AN at the bottom.

One Piece doesn't belong to me and neither does The Gamer.

How to play a game: Chapter 5

"What's ID Create?" Ace asked after a short pause.

"Remember what I described before?" Ben asked "It's a space Luffy will be able to create. It can reach certain levels and Luffy can choose between them. The first should be a completely empty one. At some point, he can choose create ones where 'monsters' are. If defeated they give you Exp and sometimes even loot. It's way easier to level up then and maybe you can even sell some of the loot. Speaking of loot, Luffy?"

"Yes?" The youngest questioned.

"Your Fruit has an innate Ability called 'Inventory', you can store literally anything there."

"EVEN HUMANS!?" Shanks screamed horrified as Ben sweatdropped.

"Maybe not anything..." Ben resumed "How did you even come up with that? Are you afraid Luffy will grab you and throw you in?"

"No!" Shanks yelled before faltering under Ben's gaze "...Okay, maybe for a split second."

"You're still drunk Captain."

"Maybe."

Luffy frowned. The Inventory sounded like a handy thing "But how do I even open it?"

Ben turned his attention back him "Just try saying Inventory later. I believe you wanted something else?"

"Ah, yes!" Luffy remembered "We wanted advice for fighting!"

"Okay, that should be simple. Do you have something to take notes on?" Ben questioned.

"Already taken care of." Confirmed Sabo.

"Good, then listen."

It wasn't until five days of walking to Foosha and back that the Newscoo with the books arrived. On the second day, they had a horrifying encounter with Garp as they were making their way down. Thanks to Sabo, they managed to convince him they were not going to Foosha. It was still a terrible day though.

The result was quite a bit of bruising as they were thrown through several trees. The bandits were low on bandages, too, so after a day of rest they had to go into the city. After paying a few stores a visit, they had managed to steal enough bandages and medical equipment to last a while and stashed it into Luffy's new inventory.

On the way out of the Central District however, a man called out to Sabo, making Ace and Luffy run closer to the blonde until they were back at Dadan's. They then planned for a new place to stay once the Newscoo came which brought them to their current situation.

Standing before them in the bar was none other than Garp. Seems his vacation wasn't over after all. It only just begun.

Sabo was the first to react but also the one brining forth their doom "Mister... Garp..." He started, uncomfortable under the old Marine's glare "We wanted to ask you to teach us... about..." God, that glare intensified "Rokushiki..."

"Yes, because you're really cool gramps!" Luffy piped up. Bless the little devil.

Wait, did he just lie or was he telling the truth? They hoped not.

Garp smirked at that "BWAHAHAHA! Seems my dear little grandsons have finally come to their senses!" It was him who needed to come to his senses "Of course I will teach you three, but expect hell!" That wasn't hell before? "I can only teach you the basics of three of them though! Which do you want to learn?"

He didn't even ask. Didn't even question how they knew about Rokushiki. For once they were glad the old geezer the smartest tool in the shed. But they didn't appreciate the near death every waking hour. They wondered if Shigan, Geppo and Tekkai were worth this. The basics? How hard was the real deal?!

Good thing they were in a Party with Luffy so that they could aquire it as skill. Anything would have resulted in their deaths once Garp returned.

And then, finally, after a month of pain and hurt, Garp had to return to Headquarters. As soon as his ship was out of sight, the three fell on the ground, only rising when Makino appeared with the previously hidden books.

She smiled at them gently before placing the books down and wrapping up their wounds from Garp's 'farewell training'. Thanking her and putting the books into his inventory, Luffy and his brothers made their way back up the mountain. Eating a few Sandwiches Makino made them, they were planning their new training.

It was later decided that Luffy would learn ID Create first and train it up so they could become stronger faster before worrying about anything else. That's when they remembered they still hadn't learned any skills beside three of the Rokushiki which was quickly solved.

Neither Ace nor Sabo wanted a lot of skills because they wanted to be strong enough on their own as well. Sabo learned Observation and Power Up, which allowed him to enhance his physical strength 1.5x times in exchange for 6 AP per minute. He viewed it as good that the percentage and duration increased with every fifth level. He just didn't like that the least amount of AP he would one day have to spend was 3, less would have been better.

