I got sick and I'm still working and my computer broke. Everything went to hell for a while but I'm slowly coming back!

Ages reminder:
Luffy: 9
Ace: 12
Sabo: 12
Zoro: 11
Nojiko: 13
Coby: 8

Sabo was inspecting the documents he stole from the bandits just as he was checking the weather. He couldn't pretend he was at ease with the situation, Luffy's silence weighted on him. Even though from looking outside he could tell it was night time, his young brother was probably sleeping. He knew Luffy only blamed the lie about Ace on him, but the blond still couldn't help but feel guilty about Ace's disappearance too, he wanted to solve this, to find his brother.

The green haired swordsman wasn't sleeping yet, he'd been sitting in a corner of the room for a while now but didn't say anything so Sabo just successfully ignored him, engrossed with his research from the documents he stole from the bandits.

From what he found, the main base of the bandits in East Blue was a small undocumented island called the Franke Island but it was at least a week away and they would have to stop for supplies on Grenadine Island from the Syrup Archipelago and it would delay them for a couple of hours and…

"Hey, let's fight." Sabo was cut out from his thoughts and turned briefly to Zoro then went back to his work.

"No." He made a conscious effort to keep the bite out of the word.

"Alright, good night." said Zoro, yawning and walked through the door, Sabo didn't answer.

Part of him wanted to blame the swordsman for losing them in Roumba and in a way he actually did blame him without admitting it. But another side of him told him it wasn't really the other's fault, he should have gone with Ace in the first place, he should have thought about the stupid narcolepsy pills, he should have… Sabo wished he was smarter and stronger, he missed Ace and he didn't want to see Luffy's sad eyes on him again.

~ DD ~

He finished wrapping the guy's ankle in a splint with some leftover wood and rope from the wreckage when the kid suddenly woke up. The dark haired teen leant up in a sitting position and screamed, making the other jump in surprise.

"Water in the boat!"

He then paused and looked around him.

"I found land hell yeah!" He almost stood up then winced at the pain the movement brought to his ankle.

"Ow crap ow."

"Careful, I set it right but it's still swollen."

The lost teen finally seemed to notice him and stared at the light blue haired guy, frowning.

"Hi" This one smiled excitedly, his eyes shining gleefully. How was he forgetting his manners now? He was just so happy to have another person here, he was trying to contain his excitement in as not to scare the other guy.

"Who are you?" asked the guy.

"It's rude to ask before introducing yourself." The older declared, the grin still on his face.

"I'm Ace." The other sighed, seemingly exasperated and also tired. He did wash up on the beach unconscious, he should have checked for a concussion. He opened his mouth to ask about it then closed it. Oh it was too tempting.

"Hi Ace, I'm Ace."

Ace blinked, the untrusting frown dissolving into confusion.

"Eh? You can't be Ace! I'm Ace."

Ace-not-Ace smiled and answered playfully, satisfied by the first reaction but keeping his seriousness.

"Yes I can, I'm Ace and you're Ace-two."

"Ace-tw… what do you mean I'm the one who has to be Ace-two?! I'm the first Ace!"

He looked a bit upset now but Ace-one wasn't deterred.

"Technically I was on this island first, so I'm Ace and you're the second Ace, Ace-two."

Ace-two's mouth opened in shock then after a couple seconds his face reddened and Ace-not-Ace couldn't help it. It was just too funny and broke the tension by bursting out in laughter, this guy was too easy to mess up with. He wiped a tear from his face, now sitting in front of the dark haired teen and declared.

"You get to be Ace and I'm Ace-two. What do you think?"

Ace blinked, not entirely catching up with the joke but at least seemed to calm down slightly at the answer but then made a face, seeming unhappy about something.

"Ace-two is a real shitty name." Said Ace unhappily. That's what bothered him? Well… He was right, it really was a shitty name, he thought for a bit then got an idea.

"What about Deuce? You know like the cards? You're the Ace and I'm the Two, Deuce!"

Ace seemed to think about it then nodded.

"Okay you're Deu- wait what is your actual name?"

The blue haired teen smiled widely at him.

"Didnt you pay attention? My name is Deuce, nice to meet you Ace!"

~ ASL ~

"You didn't sleep." Luffy said, yawning as he leaned against the steering wheel. Sabo looked absolutely exhausted, with long bags under his eyes, like he spent the night working. They were on the deck and it was covered in a lot of papers and maps Luffy couldn't even begin to understand. Sabo did try to teach him at some point but it was just soo boring. He must have worked really hard all night.

At least he was brightening with his presence and that made Luffy quite happy with himself. He knew visiting his brother would be good.

"No I didn't but listen, I figured out where they took Ace!"

Luffy jumped up from his tired haze and jumped over his brother's back, trying to look at the boring documents and try pay more attention. Sabo caught him with only minimal fuss and explained him something about an organization and some islands but Luffy only paid attention to the important part.

