How do you think the ASL brothers would change if it was Ace that was separated and Sabo stayed with Luffy on Dawn Island?
Hey there! I’m so sorry for taking my time with this ask! It’s a really great question and I wanted to take my time thinking about and typing out my answer...and well. It got LONG ^ ^;;;;;
Bc oh man do I think things would change a LOT, but in order to answer this question, let’s first sorta picture the scenario itself. How did Ace end up the one separated?
This could go a number of ways, but here’s one that comes to mind.
~~
The boys are running back from causing mischief in High Town, when Ace overhears some gossip.
Did you hear, the marines are coming! Apparently they found a terrible, terrible criminal, hiding right here in Goa, and they’re coming to get rid of him before the Celestial Dragons arrive!
A terrible criminal?
Oh dear, what terrible crime did they commit?
Well, nothing, apparently, or at least nothing yet.
What do you mean?
They say he’s the son of the most wanted, most terrible man in history. But don’t worry, the marines’ll take care of him before--
Ace feels like the world’s suddenly gone black and white. He feels numb, barely hearing Sabo shouting at him to hurry, barely registers Luffy tugging his hand and looking up at him with worry.
They’ve come for him. He should have known. Gramps may have tried to hide him, but there’s no escaping Gol D. Roger’s infamy.
Ace knows once he would have sneered, said See, Gramps? I knew this would happen. But now, he feels fear.
Ace doesn’t fear death, and will look it in the eye and punch it when it comes for him. But fear grips him now, as he stares blankly into the campfire Sabo’s set up, finally registering that Luffy’s calling his name and still tugging at his arm.
He doesn’t fear death for himself. But when they come for him, to end his life because of his blood, will they spare Sabo and Luffy? Will they spare the brothers of the Pirate King’s son?
Somehow, Ace doubts it.
And so he knows he’s got to go. He’s got to leave now, before they find him, before they find Sabo and Luffy, before they can steal away his family.
An adult Ace, looking back regretfully, would lament the timing of his brash actions. But Ace had never been a thinker, more of a doer, and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing his brothers--even now, he can’t.
And he couldn’t have known back then that the island had had two boys considered the sons of the worst criminals in history.
So he doesn’t blame his younger self for writing a sloppy letter, tucking it under Sabo’s head, and then fleeing into the night to steal a boat that he’d use to leave the island on come daybreak. Running away, leaving his brothers behind, making Sabo vow to continue looking after Luffy like he always had, until one day, the three of them could be reunited once more.
Young Ace doesn’t even know what a Celestial Dragon is. All he knows is that an enormous ship, the likes of which he’d never seen before, is approaching--
And then everything is FIRE, and then, blank.
Dragon and the Revolutionaries had been in the area, but not just to rescue people from the Gray Terminal fire. They had intel, and Dragon had reason to believe that the marines may have found Luffy, and his connection to Dragon. The commander of the Revolutionary Army kept his distance from his son, but he wasn’t going to let the child get slaughtered for his relation to a father he’d never even met.
He’d briefly run into Ace while he was stealing a boat. He hadn’t stopped the child, but had been curious about his raw desperation, his bitterness towards his blood, and his determination to protect his found family.
Dragon is surprised to find the boy in the wreckage of an utterly destroyed sailboat.
The boy is terribly burned, and has no memory of anything, not even his own name--but he is immediately terrified at the suggestion that they return him to the island, shouting that he doesn’t know why, but he can’t go back there, they’ll find Them and kill Them if I go back there, and it’ll all be my fault--!
He decides to let the boy stay. His name is Ace, they think, the name found among his belongings. With the Celestial Dragons come and gone, marine presence on the island also fades, and Dragon concludes that Luffy is safe for the time being. He sends a coded message to Garp to be careful, and then disappears back to Baltigo with his new charge.
After regaining his memories, adult Ace grudgingly admits that while he still wishes it’d never happened, there were some perks to memory loss.
For one, he’d completely forgotten that he was the son of the late Pirate King. He still had a weird fixation towards fathers, but after getting attached to Dragon, and Dragon accepting his protege’s need for a father figure, the desperation fades.
