It was rumoured that Red-Haired Shanks frequented the small summer island of Volca at least once a year. Well, not so much rumoured as he outwardly admitted that anytime he ran out of the best sake this side of Reverse mountain, he made sure to stop at the island. And with the confirmed sightings of the Red Force in the East Blue, Pops had chosen to direct the Moby Dick to set course for the island, lest he give the other pirate - 'Red-Haired upstart' Pops would grumble - the idea that he was right.

Of course, the rest of the crew was just happy to get off the ship for even a day or two - or however long Pops wanted to stay - and the promise of even half decent alcohol was an added bonus for a majority of them. Even if it ended up with him being a headache because as commander of the first division and unaffected by alcohol because of his devil fruit, he would be the one left to clean up the mess left by his brothers and sisters.

Of course, said brothers and sisters along with Pops continued to give him a hard time telling him to 'loosen up' and 'live a little, you giant blue chicken' but of course if he did that then there was a ninety percent chance that the Moby Dick would 'accidentally' catch fire.

Again.

For the fourth time.

In a month.

Not like that stopped his siblings from trying to convince him to get drunk when they themselves were three sheets to the wind. And Pops was never any help, in fact he would often encourage his other children to try and rope him into drinking with them.

That was how he found himself visiting a few of the local businesses that his siblings had ignored in hopes of finding supplies that they were running low on, the most prominent being of course alcohol and both dried meat and fruit. As the only sober one, and clearly the only adult on the crew, it was his job to make sure they could last until the next island.

So when he exited a store owned by a lovely elderly couple who welcomed him with opened arms even though he was a pirate, he had to stop as the sound of a child's squeal caught his ears. Most people wouldn't have thought much of the noise, but him being the only person on the street and having been the oldest sibling on the crew - and he would deny until his dying day that it was his 'mother hen' tendency - that drove him to investigate, because children didn't make that noise unless they were in distress.

Turning the corner of the street, he had not been expecting to find three children, two obviously older with one clearly being a follower and the other being the leader standing over a small red haired girl - that colour was so familiar but on a much younger body - who couldn't be older than three or four that they had clearly knocked over if the way she was sitting on the ground was anything to go off of.

"What's going on over here?" Slowly striding over, he met the eyes of the red-haired girl and instantly forgot how similar her hair was in exchange for noting just how eerie those seafoam green coloured eyes were, especially when they were filled with the fire she was shooting the older - and they were clearly older - boys standing above her.

"Stay out of this old man." The leader of the two boys - waist height, mud brown hair, stocky - called over his shoulder, not even bothering to turn around and see just who was approaching him. "This is between us, and the freak."

"Yeah." The follower - black hair, thin frame, shaking like a leaf - stammered out.

He could only watch as the little girl pulled herself up, brushing off both the hate filled words with a dull expression, the only sign his words affected her was the clenching of one fist, and brushing off the literally dust on her cream pants and purple top. "You done?" He couldn't help but smirk at the deadpan answer the young girl leveled the other two boys with. "Because, I've got places to be."

This seemed to infuriate the lead boy, the other boy who was the follower kept nervous shifting his weight from side to side and casting fleeting glances over his shoulder at him, who visibly tensed and took a threatening step towards the girl. "At least I know who my father is. Your mom probably sleeps with every-"

It happened in split second.

One second saw the lead boy standing a head above the seafoam green eyed girl and the next he was down on the ground holding his now bleeding nose as the seafoam green eyed girl now stood above the boy who had been tormenting her, the black coating of Armament Haki receding from her outstretched fist - thumb over curled fingers, arm rotating with the follow through - shocking the first division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates from the blatant use of Haki by a three year old.

This might have been the Grand Line but a child in their single digits using Haki - Armament at that - was a rare sight.

Pops would want to know. Pops should know.

"Don't. Insult. My. Mama." The girl hissed, spitting at the boy on the ground not even sparing the raven haired boy a look as he collected his leader off the ground, the mud brown haired boy calling back with a shaking voice that he was going to tell his father. "Idiots." The blue-green eyes turned to him and if he had been anyone else he probably would have been unnerved at how this little girl seemed to be eyeing him up before lighting up with recognition when settling on his chest tattoo.

"That was pretty impressive, kid." He knelt down, coming eye level with the seafoam green eyed child. "Where does a five year old learn how to use Haki?" He ran his own teal eyes over the girl; purple shirt dirtied, cream pants dirty, brown boots scuffed up, seafoam green eyes, heart shaped face, button nose, and red hair tied up in pigtails with white bands with some curly locks having fallen out from the fight.

