Chapter 3: Endurance

The three brothers were each currently facing off against a monkey.

Sabo specifically, was currently squaring off and throwing hands against one of the last few remaining monkeys.

The two seemed equal in skill and strength, but eventually, Sabo was able to get one up on the monkey by running at him, jumping high, and then extending both his feet out, going for a drop kick to the face of the monkey.

"Hyah!" Sabo shouted before landing the drop kick and sending the monkey flying onto its back.

He got back up shortly after sending the monkey down to the ground and once he saw that the monkey was clearly out of it, he just clapped his hands together and said

"Done."

On another part of the field, Ace too was facing off against one of the few remaining monkeys all on his own.

After struggling for a while against the monkey, Ace saw an opening, ran at the monkey, brought out his knee, and went for a flying knee to the chin of the monkey.

"Take this!" Ace shouted before kneeing the monkey in the jaw and knocking it out.

The monkey hooted in pain before falling down to the ground, with Ace's knee still lodged on its chin.

"Done" he said after seeing the monkey's eyes roll all the way back before closing from the collision.

Then lastly, was Luffy, who was facing off against the last monkey on the field, all alone.

After glaring daggers at that monkey for a couple seconds, he charged at the monkey while also cocking his fist back as far as possible.

"Gomu Gomu no Pistol!" Luffy shouted before throwing an extended punch, which missed and accidentally hit him in the face instead. "Oww!"

The monkey that Luffy failed to knock out just began laughing and pointing hysterically at Luffy, genuinely laughing at how badly he missed.

Luffy wasn't out of it though and instead of staying down, he clenched his fists, got back up, picked something up from the ground, said

"Hey giggles" and once the monkey turned to look at him, it saw Luffy holding onto a large log and immediately stopped laughing.

It brought its hands out in front of itself, and started waving them left and right while squeaking in fear.

"Take this jackass!" Luffy shouted before whacking the monkey really hard with the log.

"Oooh!" The monkey screamed before being launched off his feet and to the ground.

Luffy didn't stop there though and continued whacking the monkey with the log while it was still down.

"You wanna laugh at me, huh, you little bitch!" He yelled out before Ace and Sabo rushed in to save the monkey.

They did this by tackling Luffy to the ground, tossing the log to the side, and then holding him in place together.

The way they held him in place was by sitting on a different part of his back area while holding down on another.

Sabo was sitting on Luffy's back while holding down his neck with one hand and both his wrists with the other, trying his hardest to keep him from moving.

Ace was sitting on Luffy's legs and held both down by the achilles with a hand each.

"It's over, it's over, Luffy you won!" Sabo shouted at Luffy who was trying to break free from the hold his brothers had him in.

"Chill, chill, chill!" Ace repeated at the boy.

Eventually, their baby brother calmed down, and once he did and was breathing normally, Ace asked him

"You good?"

To which he just replied with

"I'm good."

And so both brothers got off and helped bring him back up to his feet.

Once he got back up to his feet, he just continued breathing in and out slowly, intentionally taking deep breaths in order to calm himself down.

As he was doing this, the monkey began to wake up and as soon as it did and got back to its feet, Luffy glared at it angrilly and as soon as he did, the monkey screeched, turned its back, and ran as fast as possible.

Once Luffy saw the monkey run, he turned to his grandpa and said

"Done."

Garp simply clapped his hands together and walked up to all three of his grandsons.

"Bravo you three, bravo" he said as he came into view of all three of his grandsons.

He then looked down at the ground and saw all the bodies of the many monkeys that the three brothers fought against just laying down on the ground, motionless.

"This is it for now, right Ji-Chan?" Luffy asked.

"For now, yes, but wait till tomorrow, cuz it's gonna be hell" Garp said before stretching. "I'll see you all tomorrow then."

Once Garp was out of view, the brothers just yawned and then walked off to the nearest tree.

Once they reached the tree, they climbed to the top of it, and then watched the sun go down.

As the sun was going down, Luffy turned to all his brothers and asked them the question on each of their minds.

"What do you think he's gonna make us do tomorrow?"

"I don't know, I just hope it's nothing that could kill us again" Sabo replied.

"Or something that'll result is us having to stop you from killing an animal Luffy" Ace added.

The three brothers just laughed after Ace said this, but when the moon started setting, Luffy just said

"Well I guess the only way to know is to find out when he finally shows us."

"Agreed" Sabo responded.

"Yep" Ace carried on.

And once the moon was fully up, Luffy told his brothers

"Alright, goodnight you two" before laying down on the patch of leaves in the tree.

"Good night Luffy" both Ace and Sabo replied before laying down as well and then going to sleep.

(Ten Hours Later)

Luffy, Ace, and Sabo were all sleeping like babies when outta nowhere, the tree they were sleeping on woke them up after it started tipping over and all three of their bodies crashed onto the ground.

"Oww!" They shouted in pain.

'This can only mean one thing' all three brothers thought independently.

"Rise and shine you three!" Their grandpa yelled at the top of his lungs.

'I knew it' the brothers thought together.

"Well, what are you three waiting for!?" Garp loudly asked. "I said, rise and shine!"

"Ji-Chan, just give us two more hours" Luffy tiredly said while rubbing one of his eyes and yawning.

"I already gave you ten, and ten hours of rest is more than enough, so get up and get ready!"

"Ji-Chan/Jiji!" They complained.

Garp just sighed, turned his back on them, got on his knees, and told them

"Alright fine, hop on, I'll carry you all there myself, that way you can rest for longer while you're holding onto me."

All three brothers smiled after hearing this, each one hopped onto Garp's back and immediately fell asleep.

As soon as they fell asleep, Garp stood back up on his feet, started walking, and as he was, he just started chuckling lightly.

He didn't show it, but he was proud of his grandsons. As much as they may whine and complain, they still haven't given up.

This was very impressive to him because he couldn't keep count of how many people join the marines, or rather 'try' to join the marines, only to wuss out and quit after seeing how tough it really is.

Those people would quit after the first day, but his grandsons have been doing this for over a week now, and still haven't given up.

So he just turned his head to look at the sleeping forms of all his grandsons and told them

"Sleep tight" before picking up speed and running as fast as he could to the new location.

(One Hour Later)

After an hour long travel, Garp and his boys finally arrived at the destination.

It was cold, to say the least.

It was a very snowy/icy place, -12F, surrounded by numerous extremely tall and very Rocky Mountains, and was hailing nonstop.

One of the mountains really caught Garp's eye, as it was about 30,000 feet tall, and 120,000 feet wide.

"Mt. Queen" he muttered with a smile before turning back to his grandsons.

When Garp turned to look at his grandsons, he was honestly shocked to see that they were still out of it. However, he knew that they had to wake up. So he looked around, saw a small hole which looked to be about knee high for Garp, on the ground, filled with ice-cold water. So he walked over to it and then dropped all three of them into it.

As soon as they hit the water, they immediately started screaming and rushed out of it.

"Ji-Chan/Jiji, what the hell!?" They all yelled while clutching their bodies and shivering in coldness.

"This is where you're next training will take place" Garp told them.

"C-can, w-we, at least get dry clothes?" Ace asked.

"P-please" Luffy and Sabo begged.

Garp then brought out a very large backpack from his marine suit, showed it to the boys, told them

"This has got all you want, warm clothes, water, and a little bit of food."

"C-can we?" The boys started before Garp threw the backpack as hard as he could, up Mt. Queen.

"There you go" Garp started while clapping his hands together. "Now if you want it, you're gonna have to get to the top of Mt. Queen."

"W-what?" They asked.

"Yeah, all you gotta do, is climb up there and get it" Garp told them.

"Wha-" the boys started before Garp took off to the top of Mt. Queen.

The brothers, left without any better choice, breathed out hot air into their hands, looked at each other, and after nodding, tried to climb the mountain.

(Many Attempts Later)

"Ahh!" Luffy, Ace, and Sabo screamed out as they each fell from 200 feet and hit the ground.

Thankfully, due to Luffy's Devil Fruit, he sustained zero damage.

The same however, could not be said about his older brothers.

"Oomph!" Ace and Sabo both wheezed out as their backs crashed and cracked from the fall.

"Oh, my back!" Ace gasped out in pain.

"My spine!" Sabo breathed out loudly.

"I'm tired" Luffy muttered without any strain in his voice.

Both Ace and Sabo wanted to yell at Luffy for saying that he's tired when he wasn't anywhere near as hurt as they were, but didn't have the strength to do so.

Instead, they just stayed down and let the snow blow through their faces till eventually getting back up and getting ready to try again.

Right as they were about to try again, they ask each other

"Ready to fall again?" To which they all reply with "Yes."

And started climbing once more.

They all managed to make it to about 400 feet high this time before falling.

