shaking his hand in hopes of putting out the fire, "how do we turn it off?"

"Every Fruit is different-yoi. I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually. Sometimes when you eat the fruit, you just know what to do with it, but you'll have to practice in order to use it to its full potential-yoi."

Once they reached the shore, the boys looked on in excitement at the large amount of food being prepared. Marco stopped them from running off and marched them towards Whitebeard. "Akagami's been invited like you asked. I'm sure he'll be joining us-yoi. I'm going to help these kids clean up. They stole Akagami's Devil Fruits, just making sure they don't accidentally drown in the tub-yoi," he explained.

Whitebeard laughed at that. "That's my boys. Stealing from pirates on their own already."

Ace and Sabo grinned at the man, feeling proud of themselves. "You're lucky it was Akagami and not any other pirates," Marco said. "Come on-yoi."

-*/-*/-*/

"Marco!" Thatch called out from the hallway. Whitebeard had sent him to see what was taking Marco and the kids so long.

"In the bath," was the muffled reply.

Thatch opened the door to the bath area, only to double over in laughter at the scene. Ace was scrubbing Sabo's back, while Marco scrubbed Ace's. What had the Fourth Division Commander laughing was Marco drenched with his clothes on and sitting on Luffy, who was cocooned in a towel, squirming to get out.

"Good you're here-yoi," Marco said tiredly, as he grabbed the Luffy-cocoon and tossed him at Thatch. "You deal with him."

"What happened?" Thatch asked as he caught the boy. He kept one hand on the boy's head to keep him from running and picked up a dress that filled him with pride. It was just a simple blue dress, one that they had gotten from Fishman Island, but on the front was a huge Whitebeard symbol that was hard to miss.

"Three new fruit users-yoi. One idiot," Marco gave a pointed glare at Luffy, as he continued to wash Ace's back, "jumped in the tub after I told him he couldn't use it. Nearly drowned-yoi. Then two more idiots jumped in to save him. The tub is small enough that they could splash around but still deep enough for them to drown in-yoi."

"So you got drenched while trying to save them from drowning in the tub. Nice," Thatch laughed. "You picked this?" he held out Luffy's clothes.

"Today's a day to celebrate, right? What better way than to show it off-yoi?" Marco grinned. "Picked these guys' clothes too," he pointed to the other piles of clothes. Thatch picked up the shirts and admired the large Whitebeard symbol also on them.

"Come on, pipsqueak. Let's go to the beach, and you can tell us how you boys got fruit abilities while we wait for your brothers."

"Make sure there are plenty barrels of water too-yoi!" Marco shouted through the door.

"Do I want to know why?" Thatch asked Luffy, who held his hand as they walked down the plank.

"Ace and Sabo on fire," Luffy giggled.

"Is that so?" Thatch grinned.

Once they reached the beach, many of the other crew members ran over and cheered about the boys' new ability and asked multiple questions all at once. Someone overheard Marco telling Whitebeard about it, and it spread from there. But the sound of a voice many of them recognized had them all turn their heads to look at the owner of the voice.

"Now, this is a party! What are we celebrating?" the red-haired captain cheered as he and his crew walked out of the forest.

"We steal his dessert!" Luffy pointed. "It was yucky. Thatch's dessert better." The boy crossed his arms cutely. "We ate it all because we don't waste food." He nodded his head sagely.

Thatch picked the boy up in a hug. "Aww, thanks little bro. I bet it did taste nasty. I remember Jozu complaining about it for days after he ate his." Marco and the other two boys had joined them by then.

"Men!" Shanks said to his crew. "These are the kids that stole our fruits!" He pointed to the kids in question. Instead of a fight or the yells Ace and Sabo were expecting, they all laughed.

"I can't believe we were robbed by kids."

"They got us good!"

"I told you that one of us shouldn't have been drinking and should have been on lookout."

"You should have volunteered then."

"No way. I like drinking too much."

"They're really not mad at us?" Ace looked at them in wonder.

"Like I said," Marco shook his head, "Akagami is very laid back and an idiot-yoi."

"Now that everyone is here," Whitebeard said, twinkling eyes on his men.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRATS!" All of Whitebeard's men yelled.

The kids looked confused. "But it's not any of our birthdays," Sabo said, his voice drowned by the party making.

"No, but it's been exactly one year since you've joined-yoi," Marco said beside them. "It's like being reborn-yoi, right? That's why we're celebrating this day, rather than your real birthdays."

"Yeah," Ace said softly with a smile, "it is like we were reborn."

"Like a new lease on life?" Sabo grinned.

-*/-*/-*/

"What's with the kids, Whitebeard?" Shanks asked in concern as the party got started. "Didn't think you'd let some kids on your ship. Isn't that dangerous?"

"It's even more dangerous to leave them at some random island," Whitebeard took a swig from his mug. "Don't worry. Those kids are able to hold up on their own."

"I believe it. I didn't even sense their presence until they'd already eaten the fruits," Shanks rubbed his head in shame. "But still, Emperor or not, I think it's too dangerous for kids that young to be sailing on a pirate ship, especially one that practically lives in New World."

Whitebeard laughed. "The taste from the fruit must have startled them. They were raised to hunt at a young age. I'm not surprised they know how to hide their presence." They both looked over at the commotion just to their right to see Ace and Sabo drenched.

"Sorry," they both said dejectedly. There was no question as to what had happened if the scorch marks and burnt food around them meant anything.

They all laughed at the boys. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon," a Whitebeard Pirate said. Luffy, who had been grabbed by Marco to keep him from being burnt, laughed the hardest.

"Those boys have been through so much. It's good to see them laugh," Whitebeard said softly with a warm smile.

"Is that so?" Shanks hummed thoughtfully, eyeing the cheerful little girl in Marco's arms. "Cute kids. I like them."

"Why don't you get to know them better?" Whitebeard suggested.

"I think I will." Shanks got up to walk over to where Marco and the kids sat off to the side, just a little away from the rest of the group but still close enough for them to converse with everyone. Marco said it was so Ace and Sabo didn't accidentally burn anyone. Shanks sat himself down right in front of the kids' large plate of food, next to Ace and Luffy, who was now sitting in Marco's lap. "Hey, kids!"

Ace and Sabo stopped their fight over a piece of meat and looked at the man. Once they realized who it was, both of them sprouted flames from their shoulders to the top of their heads.

"Whoa, calm down," Shanks held both hands up in surrender.

"Sorry," they both mumbled, while Marco shook his head, and Luffy laughed.

"We're still getting used to this," Sabo said as he gave up the meat to Ace and grabbed another piece to eat.

"Thatch already yelled at us about wasting his food," Ace waved his hand at the pile of soggy, burnt, inedible food, off to the side.

"You're still on fire-yoi," Marco pointed out.

"Then tell us how to shut it off!" Ace growled in frustration at the man. "You're fire too, aren't you?"

"I'm a phoenix-yoi. I don't go around burning things like you can," he let one of his fingers turn into blue/gold flames and poked Luffy. "See?" Upon seeing Luffy being poked by the flame, they both accidentally burned the plate of food in front of them.

"Aww, I'm still eating," Luffy whined, as the boys got drenched once again with a bucket of water.

"Stop wasting food!" Thatch yelled over the laughing man who put out the fire.

"We just took a bath too," Sabo complained.

"You boys take too many baths as is," laughed one of the crew members in charge of putting out random fires.

"You try going without a bath for five years," Ace grumbled soft enough that only Sabo and Marco heard.

Marco scrunched his face in disgust at that. "The water's clean-yoi. You could probably dry yourself off somehow. Try thinking warm thoughts. Warm, not hot-yoi," he warned them.

Ace and Sabo closed their eyes and concentrated and opened them back up when they felt their clothes were dry enough. "We did it!" they cheered as their plate was replaced with another.

"That's nice," Thatch smiled, but then said teasingly, "try not to overcook the food anymore." He then walked away to join the rest of the cooks in preparing more food.

"It's not like we do it on purpose," Ace sighed tiredly as he turned his piece of meat over, inspecting it before taking a bite.

"We can stay on this island as long as it takes for you boys to get the hang of it. I'm sure no one wants you to accidentally burn the ship down-yoi," Marco said. "Pops won't mind. We're in no hurry to get anywhere-yoi. At least we don't have to worry about Luffy causing the ship any damage."

They watched as Luffy reached over, with his arms stretched longer than they should, to grab more food to stuff his face. The boys made a face at the stretched out arms.

"That's really disturbing," they both shuddered.

Shanks laughed and brought their attention back to him. "This is great. That's your punishment for stealing from me." He held his hands back up when Ace and Sabo glared at him. "Careful there. You just might make Thatch mad. Besides, I heard today's both of your birthdays. Lighten up. So you boys are twins?"

"Huh?" the two older boys gave the man a confused look. "We're not twins."

"You're brothers, aren't you? You sure act like twins," the man grinned.

"You do act like twins. You both say the same things and even act the same-yoi," Marco agreed.

"We're brothers, but we're not twins," Sabo shrugged. "We don't even look the same."