"Four." His eyes dragged themselves down from the red hair - just where had he seen that shade before? - to meet those blue-green eyes once more. "I'm four, not five." Yes, because her age was the most important thing right now, not the fact that a four year old was able to use Haki. "And I taught myself."

Wait. What? This kid taught herself?

"So, are we done here because my mama's been expecting me for the past ten minutes?"

How in the world did a four year old kid learn how to teach herself how to use Haki? And on top of that, when did this kid start learning how to use Haki, it took himself years of practice and help from Pops himself to use Haki to some degree of success and here was this kid who train herself using Armament.

"Well, I'm going now. Nice meeting you Marco."

Wait. What?

Marco went to stop the girl, grab the ends of her shirt put she had already taken off down the street, disappearing around the street corner before he could stop her. Even when trying to locate her using Observation Haki he had no luck.

How did she know his name and been so sure of herself when calling out his name, he never introduced himself and he couldn't believe that she would have seen his bounty poster before as his bounty hadn't gone up in years? How did someone so young have such old eyes, the last time he had seen eyes like that was when Roger and Pops met up again just after the man had returned from Raftel? How did she learn to use Armament Haki by herself? And how did a four year old learn how to smother her aura to the point that not even he could pick her out of the villagers, it was like trying to find a leaf in a forest? That was something only the most experienced of Haki users could do.

This kid was going to grow up to be someone interesting.

Someone Pops should be alerted too.

His captain may have been one of the most feared men by a majority of the marines - and respected by the rest for the power he held - but the man could not keep anything secret from his crew no matter how hard he tried so it was no surprise to them when, after receiving a call via transponder snail, he had immediately changed course for the Grand Line - for Volca to be exact - with no other explanation than something had come up.

They weren't stupid, it hadn't hard to put two and two together whenever they had docked at the small summer island in the middle of the Grand Line.

It had also helped when the mayor, a nice elderly fellow who had been mayor when the Roger Pirates had first started to stop at the island, had admitted to them that the pink haired woman that each crew member on board the Red Force knew as a close 'friend' of their captain had a daughter with the same red hair that their own captain had.

So they let him have his time away from them, let him be the father his daughter needed when he was around, and knew that he would eventually introduce his daughter - Foley Wren as the mayor had happily informed them - when he was ready or, more likely, when Tifa finally kicked his ass into gear.

Something big in that letter had to have spooked him, there was no other explanation as to why they had to pack up and leave in the middle of a party, so they had all agreed to let their captain have a day with his girls before they took it upon themselves to introduce themselves to the mini red head.

It was only his hand on his captains shoulder that stopped the man from disappearing once they were fully docked to find his knew why they were here, something had to have happened to one of his girls, and they would give him the day to check in to both make sure they were okay and to reassure himself that nothing had happened but they wanted to met his daughter while they were here this time.

"Tomorrow." Shanks had agreed, "Tifa and I will bring her to the bar tomorrow. It's about time she met you all anyway."

So he had relayed that note to the rest of the crew, each of them agreeing that the occasion was one that they needed to be one hundred percent sober for, and for a crew that was infamous for celebrating everything with a party, it was a great test of willpower for them all to head to the bar they always frequented and not touch a drop of alcohol.

It's not long after they all find themselves in their favourite bar the next day, did a flash of red out of the corner of his eye catch his attention. What he had been expecting was to meet the familiar face of his captain, what he hadn't been expecting was the turn his head and meet familiar seafoam green eyes, light in colour with no pupils and a thick ring around the seafoam green, on a face that had red strands of hair escaping a small ponytail framing it.

There was no arguing just who this kid';s parents were.

"Hi." The girl chirped drawing the attention of each crew member, many quiet but still audible breaths hitching once eyes are laid on the girl because yes, they had been expecting the captain's daughter but they weren't expecting the literal combination of both parents best genes.

Most people would either focus on the girl's eyes or hair but he was the sniper on the crew, it was his job to notice the small details. Outwardly, the kid was a carbon copy of her mother just with her father's hair but he could see the subtle influences Shanks' blood had on the kid, like the fact her eyes were starting to take the narrow shape of Shanks'.

But what he noticed the most were those eyes of hers. Not the colour because he had met Tifa and was used to seeing seafoam green eyes like hers but it was just how intelligent those eyes were and just how she trailed her eyes over each and everyone of them, judging them, taking stock of them.

Analyzing them.

There was no other word for it other than the fact the kid, who couldn't be more than four or five, was analyzing each of them. Only giving them a honest smile when it seemed she decided they either she could trust them or maybe that yes, these people were on her father's crew.