While not the best at studies, Ace is physical strong, and takes to Revolutionary Army training like he was born for it. He masters both Armament and Observation Haki by fourteen, and with his private training sessions with Dragon, is becoming terrifyingly proficient with Conqueror’s Haki as well.
Ace is still learning, but the power he exudes when unleashing Conqueror’s Haki makes Dragon curious (and some of their peers, nervous). He’s only ever heard of one person exhibiting the kind of power Ace seems to have the potential for.
There are also other perks to being a member of the Revolutionary Army. Dragon isn’t the most wanted criminal in history for no reason. The location of the Army headquarters in Baltigo is a tightly kept secret, one that the World Government has desperately been searching for ever since it was built, but to no avail.
Even as the Marines track the rumors of Gol D. Roger’s child, as long as Ace remains in Baltigo, it’s like he vanished into thin air. And should they have discovered Headquarters, the Pirate King’s son would have been the least of their concerns.
And so Ace grows strong, no longer shackled by self-hatred of his blood, but also haunted by nameless whispers that keep him up at night, a sense of foreboding and aching longing that he’s forgetting something vital about himself, something that he both needs to remember, and doesn’t dare to touch.
~~
On Dawn Island, on that fateful day, Sabo wakes up to find a letter written in a child’s familiar sloppy hand. He tries not to panic, knowing that Ace’s long gone, and tries to think rationally on how he should move next. Even with Ace’s clumsy words, Sabo understands what his brother had been trying to say.
They’d discovered Ace’s parentage. Ace felt that he would endanger Sabo and Luffy by staying with them. So Ace left the island early, by himself, entrusting Sabo with their younger brother.
Sabo doesn’t know how he can possibly tell Luffy that Ace left to protect them, and to convince him that they need to stay.
And then Sabo suddenly doesn’t need to, because suddenly there’s shouting below the tree house, and Luffy’s blearily sitting up.
Ace is dead.
~~
Sabo tries to maintain a level headed facade in front of Luffy (even if he cries, screams his lungs out for Ace in private). He needs to support their little brother, now more than ever. Ace is gone. Ace entrusted Sabo with Luffy.
Sabo will not lose Luffy.
~~
~~
What next?
There’s the chance that Sabo would act as Ace did, continuing training and then leaving the island at seventeen as promised.
But what if he didn’t? Seventeen is a number that Sabo chose, because noble-born children become fully fledged nobles at eighteen. But now there are other, more important things at stake now.
Given what happened to Ace, and the possibility of the marines returning, Garp tells Sabo about Luffy’s heritage (he hadn’t told Luffy yet, at Ace’s request, Ace not wanting Luffy to hate himself as Ace did. Garp doubted Luffy would react that way to Dragon, but he lets Ace have this, this attempt at protecting his little brother).
Knowing that Luffy’s the son of a man rapidly growing to be as infamous as the Pirate King kicks Sabo’s overprotective instincts into overdrive.
Sabo will not lose Luffy.
From here out, there’s three possible routes. The first two routes assume that Sabo’s parents never end up coming for him (they forgot about their son for five years, who says they wouldn’t for more).
1) Pirates Route:
Sabo swallows his pride, and agrees to join Luffy’s crew, much to the younger’s delight. The thought of being captain of his own crew now seems pale in comparison to keeping Luffy safe and also keeping his last promise to his lost brother. And so Sabo vows to stay at Luffy’s side as his guardian. They leave the island to become pirates together.
2) Marines Route:
Sabo demands that Garp take him and Luffy to be trained as marines. Sabo feels nothing for disdain for both the marines and World Government, and has every intention of taking Luffy and ditching as soon as they’re safe. But right now they can provide several things that he wants and needs:
1) He feels it’s too dangerous to remain on Dawn Island with potential government eyes on them, and Garp is a relatively secure way of ensuring they can leave. They know too little about the outside world now, and carelessly leaving on a boat and getting blasted like Ace is the last thing they need.
2) He wants training for both himself and Luffy, not just combat, but on how to survive at sea. The marines, at least, should be able to provide plenty of that experience.
