Zoysite - Thank you so much! This will always stay a happy funny series to make everyone laugh!

"You've miscounted."

Marco sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he put down the papers on the table in the meeting room and took a seat again before speaking. "Do you have holes in the ceilings to everywhere, Ace?"

"Only the places you… ehm frequent?... Izou?"

"That's correct dear, good job."

The blond raised an eye at the geisha, being ignored by him he looked at the ceiling with the same look. And sure enough the teen used his neat trickling firetrick to appear right in front of him, crouching on the table.

"You use fancy words to be extra difficult."

"I don't-yoi…."

"You do, don't deny it little mister right hand man."

"… I'm taller then you."

"SHUT IT!" fire sparked off Ace's cheek and he had to look away, that stupid pineapple!

"Ace-dear, why don't you tell him why you used such a word yourself."

"… right, yes. So I was saying. Because you use such fancy words for no reason, I shall use those… those…. exquisiteness words myself!" he smiled brightly at having found another of those poopy words and grinned more when Marco looked confused at him. "Yes! That's what I thought! Be confused by your own speech!"

"I understand the meaning of- never mind. You're right. I haven't got the foggiest idea of what you are saying now that you use such big words."

"….What?"

"I don't understand what you mean-yoi."

"hahaha we got him Izou! Yes! I won! You see that old man! And I only needed like 3 weeks of speech lessons! Not 5 like you sai-" Ace gasped and turned to Thatch, jumping on the table, "Promised chocolate mouse! Promised chocolate mouse!"

Ace let his hair be ruffled by the elder as he was still looking too Thatch who chuckled and nodded, "I'll have some ready for you by tonight." Even if Marco for sure still knew what Ace was talking about and had just given up on fighting him. It was a win in some way, specifically in how he annoyed Marco, which is always a win!

A heavy sigh pulled their attention, of course it came from the second eldest at the table. And it seems Ace took pity on him since he was now patting his shoulder.

"It's okay, it takes a while to learn, Mar- pineapple."

"… yes…. but… anyway. What did you mean with 'you miscounted', Ace?"

"Miscounted?"

Another sigh was there, he really couldn't comprehend if this kid was dumb or not. On one hand he had very capable abilities. Like sneaking up on their meeting, hiding in the ceiling and not a single one of them detected him there before he spoke. Besides Pops. Pops wasn't surprised when the fire dropped from the ceiling, the old fart!

But then besides that… there was this. Getting distracted and forgetting the whole reason he came here, or he doesn't get big things like… after weeks still not believing them they're the real fucking Whitebeard Pirates!?

"Ahem, yes-yoi. You were spying on this meeting and then, from your spot in the ceiling, announced we miscounted."

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh! Right!" The teen nodded and promptly took a seat on Pop's leg, swinging his legs as his back was rubbed with a big pinky in approval. "Yea, you miscounted."

"… Miscounted what, Ace?"

"Everything."

"Oh for fucks s-…. Please, please tell me what we miscounted, Ace." He may be annoyed right now, but if they indeed had miscalculations. Which he doubted. It was important to know. They had been going over stock counts and were dividing money in the treasury to replenish items, so getting correct amounts was important.

"Well, for starters. There aren't 326 daggers available, there's 345. Next, you said the unopened boxes from last haul contained 300 packs of 20 bullets for riffle shit and another 200 packs of 50 for pistols. But the place you bought them from shorted you each and there's only 15 bullet- and 40 bullet-packs. And then-"

"Stop stop." Izou waved her fan, "did you open the boxes?"

"Nope."

"Then how do you know it's not 20 and 50. I've dealt with the shop myself, been dealing with them for years. We always get the same quantities. This time too we asked for the same amount as I do every time."

"I know, you got exactly 300 packs and 200 packs like always. In the end paid the same amount as you always do, for less too. And how I know… I watched them pack it. But besides that, you need to read the fine print of your contract." Ace said, hopping over to Izou and pulling papers from his pants, "Good thing I brought a copy. Now look here." Ace pointed to the middle on a page, right in the middle of the thick bundle. "Right here it says that from this date on, the amount of bullets will change in packs unless specifically asked for not too, prince unchanging for both for some reason. Since you have been dealing with them for so long, you asked for 'the usual. 300 and 200 packs. All wrapped and delivered to the ship in port.'. With a grin you should have recognized, they gave you this contract, you signed without reading it fully… Et voilà! You got shorted compared to last times since you didn't specify the amount of bullets in each pack."

"That's impossible! Give me that!" Izou took the contract, reading it over himself, not even caring how the teen got a copy. "Those fuckers!"

"Told you. And for the daggers. Because yes, I've seen you glaring at me since I mentioned that Kingdew, it's not my fault that you're blind." Ace rolled his eyes and went to sit back on Pop's leg. "For one, there were 3 daggers sorted with the swords, like… cmon dude, the swords are twice as long! What did you think putting them there? 'Oh, this one shrunk in the wash, haha sword!'"

Kingdew was visible fuming at the attitude, "You little shit, I did NOT sort weapons wrong!"

"Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't know daggers could fly in the new world. Good to know, good to know."

"You fucki-"

For once Marco was having a blast. Not that they seemingly miscounted different things and got shorted. But because now the others could have a taste of Ace…. Not in the weird sense… but deal with the brat when he knew he was right. And as a bonus, nothing mentioned so far was for his division, of course not. His division worked very precisely, recording everything that went out and in, nothing would be ami-

"And you're short on bandages, Dangles."

"…." By now he knew Ace. And knew that nickname was for him. Dangles… was it to his tail? To the golden ringlets?... "I am not short on bandages. I counted myself."

Ace nodded, "and you were right until this morning. But then the old man got a boo boo and I treated it."

Marco blinked at that, not even getting angry over the fact Ace broke into the infirmary and instead looked up at pops, already wanting to get up, "Pops? You got hurt? Where did you get hurt?"

"Aceeeeeeeeeeee~" The elder whined, "You promised not to teeeeeeellllll!"

Ace's eyes widened and he slapped a hand over his mouth, jumping up on the leg and turning to pops, "I'm sorry jiji! It's because that stupid pineapple face distracted me!"

The elder pouted, "Now he's going to ask a lot of stupid questions and get me to have a checkup! I already had one this month!"

"Don't worry! I wo-"

"Pops!" Marco called concerned, flying up to his pop's shoulders. "Where are you hurt? Please tell me…"

"I'm fine son, nothing to worry about."

"Pops, please." Marco pleaded, "It was enough to use bandages… you told Ace about it… Why didn't you tell me-yoi?"

The last voice in the question broke the elder's heart, and he picked up his son, "I'm sorry, Marco-son. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to worry you. You already have a lot to deal with…." With the pleading look still there the man continued, putting Marco down next to Ace, "Show him boy. I promise it's nothing bad, Marco."

With a wave of the hand Ace ushered Marco to the floor, waiting for the old man to take his boot off before directing Marco to the big toe wrapped in bandages.

Ace hummed, "Jiji, you have those extra packs I gave you?... Thanks!" and accepted the rolls thrown down. "I'll unwrap it so you can see, and then I'll wrap some new ones." Ace said as he found the end of a bandage and started pulling it off.

"Don't worry, Marco." Ace said softly as he worked, noticing the worried look from the corner of his eye. "It really is nothing big. He got a cut on his toe when he got out of bed this morning. A nail sticking out from the floor."

Hearing the breath, ready to speak, Ace cut the blond off.

"I took care of it. Melted it flat with the floor, it's not going to move anymore. And I checked the rest of the room too, took care of anything else sticking out. It is time for some new flooring though."

Marco nodded at it, he'll remember to speak with Jozu right after this to get their captain's room checked out.

"Anyway." Ace said removing the last layer and revealing the cut to the blond, who of course instantly went to inspect. "I made him sit on the bed, went to get the bandages and things, washed my hands before doing anything. Rinsed the wound, cleaned it, put ointment on, wrapped it up, and had some ice on it for about 20 minutes so it didn't swell."

Marco nodded to every word Ace said, listening as he checked over the wound. Everything looked fine, sounded like it had been done well. It had been hours and there was no pink or irritation next to the cut. "Was it rusted? If it was w-"

"Didn't seem rusted, but I checked his files, he got the tetanus shot about 6 years ago, so-"

"He's still protected for 4… a good margin-yoi." He sighed a breath of relieve as he took the bandages from Ace. Carefully wrapping the cut back up. There was still enough ointment on, so he won't rub over the wound to put more. "Thank you, Ace. For taking care of Pops. I know he hides these kind of wounds… but with his age even they can turn out….. Thank you. I'm happy you were here to help him. And you did all the steps well. I couldn't have done it better."

Ace was silent for a minute… The immense gratitude from the pineapple was something else. He didn't do it for thanks or whatever… "I- I didn't do it to it for you, pineapple! I did it for the old man!"

A small smile was on Marco's lips as he secured the bandage and turned to Ace. "I know. Still, Thank you-yoi."

"I-I y-you- D-don't smile -l-l-like that!" Ace's cheeks flared up as he started fumbling with the old man's boot, "H-here old man! Put your shoe back on!"

The smile stayed on his lips as he watched the teen help position the boot, push at the heel to get it on and even tucked in Pop's pants back inside too. He also saw the sneaky glance at him before Ace disappeared in a wisp of flames.

Maybe… just maybe, Ace isn't that bad after all.

XxX

I'm digging myself a deeper and deeper grave into uncompleted stories piling up with keeping to bring out others.
So for now I'll be focusing on completing the ongoing stories first before releasing fully new ones.
I'm thinking 2 - 3 more chapters and then we'll be reaching the end for this story itself.

Other ongoing stories I'll focus on to finish are:
SHINY ! ! !
Sudden awakening
Caught in the wrong house
How it went

I have a few more ongoing stories, like Unseeing eyes, but these are special and there's not really an ending planned for them since they're more of a one-shot/short-story collection than one continues story.