"Right. Wren, meet the crew. Crew, meet my little Wren." Hands came down on either of Wren's shoulders as Shanks beamed a smile at them over his daughter's head, Tifa shaking her head at his antics as she passed. Though Shanks might have been smiling at them, there was a promise in that smile that he would not take kindly to any bad word being directed at his girls.

He was quite fine not being on that shit list.

"Hey there little Wren." He stuck his hand out to the little red haired girl, catching her eyes. "I'm-"

"Yasopp. The crew's sniper." How did she? "I've seen your bounty poster." Ah, that would be it. "s it true that papa would be dead without you, Roo, and Benn?"

Papa.

That word is the damning proof, along with that shade of red hair, that his captain has fathered a child with the women he loved, or at least at one point thought he loved enough to start some sort of relationship with. Much like himself in that regards with his own boy and wife back at Syrup Village in the East Blue.

He chuckles, ruffling her hair - curly locks from how short it is must be from Tifa's blood as Shanks' hair never had any volume - with one hand. "Let me tell you a story about how your dad decided to go off on his own one day and almost got eaten by a beetle twice the size of himself and how Benn and I had to rescue him."

That grin she shoots him is all Shanks and Yasopp knows right then and there that everyone on the crew - both new and old - knew that if the marines ever got their hands on this lovely little girl that the Red-Haired Pirates would raze each and everyone of their bases to get her back.

It's only when Wren in almost five years old does Shanks realize just how special his only child and daughter is. Granted, most parents always claim that any child of theirs is special but he is the only one that gets to truly claim that.

Because how many parents can claim that their four - almost five - year old can use Armament Haki with no proper training.

And that was most definitely Armament Haki coating her hand and wrist black as she picked up various rocks lining the pathway up to Tifa's home, and she hadn't seemed to notice that he has stopped weeding the garden just focusing on picking up the once round stones, and snapping them in two with her tiny fingers.

"What do you have there, Songbird?" He watches as the stone his daughter had clenched in her fist crumples to dust as she jumps in surprise and spins to face him with wide seafoam green eyes.

"Papa?" He watches as she tilts her head at him, hand still clenched tight with fine grains sneaking out from the cracks between her fingers, still pudgy put growing slimmer each time he sees her as she gets older.

Had it really only been almost five years since he walked into Tifa home to be handed a child about the length of his forearm and now here she was walking, talking, and using Haki like it was no big deal.

From an infant with curly red hair, to a toddler with pudgy limbs, to a young girl with half picked scabs and hair tied up in two pigtails on either side, hair keeping some of the curls but slowly losing the curl. His daughter is growing up before his eyes, and growing up to be a beautiful woman given who her mother is and that causes worry down in his gut that he pushes aside in order to study his daughter as she goes back to crushing stones in her hands.

"Has your mom been teaching you?" Tifa had some skill in both Armament and Observation Haki so maybe she had been teaching Wren without telling him, that would be something she would do to keep him on his toes.

"Nope." Wren chirps, turning another stone the size of her palm to dust. "Mama's been busy. So I taught myself." She shrugs like it's no big deal, like it was normal for a four year old to teach herself how to use Haki to the extent she has.

"Okay." He nods. If her Armament is as good as it is for her age, then he wonders how good her Observation is. "Do you know about Observation?"He can't help but grin as Wren nods, dropping the stone - five perfect indents from her fingers now on its surface - she had picked up, and suppresses her aura, not by much but enough that the average Haki user would have a hard time picking her out of a crowd.

How in the world?

"Where'd you learn to do that, Songbird?" Because his child just performed one of the most difficult abilities associated with Observational Haki and she's only four years old. Something he has never heard of someone so young doing.

"I taught myself." Her voice is full of childish pride, and that's just proof that she doesn't understand the ramifications of what she has just accomplished. "Mama said it scared her the first time I did it because she could feel me one minute and the next I was gone. What did she mean by feel me?"

He steels his expression because sitting in front of him and his own flesh and blood is probably the next coming of old man Rayleigh if she really put her mind to it. "Nothing kiddo." He ruffled her hair earning a squeal of delight as she tries to pull away. "You keep practicing, I'm going to go talk with your mom for a minute." He couldn't help but grin at her when she gave him an enthusiastic nod of her head, ruffling her hair with one hand and jabbing her softly in the chest earning a giggle from the young girl as she happily picked up yet another stone, crushing it easily in her fist.

"Hey Shanks, can you do me a solid?" Of course those were the first words out of Tifa's mouth as she didn't even turn around to face him as he walked in through the front door.

