Epilogue

Today is a new day, don't
let the lows of yesterday
prevent you from enjoying
the highs of today.

- unknown

Moby Dick came to a slow stop at a snowy island where they were greeted with armed men, pointing their guns and other variety of weapons at the people of the large ship.

Marco, who was at the rail of the ship, raised both of his hands in surrender. "We're not here to do any harm-yoi. We heard that you have the best doctors here on Drum Island. Would it be all right if we see your doctors-yoi?"

A large man in front of the group raised his hand to signal for the others to put down their weapons, but before he could reply back there was a commotion from the ship.

"Yahoo!" someone shouted and the person just threw themselves off the ship and into a pile of snow, only to land head first on the boulder under it. The impact caused the tree next to it to shudder and let loose a huge pile of snow on top of the person.

"LUFFY!" Ace and Sabo ran to look over the rail before jumping off.

"IT'S COLD!" the person jumped up, uninjured, and wrapped his arms around himself to ward off the cold. The people of the island could only look in bewilderment as a boy looking no older than thirteen wearing only a thin sleeveless vest and long shorts jump out of the pile to complain about the cold instead of the being knocked out by the fall.

"Luffy's cold!" someone on the ship shouted. Seconds later, several thick coats were tossed down, followed by a pair of long sweatpants.

Marco could only sigh at the idiocy of his siblings when they offered their own comfort of warmth, rather than going to grab something they weren't already wearing. Why did Law have to leave them so soon? Couldn't he have waited until Luffy leaves first, instead of just hopping off at some random island? At least he would have been reasonable enough to put the kid in warmer clothes before letting him loose.

"Thanks!" Luffy cheered as Ace and Sabo helped him put on one of the coat and the pants. "Let's go explore!" And he took off before either one of his brothers could stop him.

The group of armed men looked back at the crew atop the ship after hearing Whitebeard's laughter and Marco's groans.

"Before the doctors-yoi, do you mind if we go get the kids back first?"

"About the doctors," the big man, who seemed like the leader of the group, "there is only one left on this island. She's more of a witch than a doctor though. She's all we have left. You are more than welcome to come on the island, as long as you promise not to harm anyone. Though, seeing as you are the Whitebeard Pirates, I don't think that would be a problem."

"Thank you. Henry, go get your commanders and Luffy since there aren't any doctors here," Marco said to the Second Division member watching from the ship, before turning back to the men in front of him. "Would we be able to procure some supplies here also-yoi?"

"I'm afraid we don't have enough supplies for a ship as large as yours," the man said. "I'm Dolton, by the way." He shook hands with Marco when the Commander jumped down from the ship.

"Marco. It's all right-yoi. We only need enough for a small ship."

Only ten minutes into assigning people to supply gathering, a lookout called out from the tallest mast, "Commander Marco," everyone could hear the dread in his voice, "you might want to go pick up your kids. They're terrorizing Henry and the towns people. They're in the next town over," the lookout pointed in the direction of where they were, not taking his eyes off his binocular.

Marco sighed and ran a hand down his face before addressing the armed crowd monitoring them, "Sorry. They're just kids. They mean no harm, usually," he muttered the last word quietly.

"You might want to hurry," the lookout said again. "Looks like Henry's down for the count, and Luffy's hitched a ride on a deer? And now all three of them are being chased by a scary looking lady, and I think she's throwing tiny sharp objects at them."

"Are they running or fighting back-yoi?" Marco asked with his arms transformed and ready to go.

"Running."

"Good," he said before taking off. Good, because the boys shouldn't be fighting with the towns people in the first place. There shouldn't be anyone strong enough for them to run away from this close to the beginning of Paradise. Unless, of course, it's an enemy. Either way, Marco needs to get there quickly before things escalate. Better safe than sorry, especially with the townsmen arming themselves against outsiders. He highly doubt any of them were actual fighters, with the exception of Dolton. Something must have happened to this island for this level of caution.

