Chapter Text
Ace had always been an odd baby. Too smart, too silent, too mature. That didn’t mean she was easy to look after though, she did what she wanted when she wanted, however, she wanted, and neither heaven nor hell could stop her.
You see, Ace remembered her past life. Well, remembering was a bit of a stretch. It’s like she read a gigantic novel about her past life. The facts were there, she had the knowledge, but she didn’t remember experiencing any of it. A small boon, she supposed. It kept her from overly missing the life she left behind.
The life she had led, and the life she was currently leading were vastly different. For one, current technology was completely at odds from what she was used to (a fact she aimed to rectify at some point in time). For another, world history was completely different from her own. Which resulted in her being able to identify what world she was dropped in rather quickly. She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or thankful for the memories, as, while she was not a full time, in-depth fan of one Piece itself, there were a few characters that she was invested in, in her past life. Namely, Ace, Sabo, Luffy, Shanks, the Roger and the Whitebeards, and those closely associated with them. Call her a bad fan, but she wasn’t all that interested in the strawhat pirates. Probably because she, herself, was an older sibling in her past life and therefore identified more with Ace and Sabo than she did with Luffy.
Which brings her to the next thing. In her past life, she was very interested in psychology and seeing and understanding the human mind and mindset. Unfortunately, she had died before graduation, but she had completed most of her classes by that time, so she wasn’t completely hung out to dry.
Now then, most people, when given the chance to live as one of the characters from a favorite show, almost always went out of the way to either A. preserve the timeline, or B. fix the timeline and prevent any and all bad things from happening to their favorite character. Ace, however, quite frankly didn’t much care for the timeline. This was her new life now, and like hell she’d let herself be blindsided because she was so focused on a supposed timeline that, for all she might know, didn’t exist here.
Ace was selfish like that. Don’t get her wrong, she did care, especially about innocent people getting hurt or killed for no reason, except, well…
She was born Portgas D. Ace, Child Of Gol D Roger, the Pirate King, and Portgas D Rouge. A child condemned to death before she even got a chance to live, all because of the blood in her veins. Someone, who, outside of very few people, wouldn’t be able to be open about her heritage, lest she instigate another witch hunt in order to eradicate her from this world. So, no, she didn’t much care for a world that wants her dead.
Had she not remembered her previous life, she might have been peer pressured into believing that garbage that she didn’t deserve to live, as young children are often influenced by those around them. Unfortunately for them, she did, and she had already run out of fucks to give in her last life. Now she only cared about the people who cared about her, or at least, didn’t condemn her for her father, and to hell with the rest of them.
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Ace, Age 5
Due to her memories, Ace was a gifted child, speeding up her maturing process, which made no sense as even with her memories, she was still only supposed to have the brain of a toddler, which would prevent her from thinking like an adult, but - sigh- Anime logic, she supposed. Like OP Ace (the name or the original One Piece Ace) she learned to hunt for her own food and take care of herself fairly quickly. Dadan cared, in her own way, but neither she nor the bandits were meant to, or wanted to, care for a baby. Not that she blamed them, all things considered, she’s just happy that none of them were inclined to lash out at her for it. She spent most of her time in the woods, either hunting, or performing experiments (ethical, ethical experiments!) and gathering information about the things around her.
Of course, Garp came to visit a few times a year, and Ace liked him well enough. Like Dadan, he was not one of those people meant to raise children, but he tried his best. That might sound naive, but as previously stated, Ace only had so many allies in the world if her heritage came out, she was not going to alienate any of them.
The first 2, or so, years, he was rather calm and collected, rather unlike how he was portrayed in the anime. It was only later that Ace realized that it was because she was a baby at the time, who wouldn’t be able to withstand his form of “tough love” that kept him from acting like that. But as she got older, Garp became insistent on training her, something that she rather agreed with, even though she didn’t want to be a marine exactly like he was. To be fair, she didn’t really want to be a pirate either. She wanted to join the navy as a sort of psychologist/doctor and work her way up the ranks that way, in order to cut any rumors or hints she was Gol D. Rogers' child right at the nub, and to curb some of the marine’s bad decisions.
