"Father, I won't return to the Roulini family." Spikewards stepped forward and said.
"None of your brothers are capable enough to handle this position, I'm old and need to retire." The old man in the middle said.
"Spikelad can do it." Spikewards named his youngest brother.
"That kid? He's only 15 and the youngest." Spikewards father disagreed.
"He's fully capable and you know it, you just don't want any friction between your 43 children."
"Tsk, I saw that you joined a pirate crew, so what do you want with my family?" Spikepops spoke coldly as he gazed at Ace.
Ace stepped forward, this was a serious moment, where he had to resolve the tension between the father and son.
After all, Spikewards is his Nakama. Thinking about it, he came to a conclusion, he found the most appropriate response. Something that everyone probably wanted him to ask. Something that should be priotized before anything else.
"Do you have meat?" Ace asked.
"And pizza?" Bonney jumped forward.
"And maybe a good drink!' Urouge said.
"I want Salmon." Bepo voiced his thoughts.
"Do you have skin care, the sun might harm my perfect skin."
"We are the crew of your son, shouldn't you invest a few gold coins in us?" Nami questioned him.
"...."
"..."
Spikepops nodded to a servant.
"Eldest brother Spikepops, we need to finish our meeting. One of the elders said. The two beside Spikepop seemed stressed about some matter.
"Later."
"But it was issued by Shanks himself, he told us to wait for a... 'punk' called Ace." The other elder complained.
"And I told you it's impossible. Shanks was on the other side of the world just a three days ago, how could he leave that thing here two days ago? And we don't even know a punk named Ace..." But Spikepop stopped mid sentence as his eyes turned towards The Flame Emperor.
Ace waved at him.
"You don't happen to know the red-haired Empeorr do you?" Spikepop asked.
"He was close to my father I think." Ace admitted.
"I see... That solves my problems." Spiekpops turned to one of the elders.
"Bring it to him."
The elder seemed content with this result so both of them stood up and walked away.
Ace walked forward and sat down.
Spikepops took a sip of his tea and the servants came in with meat, pizza and drinks.
"Spiky, ya pops ain't half bad." *Nom nom* Bonney said with her mouth stuffed.
Only after eating their fill, did Ace express his reasons for the visit.
"I'm here for that pirate, Boss Yla." Ace admitted as he sat down to eat.
"We can't hand him over, we owe him a favour." Spikepops denied instantly.
"I don't want to harm him, I want him to join my crew." Ace explained.
"That seems... Fine... I'll call for him. But I don't know if he'll come." Spikepops admitted as he nodded towards another servant.
"Ahhh so you were the young Lord of a big family like this, you should've told us ya bastard." Bonney chewed down her pizza and complained as she slapped Spikewards back.
"..." Law and Jojo stood further away to guard them in case they got a surprise attack.
"Actually, the truth is, we recently lost a crew member at sea... So it actually feels a bit bad to..." Ace spoke honestly as a sad smile graced his face.
All the Demon Ace Pirates looked down. They didn't like the feeling of inviting someone so soon after Yennow had died.
"I see... Although a family differs from bandits and pirates, we all have special bonds between us... Nakama is no different from a family member it seems." Spikepops said, with some understanding in his eyes. He finally looked at his son with some aprovval.
"Yennow was like a brother to me." Spikewards admitted with pain in his voice.
"I see.. you have been gone for 5 years already... Son, you have my approval from now on." Spikepops said as he finally approved of his son. The truth was that he wanted his son to take over, but his son had told him that his dream is to be a pirate.
There was a huge fight between them and Spikewards then disappeared during the night.
Soon a few servants arrived with a a long box.
"It seems like 2 days ago, The red-haired Emperor left this gift for you." Spikepops said as he allowed the servants to hand the box to Ace.
Ace instantly realised that it was a sword box, because of its length.
"Huh, Shanks did? Is he trying to get in my good book? Tsk, I told him that I'd only spare him once." Ace said, his words filled with annoyance.
But the others that heard it, felt like punching Ace.
Nami, Apoo and Bepo stood up and dlooked at him as if he had offended them.
