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"Hey Luffy-san! There's someone coming towards us!" Brook yelled. He had been sitting out on deck (in the sun! He still couldn't believe he was in the sun again!) when he noticed it: A small, yellow, cresent-shaped raft. It had a sail on the back, and there was a figure standing on board. By his feet there seemed to be a fire. As the ship got closer, Brook could see the man was wearing a bright orange cowboy hat on his head, as well as black pants and no shirt.
"Hey, isn't that..." Usopp wondered out loud.
"Ace!" Luffy said, running up to the railing, waving his arms. The man on the raft waved back.
"Hey Luffy!" He called. Now that he was closer, Brook could see a tattoo on his arm. It said "ASCE", though the S was cross off.
"Ace?" Brook asked. Nobody seemed to notice.
"How's it going, guys?" Ace said, pulling his ship up along side the Thousand Sunny. "I was in the area, so I thought I'd say h-OLY SHIT is that a skeleton!? With an afro?!" Luffy laughed.
"This is my musician, Brook!" Luffy explained. "Brook, this is my brother, Ace!"
"Hello, Ace-san." Brook said. Ace sighed.
"Of course you would recruit a lliving skeleton. How did you even find a living skeleton?" Ace said, as he climbed on board. He then tied his raft to the railing, and turned to the other three gathered there.
"That's Firefist Ace of the Whitebeard pirates. What is he doing here?" Robin asked. Nami looked puzzled for a second, then laughed.
"I guess you weren't on board when he visited the first time, so you wouldn't know." Nami said. "That's Luffy's older brother."
"I see. Why not we go down and say hello?" Robin said. They were about to go down the stairs and on to the deck when Chopper ran past them.
"Ace!" Chopper yelled, running up to the group.
"Hey there... uh..." Ace said*.
"Chopper!" Luffy said. "He's my doctor"
"Hey there, Doctor Chopper!" Ace said.
"Calling me 'Doctor' doesn't make me happy, idiots!" Chopper said, dancing happily.
"Sure looks happy to me..." The rest of them said.
"Nami-swan! Robin-chwan! Lunch is ready!" Sanji called from the galley. "The rest of you shitheads can eat too!"
"Aw yiss, food time!" Ace said. He and his brother ran off to the galley.
"Oh no." Usopp said. "What?" Chopper said.
"What's wrong?" Brook said.
"Ace is Luffy's brother." Usopp said.
"I know. What's 'Oh no'?" Chopper said.
"What if he has the same appetite?" Usopp asked. The question hung in the air for a moment.
"Oh no." Chopper and Brook both said together. All three ran off into the galley. "SAVE SOME FOR US!" They yelled.
"Where's the food?" Luffy asked, sitting down. Ace sat down beside him. Nami and Robin were already seated Robin across from Luffy and Nami across from Ace.
"Wait for everyone el-" Sanji stopped mid-sentence, noticing Ace. "When did you get here?"
"Just now." Ace said.
"Oh, ok. Tell me these things, shitty captain. Now I've got to make more for Ace." Sanji said.
"Sorry." Luffy said, though he didn't sound it. Brook, Usopp, and Chopper burst through the door.
"Did they eat everything already?!" Brook asked.
"The table's empty!" Chopper cried.
"Oh no! We were too late!" Usopp said. "We're going to stave!" Sanji kicked them on the head.
"Food hasn't been served yet!" Sanji said. Luffy laughed.
"What's with all the commotion?" Zoro asked, walking through the galley and stepping over his downed crewmates.
"Ace is here!" Luffy said, gesturing to his brother.
"Yo!" Ace said.
"Hello." Zoro said. He sat down at the head of the table, on the other side of Luffy.
"Who's Ace?" Franky asked, walking in the door.
"Luffy-san's brother." Brook said, sitting down across the table from Zoro.
"Oh." Franky said. He sat down next to Nami. Chopper got up off the floor and sat across from him, next to Ace. All the seats were taken when Usopp got up, so he sat at the counter.
The table looks like this, if anyone is confused: DOOR HERE XXXXX
Zoro
Luffy - Robin
Ace - Nami
Chopper -Franky
Brook
The counter is here ^^^ and Usopp is sitting at it. Sanji doesn't usually sit with the others when they eat.
