I'm trying to publish this from my phone, holidays are nice and I get lots of time to write yay. I'm realizing that I write from Sabo's point of view a lot more than Ace and Luffy, dunno why, this kid talks to me I guess. I'll be working on it.

Edit: Fixed the phone publication issues

Ages reminder:

Luffy: 9
Ace: 12
Sabo: 12
Zoro: 11
Coby: 8

Luffy found Coby hilarious. He was smaller and weaker but he was also new, so new and shiny and different from the other kids he could remember before Ace and Sabo. The pink head was just so scared but he could see he was looking at Sabo a lot and obviously wanted to talk to his brother but didn't dare. When Luffy asked, Coby blushed and said that Sabo was nice, not like the "mean one" and Luffy told him, laughing, that his name was Ace and both of them were his brothers.

"You're all brothers? But you don't look-" He stopped, nodded to himself and shook his head.

"Nevermind."

"Shishishi I don't get it but you're really fun. We can go talk to Sabo now, he's probably hungry, let's get food!"

He pulled Coby with him (without asking his opinion) and opened the stock room, they didn't organise everything in barrels yet and the bag of food was still displayed on the floor and Luffy rushed to find some meat.

"B-but Luffy, we just left an hour ago, maybe we should ask-" Coby's stomach groaned and the kid blushed. Laughing and almost choking on his food, Luffy threw an apple at him. Coby barely caught it and seemed to think about it for a couple of seconds before biting in.

Once Luffy was satisfied, he found Coby staring at him in disbelief, commenting on how much food he was able to eat and Luffy took the bag of food for his blond brother.

~ ASL ~

"I don't like the pink kid." grumbled Ace, appearing behind Sabo at the cabin. He was done checking the ship and was supposed to stand guard at the crow's nest but got absolutely restless, that's why he went down to the cabin to talk with his brother. Sabo was checking the map for the next island. The freckled teen looked at their trajectory from Dawn Island, it seemed like they somehow missed a couple of places but were heading to a small dot called Shell Island.

"You don't? He's absolutely harmless." One eyebrow raised Sabo leant up from the desk.

"I dunno, he wants to be a marine and he… he has a bad influence on Luffy…" Things went too silent since Coby arrived, Luffy usually spent all his time with him… Seeing Sabo's expression, Ace blushed brightly.

"I'm not jealous! I don't trust this kid to take care of Luffy!" his hands turned into fists, ready to defend his claim, Sabo's smile just widened.

"I'm not saying anything, but I think you've been overprotective since the fire, you spent all your free time with him. Luffy needed a breather." Ace blinked at this claim, relaxing a bit but was still unhappy. Sabo put his pencil down and smiled cockily.

"I'm the one who should be jealous, when was the last time we actually sparred together, just you and me?"

Ace blinked and his annoyed expression turned into a challenging smile.

"You're so on!"

~ ASL ~

A couple of minutes later found them on the main deck, punching the hell out of each other, no weapons allowed.

Sabo went seemingly easy on the dark head and Ace won the first spar. At the second one, Luffy and Coby joined to watch them fight, and Ace being distracted by Luffy's food got a kick on the head and lost the second brawl.

"Hey my turn my turn!" The youngest brother left the food behind and wanted to join their brawl, Ace, kind of hungry, sat next to Coby, who suddenly straightened like a bow, still terrified of the glaring teen.

Like usual, Luffy tried one of his rubber attacks and actually managed to throw his pistol punch right but Sabo dodged easily.

"You're improving on offense Lu, wonder if you can take that"

While Luffy's arm bounced back to him, Sabo took advantage of his loss of balance to give him a sold punch to the gut and the younger one groaned in pain but to his credit didn't fall. Luffy tried to hit him with a Gum Gum no Bazooka but he was far too slow to catch Sabo who swept his feet under him.

"I win again. You still did well Lu" Sabo added gently and Ace pushed Coby forward.

"Your turn, pinkie" Coby just stared at Sabo before turning white.

"M-m-m-me?"