"Captain, I think I heard it wrongly, can you repeat that please?" Apoo said with a smile.
"Ermm, I told Shanks that I'd only spar whim once?" Ace said not understanding what they heard wrong.
"Haha, captain, I think something's wrong with my ears, could you please repeat that once again, Nami asked with a smile.
"Ya, I told that bastard that I'll only spare him once." Ace said with a thumbs up.
Bepo's head fell down in sadness.
"I guess we don't have much time left any more."
"Haha captain, I think there's something wrong with my ears, will you repeat hat please?" Nami repeated her words with dead eyes. She turned to find splice in her companion, Apoo, but he seemed to be gone... There was no trace of him left.
Even the other Demon Ace Pirates, were looking at Ace as if he had grown two heads.
"Gaga patted Spikewards shoulder. "You should return to your family and take over your father's position before it's too late, don't be like us, trapped in a path that lead to death. Led by him." She said with a sigh.
"ORA ORA ORA!!! IM PUMPED, WELL DONE CAPTAIN." Urouge shouted with a wide grin as he gave a thumbs up to Ace.
Ace didn't understand why they were acting up.
But Spikepops understood, How many people can nonchalantly utter those words?
Ace ignored them and turned his attention back to the box, he opened the box and found a shrouded sword.
He removed the shroud and found a common a cutlass. It's a type of Saber that's not as thin as regular saber.
The boxed cutlass was normal-sized, with a slightly curved blade, with a saw hamon pattern adorned on the sides of the blade. It possesses a yellow hilt with diamond shape pattern, a golden guard, as well as a thinner hand guard running atop the hilt and a black sheath
"It's pretty, what sword is that?" Bonney asked.
Suddenly all of the stood up and all the servants passed out as a heavy will overcame them. The cutlass swords seemed to rebell.
Its emission of willpower was similar to that of Conqueror's Haki, everyone felt stiffled as the servants and weak guards passed out.
Ace hurriedly picked up the sword and imbued it with his conqueror's haki, trying to control it. But the sword rebelled even harder as if it had its own personality.
"Tsk, bastard, what kind of sword are you?!" Ace got angry and infused the sword with all of his Haki until the sword started creaking.
Soon it seemed to give up as it stopped emitting all of its willpower. It seemed to accept Ace.
"Tsk, what kind of bad sword behaves like this! This is trash, let's throw it into the sea!" Ace angrily said.
The sword suddenly seemed to shake, a sifnsaying "papi, I regret my actions please forgive me!"
"Captain, that's Ace!" Jojo appeared beside Ace and commented with drool coming out of his mouth.
*Smack* "don't talk nonsense, I am Ace." Ace didn't feel like playing.
"No you misunderstand... That the sword belonging to your father, Ace." Jojo said with admiration in his voice.
Even Spikepops stood up with sweat on his forehead, he was lucky his family didn't try to use the sword as they might've lost their lives to the will of the sword.
"My pops? Hmm, no wonder this sword is so rebellious. My father infused his Haki into this thing all his life, so the sword started behaving in this manner."
Ace tried infusing Haki once again and this time, it seemed like the sword was very content.
Ace tried swinging the sword to try out it's weight, but suddenly an air slash came out of the swords blade and flew straight towards the Sakura tree, cutting it in half.
"Oops.. sorry about that." Ace said meekly.
"This sword... Is not bad." Law commented as he held the hilt of his own sword
Cavendish was staring at Ace with disapproval.
"Captain, you have to have a sword that's pretty, not rebbelious." Cavendish said as he showed off his own sword.
Suddenly another servant ran in..
"Boss, Pirate Yla is on his way." The servant said.
Spikepops sat down again and tried to collect himself.
Ace admired his new sword while he sat down, waiting for his new crewmate.
Soon, a shadow was cast over them.
Looking up, they saw a person being in the sky, with the sun behind him.
The Demon Ace Pirates put their hands in front of their eyes as the sun was blinding them.
"Sexy boss Yla, has arrived, you called for me?" The man in the air spoke with a charismatic tone.