"Ace, you're sticking around for a while this time, right?" Luffy asked hopefully.
"Well, I can't just dine and dash, can I?" Ace said. He and Luffy laughed at this (much to the crew's confusion), before Luffy got serious again (which confused the crew even more).
"So you're staying? At least till dinner?" Luffy asked.
"Yeah, all right." Ace said. Luffy cheered.
"Besides, you still have to meet my crew!" Luffy said.
"Oh, right. I've already been introduced to Doctor Chopper and Brook." Ace said, making the little reindeer blush.
"Well, this is Zoro, my swordsman."Luffy said, gesturing to the green haired man next to him. Zoro raised his hand in greeting.
"And this is Robin, my archaeologist." Luffy said. Ace wondered, breifly, why a crew would need an archaeologist in the first place. He chalked it up to Luffy being Luffy and left it at that.
"Hello, Ace." She said.
"Hello." Ace said.
"This is Nami, my navigator." Luffy said, gesturing to her, across the table from Ace. "and this is my shipwright, Franky." Nami smiled at him while Franky struck a pose.
"Don't forget me!" Usopp said from the counter behind them.
"Oh, right." Luffy said, turning around. "This is Usopp, my sniper. And in the kitchen is my cook, Sanji."
"Is that your whole crew?" Ace asked. He knew Luffy only wanted 10 members, but it still seemed small. And hadn't there been a blue-haired girl and a duck before?
"Of course not!" Luffy said. "There's also the Thousand Sunny! My ship!" he patted his seat with one hand, and gestured around the room with the other. "Franky built her!"
"I'll give you a tour later." Franky said.
"Hey, Sanji, is the food ready?" Luffy called.
"Coming now" Sanji said, putting a plate in front of Nami, and another in front of Robin. "I'm sorry to keep you two waiting" he said.
"Thank you, Sanji-kun" Nami said. Sanji nearly burst at hearing that.
"Anything for you, Nami-swan!" he yelled, clasping his hands together as his eyes turned to hearts (well, the one you could see turned to a heart).
"Shut up, crap-cook. The rest of us want food too." Zoro said.
"What was that, shitty-swordsman!?" Sanji said, turning to face the swordsman.
"Why you...! You wanna go, dartbrow?!" Zoro yelled. Before a fight could break out, however, Nami spoke up in the form of hitting both men in the head.
"Stop fighting!" She yelled.
"Nami-swan is as beautiful as she is violent..." Sanji said from the ground. Luffy laughed at the antics of his crew, while Ace watched the whole display in silence. Luffy sure did pick up quite the cast of characters.
"Sanji, if you don't get up soon, Luffy is going to steal the food." Usopp said, swatting away a rubber arm that was making it's way over the counter. Sanji was up and in the kitchen faster than you can say mellorine. Soon all the food was served and everyone was enjoying their meals. That is, until Ace suddenly fell over into his plate.
"Is he alright?" Nami asked.
"Wouldn't it be horrible if it were some strange sickness, which showed no symptoms, until the person suddenly dies?" Robin said.
"Robin! Don't say stuff like that!" Usopp cried.
"And wouldn't it be even worse if it were horribly contagious, and so now we are all infected as well?" Robin continued.
"ROBIN!" Usopp cried. Robin giggled. Chopper screamed.
"Oh no, Ace is sick! Somebody call a doctor!" he cried.
"That's you!" the rest of the crew yelled. All the yelling woke Ace up, as he sat up as though nothing had happened.
"He's alive!" Usopp cried happily. Chopper hugged him.
"What's all the fuss?" Ace asked.
"You fell over in your food! We thought you were dead!" Chopper said.
"Only because Robin kept making morbid comments." Usopp said. Robin giggled again.
"Oh, I just fell asleep." Ace said.
"In your meal?" Chopper asked.
"Well, I can definitely see the family resemblance..." Usopp said.
"It's narcolepsy. Luffy, why didn't you tell them I wasn't dead?" Ace asked. But when he looked over to his little brother, he discovered that Luffy was stuffing his face with Ace's food, which was unguarded due to the fact Ace had fallen asleep and then had been talking with Usopp and Chopper. Ace turned just in time to see the last of his meal go into the black hole known as Luffy's stomach.
