Heritage

Characters: Bepo, Pedro, Carrot. Rating: K. Warnings: SPOILERS for chapters 888, 889 and 897.

"It's the full moon tonight!" Carrot chirped, bursting in even as the Heart Pirates groggily pulled themselves from slumber to face the day – technically night.

"Wha-?" Penguin asked blurrily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Oh, Carrot."

"Couldn't it wait five minutes?" Shachi groused, frantically scrambling for his shades and pulling them on as she lit the lamps in the room. "Oi!"

They were both ignored as the rabbit mink made a beeline for Bepo.

"Hey, Bepo!" she greeted, bounding across the room in less leaps than common sense dictated was required. "Wake up, wake up!"

"'M 'wake," the navigator mumbled, rolling over onto his front sluggishly just in time to be garchu'd by a small furry ball of energy. He nuzzled back for a moment before pulling himself to his feet, yawning as they did so. Around him, his nakama were in various stages of wakefulness and dress as they stuffed themselves into whatever clothes were closest to hand.

Shachi pointedly lowered the brightness of the lamps before burrowing himself back under the blankets, grumbling about stupid lights and stupid rabbits.

"Aw," Carrot pouted, before grabbing hold of Bepo's paw and tugging him towards the doorway. "Come on!" Still not fully awake, he stumbled his way across the room behind her, apologising as he tripped over nakama too sleepy to move in time.

"What is it?" he asked as they left the guesthouse, only to almost walk straight into Pedro. The older mink eyed him with thinly veiled amusement for a moment before his face regained its usual serious countenance.

"Garchu, Bepo," he said with a short cheek rub, gesturing for him and Carrot to follow into the woods, away from the Whale Tree.

"Garchu," Bepo replied, returning the brief greeting before obeying the request. "What's going on? Don't you normally go to sleep now, Carrot?"

"Hey, I'm a guardian too!" she whined. Bepo was quick to apologise, his ears flattening against his head. "Bepo? Hey, no, you-teia don't need to apologise!" she rushed, pouncing on him for another garchu which he returned tentatively. "I'm in training tonight!"

"Tonight..?" he asked, finally noticing the tingle of his electro. "But isn't tonight-?"

"Have you ever looked at the full moon, Bepo?" Pedro interrupted, and he shook his head hurriedly, before pausing.

"I did once," he recalled with a shudder, although it may have just been his electro dancing to the lunar influence.

"Oh?" Pedro asked, his voice full of intrigue. Bepo looked up at him and saw something that looked distinctly like approval in his one visible eye. "So you-gara survived your first Sulong? Impressive."

"Sulong?" Bepo asked, the word odd yet at the same time familiar on his tongue as if he'd heard it before, a lifetime ago. Maybe he had.

"Our true form," Pedro explained, seating himself down on a tree root and gesturing for Bepo to join him. The Heart Pirate obeyed, and found himself with a lap full of Carrot. "Although it's not something we all master. To retain your senses requires incredible force of will and concentration. I assume I'm correct in that you-gara don't remember what you did while you were transformed?" Bepo had to take a moment to think back to that one fight, years ago, when he'd disobeyed his memories to save his nakama.

"Nothing," he confirmed. "Just rage, and then it was over and everyone was dead. It scared me."

"As well it should," Pedro agreed. "Untrained, transforming into your Sulong state puts both yourself and your companions in danger. It's good that you didn't try it again. If you-gara can't pull out of it, you rampage until you die."

Bepo shivered again, and this time couldn't entirely blame it on his electro.

"Pedro said he'll teach you," Carrot piped up from his lap and he looked down at her, startled.

"If you want to learn," the older mink reassured him. "It isn't something every mink learns, but if you-gara intend on remaining a pirate in the New World, you'll need it."

"I have no intention of leaving my nakama," Bepo said firmly, without even having to stop to think about it. A life without Law silently requesting somewhere soft to sit, or Penguin and Shachi teasing both each other and him? A life where he wasn't the one they relied on to keep them on course? Absolutely not. He threw himself into a bow, dislodging Carrot. "Please, teach me!"

The grin on Pedro's face was one of satisfaction, as if he'd already known Bepo was going to say that.

"The night is young," he said, standing up. "Carrot will go through her paces now, and then we'll go have breakfast while she goes to bed." The grin stretched into one Bepo classified as dangerous (like when Law found a new test subject for his latest technique). "Then, we'll get started on your training."

While I think it's highly unlikely that Bepo spent enough time on Zou to master Sulong, that doesn't mean they didn't start training him.

I still want more information on Sulong.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari