Sabo took a step back, his eyes never leaving the gun in the man's hand.

"I was gonna call the proper authorities, making my way into town and low and behold I see the three mutants running into the woods." His finger twitching and pressing down the trigger ever so slightly.

Ace moved back, moving his feet apart and putting his left hand behind his back and open.

The signal was clear. But Sabo couldn't do anything before Luffy noticed. If he acted before that he could get Luffy hurt or worse, caught.

"Things like you aren't human! You're parasites in human form!" The man spat, spit flying from his mouth.

C'mon Luffy, just glance at Ace. Just one look, we taught you what that stance meant! His thoughts hissed venomously. But Luffy's eyes were glued to the man, a puzzled expression on his face like when Ace and he tried to teach Luffy how to read. His eyes seemed to tear up the more he looked at the man, and suddenly Sabo knew why he wasn't looking at his brothers, why he wasn't stepping closer so they could defend each other.

Luffy was born with two mutations. One his rubber body that made him so different it was hard to notice anything else off with him. The second was something only he and Ace knew about. They were the ones that figured he had two, Gramps just thought he had really, really, good instincts.

Luffy was looking at the man's soul and something he saw disturbed him.

Sabo took his eyes off the man and instead stared at his younger brother. His face was pale and his lower lip was trembling, his small hands were shaking and he looked like he was gonna throw up.

The man was glaring, his eyes firmly set on Ace. He tore his eyes away from his brother as the man leveled the gun, straight to Ace's heart, and he knew that even if Luffy wasn't ready he had to act now.

He pulled into himself and felt his body temperature drop. His hand felt like ice as he rolled his wrist and felt a familiar weight settle in his hand.

But the man noticed and looked horrified, swinging his gun around to point it at Sabo.

A gun shot rang into the woods, bouncing off of trees and echoing in their ears.

Quickly he ducked and rolled, tossing the pipe he had in his hand to Ace while trying to bring forth the other two.

Ace roared once he got his pipe, lighting it on fire and swinging it above his head as he took a running leap towards the man.

Another gun shot rang out and Sabo barely flinched when a bullet went through Ace's head. His head turned into liquid flame and reconnected and the bullet flew harmlessly through him and into a nearby tree.

Ace came down with no mercy, swinging his flaming pipe around to quickly smack the man on his head. The man went down like a sack of potatoes, his limbs splaying out. No quicker had the man dropped did Luffy start sobbing. Loudly.

Ace turned quickly, dropping his pipe as he made his way to Luffy, his face set in a frown. Sabo ran forward, quickly wrapping his arms around Luffy. Ace followed behind, awkwardly looking around only to glance at them every few seconds.

"What's wrong?"

Luffy's head tilted back, his jaw stretching in unhuman portions as he sobbed louder. Ace flinched looking lost as he looked at his sobbing brother before he looked behind him.

"We can't stay here, especially when he's this loud. Take Luffy and get to our clearing, I'll head for the tree house and grab our things."

Sabo looked away from Luffy, only to see his brother running off into the woods.

"C'mon Lu, we gotta get to the clearing." He whispered, wrapping his arms around Luffy and pulling him up and onto his feet.

After a few moments when it became clear that Luffy wouldn't- couldn't move Ace crouched down pulling Luffy onto his back.

"It's okay. It's okay, Lu."

"He was so bad Acse! So bad!" the younger boy sobbed curling his hands into his brother's shirt and letting his tears run freely.

Unknown to him, his older brother's face had set at that confession and for a moment Ace, contemplated setting the man on fire before his brother's sobs distracted him.

"That's why we're going away. He won't touch you Lu, I won't let him."

Bodies lay across tables and the floor, blood sluggishly seeped into the floor from some of the men, but most just lay groaning in pain. Logan grunted leaving the bar without a backwards glance.

"Please."

The woman from before- the bartender- slowly moved forward.

"Look I don't have money to fix up the place." Reaching in his pocket he grabbed Xavier's card. "Call him if you want to yell about the mess I made."

"No! No! Please one of the men got away saying something about a gun. Those boys. Their just children. Please! Please!" She cried.

For a long moment Logan stared at the green haired woman, her face pale and stained with tears, before saying words that no small child should hear and taking off into the woods. Snarling Logan ran forward, his eyes sharply moving through the trees as he used his heightened sense of smell to track the boys.

"FUCK!" he howled when a gunshot ran out threw the tress, making his ears ring.

He ran into a clearing just to see a man, middle aged on the grassy floor unconscious his gun lying next to him. Grunting he turned away from the man and tried to find the scent from before, only this time it separated. Jumping on the balls of his feet he shot to the left weaving through trees and bushes until the forest got to thick and he had to extend his claws to make room for himself- here the scent got closer to the ground and he could see when the earth had been flattening and treaded on. For a long while he made his way through the forest like that until it suddenly lightened up and a clearing unfolded before him. in the middle of the clearing sat one large tree with a rather impressive treehouse that was completely cover in the boys' scent.

"Ohtya!" Logan called out, walking closer and peering up at the tree house. But there was nothing but silence, quickly he scaled the tree only to be meet with emptiness.

The tree house was rather large and was almost completely covered in blankets and pillows, on the walls or rather the walls themselves had been decorated in scribbles and drawings and one large map of the world. For a moment Logan stood stunned this wasn't a kid's hideout and playground- this was a home. Cups of different kinds were stacked in crocked shelving, toys and books littered the bedding floors and one single picture was nailed to the wall.

Three boys all smiling as wide as possible, two dark haired boys and a blond, standing behind them was a familiar red head,

He may not have found the boys, but he knew who could help him look.

It looked like Charles was going to have to deal with him being away even longer.