"So we have to go to Gravel Island before we find Ace?" He didn't agree with this idea much, why couldn't they go to Ace now?

"Grenadine." Corrected Sabo and said they needed food. Luffy couldn't protest much, foodless Luffy was worse than unhappy Luffy.

"Genalone."

"Grena- close enough. We'll stock up on food and we should be able to find Ace."

"Yeah food! We'll find Ace after that for real, right?! Hey Zoro! We know where Ace is!"

Ace being absent, Luffy managed to convince Zoro to sleep next to him the night before, on one of the two mattresses instead of an empty hammock, he said he only agreed because his brother had been kidnapped but Luffy was taking whatever he could get.

Zoro arrived behind him and leant against the mast, yawning. The swordsman was looking at Sabo with a puzzled face, like a tiger looking for prey in the jungle, well… more like a cat looking to catch some fish. Talking of that...

"Hey hey Zoro wanna fish with me after breakfast?" Luffy asked.

Zoro blinked then shrugged.

"Sure, just a sec." He turned back to Sabo.

"Hey, Captain Two, wanna spar later?" Sabo didn't even turn to look at him.

"No, I'm busy." And that was the end of it, Luffy opened his mouth in surprise, it actually made lots of sense for Zoro to want to fight his strong brother. They should totally make a sparring event when they got Ace back. He was sure Ace would like Zoro too, they had the same gruffy feeling about them.

As soon as they arrived in the stock room, Luffy went head first inside a barrel to find what he wanted and then started eating as much as he could.

"He's not going to sleep?" Zoro asked as he followed him.

Luffy pondered the question, eating food didn't take him much brain power, he did have to focus when he almost ate chicken by accident and threw it at Zoro who caught it.

"It was his turn to take the night so it's fine. He'll sleep later I guess. Usually we sleep during the day when we were on guard. Tonight's Ace's night so I guess you can do it, right?"

Zoro blinked.

"Never owned a boat before, you'll show me what to do, I'll learn."

Luffy nodded happily and thought about the meat he would be able to eat tomorrow, his punishment was over right? He still kind of felt guilty cause Ace wouldn't eat it with him, maybe he should wait more? He really didn't want to wait more but Ace was still missing.

"I'ma bring Sha'bo'sh breakfash't!" Said the dark haired boy, his mouth full of food, the other nodded and Luffy scoped some bread and fruits for his brother and ran back to the cabin.

~ ASL ~

As it was, the Deuce guy was weird. Not in a bad way, more like crazed out from the sun way. He was older than Ace, maybe by two or three years and to the young teens dismay, way taller than him too. His eyes were dark green and the upper half of his face was hidden by some kind of swirly black mask. His light blue hair was close to Ace's length but it was slicked back from his face. Deuce was rather thin, he didn't look like a fighter, but then Ace couldn't really tell, he'd just met him after all.

The young man had been on this deserted island for more than two whole days by himself and he looked so eager to share every single second. Just too happy to talk about everything, how he spent the first day counting the seagulls and how thirsty he was then, how relieved he was when the rain came down.

And yet the blue haired boy didn't say a single thing about himself. His real name was a mystery and he didn't talk about how he came to this island or why. Ace wanted to ask but seeing the guy he decided to wait, he thought that if he wanted to talk, he would. At least he seemed decent at setting his foot right, it still hurt but it didn't feel wrong like it did before. In a couple of days he would be alright.

"... and the fish was rainbow! Like all the colors and y'know I've read that those are almost always poisonous. So since it was as good as dead I decided to check it out for myself and dissected the fish with my knife and…"

"You did what?"

"Dissected the… yeah I wanna be a doctor when I'm older! I just need to go to the Academy in... oh yeah I lost all my money…" Deuce stopped talking and was staring at the void, an imaginary dark cloud over his head. Feeling a little weirded out at the sudden reaction, Ace decided to just fill the silence.

"Well I got kidnapped by bandits, set them on fire and escaped on a boat but then some kind of small sea king tried to eat my boat and I threw my food barrel on him!"

Deuce stared at Ace with wide eyes.

"You fought a Sea King by yourself? That's pretty wicked!"

Ace couldn't help his smile, he liked this weird guy, he was about to explain how it happened when he felt the downsiness of his narcolepsy kicking in. He barely heard he the other scream his name before he fell asleep. Maybe he should have explained that earlier, whoops.

~ NN ~

"The prisoner is missing!" Those words echoed in the corridors of the castle. If Nojiko knew the place a tiny bit better, she would already be out of here but as it was, she was hiding in a huge purple vase. She wanted to wait until they took the search outside so finding her way out would be easier, unfortunately, someone walked by. The teen froze, listening, she recognized the confident feminine steps immediately as they stopped in front of the vase and someone opened the top fake plant. Nojiko groaned, it was the third time the woman found her so easily and the teen could never figure how.