"That was my lunch..." Ace said.
"You can never let your guard down with food around Luffy." Usopp said. Luffy swallowed a giant mouthful of food and turned around to Sanji.
"That was really good! Hey, Sanji, can I have seconds?" Luffy asked. That was the last straw for Ace, as he lunged at Luffy and began throttling him.
"That was my food! Spit it out!" He yelled. The rest of the crew laughed at the display as Sanji gave Ace another plate. Ace stopped strangling his brother and went to his food, putting an arm around it protectively.
"Hey Ace, when you're done with your food, come find me and I can give you a tour of the ship" Franky offered.**
"Sounds like a plan." Ace said. The rest of the crew had finished their meals and were beginning to get up to go off to their own activities. By the time Ace had finished the kitchen was clear of everyone except himself and Sanji (Luffy had been waiting for him to finish, but he got bored and watching someone else eat food when you couldn't have any was torture, so now he was on the Sunny's figurehead). He walked into the kitchen where Sanji was and, deciding he wanted to get to know Luffy's crew better, struck up a conversation.
"Need any help?" he asked, bringing his plate to the blond.
"No, I've got this. Besides, you're a guest here." Sanji said. He continued to clean up as Ace watched silently, the only noise being the clinking of plates and silverware.
"How did you join this crew?" Ace asked, breaking the silence. Sanji paused.
"Luffy came to my restaurant looking for a cook. He ended up saving it, and I joined his crew." Sanji replied.
"Saving it? From who?" Ace asked.
"An East Blue pirate called Don Kreig. He was trying to steal our restaurant as his new ship, since his was destroyed in the Grand Line." Sanji said.
"How do you use a restaurant as a ship?" Ace asked. Sanji stopped.
"It's a restaurant on the sea called the Baratie." Sanji said "I guess I should have mentioned that."
"Yeah, that would have been helpful." Ace said, laughing. He went back to watching Sanji again.
"You sure you don't need help?" Ace asked.
"I'm sure." Sanji said "You should go find Franky and ask him to show you around the Sunny."
"I think I will" Ace said. He waled out of the galley and onto the deck, which had no one else on it, and soon to realized two things:
1) He didn't know where Franky was.
2) Luffy's ship had a slide, a swing, and a grass deck.
That was really cool. Why didn't his ship have stuff like that? He was on the ship of the Man Closest to One Piece, he should be able to go on the swing on open seas if he wanted to! But that was besides the point. The point was that he didn't know where he was going.
That was when Ace noticed a third thing: singing. It sounded like the deck wasn't as empty as he had originally thought. He recognized the tune from somewhere, too. It sounded pirate-y and upbeat, with a "yohohoho, yohohoho~!". That's when he remembered:
"Yohohoho, yohohoho~! Yohohoho, yohohoho~!" Luffy sang as they walked. It was loud and off key, but Luffy didn't seem to care. His brothers, on the other hand, did care.
"Luffy, what are you singing?" Ace asked.
"It's a pirate song. Shanks taught it to me!" Luffy said. "He said pirates love to sing, which is why I need a musician on my crew!"
"I've never heard that pirates need a musician" Sabo said. "But on my crew, Luffy will not be my musician."
"Agreed." Ace said.
"You guys are mean!" Luffy said. "Besides, I can't be the musician, I'm gonna be the Captain!" Ace and Sabo just laughed.
"Of course, Luffy. Besieds, I pity the crew with you as their musician." Ace said.
"You're a meanie!" Luffy said again.
"You guys both need to shut up. You're scaring all the animals away." Sabo said.
"Ace-san?" Brook asked from a chair on deck. Ace blinked and the memory faded. "Are you alright? You were staring off into space."
"Oh, I'm fine." Ace said. He looked at Brook "Didn't you say you were a musician?"
"Oh, yes. I am Luffy-san's musician." Brook said.
"So then was that you singing earlier?" Ace asked.
"Yes, that was me. That is the life of a musician: never a quiet moment, always singing our lungs out and playing till our bones ache." Brook said. "Oh! But I don't have any lungs! Yohohoho! Skull joke!"