However, Luffy, acting quickly, decided to spare his brothers the pain of falling to the ground again by closing his mouth, blowing air into his mouth, ballooning out his stomach, landing on the ground right beneath them, and breaking their fall.

"Whoah!" They muttered before falling to the ground, much more delicately this time. "Thanks Luffy."

Luffy just reverted back to normal before falling to the ground beside his brothers, tired.

"How long have we been doing this for?" Luffy asked.

"About three hours, give or take" Ace answered.

"This is such a pain" Sabo said.

"You can say that again" Luffy and Ace replied.

The three brothers just continued to lay on the ground a little longer before eventually, Sabo got an idea.

"Hey" he said.

"What?" Ace and Luffy asked.

"We do better when we're competing against one another right?" He questioned.

"Yeah" they answered.

"Why don't we just treat this, and everything else that Jiji throws at is, like any other competition then?"

Ace and Luffy both had shock clearly written all over each of their faces.

'Why didn't we think of that before!?' They both angrily thought.

"Good idea" Ace told Sabo.

"I agree" Luffy told them.

"Alright, then it's settled" Sabo replied with a smile and a nod. "Race you to the top!"

As soon as Sabo shouted this, he got back up, ran to the mountain, and started climbing on it before either Ace or Luffy even got back up to their feet.

"Shit!" Ace shouted before getting back up and rushing to climb the mountain.

"Damn! Luffy shouted before doing the same as Ace.

The race was on.

(Half an Hour Later)

After half an hour of nonstop climbing, the brothers managed to reach 15,000 feet.

Sabo was currently in the lead, with Ace about ten feet behind him, and Luffy ten feet behind Ace.

Being the one at the absolute back, Luffy was trying really hard to get through both his brothers.

He reached up to grab onto another rock to pull himself up the mountain, only for the rock to break and send him falling down.

"Ahh!" He shouted as he began falling down to the ground again.

However, as he was falling, he got an idea. He brought both his hands back, extended them as far and as high as possible, and managed to grab onto the ledge of the top of the mountain.

Upon grabbing the ledge, he slingshot himself all the way up there and arrived at the top of the mountain.

As soon as his feet hit the top of the mountain, Luffy just shouted

"Hell yeah!" With his arms raised in the air.

"Hey, no fair!" Sabo and Ace both shouted while holding onto their own rocks.

"Doesn't matter if it's fair or not, cuz I won!" Luffy bragged.

"Alright fine, could you at least help us up?" Sabo asked.

"Yeah, could you?" Ace added.

"Alright!" Luffy shouted before doing just that.

He got down on his knees and using every single fiber of strength in his body, punched the ground as hard as he could.

"Ahh!" He screamed in pain.

It hurt like hell, but it worked out, as what he wanted to do was plant a hand inside the ground so that he could essentially use his arms like a rope and drop down to help his brothers.

So that's exactly what he did.

He slowly but surely began walking down the mountain while holding out an arm for both of his brothers to hold onto, and when they did, he slingshot all three of them back up to the top.

"Whoah!" They all shouted before crashing their backs onto the rocky surface of the mountain. "Oomph!"

The fall took the wind out of them, so much so that they just stayed there for a bit in order to catch their breath. However, as they were, they heard a very familiar voice say.

"You finally made it."

As soon as they heard this, they turned their heads to the source of the sound and saw their grandpa sitting right behind a small campfire.

"J-J-Ji-Chan/Jiji?" The brothers stammered.

"Yeah, now come here" Garp told them. "I've got warm clothes and coats to help you warm up, as well as this campfire, hot water, and hot food."

(Half an Hour Later)

The sun was setting and it was getting dark, as it was, the brothers and their grandpa were sitting by a small campfire.

The brothers were clutching their bodies, trying their hardest to warm up as quickly as possible.

Their grandpa on the other hand, was as calm as could be, and was just sipping on some hot water while also speaking with his boys.

He was just telling them about how proud he is of them for not backing out and for showing more strength and courage the the average marine.

After he was done with this though, Sabo just looked at him and asked him

"Alright, let's just cut to the chase, what's next Jiji?"

"Glad you asked Sabo" Garp replied before walking up to a big boulder while bringing out his left arm, then seemingly, turning it to metal and punching through that big boulder.

"Whoah!" All three brothers shouted in awe. "What was that!?"

"It's called Haki."

"Can you teach us!?"

"That exactly why you're all up here for."

"Really?"

"Yeah, so let's get started."

And like that, the brothers began practicing how to use Haki while the moon was still out, and the fire was still burning.

To Be Continued...