"Don't you want to be a marine? You'll need to be able to beat pirates up." Smiled Sabo, cracking his knuckles, finding his expression pretty funny. He wouldn't actually hit him as hard as he would Luffy but the kid needed a wakeup call one way or another if he really wanted to be a marine.

"I-I-I d-don't…"

"Hey Coby fight me then!" sprung Luffy, behind Sabo, standing up like he hasn't just been punched and kicked to the ground.

"Yeah, fight Luffy." smirked Ace, throwing a tomato at Sabo and the blond caught it easily, also hungry. He shrugged biting into the fruit, sitting down next to Ace. Before he could take another bite, Ace fell asleep in a narcolepsy attack and Sabo got to steal some of his meat.

Neither Luffy nor Coby noticed, the younger one never fought anyone in his life and was absolutely livid at the idea of getting hurt.

"Hey don't worry, I won't be mad if you fight back! You're my friend, I want to help you to get stronger!" Luffy's words were heartwarming for Coby who never had friends back in the Humming Isles. Hesitantly he copied Sabo's position at the beginning of the previous spar, almost tearing up but determined to at least try.

~ ASL~

Maybe Coby should have removed his glasses thought Sabo, munching on his chicken. On normal people, Luffy's attacks were pretty scary from the receiving end. Even he wouldn't want to get caught in that if he was perfectly honest. Fortunately Sabo turned out to be fast enough to always avoid his blows, who would have thought that a rubber fruit could be this useful. (Not that he'd admit it to him, he'd be just too smug to hear that).

After the first hit to his arm (Luffy's aim was off), Coby surprisingly didn't give up (unlike what Sabo expected). He even tried to punch Luffy back but he still held back. As much as he didn't want to get hit, he seemed even more terrified at the idea of hurting Luffy and attracting the wrath of his brothers.

After getting a second hit to the face and falling to the ground, Coby didn't stand up. His glasses were missing a lense but it rolled not far from him and could be fixed. His black eye and swollen cheek though were turning into an ugly purple.

Sabo was surprised with Luffy too, at first he went full in term of strength but started to hold back his attacks halfway there, probably learning how hard it was to restrain himself. Overall it was a really good lesson for both of them. They would need to make it happen again.

~ RZ ~

The merchants weren't so nice with people that stole their food it seemed. Fortunately, they didn't notice before the next day, when they docked to the new island. Zoro didn't even know what it was called and immediately ran towards the city, didn't matter much to him where he was going, he knew he didn't want to experience this again. He needed a way to get money to be able to survive by himself.

Zoro walked around for a while and a couple of hours later walking in the city in circles he somehow got into a bar, which was pretty weird because he was way too young to drink.

He still walked in and asked for water (they wouldn't make him pay for it now, would they?) and the barman looked at him briefly before giving him a glass. Zoro was relieved, he was getting a tired and thirsty.

"Hey kid, interesting sword you have here, would you sell it to me?" Asked the man sitting to his right. Suspicious, the green haired kid put his hand on his beloved Wado Ichimonji, like to protect it from any grabby hands.

"No." He then finished his water, pretending he wasn't uncomfortable under the older man's gaze. He looked like a perfectly normal adult, dark hair and eyes, except for the scar on his nose and the tattoo on the right side of his neck and his green bandanna. Actually he looked nothing like a normal adult, he could even see some golden teeth behind his frigid smile.

"Are you alone? You look like you need some help." The man said next and he was giving him a really weird vibe, Zoro had enough listening to the man, and stood.

"No, don't need anything." He stood up and was about to leave but noticed from the corner of his vision, the man raising his arm to hit him. He wasn't able to avoid the blow completely and fell to the floor, it would bruise and Zoro was getting annoyed.

"You're in the wrong kind of place kiddo, you better give me your sword or…"

Zoro didn't hesitate any further and sliced the man's raised arm before he could strike again. His scream getting everyone's attention on them but as the man stayed on the floor, he shackled his sword. What a waste of time, he would have to clean the blood off Wado too.