"Oh? How old are you boys then?" Shanks asked.

"Eleven," they both answered, earning a confused look from the red-haired captain.

"Okay…I'm confused."

"Luffy's eight. It's his birthday too," Ace pointed to Luffy.

"His? Don't you mean her?"

"Luffy's a boy," Marco grinned, as the rest of the men around them laughed. They were clearly enjoying how confused the man was getting.

"Okay. Wait. Let me get this straight. You two are not twins, but you're both eleven, and you're brothers. And that kid, there, wearing what's clearly a dress, is a boy? AND it's his birthday too?"

The two older boys nodded, and both told him, "And he's our brother."

Shanks dropped his head onto his hand. "I'm not even drunk yet, and I have a headache. Marco, what the hell have you been doing? First of all, why is one of your kids, a boy, wearing a dress?"

"Ace and Sabo said to let him wear what he wants-yoi."

"And why are you letting them tell you how to dress him?" Seriously, he needed more beer. He did just that and refilled his mug.

"They're raising him," Marco said as if stating a well-known fact.

Shanks's mug froze before making it to his mouth. "What? You're letting kids raise a kid? What the hell kind of parent are you? I know you're a pirate and all, but, I mean, have you not heard of moderation? Hell, how many mothers do they have?" This caused all the nearby Whitebeard Pirates to roar in laughter. Some even told the ones further away what was so funny.

Marco scowled. "What makes you think these are mine-yoi? I was put in charge of watching over them."

"Marco," Luffy turned his head in an odd angle so that he could look at the man he's sitting on, "I wanna know what's funny."

"This idiot thinks I'm your's, Ace's, and Sabo's dad-yoi," he deadpanned.

"But I already have one."

Marco patted the boy's head. "You do. This man is stupid. Anyway, how the hell did you come up with that-yoi? They don't even look anything like me."

Shanks waved his free hand this way and that, trying to get his mouth to work. "Well, you know, maybe they look like their moms, you never know. You could have shacked up with two women at the same time, and these boys were born at the same time, and then another woman later and had that one!"

Even Whitebeard had to laugh at the image of his straight-laced son with that many women at the same time.

"What? You're old enough to have a few kids," Shanks defended himself from the evil glare Marco was giving him.

"Ace, Sabo, you have my permission to test your new powers on him."

"Wait! Wait!" Shanks quickly held up his hands at the boys' twin look promising oncoming pain. "I'm sorry! I won't even mention it again!"

"Fine," Marco said as the boys backed down, looking disappointed that they'd lost a practice dummy.

"You know," Haruta grinned, "Marco would make a great father. You guys should have seen how he handled little Luffy after his tantrum on Fishman Island."

Vista nodded in agreement and mimicked what Marco did for everyone else, which caused everyone else to coo at the image.

"They're right you know," Sabo said thoughtfully, "you would make a great dad. I wouldn't mind calling you Oyaji. You're a much better parent than mine were."

"I wouldn't mind either," Ace mumbled as he blushed, looking down at his legs. In a clearer voice he said, "And you're good with Luffy and know a lot of things and help us a lot."

"Pops!" Luffy turned around on Marco's lap to give the man a greasy hug.

"Hey," Marco deadpanned, "Whitebeard is our Pops, not me-yoi."

"Grandpops!"

"Hmm. That doesn't sound too bad," Whitebeard smiled at Luffy's new title for him. He had many sons and daughters, and now he had grandsons to add to his growing family. Besides, he'd been waiting for this day to happen. He'd seen how Marco handled the children and had taken great care of them as if they were his own.

"Ugh. Pops, don't encourage them-yoi," Marco moaned and buried his face in Luffy's hair, mostly to cover his blush.

"How did you boys get the same Devil Fruit powers anyway?" someone asked. "I thought there could only be one user per lifetime or something like that?"

"We both ate it," Ace answered.

"That still doesn't explain much-yoi," Marco said. "I'm pretty sure the Marines have done many tests on Devil Fruits and never has there ever been any two people with the same powers."

Both Ace and Sabo shrugged. "No idea. We just ate it."

Then Luffy suddenly turned to Whitebeard. "Grandpops! Grandpops! Guess what?!" He said as he waved his hands in excitement. "Ace is super strong! He beat that guy up!"

"Oh?" Whitebeard's eyes widened in surprise. "You managed to defeat an Emperor?"

"He cheated!" Shanks said as his face turned red in embarrassment. "That was dirty and underhanded!"

"Apparently, Ace headbutted Akagami's family jewels-yoi." There was a roar of laughter with the Red-Haired Pirates being the loudest.