3) Sabo doesn’t want to be caught unawares ever again. Ace fled because he’d overheard a rumor. If Sabo had known, perhaps the outcome would have been different. Sabo’s always been the thinker, the planner among the brothers, and he wants information, especially if there’s a chance that the government will make a move on Luffy. Sabo’s goal is to work his way up the ranks until he not only has access, but is in charge of investigations hunting the Revolutionary Army, and more importantly to him, the existence and location of the Commander’s rumored child. As Chief of marine intel, Sabo will be able to control what information goes to the higher ups, and which information needs to be quietly eliminated.
(and if his investigations into the Revolutionary Army leads him to become curious about the powerful fire logia user who is their Chief of Staff...)
3) Royalty Route:
Sabo’s parents find him, shortly after Ace’s “death,” and demand he returns to High Town and his noble heritage. With Ace gone, abandoning Luffy to a life by himself isn’t an option, but neither is letting his little brother be killed. So Sabo decides that he’s got to do what he must. Protect Luffy at all costs.
He strikes a deal with his parents. He’ll return to them, and he’ll be their perfect little noble son, but ONLY with the condition that Luffy comes with them. His parents are unhappy with the deal, but grudgingly agree, warning that if Sabo doesn’t truly impress them, they have no problem with, ah, eliminating both Sabo and his tag along because they have Stelly as a perfectly viable replacement.
Sabo can excel when he puts his mind to it, and although inside he froths with rage and hatred, he will do anything to keep Luffy safe.
Luffy is his one and only saving grace who keeps him sane. Luffy, who is now trapped in this birdcage alongside Sabo, and it’s all Sabo’s fault. He’s called Sabo’s “servant,” despite being incapable of doing chores, and is ignored by the entire household other than Sabo.
And while Luffy’s clearly uncomfortable, he doesn’t complain. He senses Sabo’s pain, and his suffering, and takes it upon himself to soothe his older brother, to keep him company, to love him. Luffy will never leave here, if it means leaving Sabo. Because nothing is more terrible than being alone and Luffy knows that best.
So Sabo keeps moving forward, vowing to Ace every night that he’s going to protect Luffy, no matter what. If this is the hand that he’s been dealt, Sabo will just have to make do. Sabo wonders how far up the hierarchy he’ll have to climb in order to guarantee Luffy’s safety.
(or, Sabo eventually becomes King of Goa, and Luffy is his “servant.”)
~~
~~
Are just some possibilities I came up with! To anyone who made it to the bottom of this post, thanks for reading!
Do any of the three scenarios I came up with sound interesting? Which is your favorite/do you think is most likely? Should I write a follow up??
(Whiteheart AU)- "I hear that we will be approaching a winter island pretty soon. It will almost be like home."
Ikkaku’s smile was bittersweet at the thought of “home”. The Polar Tang was more her home than any island had ever been. “Yeah. Hope it’s prettier than mine was, at least. Joras was mostly grey skies, pine trees, rocky coasts and smokestacks. It looked better when it snowed, I guess, but in town it always got dirty and turned to slush.”
Leaning against the Moby Dick’s railing beside Haruta, she stared down at the waves lapping at the massive ship’s size. She and the Hearts were still adjusting to their new “family”, though the mechanic was adapting more easily than most. She felt guilty about that sometimes, but the Whitebeard Pirates had been treating her kindly and been nothing but welcoming and it was hard to keep her walls up around them. “Gramps’ lighthouse was always gorgeous in the winter, though,” she admitted with far more warmth. “Sometimes it would get completely caked with ice because of the waves and when the sun finally peeked out it would sparkle like some kind of massive crystal. Of course, Gramps hated having to rappel down the side and chip the ice away!” she laughed, recalling his grumbling and swearing.
Turning to her companion, she cocked her head curiously. “What about you? Was home a winter wonderland, or some grey-skied rock like mine?”
✉ @sunsetsearcher said:
❝ Please tell me you aren’t dead…❞
A groan rushed past Nami's lips at the sound of someone's voice so close to her. She wanted to open her eyes to see exactly who it was, as they didn't sound familiar in the slightest, and right now really wasn't the time to be caught by an enemy. Especially when she was positive she had a cracked rib or something; the pain in her side impossible to ignore. However, her eyelids felt heavy, and no matter how much she tried, they wouldn't open. Her energy was zapped too, apparently.