Ace on the other hand just wanted to learn Running. He reasoned it with saying that he didn't care about who or what he was facing, he would find a way through himself. And speed was an important thing in a fight.

Luffy laughed at that, Ace was Ace and Sabo was Sabo. He loved his brothers.

"It's Level 3 and there are still no monsters in the list?" Ace asked a bit disappointed.

"Don't be like that." Sabo punched him in the side "Some things just take effort. It's not gonna come on a silver platter. Besides, Luffy said he want to have at least one Monster area before learning another skill."

"Didn't he say something about a defense one a while ago? One he already wanted while following me?" Ace asked, suddenly remembering that.

"Yeah, but I don't think that's gonna stop him now." Sabo responded.

The two were sitting on a stone with fishing poles out while Luffy was sleeping near a tree. They had just finished their daily Quests and were tired. Makino visited a few days ago and made them and the bandits a feast. For some reason, Garp came during that. And that's when it became offical that they really needed a new stay. To hide from both Garp and Sabo's father.

They had found a spot, too. A tree they spend a stormy night under. It was the biggest on Mt Corbo and the perfect place! They had made several trips to the Grey Terminal just for that and now they had enough material to build a treehouse.

Which is why they were fishing. As much as they wanted to get their treehouse, they needed full stomaches to do so. Luffy was just coerced into sleeping because they were afraid he would fall into the river.

They probably really thought Luffy was sleeping. Luffy however wasn't. When he woke up and saw them catching dinner he kept trying out ID Create. He had a feeling the next level would come soon and with it monsters.

There was a reason his brothers were always with him when he practiced that skill. Because who knew how powerful those foes were? But Luffy wasn't one to listen in the first place. By the seventh try a screen announced that ID Create rose a level. And when Luffy opened the option list for the Dungoens, he selected the first of the two possible monster choises.

Zombies, yum...

Luffy did not appreciate the view. He only snapped out of his disgust when the first started attacking him from the front. Using Geppo he jumped into the air and struck the zombie with the Enhanced Kick skill he got during all his fights with the thugs. But he didn't shout it out. For some reason it felt like a really really bad idea among so many zombies.

He landed on the ground, grinning at his victory when he heard growling. He turned around and saw the zombie still alive. In that moment, the monster struck him, sending him a few meters away which cost the boy 50 Health. It seemed the zombies weren't physically strong enough to be a serious threat to him. The again, their levels weren't that high.

He could work with that. He regarded the box above the monsters head where a good portion of the red bar had vanished. If it went down all the way, he won, right? He charged at the zombie, pipe in hand and hit the slow being on the head.

The bar went down half-way and Luffy thanked his blunt weapon mastery level for being so high. But it wasn't over yet. Luffy had to dodge multiple attacks as three other zombies joined the fray.

Slow they may be but together they were just annoying. He made quick work of his first opponent by using his Enhanced punch once. The other two were still there though and Luffy found himself running to find a better spot to fight. While a forest was a great place to fight, it was also a hinderance if you were constantly backed up against a tree.

When he reached a clearing, he cheered, alarming several zombies. After several punches and kicks later, a good number of zombies went down but more were coming.

Deciding that it was enough, Luffy deactived his ability and released a sigh when two fists came crashing down on him.

"WHERE WERE YOU?!" Ace screamed at him in anger "You can't just up and vanish without telling us!"

"But Ace-"

"No!" He shot back "Do you know how worried we were?!"

Luffy looked down "I'm sorry... But Ace!" He beamed at his brother "The dungeon has monsters now!"

"It does?!" Sabo asked surprised before worry took over "Why didn't you take us along? Who knows what could have happened to you!"

"Shishishi!" Luffy laughed "It's fine, I can always just escape the ID and the monsters were really slow and weak. ...But there were a lot."

That did not ease their worry at all. At least he came back mostly fine.

"You're taking us along next time, got it?" Ace demanded as Sabo nodded in agreement.