"Last time I agreed to that statement I found myself striped of my breeches and modeling a dress in front of a bunch of sexually questionable men." He pulled up one of the spare chairs from the dining room table, through his legs on either side of the chair back, watching as Tifa held a needle in her mouth as she angled the fabric she was working on.

"You shush." She smacked his arm lightly, "That dress was for one of my best customers and the wedding was beautiful. You almost wore that dress better than the groom himself. And I don't know if you've noticed, but I've got more of a chest than you do so I couldn't wear it properly." She fed the fabric, now obviously the beginnings of a shirt, through the machine in front of her. "You've got that look on your face, what's up?"

He rubbed a hand over his face, "You know Wren can use Haki?"

She hummed, taking her foot off the pedal of the sewing machine, "I figured as much. Not that hard to figure out with the amount of stones in my garden that now have tiny finger indents in them. Add that to the fact I'm always using Observation Haki when I can't see her so I know where she is because she is somehow able to suppress her aura and let me tell you, I lost five years of my life panicking over that and I'm sure I've got five new grey hairs as well."

"Mother knows all."He couldn't help but chuckle before letting out a soft sigh. "I can stay two more, maybe three more days before the marines start getting antsy and start investigating why I'm here but I'll do what I can in helping her develop her Haki but could you-"

"Take over where you leave off?" She finished, pinning two pieces of fabric together. "I was planning on teaching her myself once she hit five but I guess now is as good as any." She stretched her arms way above her head, lifting her shirt up exposing her taut stomach - not that Shanks was looking. "I'll have to break out my old training daggers and get her started on those as well." Shanks let out a strangled yelp earning a roll of the eyes from Tifa. "Honestly, you think I'm not going to train my daughter to use a weapon that can be hidden? You can stick a knife - dagger in this case - in a bra better than you can a sword."

She...did have a point. As perturbing as that thought was, daggers were easier to hide on a body than swords were.

It wasn't hard to deduce that Tifa had hidden daggers in her bra before - that had been fun to discover the night they said "Fuck it" - and teaching their daughter to do the same caused unwanted images to pop into his mind.

An older Wren looking almost exactly like her mother, down to her...well-endowed chest, wearing the same clothing her mother would wear out of the house - cut off low cut tops, short shorts - giving boys killer smiles that caused them to run after her with less than innocent thoughts running through their head.

Oh, he hadn't even thought of the boys that would be after his grown up little Songbird.

She would grow up to be beautiful, that much he was sure of, and that would attract boys who would want to date his beautiful girl but he wasn'tt going to let that happen, over his dead body would anyone even get to even think about dating his daughter. She would not be allowed to date until she was thirty-

No.

Thirty was too soon.

She would not be allowed to date anyone until someone found the One Piece.

And seeing as how it had almost been a decade since Captain Roger had hid it from the world, there was little chance in anyone finding it anytime soon and therefore no chance that anyone would even think about dating his daughter.

"Oi,"Tifa smacked him on the head dragging him from his thoughts, "get that murderous look off your face and stop thinking about our daughter dating when she gets older." How did she know what was going through his head? "Because you're not thinking them, dumbass." Oh, that made sense. "Of course it does. Now get the frickity frack out of my house so I can get some work done or the first thing I'll teach her is how to hit a moving target with you as the target. Now go entertain our daughter because I can feel her getting bored out there." Pushy woman. "I heard that asshole."

He laughed, dodging the book thrown at the doorway he escaped out of, hopping down the steps and scooping up Wren just as she crumbled the last stone from her pile. What was it that Tifa had said, "Now was as good a time as any?"

"Come on, Songbird. Daddy's gonna teach you how to use Armament Haki to knock down a tree with a single punch."

There were three brothers, sworn brothers but brothers all the same, that much she knew. One the son of a corrupt noble and the other two the sons of the most wanted people at different times in history.

Portgas D. Ace, the son of Gol D. Roger.

Outlook Sabo, the son of the noble Outlook III and rightful heir to the Goa Kingdom. Something about a kid named Stelly or Shelly was in there as well.

Monkey D. Luffy, the son of Monkey D. Dragon the most wanted man in the world and leader or the Revolutionary Army.

There would be an incident with some of Bluejam's crew and that would be the catalyst to them becoming sworn brothers. Then a fire would happen, Sabo would be kidnapped back by his father and thought dead but actually not and just suffering from amnesia. Or was it kidnapping first and then fire? Either way, Sabo was going to get kidnapped and Grey Terminal was going to catch fire.

Ace leaves, creates the Spade Pirates and eats the Mera Mera no mi. Gets his ass kicked by Edward "Whitebeard" Newgate and becomes the second division commander after a period of time.

Luffy leaves, and somehow ends up in a barrel where he meets Coby, no Koby, no definitely Coby. Or was it Koby? Ah Hell, Pinky McPinkerton the wannabe marine that was now going to be his name.

Meets with the Mask of Zorro, joins up with Nazi-

Is it offensive to all someone a Nazi if that group of people never existed in certain worlds like this one?

Wren stuck the tip of her left thumb in her mouth and bit it lightly as she thought, looking over her notes thankful that no one in this world seemed to understand Italian. Chalk one up for the immigrant maternal grandparents in her first life - in the Before - that enforced their grandkids to learn their first language.

She hummed, crossing out her previous thought, better to play it safe so Traity McTraitorson worked for now.

Something with Buggy the Clown, a dog, and then traveling to a new island where they meet Usopp and Kaya and Luffy defeats that guy who pushes up his glasses with the heel of his hand. Weird way to do that but she could have sworn it had something to do with how he got his nickname or something of the like. Also a hypnotist was there for some reason.

Then there was Vinsmoke Sanji - for now still just Sanji - and Traity McTraitorson betraying them before heading off to see the Freaky Fish Guy - Arlong but she liked the name she gave him instead. Shit happens there and then they were off to find Chopper - Emergency Food Supply - because Nami had gotten sick somehow.

Wait? Did Chopper happen before or after Loguetown? And wasn't there something about a group of bounty hunters or mercenaries and a princess with a duck? Ah, didn't really matter in the long run. Either way Luffy was going to destroy Roger's execution platform and nearly be captured by Smoker but was going to be saved by his father.

After Chopper came Alabasta because Vivi - the princess with the duck - wanted the Straw Hat's help defeating Crocodile which lead to meeting Ace and learning that he was hunting someone down because a monster had killed-

Wren stopped again, nearly snapping her pencil in two.

Ace was in Alabasta hunting down Marshall D. Teach - aka Blackbeard - because he had killed Thatch the fourth division commander and Ace's friend just for finding the Yami Yami no Mi devil fruit. Leading to the eventual fight between the two.

Ace's capture.

The War of the Best.

The death of two good men.

She had to shake her head, had to force those thought away to try and focus on Luffy's story.

Recruiting Robin and stopping the bomb that Crocodile placed in a clock tower. Getting Franky and the Sunny in one stop and losing both the Merry and Robin, the former completely and the latter for only a short amount of time because of something with the glyphs that are needed to reach the end of the Grand Line. Finding Brooke and his shadow in that triangle place with the guy who stole shadows, was that right?.

Going to Sabaody.

Fighting Kuma.

Amazon Lily.

Impel Down.

Marineford.

Everything led up to that moment, that fucking moment where a man was condemned for something he couldn't control, something that dogged him his entire life dragging down his self worth.

She wanted to scream, to rip out her hair and cry, tell someone, anyone that Ace was the son of Gol D. Roger and needed to be shown he was worth more than he thought, that people loved him and didn't care whose blood he carried in his veins. Show him that there were people in this world that would miss him if he died and would give their own lives so that he could live.

She sighed, releasing her death grip on the pencil.

Everything boiled down to the War of the Best. Though Luffy had many allies helping him along the way, none of them held the same conviction he did in getting his brother out. He couldn't do it alone but even surrounded by people fighting with him he was alone.

Except, she was here.

She was here and she knew the bare bones of the main story - mostly the order in which people joined the crew and a few of the adventures they had gone on prior to the war and only a few tidbits of information after the timeskip like the Corazon-Law thing and Sanji's family being the Vinsmokes (something about the Big Mom Pirates were associated with that but she never got that far but she remembered rumours about a guy able to see the future) - but she still knew enough that she could make an impact.

She could show Ace that there were people in the world besides just Luffy and Whitebeard who loved him for just being himself.

She could help Luffy get stronger, enough so that he wouldn't be as exhausted as he reached the execution platform to stop those swords from coming down.

She could even try to find a way to make sure that the Yami Yami no Mi stayed hidden, out of sight of people - of the person - who had been looking for it for years.

She may only be six years old now and far away from making any dent in any part of the story but she knows that she could stop the war before it even got started. And she would gladly give her own life in exchange for the lives of everyone who lost their in the war because she didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

A/N:

And that makes chapter 2. Thank you to all who have followed, read, and reviewed this story and to all those who are the silent readers.

I did make a tumblr for this story just to post some sneak peaks and links to the chapters. Just look up vintage-typewriter or Foley Wren if you can't find me on there.

Don't forget to review if you can, anytime someone leaves a comment it just makes my day.