Ace didn’t put much thought into the belief that marines were bad trope from one Piece, because, well, history is written by the victor, and One Piece followed Luffy’s story, so of course it’s going to paint them in a negative light. So Ace was reluctantly willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Oh, don’t get her wrong, she is well aware that the marines weren’t all good, baterilla and the buster calls being prime examples, but not all pirates are good either, and the Marines were some of the few people willing and capable of stopping them.
She still wanted to be strong though, strong enough that, should it come down to it, she was able to fight herself out of situations that called for it. She just didn’t outright go looking for a fight around every corner.
She still planned to meet Luffy though, and have a sibling bond with both him and sabo, partly because it would greatly benefit her and mostly because she missed having a sibling. She was rather lonely, only ever being on the mountain, in the jungle, which is why she was determined to go down to Fuusha Village after she turned six and seek him out.
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Ace, age 6
As Ace stood at the foot of the village, she couldn’t help but look around curiously. She hadn’t been anywhere outside of the mountain and jungle since she had been reincarnated, so it was interesting to compare it to towns from her previous life. The town and windmills were quite the nostalgic sight, in all honesty, it reminded her quite a bit of her past life (yes, she was dutch, yes, she lived in one of the smaller towns near farmland. Sue her).
Despite the old fashioned look, it was neat and tidy. Ace looked down at herself, with her faded clothes, dirt-stained skin, and messy hair from going through the jungle. There weren’t any concrete paths up the mountain, just trails resulting from people wearing down the grass as they made their way up. Despite sticking out like a sore thumb, Ace continued into the village, her stride confident, and her head held proud, refusing to show any weakness for anyone to exploit. The farther she made it into the village, the more she started to relax. She subconsciously hoped that her people skills hadn’t deteriorated as a result of not interacting with people, bar the bandits and Garp from time to time.
She had been walking for 10, maybe 15, minutes by the time Ace encountered Luffy. Or more specifically, encountered Luffy trying to make friends with children, only to scorn him. Ace pursed her lips as she scanned the area. There were no adults around. Foosha village was small, and isolated enough that there wasn’t much risk in letting the kids run around unsupervised. Still, Ace was annoyed because, while kids did need the freedom to play and explore, they also needed to be supervised for a number of reasons outside of safety. One of which being in order to stop things like this, bullying, because kids don’t think the same way adults do. A child's behavior is largely a result of their upbringing, and in a village like this, where most everyone acts and behaves the same, an oddball like Luffy would be hard to comprehend in their world view as it doesn’t line up with what they already know, resulting in them most likely lashing out at an unknown factor like this, and the kids wouldn’t see that that was bad! Excuse the rant, but you get her point.
She stepped forward to do something.
“Oi, you little brats! stop picking on someone half your damn age!”
Looks like Ace’s social skills were shot to hell, with her spending her formative years around bandits that didn’t refrain from cursing. Fantastic. The group of children turned towards her.
“So what, the weirdo deserves it!” a child, with brown hair and blue eyes, went to continue, but froze on the spot. If you were to look at her, Ace would have a terrifying expression on her face as she glared at the group. They recoiled and hightailed it out of there, leaving luffy behind. Ace internally winced at how corroded her social skills had become, if she immediately jumped to intimidation instead of using her words to figuratively fillei them alive. But then again, kids like them wouldn’t be able to understand what she was saying, so wasting that energy would have been worthless. So caught up in her own thoughts was she, that she completely missed luffy moving until she was bombarded by him.
“That was so cool!” he beamed in her face, “how did you do that?! Can you teach me?!”
Then he paused for a second.
“Hi, my name is Luffy! What’s yours? Can we be friends?” he exclaimed. She raised an eyebrow.
