The Wild Rover. (A One Piece Ace x OC x Shanks Love Story)

Chapter 8: For That Precious Someone.

Shanks watches in amusement as Yasopp tries to teach Devlin how to use a slingshot. The keyword being 'tries'...the poor girl keeps hurting herself with the wooden weapon. On her first attempt she releases the wrong end and the body of the slingshot smacks her in the face. On her second try, she drops the rock that she's using as ammo on her toes causing her to drop the slingshot and hop around holding her hurt foot in pain. Her third try is much better; she manages to fire off a small rock but, unfortunately, the rock ricochets off of a wall before coming back to hit her right between the eyes. "Dahahahaha!" Shanks burst out laughing along with the rest of the Red-Haired Pirates.

Dev chuckles and sits up. She rubs her forehead where the rock hit her, "Ow...I've decided that I don't like ranged weapons. I think I'll learn to use a sword instead."

Shanks grins at her, "That seems like a very good idea, lass."

Dev gets to her feet and then starts to jump up and down in excitement as an idea pops into her head. "Shanks? Will you teach me how to use a sword?"

The red-haired captain thinks for a moment before saying, "I don't see any harm in at least teachin' ye the basics."

"Yippee!" The little blonde shouts, jumping high in the air.

"But not taday, lass."

Dev's face falls in disappointment, "Aww." She slumps down into a chair beside Yasopp.

All of a sudden, one of the swinging doors to the bar is kicked in and a group of men walks inside. "Make way for the scourge of the mountains!" The leader of the group announces loudly while walking inside the bar. The man is slender with long black hair that is pulled up into a top knot, a black goatee, and a scar in the shape of an x on the right side of his forehead. "Heh heh...So you call yourselves pirates, eh? First time I've seen pirates...you look like a sorry lot to me." The man says while walking past Devlin and Yasopp, the little girl's irises flashing yellow at the insult aimed at the pirate crew. The man walks up to the bar, standing beside where Shanks is sitting and places his right hand down on top of the bar. "We're mountain bandits. Oh, don't wet yourselves. We're not here to bust up the place. Just sell us 10 barrels of grog, and we'll injure only the bare minimum."

"I'm sorry...we just ran out of liquor," Makino tells the leader of the mountain bandits, Higuma, sweating slightly.

"Hmm," Higuma hums and looks over his shoulder. "That's strange. What're all these pirates drinking?" He looks back at Makino, "Fruit juice?"

"It's true...I just served the last of it."

"I feel kinda guilty...I guess we drank up all o' the liquor," Shanks says to Higuma. "Sorry 'bout that." He picks up his bottle of rum and then holds it out towards Higuma. "Why don't ye have this? It's still unopened."

Higuma glares down at Shanks before hitting the offered bottle with the back of his clenched fist, shattering the bottle and drenching Shanks in rum. Makino gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. The mountain bandits are all grinning while Luffy's mouth is open in disbelief, a strange fruit in his left hand with a couple of bites already taken from it. An inhuman growl comes from little Dev's throat and she lunges forward only to be stopped by Yasopp grabbing her by the shoulders. "It's okay, Dev. The cap'n' has everything under control." He looks down at the little girl and is shocked when he sees her eyes. The sclera of her eyes are no longer white, but pitch black. Her normally bright and beautiful ocean blue eyes are now yellow and seem to glow. These aren't the eyes of an innocent little girl, but of a ruthless demon.

"What do you take me for? You can't make a fool of me!" Higuma shouts. "What good is one bottle of rum?"

Shanks looks down at the shards of broken glass at his feet. "Oh my...what a mess."