Chapter 13
"IDIOT!" Dragon smacked Rouge right across the hallway a week after the 'incident' as Dragon called it at Swallow Island.
He did it the instant she appeared. The asshole!
"Why?!" Rouge groaned, clutching her head.
"Do you really think I had forgotten about what you did back at Swallow Island? You tried to blow the island to pieces!"
"It was just a little bit of the island..." Rouge grumbled. "Kuzan was being an asshole!"
"That does not excuse you. This isn't the New World, Rouge. This is North Blue. The Blues can't handle that much insanity!" Dragon lectured.
"It handled you Monkeys perfectly fine," Rouge huffed.
"Not without its own scars I assure you." Dragon rolled his eyes.
"Hey," Ace called out to them, looking grim as he leaned against the doorway. "We're here."
Rouge gritted her teeth. "You should have changed direction, Dragon. Law shouldn't have to be here of all places."
"It was his choice, Rouge."
They made their way up at the submarine surfaced, by the time they reached the others the door to the submarine was already open. Law stared out into the distance of the burnt city of Flevance with his crew right at his side.
Law had chosen the one place no one in their right mind would ever think to look for him. He had gone back to Flevance. It killed a little piece of Rouge to see the teen suffer so, but he was braver than her.
She didn't think she could ever go back to Baterilla.
"Why is it so quiet?" Luffy asked.
"Nobody lives here anymore," Law whispered.
The city was quiet. It felt hollow. It felt haunted. Rouge saw Ace wince, clutching his arms, and she saw Sabo lean closer to him, whispering, asking what was wrong. She already knew though. They had felt their brothers and sisters die here. The Trafalgars had all died here.
All except one.
Law was the only Trafalgar witch they had left.
Rouge grimaced and quickly grabbed Law's shoulder, earning a flinch. Penguin, Shachi, Bepo and Wolf all tensed up, but Rouge ignored them.
"Law, I'll go on ahead and make sure this place is safe for you and Ace. There should be nothing in this world you and your family can't heal, and yet Amber Lead affected you too," Rouge said, her brow furrowing. "The fact it did so much harm to you and your family scares the shit out of me."
"Ace, Luffy, Sabo, back inside," Dragon ordered sharply, in his no nonsense tone.
Of course it was ignored.
"But I wanna visit the mystery city!" Luffy protested.
"I'm staying," Ace said, startling them all.
Law eyed him. "You don't have to do that..."
"I remember that night," Ace said softly, deflating. "It was horrible enough for me. I can't imagine what it was like for you."
"It doesn't matter right now exactly in the first place..." Law admitted. "I'm not going in just yet."
The Hearts pirates nor Wolf looked surprised, but the rest of them couldn't help but be taken aback. Luffy looked confused.
"Is it a boring mystery city?" Luffy asked quietly.
"No!" Shachi slapped the back of his head. "Stop talking already, brat!"
"I'm not a brat!"
"Little bratty brat." Shachi stuck out his tongue.
Law ignored them and met Rouge's gaze instead. "I was taking what Sabo-ya said into consideration during our travel here. Are you still willing to train me, Rouge-ya? My crew and I?"
Rouge was already going to say 'yes' of course, but she still did some mental calculations anyway. Okay, so Ace, her baby boy, check. Luffy, her little idiot, check. Sabo was gonna be with Dragon so that was one less. Now Law, her Trafalgar child, check. Shachi, Penguin and Bepo now too?
Yikes, that was a lot of kids. At least most of them were teenagers she supposed.
"I'm happy to train your lot, but what's going on with Mr. Wolf?" Rouge asked.
"Doflamingo might be after me to try lure Law out so I'm going with the Revolutionaries," Wolf said. "My inventions should do them some good."
"Be careful, he might blow you guys up," Shachi whispered to Dragon.
Dragon winced.
"What was that, Shachi?" Wolf scowled.
"Nothing!" Shachi whistled innocently.
"Liar!" Luffy stuck out his tongue.
"Shut it, squirt!"
Law and Rouge ignored them again.
"I take it after you're finished training with me you'll come back here?" Rouge asked softly, staring out at the burnt ruins.
"Yeah." Law nodded, eyes growing dark and haunted. "I plan to pay my respects."
"If you wouldn't mind I'd like to join you," Rouge admitted.
"And I already said I would," Ace reminded them.
"Again there is no need to put yourselves through that." Law did soften though. "However thank you for the thought."
Ace scoffed. "He says 'thought'."
Rouge chuckled. "Yeah, he's still learning."
Law stared quietly out at the ruins before eyeing her again. "Where we sailing off to, Rouge-ya?"
"Guess we do need somewhere safe to train," Rouge mused, then smirked. "Swallow Island-"
"Don't you dare!" Wolf bristled. "You already destroyed my house!"
Rouge pouted. "It was only a little bit."
.::.
Sabo was so happy that he was going with Dragon. Very, very happy. Luffy and Rouge had spent ages arguing over where the best place to go was, and Law tried to insert some logic into the conversation, but no. Logic was overruled. Ace kept pointing out places that sounded cool in North Blue while Dragon directed Bepo towards their new location where Rouge and the others would be training for the next few years.