...Yup, definitely Luffy's musician. Only Luffy could find someone so odd. After all, it's not every day you see a skeleton with an afro. Speaking of...
"Why are you a skeleton? Were you born that way, or did someone bring you back to life? And how do you have an afro?" Ace asked.
"I have strong roots." Brook said. Ace didn't know how that worked, but didn't say anything.
"But then how are you still alive?" Ace asked.
"Before I died, I ate a Devil Fruit that brought the user back after they died. However, my crew was killled in the fog, so it took me a while to find my body again. By the time I did, there was nothing left of me but bones!" Brook explained.
"Your crew?" Ace asked. Brook's face seemed to fall, and Ace realized he must have brought up a sensitive topic. Before he could take it back, Brook started speaking.
"Yes. This is the second crew I have been a part of. I lost my first one in the Florian Triangle 50 years ago." Ace was aware that Brook wasn't really looking at him anymore, and instead was lost in a time long gone.
"How did you meet Luffy?" Ace asked. Brook still seemed somewhat far away, but he came back a little for the more recent memory.
"While I was trapped in the fog, I ran into his ship. He came on board and invited me to join his crew. I expalined how I couldn't leave the fog or else I would burn in the sun because my shadow had been stolen, so he got it back for me." Brook said. "He saved me, and since then I have sworn my loyalty to Captain Luffy-san as his musician and to help him become the next Pirate King." Ace admired the conviction in his voice. He was glad Luffy had found himself such a loyal member as Brook. He wondered if the others were as dedicated. Sanji seemed happy enough, especially with the way he talked about his restaurant being saved. Brook picked up the violin laying next him and started playing.
"Yohohoho, yohohoho~! Yohohoho, yohohoho~! Yohohoho, yohohoho~! Yohohoho, yohohoho~!" Brook sang. "Binkusu no sake wo, todoke ni yuki yo..."
Ace decided to continue his hunt for Franky, walking in a random direction. He ended up in a library. He looked around, his eyes settling on the orange haired navigator at the desk in the center of the room. She appeared to be too engrossed in her work to notice Ace.
"Hello?" Ace asked. She looked up at him, mildly irritated to have been diturbed, but then realizing it wasn't one of the idiots in her crew, the irriatation subsided.
"Hello, Ace. What're you doing here?" Nami asked. "Do you need anything?"
"Oh, no. I'm just looking around." Ace said. "I'm actually trying to find Franky, to take his ship tour, but this ship is kind of hard to navigate... Speaking of navigation, aren't you the navigator?"
"Yup. I'm the best there is." Nami said proudly. Then she sighed and said "Though sometimes, I feel more like a babysitter than a navigator."
"Well, do you like it here? Why did you join this crew?" Ace asked. He wanted to get to know all of Luffy's crew members. His introductions to them had been brief before.
"Luffy saved me." She said. "I was working to pay off a debt to a pirate to save my village. I was almost done when the pirate stole all the money from me, so I had to start all over. Then Luffy came in, kicked his ass, and freed my village. I've been traveling with them all ever since." Ace watched her gain a fond smile similar to his own as she spoke of his brother. That's three crew members out of three that he had talked to that Luffy had saved. He wondered if they were all like this.
"I'm going to go find Franky now." Ace said. "See you later." Ace walked out of the room and realized that he had forgotten to ask where to go. Again. He decided to continue walking aimlessly. He heard the noise of someone above him, and looked up to see the long-nosed sniper up by the flowers and tangerines.
"Hello?" Ace called. Usopp looked to see who had called him, and upon finding it was Ace, walked over to him.
"Hey there. How do you like the Thousand Sunny?" Usopp asked.
"She's a nice ship. Say, didn't you guys have another ship? And wasn't there a girl with blue hair here? And a duck?" Ace asked. He remembered the figure head was a lamb, and he definitely remembered bright blue hair (like the cyborg's) and a giant duck.
"Oh, you mean Vivi and Carue? They stayed behind in Alabasta so Vivi could run her country. She's a princess, you know." Usopp said. "Though they'll always be Straw Hats, regardless of wether they're here on board or in Alabasta."
