Chapter 5: New Day New Idea

(Five Months after Chapter Four)

The sun was just beginning to rise, and with it, the brothers too rose from their leaf beds.

Once they all fully arose, they began making their way to a secluded area from the cabin they all resided in, and upon reaching it, they looked at each other, smirked, and waited for the sun to finish rising.

Once the sun fully rose, the brothers all assumed a fighting position, and then ran at each other, and as they did, they all shouted three words at the same time.

"Free for all!"

Which they immediately got to after shouting this.

"Gomu Gomu no Pistol!" Luffy shouted before throwing a stretched punch at Sabo.

Sabo expected this punch to miss, as it always has, but was shocked to see it coming at him with precision.

The second he saw that it was actually about to make contact with him, he tried evading it, but it was already too late, and Luffy hit him right in the gut.

"Toh!" He wheezed out after being hit right in the stomach.

After getting hit, Sabo just shook it off and began running at Luffy, before jumping with both feet extended.

"Taste this!" Sabo shouted before drop kicking Luffy right on the left side of the head.

"Oomph!" Luffy hollered after getting struck in the left side of his head and being brought down to the ground.

This time though, Luffy didn't stay on the ground and actually got back up.

He did so very quickly and as soon as he did, he saw Ace moving from the corner of his eye, so he brought his foot back and then shouted

"Gomu Gomu no Muchi!" Before bringing out his leg to kick Ace across the stomach.

Ace didn't make the same mistake Sabo did though by underestimating Luffy, and evaded the attack when he saw it coming.

He did so by just twisting his body to the left side and then did a spin before running at Luffy and punching him across the jaw.

"Ahh!" Luffy groaned in pain from getting punched across the jaw and getting sent multiple steps back.

"That's not it" Ace said before hitting Luffy with a back kick which landed straight in the stomach, and brought him down.

Luffy wasn't out of it yet and both elder brothers knew it, but decided to focus on each other now before finishing Luffy.

So they ran at each other without exchanging words and tried everything they could to knock the other out.

Sabo was the first to throw a punch, which happened to just be a regular front punch aimed for the head, but Ace moved his head outta the way and went for a horizontal elbow across the heart, which landed and made Sabo stumble a couple steps back.

Sabo rubbed the part of his body that got hit and after he did, he thought for a couple seconds about what to do next and when he finally got an idea, he immediately put it to action.

It started with him shouting

"Hey Ace, your punches suck!"

Which in turn made Ace rush at him.

Once Ace was close enough, he tried to tackle Sabo, but Sabo was easily able to counter with a knee to the face.

Once Sabo's knee struck Ace's face directly, he took multiple steps back and held his face in pain.

"Grrgh!" Ace groaned in pain while inadvertently taking multiple steps back.

Sabo took advantage of those steps he took and used them to run at Ace as quickly as he could before stopping and hitting him with a side kick right in the stomach.

"Toh!" Ace gasped out before being knocked down to the ground.

Once Sabo saw Ace down on the ground, he thought

'I know it's not over yet' as he remembered that Luffy still wasn't out of commotion yet and turning around to look at where he last remembered him being, only to see that he wasn't there anymore. 'Where'd he g-?"

"Gomu Gomu no Pistol!" He heard before a big stretched out fist came from the sky and hit him on the top of the head.

"Oww!" He shouted before his head slammed down onto the ground.

'Got him!' Luffy inwardly shouted in joy before landing back on the ground.

Once Luffy landed on his feet, he saw both of his elder brothers on the ground, and once he saw them, he grinned, ran at Ace, and began kicking him while he was down.

"Take this freckles!" Luffy shouted before kicking Ace repeatedly in the ribs.

"Oomph, ahh, oww!" Ace repeatedly shouted as Luffy continued to kick him while he was down.

As Luffy was whaling on Ace, Sabo eventually got back up, saw that Luffy had the upper hand now, and so he ran at him, shoulder-first, while shouting

"Look behind you!" Which of course, made Luffy turn around, only to be struck to the ground by one of his older brothers.

As soon as Luffy got to the ground, Sabo tried stomping on his chest, but before he could, Luffy moved his body out of the way, avoiding it just barely.

'That was close' he thought before seeing Sabo attempt to stomp on his chest again before of course, dodging it again, only for him to try again with his other foot.

The first stomp was aimed at his chest, but he managed to move his body to the left side and avoid the foot from crashing down on it.

The second stomp was aimed to his left shoulder, but he retracted his shoulder and rolled over to his right side before it could make contact.

Once he stopped rolling, Sabo let down his third stomp, which was aimed at Luffy's stomach, he was however, able to counter it by stretching both his arms out, catching the free foot by the ankle, and then pulled it back, forcing Sabo to fall flat on his back.

Once Sabo fell back, Luffy put his hands behind him and kip upped back to his feet.

As soon as he got back up to his feet though, he heard

"Hey!" Before turning around and getting roundhouse kicked right across the face, which brought him down, and temporarily kept him down.

Once Luffy's body hit the ground and temporarily stayed there, Sabo got back up to his feet, Ace placed the foot he used to kick Luffy on the ground, and then both of them death stared one another.