He finally found who he thinks is the lady chasing his kids, running into the mountain forest, swinging a bat around, cackling and yelling at the the boys in front of her to come back. As Marco flew closer, he could hear the boys screaming, that's right, screaming obscenities, that loosely translated to 'keep the hell away from us' at the bat wielding woman. Ace and Sabo actually looked terrified at the thought of being caught by the crazy woman.

Looking a little further ahead, Marco spots Luffy laughing loudly as he rides the deer, that was weaving through the trees with expert ease, attempting to buck off it's passenger. Assessing which group seems to be in most danger, the First Division swooped down a few feet in front of the bucking deer.

As soon as the deer sees the large flaming bird descending, it skidded to a stop with a human-like shriek before hoping and turning tail towards the other three, who were running in their direction. There was no way in hell he's going to fight a flaming bird, especially one that big.

Marco was able to grab Luffy off the deer's back before the deer could make it too far and flew to where Ace and Sabo stopped.

"Pops!" they both greeted him once he tossed Luffy to Sabo and turned back to human form.

"Well, what do we have here?" the lady grinned, holding her bat over a shoulder. Now that Marco's gotten a closer look, it was an old woman dressed in clothes far too young for her. "What's the Phoenix doing this far from New World?"

"You know him, Doctorine?" a young voice asked. Marco looked down to see a tanuki-like animal hiding the wrong way behind her leg. He assumes it's the deer from earlier if the antlers were to mean anything.

The old woman looked down to answer the animal, "No, but this one's a big shot. His face is one just about everyone on Grand Line should know, either from fear or gratitude. Marco the Phoenix of the Whitebeard Pirates." She looked back up to Marco with a grin. "So which is it? If you want the secret to my youthfulness, I don't think you need it."

"Neither," Marco replied. "You have nothing to fear-yoi. I'm only here to stop these idiots from causing too much trouble. Our crew is only here to look for a doctor for this kid," he slammed his hand on Luffy's head to stop him from grabbing the animal, "only to find out there are none left-yoi."

The old lady studied the kid briefly before looking back at the commander with a frown, "There isn't a cure for stupid yet. Unless there's something else ailing him. I would have thought your large crew would have at least one or two decent doctors."

"Luffy's not stupid!" both Ace and Sabo defended.

"We do have doctors, a whole division of first-class doctors-yoi. No, the kid's looking to start his own crew, and we want to make sure he has a good doctor to sail with him. He insists that he gets his own and not one from our crew-yoi. We'd all feel better if one of our own, who knows his medical background, were to go with him," Marco sighed.

"Things happened, and it's now just me and my assistant here," the old lady placed a hand on the tanuki.

"Your assistant? That thing?" Ace asked, making a face of disbelief.

"I'm not a thing! I'm a reindeer, and my name is Tony Tony Chopper!" the little tanuki-like animal shouted at them, before hiding his head back behind Doctorine's leg.

"Anyway," Marco interjected before anyone could say anything else, still holding on to Luffy, "since there are no doctors for the kid to choose from, we're leaving-yoi. Come, boys."

"But Pops," Luffy whined, twisting and turning to get to the reindeer, "I want him on my crew."

"No, Luffy, he's still an assistant, not a full-fledged doctor-yoi."

"He may be my assistant, but he's just as good or better than any doctor you'll find anywhere," Doctorine grinned as she and Chopper walked behind the pirate group.

"See! He coming with me. He's a doctor and a really good one," Luffy nodded in agreement with himself.

"I'm not going with you!" Chopper yelled from his awkward hiding place. "Why would you want me anyway?" he added quietly.

"Why wouldn't I want you? You're a doctor, I need a doctor on my crew, and you're cool," Luffy waved his arms around as he's being dragged by his jacket collar by Marco.

"Because I'm not human. I'm a monster," Chopper transformed into what looks almost like a gorilla and roared at them in his best attempt to scare them. Instead, all it did was cause the three brothers to put their fingers up their nose and look bored.