"And the ship?" Ace asked. "Because I could have sworn the figure head was a lamb the first time I visited." This was apparently a sore subject for the sniper, as the fond smile he wore from recollecting their two far-away crewmates turned sad.
"That was the Going Merry, our first ship." Usopp said. "We got her in my hometown as a present from my friend. Merry... she... She died at Water 7. Then, Franky built us the Sunny, who we've been sailing on since."
"Oh" Ace said. He took note of the fact Usopp had said 'died' instead of 'sunk' and added "I'm sorry for your loss"
"Yeah..." Usopp said. They stood in silence for a bit until Ace decided to change the subject.
"Your friend gave you the ship? What're they like?" Ace asked. If Usopp realized this was a blatantly obvious attempt at topic change, he didn't show it. Instead, he started talking about his friend back home.
"Kaya? She's great. I talked to her all the time, and told her stories since she was too sick to go outside. I promised her that when I came back, I'd tell her of adventures bigger and better than any tall tale I'd ever told." Usopp said.
"So, why did you decide to join Luffy?" Ace asked.
"He saved Kaya, me, and my village from a pirate attack." Usopp said. "If it weren't for him, we'd all be dead right now. After that, Kaya gave him Merry as thanks and I joined his crew." Usopp then turned away from Ace and listened to something Ace couldn't hear. Apparently, someone was yelling for Usopp, just out of Ace's earshot.
"Well, gotta run." Usopp said. waking away. "Oh! And don't forget to talk to Franky about a tour!" Usopp called back. Before Ace could ask just where Franky was, Usopp ran off. Ace ran after him, and ended up on the grass deck. With no Usopp in sight, he decided to head into the room below the galley. He was surprised to see a large aquarium, with a bench lining the base of the tank. Sitting on the bench, reading a book with a cup of tea on the bench next to her, was the Straw Hats archeologist, Nico Robin. She looked up from her book and smiled at Ace when he walked in.
"Lost?" She asked.
"No. I'm just... uh... taking the scenic route." Ace said.
"Taking the scenic route of the Sunny on your way to take a tour of it?" Robin asked. Ace had only said one sentence and he was already trapped.
"Uh, well..." Ace said. Robin only laughed.
"Don't worry. Our swordsman is much worse than you, and he lives here." Robin said.
"That's... interesting" Ace said. "He sounds like... well... like an idiot." Robin laughed again.
"Anyway, are you enjoying your stay here?" the woman asked.
"Yes. Everyone I've talked to so far has been nice." Ace said.
"Luffy is very good at reading people's character." Robin agreed.
"How did you join this crew?" Ace asked. "Luffy owed me and I had no where else to go." Robin said. "And when I tried to leave, he saved me and brought me home."
"Home?" Ace asked. "If he brought you to your home, then why are you here?"
"I am home." Robin said. "He... They all gave me a reason to live when my whole life I thought there were none." Ace was shocked with this revelation. And then, Robin smiled. Ace did too. He had more in common with Robin then he had thought. Luffy was the reason Ace lived as well. He'd die before he let anything happen to his little brother.***
"You should go find Franky now." Robin said. "Don't want to keep him waiting."
"Yeah." Ace said. He walked out of the room, and then realized after walked for a moment that he had been too distracted by Robin's statement to ask where Franky was!
"Dammit!" Ace yelled. Sanji poked his head out of the galley.
"Are you alright out there?" Sanji asked.
"I'm fine." Ace replied.
"Alright." Sanji said, and closed the door. Ace realized he had missed yet another opportunity to find where Franky was, and fell over in the middle of the deck in frustration.
"Ace! Are you alright?" Chopper ran over from the swing he had been sitting on, worriedly checking over Ace as he lay face down on the deck.
"Just a little frustrated." Ace said into the grass.
"Are you sure? I could give you a check up to be certain..." Chopper said.
"I'm fine, really." Ace said again, propping himself up onto his arms so he was no longer face down on the deck.
"If you say so..." Chopper said, though he looked at Ace suspiciously. He was used to dealing with patients who refused to acknowledge their injuries, and he was more than willing to drag Ace to his infirmary if it was necessary. Ace could tell, too, by the look Chopper was giving him, and decided to change the subject with the same questioned he'd been asking everyone else:
"So, how did you join this crew?" Ace asked. Not only would this question get Chopper to stop looking at Ace like he was going to throw him in a sack and drag him, kicking and screaming, into the infirmary, but it would also explain to Ace how Luffy had gotten a talking reindeer doctor onto his crew because Ace really wanted to know.
