Luffy sat with his hands carefully folded, and his chin resting in the heel of one hand while he watched Kay's shocked expression warily. Both woman were understandably speechless. And stunned at his declaration that he was stepping down as the captain of the Merry, leaving behind his friends and his dreams of being the king of pirate's and would be following Kay as her subordinate from now on.

Though he left out the specifics of the 'why' since Robin was present and he didn't want her to feel badly about the somewhat strained deal that he'd struck with Kay to save her life. She had enough on her plate without feeling guilt over him and his decisions.

Still, he could see that she was shocked beyond words at the moment too.

Kay looked so pale that he was slowly beginning to fear that she may faint any moment now as he waited patiently for someone to say something. Finally after what felt like forever, Robin's shaky voice was the one that he heard speaking up. "I thought that you were just going to ask Kay to join the crew..."

He let his grey gaze flicker to the crying woman and had to beat back the sudden urge to run from the room and see if he could find something that would make her smile like she had been before he had started talking. But he didn't dare move at the moment no matter how strong the urge to do so was.

He needed to know what Kay was thinking before he did anything at all since her opinion was as of now- the only real one that mattered to him.

"I could never ask her to join up as one of us," It was only partially true. He merely hadn't thought of asking her to join the crew so that he could in some way tie her to him first. After all what better way to follow someone than to have them think that they are following you? "She isn't a pirate. Is she?"

Robin looked a little bit pained by the question before finally looking away and muttering a soft sounding, "No."

"I'll admit, having her present would certainly be nice given her speed and hand to hand abilities-" Luffy began only to stop again when robin said,

"Those are only for self defense. She wouldn't use them for much else. Even if she was one of us, she would be killed the first time we went to fight someone."

Luffy merely thinned his lips behind his fingers and waited for Kay to snap out of her funk and chime in. And was only slightly disappointed when she merely flopped down on the bed and draped an arm over her eyes. As if she thought that by doing so, she could hide from him in some way.

His grey eyes narrowed slightly at the action and he felt an angry growl bubbling up in his chest, though he didn't bother making a sound just yet.

It wasn't as if she could shut him out forever. He wouldn't allow her to even entertain the notion for very long before he lost his patience with her and made her look at him. But for now, he supposed that she just needed some time to process everything that he had said, so he would let it slide for now.

So after asking Robin if she would stay with her for a bit longer, and receiving confirmation that she wouldn't leave her alone- Luffy sighed as he slowly got to his feet, towering over Kay's form at an semi impressive height of six foot one, and gave her a quick calculating glance- noting that his captain was pretending to be asleep now he snorted in an almost amused manner before heading for the cabin door.

Deciding to wait outside and see what his captain tried to do since his declaration wasn't as well received as he had hoped it would be.

He'd bet that Kay would try to escape the ship just to get away from him. After all, if she had been paying any attention to his fights back at the marine base- she'd know that he didn't do well in water as a devil's fruit powered person. Settling himself towards the side of the door that would best hide him from view, Luffy sat himself down and drew his long legs up towards his chest and waited.

It wouldn't be long, he knew.

(*******************************************************************************************************************************************)

Several hundred miles away-

Shanks sat with his legs crossed and his wide shoulders slightly hunched over as he stared at Fire Fist Ace, the brat had taken the better part of many hours to track down, and at least that long to trace his exact location to a small island not too far from the one that Shanks had been inhabiting for the past few months.

After reaching the island, he'd dropped anchor in the dead of night- because it would be funny too, or so he had told his men- and taken seven of his best fighters with him to kidnap the little bastard son of his former/late captain and long time friend.

And it had been fun, at first.

They had caught Ace so drunk and unawares that the boy had practically skipped to their ship with them. Giggling madly the whole way. Of course the fun had sort of worn off when Ace had made the mistake of deciding that Shank's was such a 'pretty' young lady, and then kissed him.

Shanks had retaliated in kind by shoving Ace over the side of the ship and letting him get a little bit waterlogged. After that the boy had sobered right up.

Near death experiences tended to do that, the red haired man supposed as he listened with a bored roll of his eyes as Ace once again began swearing such foul oaths that they nearly made the red haired man cringe.

Nearly, of course, was the operative word there.

And when the boy wasn't swearing at him from trying to drown him, he was yelling terrible things at his men. So much so that all of them had finally grown tired of listening to him and simply stuffed a dirty sock in his mouth and then the lot of them had just grinned as the boy had blanched as he tried to tamp down on the need to vomit over the side of the boat from the foul taste on his tongue.

Ace knowing that he couldn't keep insulting Shanks without more serious repercussions, settled himself back and just glared at the amused man before Shanks finally asked him if he was done throwing a tantrum like a two year old. That just made Ace glare at him some more before Shanks then said,

"Your brother called me and asked for some help. So I told him I'd grab you and meet him someplace," Now the man had Ace's undivided attention. Not that he hadn't really before, but hearing him speak of his little brother tended to get Ace's attention in ways that nothing else could as Shanks went on to say, "You would not believe what the lad has found. Go on guess..." He gave Ace a few moments or so to try and guess before chuckling, "It isn't One Piece. Not yet least... He's talking about giving up his dream of being the king of pirates for honor's sake."

At hearing this, Ace's eyes about damn near bulged out of their sockets.

He couldn't imagine anything or anyone, lest of all something about honor making his stubborn little brother give up his life as a pirate, and even more so- his dream. So to say that he was at least a tad bit curious as to what his brother had done now- would of course be an understatement.

And from the knowing smirk on Shank's smug face, he fucking knew that.

Motioning for the man to remove the sock from his mouth, he waited patiently for that to be out of the way and had to resist the urge to bite Shanks fingers off for even daring to stuff something so foul between his lips. He could taste someone's foot sweat on the back of his teeth for crying out loud!

He'd just brushed them a few hours ago and had wanted the nice minty taste to last! Now that plan was shot to hell, his brother was probably in some sort of mess in need of his help, and he was being held hostage by Shanks.

He wondered if the man would at least spare his life if he tossed him and his men overboard the small dingy and rowed it away as fast as he could so that he could double back and get his boat and go find his brother.

No! Wait- that wouldn't work since Shanks had probably had some extra men collect his shit and everything was currently aboard his ship as they speak.

Well...maybe he could at least get the man to spare his life due to his affection for his brother? Perhaps even con him out of a last meal? Ace thought almost nervously before he finally asked. "What's Luffy gotten himself tangled up in this time?"

Shanks merely grinned at him and said, "You'll have to see it for yourself to believe it, lad. The two of us are going to be taking my ship and meeting up with him in the next few days."

Ace blinked at him for a second before finally asking, "So, you aren't going to kill me?"

"Luffy would come for me like a demon if I did, so no, your life is safe with me." Shanks said, as he tried to suppress a shiver as he imagined what Luffy would do to him if he really did kill Ace. The lad would completely forget any affectionate feelings that he held towards him and he would pursue him to the ends of the earth and beyond just so that he could slaughter him.

The sad thing is, Shanks knew that one day, even if that were to happen- he wouldn't bother fight back. He'd want the lad to kill him for hurting him so.

"When do we leave?" Ace asked after a moment or so. He'd noticed that Shanks was a tad bit lost in his own thoughts and had wanted to give him a little bit of time to sort things out before speaking again. And when he finally did speak, Shank's response was practically automatic.

The distant look in his copper colored eyes changed and he merely said. "As soon as we're on my ship and weigh the anchor, we'll be on our way. I figure that it will take at least two or so days to reach Luffy unless his crew mutinies and decides to keep sailing. In which case, we'll have to run them down."

"Alright then," Ace said as he started to relax a little bit when out of the blue Shanks kicked him. "OW!" Ace yelped before looking at the glowering man for a moment and then demanded, "What the hell was that for?!"

"That was for kissing me and calling me pretty. And this," Shanks stomped on him this time, putting the full weight of his whole body behind the action so that Ace would be left with a few bruises as a reminder to use his damn manners. shanks knew that the brat had them. He merely chose not to use them is all. "If for not using your manners you brat! I'm not a damned ferry service!"

"Ow, ow, ow! Okay! I'm sorry!"

Shanks merely took his foot off of him and grunted, "You better be."