ASL on the Moby Dick

It was a peaceful day on the Moby Dick. Which was surprising, considering that the fire brat still hadn’t agreed to be their brother.

But it seemed that he trusted them enough to fall asleep near them. That was a start.

Right now Ace (the fire brat) was against the railing, face buried in his arms, fast asleep.

“MARCO!” Thatch’s voice came. Marco glanced up.

“What, yoi?”

“Every time I get near Ace, he surrounds himself with fire! How am I supposed to wake him up? And, no! Don’t give me that look! He has to wake up to eat! I refuse to let him starve!”

“Just wait until he wakes up on his own, yoi.” Marco ignored Thatch as he complained about Marco being an insensitive turkey.

“Commander Marco?” What now?

“What is it, yoi?”

“We spotted a child holding onto a board drifting around! Should we save him?” A child?

“Yes, yoi!” While he may not be the captain, he doubted pops would be happy about leaving a child out to drown. He gestured at Namur to come towards him.

A few minutes later Namur came back with a raven headed boy. He laid him down and everyone gathered around the boy,

Marco pressed his hands on the boy, trying to get him to spit out the water.

Which he did, after a few minutes. The downfall? On Marco’s face.

The boy sat up and blinked a few times, taking in his surroundings.

“Where am I?” he asked. Marco wiped of his face and studied the boy. He had raven hair, as mentioned before, and big chocolate brown eyes. Under his left eye was a scar, which made him cuter, if that was even possible. He had chubby cheeks and a lean body. He was tan and pretty short. And around his neck was a straw hat that seemed so familiar. He was wearing a full sleeved red shirt, with black pants, and white shoes. He had a black belt around his waist. There was a sword on it that had a beautiful red sheath, with orange and blue designs. Also looking quite familiar. The hilt of the sword was also red, and was decorated with blue and orange gems.

“On the Moby Dick, yoi.” Marco answered.

“The Moby Dick?" The boy tilted his head.

“The ship of the strongest pirate crew in the world led by the strongest man in the world.” Namur spoke. He expected the boy to be shocked or even scared. But oh how off he was.

“You guys are pirates?” A nod.

"Cool! You must’ve been on a lot of really awesome adventures then, huh?” the boy exclaimed with stars in his eyes. Marcosweat dropped.

“So, brat. Who are you? Why were you drifting around in the sea?” Thatch asked. Marco had forgotten he was still there.

My name is Monkey D. Luffy! And I’m gonna be King Of The Pirates! Shishishi! Though I have to wait a few years before I set sail on my own. As to why I was drifting around in the water, even though I can’t swim, my jiji was taking me to meet someone who could help me with a fighting style I recently learned. But then boom! Woosh! Wooh! I’m here!” The boy exclaimed, unknowingly getting Whitebeard’s attention.

“You wanna be Pirate King, brat?” he asked, causing everybody to look at him.

“Shishishi! Yep! It’s my dream!” The boy said. Then developed a rather blank face as he studied Whitebeard.

“Ne, ossan! How come you’re so tall? Are you a giant?” he asked with childish curiosity.

“Gurarara! That’s for me to know, and you to find out!” Whitebeard replied.

“But about being Pirate King...” Whitebeard continued.

“That’s a tough road. A brat like you would die within a second. Speaking of which, why does a brat like you want to conquer the sea anyway?”

“I don’t care if it’s tough! I’ll do it anyway! And I don’t care if I die! I’d rather die knowing I gave my all towards my dream, than live without ever trying! And I don’t care about conquering anything! I wanna be Pirate King because pirates are free, and so the Pirate King is the freest of them all.” Whitebeard laughed, while everybody stood there dumbfounded by how much conviction was in the boy’s voice.

“Just don’t regret it, brat.”

“Of course I won’t! I promised my big brothers that I’d live and die without any regret whatsoever!” he pouted. Then groaned.