“Ace” she stated flatly.
“Nice to meet you, Ace!” He then took her arm and dragged her in one direction. Ace was mildly surprised, while she could easily shake him off, he was still strong for a 3-year-old toddler. She lets him drag her towards a bar, she assumes it’s Makino’s as that is the only thing she remembers from the anime. She didn’t have much time to ponder as Luffy burst through the door.
“Makino! Makino! I finally made a friend today! Her name is Ace, and she is awesome!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. The bar was mostly empty, aside from the couple sitting in the corner. Makino was in the middle of wiping down the bar itself when Luffy barged in. she couldn’t help but smile.
“That’s great news Luffy!” She cheered, coming around the counter. Luffy grinned in reply.
“Hi, My name is Makino, Luffy’s Guardian.”
“Ace,” she repeated, wary of the bright woman, “you don’t look old enough to be his mom.”
“I’m not, I'm only 18, I just look after him for Garp-san.” Ace blinked, acting like she had no idea, before frowning.
“Do you mean Monkey D Garp?” She asked, cocking her head. Makino’s eyebrows shot up.
“Yes, why?”
“He’s my grandfather, well adopted anyway, he left me to be raised by the bandits up the mountain.”
“You know, gramps?” Luffy exclaimed, not liking to be left out.
“Tall, large, bat-shit insane marine, obsessed with his fist of love? Yeah, I know him.” Ace deadpanned. Luffy laughed.
After 15 minutes, both kids were situated at the bar with food and drink, Luffy wolfing down any and everything edible, while Ace ate at a more sedate pace, but still eating lots.
“So what do you do during the day?” Luffy asked her, however he was still stuffing food into his mouth, so it came out as ‘do wha do u thu du’i the thay?’
“I spent time researching and hunting in the jungle.” Luffy got sparkles in his eyes.
“That's so cool! I’m gonna join you, and we’ll have the bestest adventures!” he exclaimed.
“No, you won't.”
“Yes, I will!”
“The jungle is dangerous, you will get hurt, or killed. You’re just a kid!”
“So are you!” Ace couldn’t help but pout at that.
“It’s different!”
“No, it’s not!”
“I’ve been trained, dummy!” Ace flicked his forehead. Well, self trained, it still counts for something.
“Then teach me!” Luffy gave Ace his best puppy dog eyes. She could feel herself melt.
“Fine.” she pinched the bridge of her nose. Luffy cheered.
“But only every other day.” Luffy immediately stopped.
“But Aceeeeee,” he whined. Ace begged Makino with her eyes. Thankfully, the older woman intervened.
“Come on, Luffy. I’m sure Ace has other things she needs to do. Every other day is good enough.”
“Fine,” he pouted. He looked so down, that ace couldn’t help but try and cheer him up.
“I’ll try to make it down the mountain and spend some hours on my off days with you,” Luffy perked up, “but there will be days where I won't be able to see you, alright?”
Ace looked at him sternly. Luffy nodded very seriously, before grinning once again.
“This is gonna be great!”
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Ace, Age 7
The last year or so had certainly been out of the norm. Ace taught Luffy what she knew about hunting, as well as force-fed him any other knowledge she possessed about the jungle into his brain, whether he liked it or not. He would often whine about it, but the more you know, the less likely you are to be caught with your pants down, Ace knew. On the off days, they would spend time doing more mundane things, such as fishing, as well as getting a makeshift education. Ace’s was extremely lacking, despite being reborn, especially in history. Thankfully, as she was still a child, she could ask to her heart's content without adults looking at her as if she was already supposed to know this stuff. She also raided the town library whenever she had time, and had recently been raiding the libraries of the other towns on the island as well. Ace was gradually enlarging her territory.