"Luffy came to my island looking for a doctor because Nami was sick, and he found me and Doctorine." Chopper said. "He climbed an entire mountain to reach us, too. And then, he saved us from Wapol and protected Doctor's flag and the palace. After that Luffy said I was his friend, and so I joined Luffy's crew and started traveling with all of them."
While Chopper may have thrown around a lot of names Ace didn't know, Ace got the general idea of the story and smiled to match Chopper's.
"So he saved you, Doctorine, the Doctor flag, and a palace, so you became friend's and joined him?" Ace asked.
"Yep!" Chopper said. "And I've been the ship's doctor ever since. And with people like Luffy and Zoro around, I'm surprised they lasted until they met me..."
"I know what you mean" Ace said, thinking back to how often Luffy got hurt when they were kids. He often wondered how Luffy had lasted six years without him.
"Speaking of Zoro, do you think you could go get him for me?" Chopper asked. "He got beaten up pretty bad at Thriller Bark, and I need to change his bandages."
"On it." Ace said. "Where is he?"
"He's probably training with those ridiculously over sized weights up there." Chopper said, pointing a hoof to the observatory. Ace nodded and climbed up.
"Hello? Anyone here?" Ace asked, pushing up the hatch. He then quickly ducked and closed it again as a large gray mass swung in his direction.
"Shit!" Ace heard someone curse from inside the room. A large noise then came from above him, and then the hatch opened above Ace, revealing the green haired swordsman.
"What the hell was that" Ace asked.
"What?" Zoro asked. Ace noticed the swordsman wasn't wearing a shirt, and he was dripping with sweat.
"The gray thing that nearly took my head off when I opened the hatch. And that loud noise, too, what was that?"
"A weight." Zoro replied. "Did you need something?"
"Oh, yeah." Ace said, pulling himself into the room. "Chopper sent me to-"
"Chopper?" Zoro asked. Ace was surprised, Zoro looked, was that worried? about seeing the little doctor. Ace realized that, even though Chopper had said he needed to change Zoro's bandages, he wasn't wearing any. He looked around, and spotted the missing bandages next to Zoro's shirt.
"You took your bandages off, didn't you?" Ace asked.
"They make it hard to move!" Zoro said. "How am I supposed to train if I can't move?"
"Isn't that... the point of bandages? To make it so you don't move around so much so you heal?" Ace asked. He was right with his earlier statement to Robin: Zoro was an idiot. "Where did Luffy even get someone like you?"
"East Blue, at a marine base. I was the first member to join his crew." Zoro said. Though Ace had asked the question out of exasperation, he did want an answer, so he glad he received one. He realized Zoro was probably trying to change the subject so he didn't have to face the wrath of the reindeer, but he was happy to play along.
"Why were you at a marine base?" Ace asked.
"I got arrested. Luffy said that if he got my swords back and let me go, I had to join him." Zoro said.
"So... he saved you and you joined him?" Ace asked.
"It was more like he blackmailed me into joining him, but yes, you could put it that way." Zoro said.
"Anyway, you need to go see Chopper." Ace said. "Oh, and do you know where Franky is?"
"He's probably in his weapon development room." Zoro said, accepting his fate and beginning to climb down the ladder.
"Alright, I'll go there next." Ace said. He would have asked Zoro where it is, but Robin had said he got lost easily, so he figured the directions probably wouldn't be accurate. He began climbing down the ladder after Zoro when he heard Chopper yelling from below.
"Zoro! You took you bandages off again!" he yelled. Ace heard Zoro groan. When Ace reached the bottom, Chopper was fighting with Zoro. The look of "I'll drag you to the infirmary kicking and screaming if I have to do not test me" Chopper had been giving Ace earlier was now directed at Zoro, but instead of being mixed with concern and suspicion, it was now mixed with concern and irritation. Ace was very glad he wasn't Zoro right now, because even thought the little reindeer was only around three feet (around 91cm)****, he was very intimidating when he wanted to give someone a checkup. But that was probably just because Ace didn't like shots.