He kept an eye around them, in case someone else wanted a try, Zoro was still good enough to beat any adult who bothered him. He didn't plan on staying around any longer though.

"Thanks for the water." He mumbled and walked towards the door. On his way out, some poster pinned to the wall got his attention. Jimmy the Bandit, one and a half million berry, it was a young man with a scar on his nose, a green bandana and a tattoo on his neck. He looked back at the bleeding man and it just clicked.

On the other hand, maybe he would stay for a bit longer, Zoro smirked. Jimmy the Bandit finally stood up, finally getting over his shock, still bleeding and looking absolutely furious.

"Oi! You're going to pay for that!"

Zoro got his sword ready, maybe he would be able to afford some new ones with the money of the bounty, he missed the three swords style.

~ ASL ~

The next couple of days were pretty peaceful. Luffy still spent a lot of time with the newcomer but sometimes Coby visited Sabo to see what he was doing, navigation stuff bore the hell out of Luffy and Ace was glad to help him with that.

With Coby's arrival the sleeping arrangements needed to be changed and Sabo ended up sleeping with the pink haired kid in the first cabin because Ace didn't want to and didn't trust Luffy not to fall overboard with Coby. It happened once, a couple of days before the Humming Isles. They all slept on the deck, Luffy fell into the water in his sleep and Ace still wasn't over it. This arrangement was alright in the blond's opinion, Coby didn't snore and didn't take much space and everything was fine.

Sabo looked at the barrel, remarkably empty, they would be out of food soon, again. They didn't plan for Coby, who despite not eating much, was still a breach in their stocks and that needed to be fixed soon. Interestingly enough, Coby was the one who offered a solution.

"I-I can fish if you want. I'm n-not an expert or anything but…"

"Really?! Teach me! Teach me!" Exclaimed Luffy, Ace huffed, mumbling something about 'finally being useful' and Sabo smiled approvingly. Coby was also getting less and less shy the more days he stayed and sparred with them, he would be a good marine he guessed, in a far future, with an excellent training, probably, with some luck.

"I didn't think of that… We do have a fishing net but we don't know how to use it." Indeed, Sabo had found it in ship after he stole it and when they first tried it Luffy kept clumsily falling into the water. After his third swim, (and since they couldn't keep him away from it) they just decided to give it up, but with Coby teaching them, they might make it work.

Ace grumbled something about checking their course and Sabo just let him, they would be in Shell Island in a couple of days, their deal with Coby would be over and Ace would stop brooding.

~ MDG ~

The letter trembled between his fingers, the paper slowly tearing up while he didn't even finish reading it.

"Don't have any news... left to become pirates… not my fault." wrote Dadan and her distress didn't bring him any satisfaction. Monkey D. Garp was annoyed.

How dare they leave like this after all he did for them!? They were so young why the hell would they want to leave this perfectly safe island!?

Unfortunately the Marine Vice Admiral himself was still in Mariejois, dealing with some important business Sengoku sent him to, but there was no way he was letting the kids to be pirates like this. Ace was twelve, like his Sabo friend and Luffy was only nine for God's sake. He would sent some Marines under his command and spread the word in East Blue. A recommendation letter from Garp himself should be a good enough motivation. He was hoping they would get stopped before they got themselves killed. This time, when he got a hand on those kids, he was taking them with him, they would become marines no matter what.

Multiple East-Blue bases got a very important call about three lost children that Vice Admiral Garp would do anything to get his hands on. Descriptions were distributed and the chase began.

Captain Morgan, newly Commander of the 153th branch of the city of Shell Town, received his orders as well and promptly ignored them. Why should he even care about three random kids? He had his own city now and as the new taxes were put in place and the new reforms solidified he would be the most powerful of Commanders. He still read the descriptions, just in case.

Here it is! What a peaceful chapter, no worries some action is coming to Shell Town.I know it looks pretty raw, I will make some final corrections when I have an access to a computer with internet.

Don't forget to comment!

See ya ~