They cracked their neck and knuckles and then ran at each other again before locking hands.

As soon as they locked hands, Sabo and Ace head bumped each other repeatedly.

As their foreheads continued colliding with all the force they could muster, they each had the exact same thought in their mind.

'Fall!'

They chanted this over and over and over again after each and every bump, till eventually, their foreheads started bleeding, and once they did, Sabo got an idea.

He brought his head back and then pretended to go for another bump as well, so that way when Ace went for his actual bump, Sabo could move his head outta the way, specifically downwards, and then try to drop him with a double leg takedown.

This failed though, as when Ace went for his actual bump and missed, he knew exactly what Sabo was gonna do next, so before Sabo could grab anything, Ace wrapped his arms around his neck, caught Sabo in a standing guillotine, and then began applying as much pressure to Sabo's neck as he could.

"Haha, you failed" Ace mocked while putting more pressure on the hold.

'Damn, it didn't work!' Sabo thought as Ace continued applying more and more pressure. 'I gotta think of something quick before it's too late!'

Sabo was panicking, cuz if he didn't figure out a way out of the hold, Ace was gonna win, and as a result, he would be the captain of their crew.

That's right, the reason the three brothers were fighting in the first place wasn't just to test out how much stronger they've all gotten, it was to decide who would be the captain of their crew.

Luffy was currently out like a light and it really came down to his two elder brothers, the winner of this match, would be accepted by the other two as their future captain.

Which is exactly why Sabo didn't wanna lose.

So with some quick thinking, Sabo figured a way out of the hold and went for it.

He straight up powered out of that hold by using all the strength in his neck to lift Ace up in the air and then slam him down to the ground.

"Tohh!" Ace wheezed in pain from his back slamming onto the ground.

As soon as Ace's back hit the ground, Sabo got on one knee and began taking deep breaths, trying his best to catch his breath and relax.

After just a couple seconds though, he saw Ace begin to get back up to his feet and got up himself too.

Once the two saw each other, they knew that they couldn't continue, so they straight up just said

"I give" at the same time.

This shocked the both of them.

"What do you mean you give!?" They both shouted at one another before stomping the ground in frustration. "Dammit!"

'If I had just held on for ten more seconds-' Sabo began to think.

'I would've won!' Ace inwardly shouted, unintentionally finishing Sabo's thoughts.

After this thought left both of their minds, the two began stomping on the ground for about three minutes before they spotted the still down body of their younger brother just laying on the ground

"Luffy!" Sabo shouted in worry that he wasn't up yet before rushing over to his side to check on him.

Once he got to him, he began pushing him back and forth while shouting

"Luffy, get up, get up!" Till eventually Ace just told him

"He'll be fine, no need to overreact Sabo."

"Shut up Ace!" Sabo shouted before he heard his younger brother say

"Not so loud" in a very weak voice.

Sabo sighed in relief that they didn't accidentally kill or hurt their little brother too bad.

Once Luffy got back up to his feet, Sabo embraced him tightly, out of pure relief that his brother wasn't horribly injured, and his younger brother of course hugged him back.

After ten seconds passed though, Ace brought something up.

"I hate to break it to you two, but shouldn't we be discussing who becomes the captain in our ship because of the outcome of our fight?"

"Right" both Luffy and Sabo replied before breaking the embrace, sitting on the ground, and thinking long and hard about it to come up with a reasonable answer.

After five minutes of thinking, Sabo was the first one to speak.

"Okay, so Luffy was out of it first, but me and Ace stalemated" he began to say.

"What about it?" Ace asked in a mocking tone. "Tell us something we don't know."

"Hey, leave Sabo alone!" Luffy shouted defending his elder brother.

"Shut up Luffy!" Ace yelled.

Both began growling at each other but Sabo, being the peacekeeper of the three, just said

"Alright, that's enough, calm down you two" and so they huffed and turned their heads in annoyance.

Sabo just sighed but continued on.

"As I was saying, none of us won, so instead of deciding who should lead the ship, why don't we all?"

"Huh?" Ace and Luffy asked in confusion.

"Essentially, we co-captain, that way we're all the captain of the same crew and if we wanna split paths and create our own pirate crews later on, we can do just that" Sabo explained further. "Either way, when we have our own fleet, we'll name it the ASL Pirate Fleet."

Ace and Luffy thought this over and realized very quickly, that they had absolutely zero problems with it.

"That actually isn't a bad idea" Ace admitted:

"Yeah, you're a genius Sabo!" Luffy shouted with a smile.

"Then it's settled" Sabo said before sticking his fist out.

The other two nodded their heads too before sticking their fists out and bumping them, sealing the deal.

To Be Continued...

Author's Note:

Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter cuz it was really fun to make.

Also, in case you guys didn't notice, I'm purposely making Ace more of a tough love kind of brother and Sabo the more compassionate brother as that's clearly the way they're depicted in the anime, manga, and by the fans. Ace clearly still cares about Luffy, but he's just shows it in a more tough way.

This will stick for the rest of the story and will make for lots of fun moments that I hope you all will enjoy. So stay tuned, and I'll see you all next time.