Ace decided he could ask someone else where Franky's "weapon development room" was, because those two seemed busy. He walked around a bit when someone tapped his shoulder. He turned to see a disembodied limb, coming from the wall.
Ace will admit he panicked. He will not, however, admit that the loud squeal Zoro and Chopper heard came from him.
A mouth, two eyes, and two ears joined the hand, and Ace panicked even more.
"Ace, calm down." Robin said. Ace looked around for the source of the voice. "Right here." she said again, when Ace realized Robin's voice was coming from the mouth on the wall.
"What the hell?!" Ace asked. The mouth laughed.
"My devil fruit gives me the ability to bloom any part of my body anywhere." The mouth, or Robin (Ace wasn't sure what to call it) explained. "I was going to show you the way to Franky"
"Oh. Lead the... point the way, then." Ace said. The eyes, ears, and mouth disappeared in a flurry of petals, and the hand pointed the way. Ace managed not to panic as they did so. Soon, he was in Franky's workshop.
"So not super..." he heard Franky mutter from the room.
"What's wrong?" Ace asked. Franky jumped, not knowing Ace had been there.
"I think I might be coming down with something. I've been sneezing since I got down here." Franky said. "Anyway, you ready for a super tour of the Thousand Sunny?" He then struck a pose with both his arms connecting over his head, lining up the two star tattoos on his arms to make one star.
"Uh..." Ace said. "Sure" Franky led Ace throughout the entire Sunny, explaining the rooms and who usually used them and what for. By the time the tour was done, dinner was ready. As they stood on deck, Luffy hopped down from the front of the ship and joined them in entering the galley.
"There you are, Ace!" he said "I've been looking for you! I wanted to introduce you to my crew! You know, actually meeting them, instead of just learning their names."
"Actually, I did that already." Ace said.
"You did?" Luffy asked. "When?"
"I was trying to find Franky for the tour, and ended up running into everyone. Except you..." Ace said "...And Franky"
"That's good." Luffy said, sitting down at the table next to Ace. The trio was the last to enter the galley (surprisingly, with how highly the brothers regarded food) (This only added to Chopper's suspicions that Ace was sick, as Ace saw Chopper giving him the look).
"Which reminds me, Franky" Ace asked. "How did you join the crew?"
Ace was surprised by the reaction he got.
Everyone in the crew paled and shuddered, except Brook, who couldn't get paler than he already was, and Robin, who smiled innocently. Some of the guys began muttering something, and a few of them (Franky included) crossed their legs. Ace turned to Robin.
"What happened? They look traumatized..." Ace asked. Robin began laughing. Ace scooted further away from her. "What did you do?"
"You don't wanna know, bro" Franky said.
Ace decided to let the subject drop.
As people finished, they began to leave. Ace noticed Zoro trying to sneak away without Chopper noticing, and decided to do the guy a favor and distract the reindeer. Zoro gave him a thumbs up and slipped out. After everyone was finished, Ace stood up.
"Are you leaving now?" Luffy asked. "Are you sure you can't stay a little longer?"
"Yeah, I've gotta go. Blackbeard won't catch himself." Ace said. "As long as you have that paper I gave you, we'll be able to meet again. I'll see you later, Luffy"
"Bye, Ace!" called Luffy. The rest of the crew called similar things (even those who had already left the galley). A disembodied hand waved at him from the ship's railing. "Come visit again any time!" Luffy called.
On the Striker again, Ace smiled. The Thousand Sunny was little more than a speck in the distance, carrying his brother and his crew off to their dreams. Luffy had found himself a good, capable, and loyal crew. Ace was happy to leave his little brother in their hands.
X
Extra!:
Ace hopped down from the Thousand Sunny into the Striker, and was surprised to land on something much squishier than his raft. Or rather, someone, he realized, looking down at the annoyed face of none other than Roronoa Zoro.
"What are you doing here?" Ace asked.
"Well... I was looking for the bathroom..." Zoro said. "I didn't mean to end up here, it just sort of happened."
Ace stared at the swordsman and thought 'Robin's right! He really does have a bad sense of direction! But I didn't think it was this bad!"