Letting out an irritated sigh, she tried to shift, but only resulted in a full body shudder and her cheek pressing harder into the unforgiving cobblestone she was laying on. She wasn't even sure where she was at this point. Last thing she could remember was being ambushed by Marines and then just running.
❝I'm... I'm not dead,❞ Nami forced through gritted teeth, voice hoarse and throat feeling like she'd swallowed glass. That definitely didn't wasn't a nice sensation, so she refrained from speaking any further.
If this was an enemy, she'd be dead in the next few minutes anyway.
The creeking of the wood under his feet and the shift of the ship on water was welcomed. It was home for Newgate more so than Sphinx Island, though that place would always be important to him. The Moby was were his family was, well a portion of them at least. His family had grown so big now that he had a number of division that all spread out. Every once and a while one of them would find their way home, like today.
A soft smile greeted Haruta from the aged Yonko's face. "Welcome home." He greeted as he was prone to do when one of his commanders boarded the Moby Dick. No doubt Haruta was here to see Law, the newest addition to their family. More than a few had lately, such was curiosity.
"This is very kind of you do. Thank you for taking the time to trim it." This was something that she had been grateful for not that there wasn't trust in the others of the ship. Haruta seemed like the best person to ask to do this for her so when he had asked her to sit that is what Rouge did, setting herself down onto the stool chocolate hues peering around the room.
"Long hair is nice to have. But can get in the way sometimes."
How did Lu figure out she was pregnant in the Sea Witch/Orca Au? Was she nervous?
Well, this was kinda spoilers for the end of my fic, but I don’t see that getting written anytime soon anymore, so I might as well:
orca are very sexual animals by nature, so part of the comfort she offers Ace after his return is a lot of mating
so anyway, at the end of it all, Teach’s magic ends up going wild & out of control, opening up a black hole. Ace rams Teach into it, to close it- but ends up getting sucked in along with him before it closes
Luffy finds out afterward, during the time they’re grieving Ace
It’s not exactly a happy ending, but Sabo assures her- “He’ll always be with us.” In a sense, he left a part of himself with her.
Law's whole story is about revenging and/or avenging Cora. But what does Law think about forgiveness? Not toward Doflamingo but himself and others?
Haha yeah there will never be any forgiveness for Doffy. Though he’d like to be able to move on, at least from him and the old feelings of hurt that reside with that man.
As far as himself? He doesn’t believe he deserves it. He’s done pretty cut throat things. He’s put friends and family in danger for the sake of revenge. He’s angry that no matter what plans or care he has taken to keep them safe, something happens to endanger them. There’s an inner struggle on if he’d do those things again given the chance, knowing what would happen after.
There’s also the fact he brought the wrong help to Cora so long ago. And although he knows he was just a kid, he’ll never be able to do anything besides blame himself for what Cora went through. And going through it for him.
Even now as a grown as adult. Sengoku has reminded him basically. That he went looking for all these reasons and explanations as to why Cora cared. Why he did what he did for a snotty brat. When he should have just accepted it. It’ll be difficult to forgive himself for doubting Cora.
Your art is amazing! Thank you so much for sharing it with us. I had a fluffy question. (no not your cats, though they are cute!) In there mermaid au, once Sabo gets his memories, does she now sleep between the two of them for extra warmth?
Thank you so much!!! And thank you so much for enjoying my work <3
(lmaooo yes my cats are fluffy ;D)
But oh absolutely, Luffy definitely sleeps between them once Sabo returns. It was her favorite spot when the three were together as kids, and Luffy takes it for granted that they’ll return to that sleeping position with Sabo back.
Sabo at first wasn’t really sure where he should stay while aboard the Merry, the men’s sleeping room seemed obvious, but Luffy absolutely refuses to let go of him, and Ace doesn’t object when Luffy drags him to join them in the Captains’ quarters where Ace and Luffy usually sleep. He pointedly ignores the heated jealous glares of everyone else on the crew, as Koala sighs and joins Nami.
It’s not so much for warmth though; sure, Luffy likes sleeping next to someone for warmth, but ever since Ace ate the Mera Mera fruit and has a literal fire burning inside him at all times, heat really isn’t a concern.
(but nothing makes her feel warmer inside than feeling both of her brothers close by, safe and well)
