Patience

Characters: Penguin, Shachi, Law. Rating: K. Warnings: none

The first time Penguin saw Law's arm turn black, he thought he'd been hallucinating. He knew the Ope Ope no Mi gave his captain some odd abilities, but he wasn't quite sure how limbs turning black helped in any way, shape or form. The main clue that he probably wasn't seeing things was the grin on Law's face – self-satisfied and smug, it was just like when he performed one of his new operations perfectly. Whatever had turned Law's arm black, that had been what he'd been trying to do.

"What are you up to?" he asked, watching the black recede back away to nothing as Law's attention snapped to him.

"Haki," the younger teen answered, as if it was obvious. Penguin had never heard of it before in his life.

"What's that?" Shachi asked, apparently drawn from his attempts to prod a sleeping Bepo into wakefulness for who-knew-what-reason by the conversation.

"Something useful," Law shrugged, before eyeing the pair of them with a glint in his eye, as if an idea had suddenly struck him. Penguin regretted speaking up, and saw Shachi falter next to him. "You two should learn it, too."

"What's it good for?" Penguin made the mistake of asking, prompting a full blown lecture from his captain on haki and its applications, as well as how there were three different types ("but you won't need to worry about conqueror's because you can't learn that") and how they were best utilised. He never explained how he knew as much as he did about the strange abilities, but Penguin didn't need to ask; it was obviously either something he'd come across in his reading, or something he'd learnt about as a Donquixote Pirate.

"So we just have to focus?" Shachi summed up once Law finished. "Doesn't sound so hard." Law's eyes flashed with annoyance before settling back to his cocky smirk.

"Then give it a go," he encouraged. Shachi did so, clenching his fist and pinching his lips together as he let out a quiet humming noise. His face twisted oddly, turning pink as he began to run out of air, and Law poked him in the stomach, forcing him to relax all at once. "Not like that. You need to concentrate, not hold your breath."

"I was concentrating!" Shachi protested with a whine and a pout before repeating the action. Penguin could have sworn he saw smoke coming out from his ears.

"Concentrate on creating a defensive layer for your skin, not on holding your breath," Law scolded lightly, before frowning down at his own arm. Slowly, the black colour crept into existence to cover it again. Penguin mimicked him, focusing on his arm and trying to mentally order it to harden. He tried not to be discouraged when it didn't work, unlike Shachi, who whined and stomped off after several more minutes of red cheeks and panting. His patience didn't last forever, though, and after half an hour of watching Law's arm shift slowly from black to skin coloured while his own stayed stubbornly flesh-coloured he got up and left him to it.

Law brought the conversation up again over dinner, Bepo shovelling plates of fish in front of them before taking mouthfuls out of his own serving.

"It's taken me three years to get this far," their captain said out of the blue, black coating his arm slowly again to leave them in no doubts what he was referring to. "You won't manage it in a single session." Penguin nodded, understanding, but Shachi let out a harrumph of dissatisfaction and stuffed his face full of fish instead.

Penguin quietly joined Law in his training after that, encouraged by the admission that it wasn't an instant process. Shachi grumbled whenever he walked by, tugging at his cap as if to block the sight out as he carried on with life.

It would have been convincing, if Penguin hadn't seen him hiding in a corner of the large empty room on the Tang they'd designated the training room, trying in vain to get his arm to coat itself in black. He let him be, unwilling to provoke Shachi's temper as, like Penguin, he failed again and again.

It was a year before he finally succeeded, his arm sheathing itself in the ever-elusive black, and he cried out in excitement, drawing both Law and Shachi's attention. Bepo had long since grown used to his human nakama's noisy antics, as he called them, and simply raised his head from where he'd been pouring over maps and charts, shook his head and returned to his studies (although he did get a congratulatory hug from the Mink later, on the way to dinner).

Having felt success, it gradually became easier for Penguin, to Shachi's obvious irritation. His secret training sessions were secret to exactly no-one, although they all pretended they didn't know, and even several months after Penguin made his breakthrough, there was still no joy for him.

"It's not fair!" he finally broke, wailing into the air in frustration. "Why can't I do it?" They had no answer for him, and the ginger spent the rest of the day locked up in an empty room, refusing to come out for anything or anyone (all three of them tried to coax him out in their own ways, and all three failed miserably).

Their answer came, unexpectedly, in a fight two months later. The stubborn ginger had kept up his fruitless attempts, but his hope was failing and it wasn't uncommon to find him in a dejected lump on the floor that refused to acknowledge anyone that came near him. One such slump occurred out on deck as they sailed between islands, and a rival pirate group attacked them unprovoked.

The first hail of bullets caught them all off guard, Law, Penguin and Bepo all unable to evade them all and finding themselves quickly covered in small wounds from grazes, and the occasional larger wound as a bullet properly tore through flesh.

Shachi, initially curled up in a slump on desk, dodged the entire deluge, to the horror of their attackers. Clearly they had never experienced the insanity of someone evading every single bullet, and by the time Penguin had dragged himself back to his feet, clutching at his arm where a bullet had sliced clean through the muscle, the fight was over. Off balance, the other crew hadn't had a chance against an irate Shachi, especially not when Bepo joined in with his electro as the first to recover from the attack.

"That felt weird," Shachi confessed afterwards, as Law patched up the rest of them in the infirmary. "How the hell did I know exactly where to go?" Penguin had no answer, as confused as Shachi, but a grin painted itself across their captain's face.

"I think we need to change your training," he said, with a glint in his eye they'd long since learnt meant run. Shachi took a small step backwards and Penguin tried to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. "You've been trying to master the wrong haki."

The dawning comprehension, and associated grin, on Shachi's face was totally worth the past two years' of frustration, as far as Penguin was concerned. He hadn't even noticed how much confidence Shachi had leeched until it all returned in one swoop as Law's words sunk in.

Shachi wasn't useless at haki after all.

We know that haki isn't easy to learn, but I don't think it's something that pirates only learn once they enter the Grand Line. East Blue is the weakest of the Four Blues, so it makes sense that the Straw Hats may not have been exposed to it before, but that doesn't mean that none of the others have haki-using pirates. I can see Law first learning about or experiencing haki with the Donquixote Pirates, especially as we know Doflamingo could use it back then, but as a child I don't think he'd have the ability to manifest it until several years later, when he also teaches his nakama.

As for the first ones they awaken, which would also be the one they specialise in, while Law seems like he has the disposition for Observation, we've only seen him use Armament so far (outside of his Room, where it seems arguable to me that his latent Observation is slightly higher than when he's not in it). A bit like Zoro and Sanji, I feel like Penguin and Shachi's abilities would largely compliment (only without the huge rivalry), so one would specialise in Armament and the other in Observation. I don't really have any specific canon basis for why I've put it this way around (Penguin=Armament, Shachi=Observation), it's just how my headcanon developed.

As for Bepo, well, we haven't seen any Mink use haki up until this point, although they seem to have the ability to evade others' Observation somehow. Whether electro is their own version or if there's another reason why not even Pedro, Nekomamushi or Inuarashi have been seen using it yet, I guess we'll find out in Wano.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari