KASL Book 1: Lost but Found (One Piece Fan fiction)

Chapter XI: I Will Not Die!

The Moby Dick

Marco

The first commander winced as Luffy missed the sixteenth commander and hit the oblivious crew member walking several feet away from the training area. The Pops had agreed after what happened with the birds that the kids needed to know how to protect themselves. Ace, Sabo, and Kit actually brought it up. They came to Pops' room last week and requested some training. So now the four brothers were practicing with pipes, hand-to-hand combat, and sharpshooting. Marco had stopped by an island and purchased some pipes for Luffy and Kit since they neglected to do so themselves. Vista and Thatch took turns sparring with them, improving their swings and form. Haruta, Namur, and Curiel had left to take their turns patrolling the territories on the other ships, and now they had Kingdew, their sole hand-to-hand styled commander to teach the boys how to protect themselves with their bare fists along with Marco. Izo volunteered to improve Luffy and Kit's aiming skill. They have made only moderate progress since they started training an hour ago.

"Luffy, you need to aim before attacking. Kit, stop laughing. You may have moderate skill, but you lack the finesse to reduce your shots so you don't outright blast them when you want to just unbalance them," instructed Izo. Well, at least Kit can hit what he targets most of the time and Luffy had dramatically improved really. He only hits other people than his target only twice out of five shots.

Marco took his eyes off the two boys and returned to his own training session. Ace and Sabo still nursed sore heads from their mistimed swings. He had the boys working together to try and land a blow on the unarmed phoenix. The boys had plenty of strength and the intelligence to outwit a normal opponent, they just had to work a bit more on how they executed their plan. Marco held back quite a lot since he was just testing their teamwork. He shook his head absentmindedly. They would have landed a blow – not one that would seriously hurt the phoenix but a blow – had Ace not made the wrong step to the left and accidently tagged his brother on the head while the other swung too low and nailed the elder's legs. The wounded up in a crumple heap. Thus began a hot-headed shouting match.

A lot of their anger stemmed not from the accident but from the grip of brotherly worry. When the two presented their case to Pops, they both gave their reason that they needed to get stronger so that they could be the big brothers that could always protect their little brother. They didn't want to disappoint Kit and be burdens to the eldest. Kit was just as determined. He looked at Pops in the eye and simply stated that "I know that I can't protect everyone or prevent everything. But I want to be able to do as much as I possibly can do. I need to be my very best for the sake of my nakama, my family." The phoenix understood their motives very well. He was, after all, the big brother to all the crew members in essence. He had to be strong for all of them and for Pops most of all.

"Break it up you two. Why don't we break for lunch? Looks like Kit and Luffy might be first in line if we linger too much longer." That got the brats' attention.

"Shishishi! MEAT! FOOD!"

"Luffy! Wait up!"

The four boys ran off toward the galley, pushing and shoving at one another in their race for lunch. A hand clapped on the first commander's shoulder.

"Perk up, Marco. The expression on your face reminds me of when Luffy gets lost on some island."

"Those boys, Ace and Kit, especially, want to shoulder all the burden of brotherhood - yoi. They want to protect their loved ones, not depend on their loved ones to protect them. They're only children, yet they want to fight - yoi."

"Until they can do this on their own, they have us. Someday we will not be there, so they have the right idea. But, they have hundreds of brothers willing to raise them to be the very best right now. One day, we will have to hold nothing back or else they can never make it on their own." Marco actually looked at his friend in surprise. Sometimes the phoenix forgot how wise Thatch can be when the man so often acted so childish.