"So, Luffy was it?" Shanks decided it was time for a topic change. Luffy looked up at Shanks in open curiosity. "Why are you wearing a dress?"

"You're stuck on the whole dress thing, aren't you?" Sabo glared.

Luffy jumped from Marco's lap and twirled around. "Because it's pretty!" The boy said, not at all deterred by the fact that he's a boy. "You like? Marco picked it because today special."

Marco sighed, "Just so you know, Izo had nothing to do with this-yoi."

"Oh?"

"He's still wearing pants under it," Ace pulled Luffy's dress up so they could see his shorts. "It's not like he thinks he's a girl or anything. He just happens to like dresses."

"He's really picky," Sabo nodded. "He likes them with a little bit of frill but mostly plain. You should have seen the showdown between him and Gramps. Luffy saw a dress he liked, actually that was the first time we found out he liked dresses. Anyway, Luffy saw a dress he liked in a window and asked Gramps to buy it for him. We thought Gramps was going to get mad at him for wanting a dress, but instead, Gramps yelled at him that this other much frillier dress was cuter. We ended up stealing Gramps wallet and buying the dress just to get them to stop arguing."

"Geez, I knew the man was nuts but to seriously argue with his grandson over which dress is cuter?" Thatch laughed as he joined them.

Three large cakes were brought out as a round of 'Happy Birthday' was sung. The boys' eyes went wide in surprise. The cakes were just as tall as Thatch. "CAKE!" All three shouted and jumped up to go to the cakes.

"You three only get one of those cakes. Leave the rest for us," Thatch yelled at them as they ran to blow out the candles.

"Those boys sure do eat a lot," Shanks eyed the empty plates.

"Yup. They're the reason we have to land and restock so often," Thatch laughed.

"No wonder. Garp was saying the marines were getting wary since you guys seem to be keeping a closer eye on the islands. Speaking of which, the old marine seemed to be happier than usual during his last visit."

"Yeah," Marco leaned back on his hands with a lazy smile. "He found out his grandsons were alive and safe. Of course, he's happy-yoi."

"Grandsons, huh?" Shanks looked to the kids with a smile. "Good for him. So…is it just me or is that kid a little slow?"

"What do you mean?" Thatch asked as he watched the boys dig into their own cake, not even bothering to bring the cake back to the rest of them.

"He's eight, right? Isn't he a bit small for his age? And his speech is a little slow for his age. He sounds like he has trouble forming words, like he's tripping on his own tongue or something," the captain mused. "Not that I know anything about kids or anything. I could be wrong."

"Oh, he doesn't trip over his tongue. He trips over rocks, his own feet, and sometimes nothing," Jozu laughed. As if on cue, Luffy stood up to get a piece of the cake from the top layer, only to fall face first into the whole cake, causing everyone there to roar in laughter.

"It's not like we're not doing anything to help the boys-yoi," Marco said. "The kid's speech is improving. He used to only speak one or two words at a time-yoi."

"The brat was brought up in an environment where he wasn't allowed regular conversation," Whitebeard said as he took a seat by them with his own huge slice of cake. "He only had those two brothers of his. Even then, the time they had to themselves was minimal."

"Yeah. Kobato and I plan their meals to give them the maximum nutrition," Thatch said.

The thought of those three boys being brought up in such a condition where they could barely talk to each other, brought a bad taste to Shanks's mouth. He had to get another refill of alcohol just wash it down.

Ace and Sabo dragged a giggling Luffy back to the group. Their cake was now a lost cause after the two older boys burned it in their attempt to save Luffy from suffocating on the cake.

"Wonder what his first words were," Shanks said out of nowhere.

"Whose?" Ace and Sabo asked.

"Luffy's."

"Ass," Ace scowled, as Sabo laughed.

"No, it wasn't. He was trying to say 'Ace.' It just came out sounding like 'ass.'"

"Oh?" Marco grinned. "I'm assuming 'Sabo' was his second word-yoi?"

"No, it was 'Poo,'" Ace deadpanned. "He said both of those words on the same day."

"It was 'Bo,'" Sabo insisted.

The crews laughed at that, while Thatch and Haruta were rolling in the sand, trying to catch their breath.

"I still think he was trying to tell us he wanted to take a dump," Ace scowled.

-*/-*/-*/-*/-*/

A/N: And there you have it. Shanks and Devil Fruits. ^_^V

I got the idea for putting the Whitebeard symbols on their clothes from another story. I can't remember which one it was. I couldn't find it again. T_T

I posted this while feeling unsure. I think I missed something again. ~_~