An island called Notice.
It was a wealthy town in North Blue, but so long as Rouge and the others stuck to the outskirts of it, Dragon said they would be fine. Also as long as Rouge didn't put anymore craters in the ground too. That would be good.
And if Law didn't rearrange people's limbs, which is apparently something he can do.
Or if Luffy doesn't start yelling about wanting to become the Pirate King and Ace interrogating people about what they think if Pirate King had a son. That was something Dragon nagged into Ace's ear the rest of the trip there.
Sabo was of the opinion that they should just have a giant sign that said 'NO' and hit the others with it whenever they got too unruly.
"So you're not staying with us, Sabo?" Penguin asked.
"No, I'm going to join the Revolutionaries, just like Wolf is," Sabo said.
"I wonder if they'll be as chaotic as this lot," Penguin chuckled.
"It would be easier if they weren't," Sabo admitted. "But they are revolutionaries. They're bound to be a bit crazy too."
"And with big personalities," Penguin agreed.
Yeah, like that Ivankov, he was certainly one of those 'big personalities' Penguin had mentioned. Everything about him and big and colourful, even when he was a woman.
"Alright, you've been set up with a home on the outskirts of Notice, so please, please, don't do anything crazy," Dragon begged.
"You set us up already?" Rouge blinked.
"Kuma did." Dragon frowned. "We'll be saying our goodbyes once you've all settled inside, we've already been in North Blue for too long."
"Well have fun with whatever it is you're doing these days," Rouge said. "And you better take care of Sabo."
"Yeah!" Luffy yelled.
"Yeah, or you'll face our wrath!" Ace agreed.
"I won't need either of you watching my back considering I'll be taught how to punch even ghosts." Sabo stuck out his tongue.
"I hope you're not planning to hit me, Sabo," Rouge chuckled. "I did save you from being exploded after all."
"You're not going hold that against me, are you?" Sabo asked hesitantly.
"Oh yeah I am." Rouge grinned sharply. "Have fun with that, kiddo."
Sabo sighed at the thought.
It was two hours later when they finally arrived at the new house that Ace and Luffy would probably grow up in until they set sail at seventeen. Law, Penguin, Shachi and Bepo could head off at any time too, but Sabo suspected that Law was the type to take his time with things, and he'd need to if he had both the Marines and Doflamingo Pirates after him.
Law would need to be very careful.
Ace too.
If the world heard about two head witches being here it would be a disaster.
Luffy stared at him with watery eyes. "Are you really leaving, Sabo?"
"Yes." Sabo nodded. "I was saved from my family by you two and Rouge, and I want to do the same thing for people who don't have people like you guys around. Besides, you two don't need to worry so much, Dragon said we can keep in contact."
Luffy sobbed and clung to Sabo's waist, wrapping his arms and legs tight around Sabo, to the point of choking him. "Don't go!"
Ace tugged at Luffy's waist. "You'll squish him!"
Sabo wheezed and choked on his breath once Luffy finally released him. It had taken a while to pry him off, with both Shachi and Penguin soon rushing in to help. Luffy was still crying, but now clinging to Ace, who looked worried for his arm that had Luffy wrapped tight around it.
Sabo couldn't help but smile at his brothers. He was really going to miss them.
.::.
The first few days as a revolutionary (in training, Ivankov insisted) had felt like an adventure for Sabo. Everything was so new and exciting, and he had to learn so many new things being apart of the Revolutionary Army. But he realised he wanted to show Ace these things, explain it to him, and then show Luffy who would declare it to be a 'mystery' and bug Ace when there was clearly an explanation.
Or Ace would nod and surprisingly agree with Luffy. Hard to tell with Ace sometimes. The Shadow lady- Rouge- would feel amused, and he would feel her laughter, and see Ace brighten up.
Sabo wanted to share these things with his brothers, but they weren't around to share things with anymore.
He missed them.
.::.
Ace and Luffy ended up arguing, and whenever they did, they would seek out Sabo to settle the issue, only Sabo wasn't around anymore. The Shadow lady, or well Rouge was no help either, she only escalated things because it amused her.
If one of the brothers were confused, they would usually ask Sabo what he thought. Only, once again, he wasn't here anymore. Ace couldn't speak to Sabo about more serious topics, because Luffy had the attention span of a squirrel. And Luffy couldn't babble things to Ace because Ace got annoyed, unlike Sabo.
Ace ended up picking up Sabo's old books most nights. He dropped most of them quickly, because they were boring, all but the navigation books.
Ace got lost within those.
But he couldn't talk to Sabo about them, and Luffy couldn't tell Sabo about all the new things they did during the day.
The pair missed their brother.
So they started to target Law instead. Law was remarkably patient, until he wasn't, then Ace and Luffy discovered how weird, terrifying and fun his Devil Fruit was.
.::.
The siblings missed each other until the first snail call.
After that, they all settled into their new lives, with of course their newest editions of the future Heart Pirates.