Which brought her here today. Today was one of her days off, and she wouldn't need to go to Fuusha village for a few hours yet, so she was prowling about Grey terminal. She remembered it from the anime, but she doesn’t think that it was able to portray the sheer filth that was the garbage heap. She kept an eye out for any hostile people that would decide to try their luck with her while scanning the garbage heap for anything useful, either to sell or use. While she had gotten used to the lacking aspects of the technology, she wanted her tablet back, damnit!
It took a while, but eventually she stumbled upon something still salvageable, it was a watch, one still in good condition, as far as she was concerned. Which naturally meant that someone else had spotted it, too.
Despite not having eyes in the back of her head, Ace ducked out of the way of the oncoming kick with ease and slammed her foot into the stomach of the idiot stupid enough to attack her. She scanned over her ‘opponent’ in the loosest sense of the word as he struggled to get up, having all the wind knocked out of him. While dirty, the clothes he was wearing were rather intricate and expensive, and would have fetched a pretty penny if they weren’t so worn out. He also wore a top hat for some bizarre reason. She offhandedly noted that this was probably sabo, whom OP Ace had also met in the Gray Terminal.
“Hey!” he exclaimed.
“What.” Ace deadpanned.
“Give me that!” sabo demanded, holding his pipe in a threatening motion.
“No.” Ace turned to leave, only to once again duck out of the way. A tick mark appeared on her brow.
“Back off if you know what’s good for you.” she glared. Sabo just turned toward her again and prepared to attack.
“Fine!” Ace put the watch into her pocket as she shifted her stance.
A short while later.
It was a one sided beatdown, with Sabo, the obvious loser, panting on the ground, exhausted. Unsurprising really. One of them spent their days in the jungle, fighting giant fuck-off animals and wrangling Luffy while the other’s most dangerous opponents were the sick and dying people of Gray terminal. Not much of a competition.
Ace looked down at Sabo, her shadow covering his form.
“Stay down if you know what’s good for you.” She told him, before turning around and disappearing into the forest. This wasn’t the end of it, of course. Oh no.
Everytime Ace came to the Terminal, without fail, Sabo would always try to attack her, and fail spectacularly. After the nth time he failed, Ace had had enough.
“Why do you keep attacking me, got a death wish?” She asked the blond. He took a moment to catch his breath.
“No, but you’re the only person I haven't been able to beat!” he exclaimed. Ace raised her eyebrow, understanding his point full well.
“So?” doesn’t stop her from being a lil shit, though.
“So i have to beat you, and i’ll continue fighting you until i do!” he exclaimed, attempting to sit up. With a light shove of her foot, he went back down.
“Why are you so strong!?!”
“I grew up on the mountain and in the jungle.” she deadpanned.
“So tell me,” she continued, “why is a noble’s kid such as yourself spending time in the Gray Terminal?”
He tensed.
“I'm not a noble!” Ace gave him an unimpressed look.
“Brat, anyone with eyes can see you’re a noble just by the way you dress.” He glared up at her but kept silent. She shrugged and began to walk away. Not her problem.
“Wait!” She stopped and looked over her shoulder.
“Teach me!” she felt a serious case of deja vu, and she didn’t like it. Wasn’t this how she ended up teaching Luffy?
“Why should i?”
“I’ll follow you anyway.”
“OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!!”
Needless to say, she agreed, if only so that she would eventually have an in with the revolutionary army later on. The meeting between Luffy and Sabo went….ok-ish. It could have gone worse. She ended up dragging him to Makino’s bar right after and plopped him onto the barstool alongside Luffy.
“Same deal, I teach you every other day, and on the off days, I'll visit for a few hours. Take it or leave it. Both boys made to protest at first, Sabo wanting to spend more time learning how to survive the jungle, and Luffy not really wanting to share Ace.
Ace glared.
And they wilted like a wet paper towel.
ok, so maybe, despite claiming that she wants to be siblings with Luffy and Sabo, she probably could have been a little more enthusiastic. Ace blamed it on crap social skills due to bandits. regardless, despite the rough start, the three became close quickly. Looks like ASL exists in this universe.