"So?" Luffy said. "Namur's not human and Jinbe too, but I still like them. They're good people. And I know lots of monsters," he flicked the booger off his finger. "Pops is one. He's part bird," he pointed to Marco before pointing to Ace and Sabo. "And Ace and Sabo are made of fire. And I'm a monster too. I'm a good monster though. Thatch said so. I'm not a bad monster." He nodded his head as if everything was right in the world. "Oh, Pops, Ace, and Sabo are good monsters too. All the monsters at home are good. Especially Grandpops."

"You-you're not scared of me?" Chopper quickly shrunk back to normal size and hid behind Doctorine again. He looked up to see a soft smile on her face.

"I'm pretty sure there are no monster in the world that could scare these kids-yoi," Marco chuckled. "As a matter of fact, there isn't much that'll scare them, and they've been in both parts of Grand Line most of their lives. If we ever loose sight of them, all we have to do is look for the loudest place or wait for some poor building to explode, and that's where they are."

Doctorine barked out a laugh. "Figures it takes someone like you to pop these three demons into existence. That's right, I've read about you three in the papers. ASL, the Three Demon Children, is what they call you, right? Seems you brats like to wreck havoc everywhere you go."

"It's not like we ask for it," both Ace and Sabo moaned. "Trouble won't leave us alone."

"Demon?" Chopper squeaked, clutching tighter on Doctorine's pants.

"That's right," Ace said with an evil grin, lighting his shoulders and hands on fire. "We're demons, and we're going to eat -"

"Cut that out," Marco punched Ace's head. "You're scaring the poor kid-yoi. And these aren't really my kids. They sort of adopted me. It's a long story, and I don't feel like explaining-yoi."

"Pops! Pops! Look! What is that?" Luffy said, pointing towards the mountain.

"Looks like a white bear," said Ace.

"Or a giant rabbit," said Sabo.

"It looks tasty," Luffy said with drool coming down his chin. With that single thought in his mind, he lifts his arm to slide out of his jacket. Now that he's free from Marco, Luffy sprinted towards the bear/rabbit thing.

"Wait for us," Ace and Sabo called out before following.

The First Division Commander could only put his head in his hand and shake it.

"You might want to stop those boys. Lapans are very dangerous," Doctorine warned.

"They'll be fine-yoi," Marco said as he watched the three boys fight one each before continuing his walk towards the ship with the other two following, though Chopper kept himself behind the old woman.

Every few minutes, Doctorine would give another warning about the children fighting the Lapan, and each time Marco would dismiss it. His sons were strong enough to take care of themselves in Paradise, he was sure of it.

They were trained by the best. Ace and Sabo could now spar with Luffy evenly. Luffy's ability to use any physical move he's seen at least once flawlessly is because of the training he had to build up his muscles. Luffy was thrilled the day his two older brothers asked him to spar with them. At first he went easy on them, until they knocked him down and into the ground. The smile the boy gave after being pounded to the ground is one that Marco's going to miss.

He was so lost in thought that he almost missed the sound of thunder from far away. Then it came again but louder. "What is that-yoi?" he asked when the sound didn't stop.

The three of them stopped to listen, then the ground beneath them started to shake. "It's an avalanche!" Chopper cried out as birds and deer ran passed them.

"My boys!" Marco cried out as he transformed and flew overhead to try and find his sons.

Chopper quickly transformed to his deer form and let Doctorine on his back before taking off in search of safety. They reached the village where Dolton and the pirates were. The avalanche isn't coming that way. It's going towards the other village where they were earlier.

"What's that noise? What happened, Dr. Kureha?" Dolton asked once the woman got off Chopper. He stayed in his deer form, still wary of the villagers after the last time, many years ago, when they chased him away and called him a monster.

"There's an avalanche," Doctorine answered as she dusted herself. "The Phoenix is out there searching for his brats." Once the noise subsided, she pointed to a group of armed villagers, "You, go to Bighorn. That's where the avalanche headed. They may need some helping hands. Bring the injured here to me. Chopper, go check on those brats." Once everyone did as they were commanded, she turned to face the pirates with critical eyes. "I don't suppose you have a working infirmary on that big ship of yours? We're going to need it. Go get it ready. Either bring them all out here or we're putting the patients on your ship. Everything I have is too far for anyone to reach in time."

"You must be the last doctor left on this island that we've heard about. My division and I will help treat the patients. We have enough beds for everyone. They can stay for as long as it takes for them to recuperate," Izo said before barking orders to his division.

-*/-*/-/

Soon the injured from Bighorn came in on wagons pulled by horses and were taken aboard the ship. There weren't as many as they had thought. The avalanche had only hit the outer part of the village. Kureha left all the work to the Whitebeard Pirates. She isn't going to do work for free, but these people obviously will. Besides, she's watched them work and deemed them competent enough.

She was on her way up to the deck when she heard the commotion from the island. Walking to the rail to see what was going on, she sees Chopper in his 'human' form carrying the smallest brat and the villagers throwing rocks and yelling at her assistant to get away. She was about to call out when Marco dropped down from the sky with the other two brats in front of Chopper.

"Stop this instant! He's helping my son-yoi, and if any one of you harmed a hair on his head, you'll see what real monsters looks like," Marco seethed with Ace and Sabo literally burning on either side of him.

"Chopper," Kureha called out calmly from the ship's rail, "bring the brat up here."

The reindeer-human hybrid did as he was told as quickly as he could, only because he was more afraid of the three pirates protecting him than the villagers at the moment. He followed Doctorine down to the infirmary, where there were several injured villagers. Luckily, most were just scrapes and bruises, while a few others were more serious where large things fell on them.

Luffy, on the other hand, was buried in the snow for what was a good twenty minutes. He's lucky to still be alive for the time being, Chopper thought to himself as he laid the boy down on an empty bed.

"Luffy!" a female doctor said as she rushed over to the bedside to check on the boy, only to be pushed aside by Kureha. "I'm his doctor," she said as she tried to get around the old woman.

"Let Chopper take care of him," Kureha said calmly with grin and a plan in her mind. She's going to have Chopper prove to them that he's just as good as any doctor.

"But-"

"It's fine-yoi," Marco said from the doorway with an anxious-looking Ace and Sabo. "He's a doctor too, and I want to see what he can do. Luffy wants him-yoi."

"Then all the more reason for him to fix our boy up," Izo said as he walks up to the group. "Kobato, I know you're worried about him, but look at the, uh, Chopper? He's already doing a great job."

They all watched as Chopper went to work, completely ignoring everyone else around him, determined to keep Luffy alive.

"By the way, Chopper," Chopper continued with his work but hummed in acknowledgment to Izo, "Luffy ate a Devil's Fruit. He's completely made of rubber."

"Right, rubber," Chopper replied distractedly but took in the information. "Rubber is brittle when cold." He stopped before inserting the IV in his hand and went on to ask for more blankets and warm wet towels from Kobato, who was acting as his nurse.

"I'm assuming your assistant has eaten a Devil's Fruit also," Marco said as he observed with the others.

"Hito-hito no Mi," Kureha said with a fond smile. "He's a deer with a blue nose, so his herd kicked him out for being different. The one day he found a fruit and ate it, not realizing what it was. When he found out he could transform, he tried to go down to the village in hopes of being accepted, but was chased out because he looked like a monster."

"And you picked him up," Kobato concluded.

The old woman laughed. "No. Why would I do that? Someone else did." She went on to tell them about the quack doctor, Hiluluk, and how she ended up taking in Chopper. "I think it's about time for him to leave the island and see the world. I think that young captain would do wonders in healing Chopper's heart. But he can't leave right yet. I still have a few more things to pound into that head of his," she said as she wiped a single tear from her eyes.

They all could tell she was fond of the reindeer, even with the rough way she spoke of him.