Sabo shook his head as they gathered the fish and grilled it. With the issue of the Dungeon mostly done, they could now concentrade on finding Luffy new skills and built their treehouse. Maybe there could be a skill that could help them? There should be.

But Sabo put the thought away, the treehouse would be just fine if all of them gave it their best. Skill or not.

They couldn't get dependent on Luffy's skills now, they would have to do things on their own once they set off to be pirates. The world would never know what hit it.

The blueprint of their new home was done as they started to saw the wood and put it in it's correct place. When they were done with the main part, they continued to built a look-out where they hung a flag with their initials.

ASL, Ace Sabo Luffy.

This was their home now and the flag confirmed it for everyone. For the finishing touch they built a steering wheel to put into it. Traps were created and hidden so no one could touch what was theirs. After all, only they knew were the traps were. Not that anyone from the city would ever dare venture this far into the mountain.

Just a safety precaution. But now they had to gather loot and what better way than to test if Ben was right.

The three went into Luffy's Zombie dungeon. He had ghosts, too but neither older brothers wanted to fight ghosts of all things just yet. But Luffy was right when he said they were slow and weak, they hardly gave the three any Exp but it was something. But they could have done without the ribs, tooths and other stuff.

The only valuable looking thing they found were a few 'Spirit Stones'. But they only got 5 of 7 to sell because Luffy said their description informed him they can aid his Recovery skill once he learns it.

Right, he still didn't learn the other two the older brothers noticed. They glanced at each other.

"Luffy, why haven't you learned Recovery and Water Elemental Summoning yet?" Ace wondered aloud.

Luffy raised his eyebrows "I totally forgot about that!" Of course "But only Recovery! I want to test it a bit before learning a new one!"

He took out the book from his inventory and selected yes on the option screen. To him, the skill sounded useful but to recover only 50 Health? He would definitely bring this skill up!

But there was no way to bring it up because they were all uninjured. And that was good, he didn't want his brothers to be injured.

But he still wasn't gonna learn the last skill yet "Can we go after the ghosts now?"

"NO!"

It was the morning after a powerful storm that the three brothers went down into Grey Terminal so they could gather wood to replace what was destroyed. For some reason that he didn't want to share, Luffy wanted a telescope.

During the search, Sabo seperated from his brothers to search in another part of the Terminal, even finding a telescope for Luffy, when he ran into Bluejam and his men who quickly took a hold of him.

For all his strength, attacks from behind were not something he counted on. Luffy or Ace usually took care of that.

"Who would have thought that one of the three little brats was a noble?" Bluejam spoke up.

Sabo's eyes widened. How could someone like Bluejam know that.

"LET GO OF SABO!" What? Ace and Luffy? Nononono! They couldn't get dragged into this with him, there were too many!

A man in fancy blue clothes appeared as Bluejam shot at the newcomers. Sabo's dad. The one person they swore they wouldn't let near Sabo.

"Give Sabo back Bluejam!" Luffy screamed as he trashed in the pirates grip.

"Give him back?!" Outlook echoed angry "Sabo is my flesh and blood! It is the duty of every child to live their life according to the wishes of the parents who brought him into the world! How dare you convince my Sabo to run away from home! Is it my fortune you're after?!"

Ace was now convinced. There was someone he hated more than he ever could Roger. "The hell did you say?!" Ace yelled at him which earned him a punch by one of the pirates as part his blood flew onto Outlooks face. Luffy didn't have the Party activated, Ace realized. They had forgotten it this morning.

"Useless pirates!" Outlook commented as he wiped the blood of his cheek "Be more careful how you deal with those brats! You managed to get the blood of these filthy trashheap urchins on my cheek! How disgusting...!"

Sabo gritted his teeth, his father had no right to speak about them like that, he was more trash than they could ever be! "Stop it!" He shouted "I ran away because I wanted to, not because they told me to!"

"I don't want to hear anything from you!" Outlook spat at his soon before he turned to Bluejam "I leave the rest to you."

"But of course, Sir." Bluejam replied "You have paid us well after all. We will see to it that those brats never bother your son again."

Sabo panicked at that "WAIT A MINUTE! Bluejam!" He had decided "Father! I give up! I'll do as you say!"