"There you are, please hurry, your food will be served at your room soon." Said Sandra's calm voice.

The blue haired girl never bothered fighting, Nojiko never really trained to fight and Genzo's bo staff lessons didn't count without one. Plus she had the feeling that behind Sandra's old nice lady facade she was super strong and Nojiko didn't want to try her tempet. At least, despite it being her seventh attempt to escape, she never got punished for it. "For a human being, wanting to escape imprisonment is only natural." She explained and Nojiko just gave up trying to understand how she could keep her here against her will while having such a philosophy. Whatever, adults were weird.

She was led back to her room and as promised her steaming plate of vegetable soup was waiting for her, the door was locked and she was left making another escape plan.

~ DD ~

Deuce stumbled backwards on the sand when he heard his words.

"You're a pirate?!"

They tried to fish a bit in the morning but the sun was now pretty high in the sky and it was too hot to do anything but talk. This revelation surprised the teen but it also kind of made sense. The strength this kid exuded was impressive and he believed that he didn't lie about breaking a sea king's face seeing the state of his boat. Ace was very straight forward in everything he said and he just dropped this bomb like it was nothing.

"Yeah, since like a month ago." The dark hair scratched his chin, trying to remember, not especially taking notice of Deuce's reaction.

"Why? Pirates are… evil" He choked out, pirates were criminals, thieves, murderers, why would this kid even…

"If I tell you why, will you tell me why you wear a mask?" He asked curiously and the blue haired blushed a bit thinking about it. People did tend to mock him about it, at least Ace didn't look like he was going to.

"Er… it's a boring story." And it was, the other kid looked so confident and cool, he'd rather having Ace getting to his own conclusions about his story, there really was nothing in his. He ran away, that's it and he wasn't going back.

"If you're not telling I'm not gonna talk either." Ace said and Deuce sighed. He hoped that staying vague enough would keep it entertaining enough.

"I just… ran away, with the mask I… I don't wanna be found. Took some money to be a doctor and… I... lost it..."

Deuce crossed his arms on his knees and started muttering internally again about his lost money. Ace seemed to be quick to react.

"So you stole money, and you say I'm bad." Ace had an almost mocking expression and Deuce couldn't help his blush.

"It-It's not the same! I'm gonna pay them back when I'm a doctor!"

"Well, I never stole money from people who didn't deserve it." Ace crossed his arms on his chest and said proudly, Deuce wasn't convinced, he could argue that his parents deserved it but it would mean talking about them.

"Er… Who did you steal from?" Ace blinked and started to count on his fingers.

"Nobles… pirates, bandits… some sake from Dadan…" Ace stopped at the fourth finger, frowning.

"You didn't tell me why you're a pirate." Asked Deuce and the other smiled widely.

"I just want to be free. Pirates can go everywhere and do everything they want!"

"Not for the treasure?"

"A bit for the treasure too… But I wanted to be with my brothers and on my home island we couldn't." Deuce got curious but seeing his dark look (Ace really had a mean glare), he decided it could wait.

"And who's the captain?" Ace's answer was proud.

"All three of us!"

"Is that even possible?"

Ace nodded proudly then laughed.

"At least until we're old enough to go on our own. In the meantime we'll make a name for ourselves!" He sighed "They're my poor little brothers who got lost in the wide ocean…"

"Aren't you the lost one though?" Ace blinked at the comment and scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, but I'll find them! As soon as we're out of this island!"

Deuce smiled a bit, he said we, and it brought a warm feeling to his chest.

~ ASL ~

Sabo opened his eyes and instead of the uncomfortable chair of the cabin he found himself in one of the mattresses. He couldn't remember when he fell asleep, in fact he couldn't remember going back to the cabin. His mind was hazy and his body heavy, it wasn't as restful as he wished it was. He couldn't remember his dream but knew it was unpleasant. He got out of bed, noticing a smaller figure sleeping on the other side, his limbs sprawled all around him. Luffy slept like the dead, snoring loudly, his legs miraculously having missed his face by a couple of centimeters. Sabo pushed those feet away and yawned, leaning up, something was nagging at the back of his mind, something unpleasant but he couldn't tell what. He stood up, feeling awkward in his steps and opened the door to the sun. It was past noon, the sun was high in the sky. The blond teen walked barefoot on the creaking wood, looking around him. They should have arrived to Grenadine Island already, or at least around the Archipelago. Where…

Sabo saw Zoro. In front of the steering wheel. Holding it. Oh no.

This chapter was supposed to be longer but when I went over the 4000 words mark I had to swap some things to the 13 chap, sorry. I want to keep the chapter's length stable but if you'd rather have me posting more words per chapter, do say so. I will post the next one sooner tho, give me just a couple of days to polish it!

See ya