“Why do I feel so weak? Like I’m wet or something?” he mumbled.

“Maybe because you are wet, yoi.”

"Oh right! Shishishi!” The brat was an idiot, Marco decided. He was about to take the boy to the infirmary when he noticed his eyes on something. Or someone. Ace.

“That’s Ace. Someone we want to join our crew. Though he doesn’t seem to like us too much. Actually he seems to hate our guts. Though I guess we should have expected as much when we kidnapped him. Right now I’m trying to wake him up to feed him this, but every time I get near he surrounds himself with fire.” Thatch said, gesturing to the bowl in his hands.

The kid seemed to be in thought for a bit, and everyone watched him, curious to what he was thinking.

He snatched the bowl from Thatch and ate a spoonful.

“Oi! What the hell!? That was for Ace! Not you!” Thatch shouted, and almost the entire deck shouted in agreement.

“You’re a good cook.” the brat said.

“Saying that won’t get you off the hook!” The brat ignored him as he started walking towards Ace, bowl still in hand.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Marco watched with lazy eyes as the boy neared Ace. Expecting him to get burned, he readied himself for screaming, crying or something. But to his surprise, along with everybody else’s on deck, Ace didn’t go on fire. No, in fact he seemed more relaxed if anything.

Luffy placed a hand on Ace’s knee waiting for him to change his position, which he did in a few seconds. Luffy, then, sat on his lap, legs wrapped around him. Causing pretty much everybody to gape at him. Hell, even Whitebeard gaped. In his own special way of raising an eyebrow.

"Ne, Ace. Wake up. You have to eat.” he whispered in a quiet voice. The only way anyone could hear it was because they were all silent, still gaping.

“Hmm... What are you doing here?” Ace murmured, waking up. But, Marco noticed, it wasn’t with hate or anger, no this wasthe softest Marco had heard his voice be, it was with curiosity.

“Shishishi! Nothing much, I’ll tell you later. Right now Ace’s gotta eat!” He grabbed the spoon and started feeding Ace. Who, again to the shock of everyone, complied without argument.

“What a weird dream.” Ace said after a few bites.

“Not a dream.” Luffy replied still feeding him.

“Hmm.” Ace replied. Then yawned. After a few minutes of feeding, eating, and yawning, Ace was ready to go back to sleep.

“Have a good sleep, Ace!” Luffy said walking towards Thatch.

“Yeah, yeah, Luffy.” Ace replied and closed his eyes. Then after a half second, his eyes flew open and his fire blazed to life.

“MONKEY D. LUFFY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?” he shouted, getting up. And scaring everybody else. Well, not Whitebeard. He didn’t even flinch. Merely raised a brow. Fearless bastard. Oh, and Luffy. Because Luffy would never be scared of Ace.

“It’s a long story.” Luffy replied, handing the bowl to Thatch and walking back to Ace. Ace sighed and put out his fire.

“Make it short.” he said, arms crossed. Luffy pouted.

“Jiji was taking me to see one of the Seven War-Wa- ... Oh yeah! One of the Seven Warlocks of the sea!”

"It’s Warlords, Luffy.” Marco was quite surprised at how patient Ace was being.

“Shishishi! Oh. My bad! Anyways, everything was normal then... boom! Woosh! Wooh! And next thing I know I’m spitting out water on a pineapple!” The pineapple comment caused the majority of the crew to laugh, while Marco darkly glared at the boy.

“So shitty jiji was taking you to see a Warlord. Then suddenly lighting came. A hurricane soon followed. And there were alsobig waves. And when you woke up you spit out water on Marco’s face?” Ace confirmed. A nod.

“You. Are. A. Complete. And. Utter. Idiot. You know that?" His reply was a ‘shishishi’. Ace sighed.

“We should probably take you to the infirmary.” Ace said and much to the surprise of everyone... again, picked up Luffy. Who in turn laughed.

Who was that brat? And more importantly, what was his relationship to Ace?