"You'll do what, Sabo?" His father questioned.

"Sabo, stop!" Ace screamed, knowing what his brother was about to do.

Sabo shivered slightly, when did it get so cold? "I'll do everything you tell me...! I'll live my life however you want! Just please... Don't harm Ace and Luffy! I'm begging you... They mean more than anything to me... THEY'RE MY BROTHERS!"

The other two strared at him shocked "Sabo..." Ace muttered, scared but also a tiny bit happy Sabo declared it so loudly in front of his father. But Sabo couldn't just do that! He was one of them damnit!

Sabo was escorted away from them with the guards, barely holding in his tears.

"Sabo!" Ace called after him, wanted this to not be real "Get away from them! Where are you going?! We'll be fine, you hear me?! We are all going to be free, aren't we?! Are going to let it end here?!" Sabo couldn't give up his freedom, not for someone like him. "SABO!"

Ace and Luffy were dragged onto Bluejam's ship and placed before the Captain. Ace stepped a bit before Luffy, ready to pounce at the man if he needed to.

"Being born a noble isn't something you can just achieve...!" The pirate told them "It means you were born under some kind of lucky star! Hell, I would change places with the kid if I could... I would've loved to be born a noble." Ace and Luffy kept their silence as they glared at him "So one of the legendary bratty trio was a noble all along, huh...? I'm sure he looked down on the both of you from the inside, too."

"Don't be stupid!" Ace glared at him "Sabo isn't that kind of guy!"

"Yeah! We're his brothers!" Luffy declared. He hated that the man spoke about Sabo like that!

"Fufufu..." Bluejam laughed "Alright, alright, if you say so... But still,... you better not think of going anywhere near him again... I'd have to kill you both if that's the case. If you really care about that 'brother' of yours, you'll leave him alone from now on."

"But Sabo hates High Town!" Luffy screamed at him.

"Just forget about him." Bluejam adviced "It's for the best. That's what they call kindness, you know...You'll understand that when you grow up. I still have a grudge to settle with you because of the Porchemy incident... But I figured let bygones be bygones. Hell, you may be young, but you're strong. I like that. I'm actually a little short on hands right now. Could you two give me a hand with a little job?"

"No!" Luffy screamed, surprising Ace and the pirates "You stink to the heavens and so does whatever you're planning. I can tell you're going to do something dangerous...!" He took a hold of Ace's arm "Let's go Ace!" He begged "I don't like this guy! And I can just feel something wrong with that 'little job'!"

Ace stared at Luffy, weighting the options before nodding. Luffy must have felt something with his ability. He turned to the pirate "You'll have to do that yourself! Luffy and I will be going back into the forest now!"

Surprisingly, the pirates didn't make a big deal out of it and let them go but whenever Ace looked back, he could see one of them following in the distance until they made it further into the forest. This wasn't good, not at all. Sabo was gone, so he had to take care of Luffy for a while. But Sabo was strong, he would come come back on his own and if he took to long, they would just go get him.

It wasn't until the next day that Luffy could feel something was horribly off. The location of the boxes the pirates placed around was weird and his mind was trying to tell him something about the placing but he just couldn't figure it out. But something would happen, something big.

He was worried, so he told the people on the trash heap that something bad was going to happen but they brushed him off, only the older people looked mildly concerned. But that wasn't enough to save those people when the fire started.

Luffy and Ace were both still running through the fire since they stayed to search for possible clues should it come to it that they had to break into High Town. Flames rose up before Ace just when he wanted to keep running. It was everwhere and impossible to tell where they were due to all the trash burnt and smoke in the air.

"And who gave you permission to try and escape the fire, you little brats!" A voice behind them screamed and as they turned around they could see both Bluejam and his crew.

"Why are the people who started this... still hanging around here?!" Ace questioned yelling "Surely they should have escaped by now!"

"Shut your faces, brats!" The Captain yelled "We're suffering enough as is! Who would have thought it would turn out like this...? Humans sure are strange creatures! When we hit rock bottom, we just can't help but stand there and laugh!"