"Ace, Sabo," Kobato called out to the two boys fidgeting at the doorway, "come help warm your brother up. We don't have enough blankets." She then turned to Chopper to explain that Ace and Sabo's body temperature are higher than normal humans because of their Devil's Fruit.

Chopper moved out of their way after hooking up the IV to Luffy, so the brothers could lay on the bed on either side of him.

Now that they had Luffy settled, they asked the two older boys what happened.

"Well, you see, we were playing with these giant rabbit things," Ace started, hugging Luffy to keep the boy warm with Sabo on the other side.

"And the next thing we know, there was a whole pack of them jumping up and down on the snow and started an avalanche," Sabo continued.

"We got separated from Luffy when he ran off in a different direction."

"He saw a baby rabbit thing stuck in the snow and got him out,"

"and tossed him up in the air to avoid the avalanche,"

"but got caught in it himself instead."

"We didn't know where the snow took him."

"Luckily, Chopper came and sniffed him out," Sabo gave the small doctor a grateful smile, along with Ace.

"Thank you," they both said to him.

Chopper immediately blushed with a hoof behind his head wiggling this way and that way saying things like, "I'm not happy with your thanks at all, you bastards," causing those around him to laugh.

-*/-*/-*/

After everything was settled, Izo took Marco aside to his room to tell him what the villagers had told him after Marco went after the boys. A pirate that goes by the name of Blackbeard attacked the island. The pirate that attacked matched the description of Teach. Whitebeard had instructed everyone to be quiet about it, not wanting Luffy to know before he leaves.

Marco agreed that it'd be a good idea to leave Luffy in the dark. There's no point in worrying the boy before he leaves to find his own crew. He just hopes that Teach doesn't attack them or Luffy's new crew. Who knows what Luffy would do if he heared that Teach attacked his family again.

-*/-*/-*/

It only took a few hours before Luffy woke up. Before he even opened his eyes, he knew he was somewhere warm and safe. He didn't want to move yet, but his growling tummy told him it was time to eat. When he opened his eyes, he saw saw Ace and Sabo on each side of him like usual, but instead of their room underneath the ship, he was in the infirmary of Moby Dick.

"How are you feeling, Lu?" Sabo asked.

"Hungry," was the immediate response.

"Me too," Ace said. "Let's go get something to eat."

Just as the three of them sat up, Chopper stopped them. "Luffy can't move yet. He has to stay in bed at least for another day."

"But I'm hungry," Luffy whined. "And why can't I move? I can move just fine." He hoped off the bed just to prove it.

Chopper gave a cry of alarm. "I said you have to stay in bed. Someone will bring you food soon, so just stay still."

"No!"

"Maybe we should have told the poor doctor that Luffy's a fast healer," Izo said as he, Marco, Kureha, Kobato, Ace, and Sabo watched the small reindeer chase the boy around the now empty infirmary. Luckily, everyone else had been discharged already.

"I like him-yoi," Marco said as Chopper transformed and manhandled Luffy back onto the bed. "He knows how to handle Luffy."

"I like how he was able to quickly adapt to Luffy's Devil's Fruit," Izo said.

-*/-*/-*/

A few days later, after everyone had said their good-byes and good lucks and the trio left on their own ship, Kobato handed Chopper a thin file.

"This may come and handy when he picks you up in a few months. It's his past medical history," she told him before the Whitebeard Pirates too left. She and Izo had agreed that Luffy's future doctor would need to know a few things about him, but they didn't give him everything. Only the information they were sure would be needed in the future. There is no need for his new crew to know about things that are done and over with.

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

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I had lots of things going on and didn't have time to plan or type this out until recently. And sorry if it's not pretty. I just typed it up and didn't look over it.

I'm leaving both endings up, since I can't decide, and the vote was split. XD Oh wells. I'll try to work around it.

No more omake requests. I have eight to work on already and will have them up as soon as I can. ^_-

Happy New Years everyone!