Ace realized what happened then. The nobles were behind this and they betrayed Bluejam as well "Let's get out of here, Luffy!"

"Don't let 'em escape!" Bluejam ordered as the pirates stood in their way "We're already in this mess! So we should die together an' all...!" Insane, this man was insane! "Come to think of it, where is that treasure of your hidden? It would be a shame to let it all burn away. So where is it?!"

Ace couldn't believe it "You're worrying about treasure when your lives are in danger?!" How greedy was that bastard?!

"By that logic, why wouldn't you tell us?" Bluejam asked "It would be such a waste."

"Don't be stupid!" Luffy yelled angry as Ace's face hardened "That's the treasure Ace and Sabo-"

"Fine. I'll tell you." Ace agreed as Luffy's head snapped to look at him.

"But Ace! You and Sabo worked so hard for-"

"It's okay, Sabo will understand!" Ace told him "All that matters right now is your... are our own lives!" Ace corrected himself before telling the pirate of the location when two others grabbed them from behind "What do you think you're doing! I told you were the treasure was!"

"And what if you're lying? You're coming with us." Bluejam reasoned.

"Don't be ridiculous! If you try reaching it now, we'll lose our chance to escape! Go after it yourself!" Ace screamed. That was just mad! They would all die!

Bluejam took out his gun and pointed it at him "Don't make my angrier than I already am! I swore to live through this and take my revenge on the nobles and if I have to steal some brats treasure for it! That 'brother' of yours is just the same! They all think they're better than us!"

Ace gritted his teeth "Sabo isn't like that you damn-"

"Yes he is!" Bluejam screamed "He only hung around you to feel superior! Deep down, he was pinching his nose and laughing at you!"

"Don't you dare say one more word!" Ace threatened.

"That's right!" Luffy yelled, biting the pirate that held him so hard that it drew blood "All Sabo ever wanted was to be free!"

"You damn brat...!" The pirate he bit growled as he took out his sword and swung it down on Luffy, cutting the area above the boys eye.

Luffy screamed at the sharp pain before it vanished, leaving only blood dripping down his face when the pirate moved to stab him.

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH LUFFY!"

All of a sudden, the pirate holding Ace and every other started to drop like flies, foam forming around some of their mouths. Bluejam looked around, trying to process what just happened while Ace paid it no mind in favor of rushing to Luffy's side.

But before he could reach his younger a brother, he was kicked to the ground with a pistol pointed at his head "What did you just do, you little brat...!" Bluejam screamed as he reached to pull the trigger.

"Ace!" Luffy yelled worried, he didn't want to lose Ace, too, but the pirate from before fell on him "Stoooop!"

The sound of metal hitting metal screeched as Dadan's axe collided with Bluejam's outstretched sword, making him lose his balance for a moment.

"Give it up already! You stinking seamonster's!" Dadan screamed at him "Get your hands off our Ace!"

Dogra ran up to Luffy and pushed the pirate away with the help of the other pirates and a bandit put Luffy on his shoulder despite the boy's protests.

"Why, you...!" Bluejam looked at them with a glare "You're the boss of these ruffians from Mt Corbo!"

"I'm Dadan the Bandit!" She announced "And for better or worse... I happen to be the Guardian of the brats! Now then..." She got into a stance "Run for it!"

"Yes, boss!" The other bandits screamed taking off after their leader when they realized Ace wasn't following "Ace, come on! Hurry up!"

"I..." Ace started, not taking his eyes off Bluejam "Won't run!"

All the begging and yelling from the bandits didn't get the boy to move and they had to hold back Luffy from joining his brother.

"Men, you take Luffy and go on ahead." Dadan ordered.

"Boss?!"

"I'll take full responsiblity for Ace... and see to it myself that he'll come back safe and sound! NOW GO!"

Hello everyone!

A big thanks to everyone who favourited, followed and reviewed! It's nice to see you like this story!^^

I don't really have any special announcements to make this chapter. I don't like Sabo's father... anyone here who does?

I kept a lot the same here for many reasons, but I won't tell yet. Can you guess what happens next?

As always advice is appreciated! Hope to see you all next time as well.