And here is the sequel to Children of the Sea. I'd wanted to write a story where Marco goes along with Ace to hunt for Blackbeard since forever, and I decided to do it in this verse because I love it and I don't want to stop playing with it yet. So here we have a longer fic with female Marco :) I hope you like it.

If anyone feels particularly like suffering, you should listen to Lindsey Stirling's cover of My Immortal during the third scene (you can find it on youtube). I used it to write the scene :D

As always, thanks a lot to KohanaTrustMe for all the help :D

Chapter 1

The usual chatter over breakfast was broken by a loud and sudden exclamation, right before Second Division Commander Portgas D. Ace lunged out of the bench he had been sitting on to grab a wanted poster that had fallen out of the newspaper First Division Commander Marco had just opened.

Ace didn't bother to move from his sprawl on the mess hall's floor. He instead looked at the bounty poster and, to the bafflement of everybody present, burst out in peals of delighted laughter.

Thatch turned to look at Marco.

"He broke."

"Don't be an idiot," she scoffed, looking around until she spotted the still unopened newspaper in Izo's hands. Marco stretched a meaningful hand in his direction.

Izo spared one last glance at the still laughing Ace before he carefully opened his copy of the newspaper to pull out the poster. He didn't hand it over to Marco, though, and looked at it himself. He raised an eyebrow. The entire room's attention was on Izo.

"It's… nothing special. Just some rookie's bounty. Monkey D. Luffy… now why does that name sound familiar?"

Marco raised her eyebrows.

"Luffy, you say? Is he wearing a straw hat?"

"How did you know?" Izo asked, surprised.

Marco grinned.

"Because that's Ace's little brother."

"Yeah," Ace said, standing up with a wide grin, "and don't say it's nothing special. It hasn't even been a month since he set sail, and that's East Blue." Ace paused for a moment, then his grin grew. "I'm gonna go show Pops," he announced before dashing out of the mess hall.

Marco shook her head in amusement.

"How much is he worth?" she asked Izo, because Ace had taken off with the copy of the wanted poster that was technically hers.

Izo glanced back down at the bounty.

"Thirty million."

"On East Blue? I've got to agree with Ace. That is promising. The average bounty there is about three million," Marco said.

"What did the kid do, anyway?" Thatch asked, leaning over Izo's shoulder to look at the poster.

"Being Ace's brother? He probably got into fights with half of East Blue's marines and most of the pirates," Izo joked, but handed the paper over to Thatch when Thatch made grabby hands at it.

Marco decided to look for the article about Luffy herself and finally looked down at her newspaper. As it turned out, Izo hadn't been off with his guess.

Being attacked by hopeful pirates was always a happy occurrence for the Whitebeard Pirates. It meant they got a chance to have some fun fighting and in most cases acquired very much needed treasure. This time the Moby Dick was sailing alone when their opponents approached: they were a particularly large alliance of eager rookies that gave them a good hour worth of fighting before the crew could start scavenging the remaining enemy ships for anything worth salvaging. The fight could have lasted longer —and more enemy ships would have survived it— if Ace hadn't had so much energy to burn, but he had been brimming with it ever since he had seen his little brother's bounty that morning.

While there seemed to be a fair amount of treasure left for them, Thatch was certain that he had found the best part of it by far. He waited until everybody was back on board the Moby Dick before he showed off his discovery: a devil fruit. Whether he chose to eat it or not, it was an amazing thing to get his hands on. According to the crew's rules, the fruit was his to do as he chose: he could risk eating it and seeing what weird power it gave him, he could sell it and have a shit ton of money to spend for a long time, or maybe he could give it to some idiot who wanted to be a devil fruit user. As of now, he had no idea, but finding a devil fruit gave someone a considerable amount of boasting rights.

"So you're joining the hammer club?" Izo asked him.

Thatch shrugged.

"Maybe? I mean, I'd like to see if I can figure out what this thing does before I go and eat it."

"It doesn't give any clues," Ace said, leaning close to inspect the fruit. "Mine had these fire-like marks that said it had something to do with fire. What about yours, Marco?"

Thatch grinned, unable to hold back.

"Bet it looked like a chicken."

"Shut up or I'll shove that thing up your ass," Marco threatened him good-naturedly, which Thatch knew didn't mean she wouldn't follow through and use violence if she felt like it.

Thatch was in too good of a mood to heed the warning. He turned to Ace.

"Is she always this aggressive?" he asked in a fake whisper.

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Ace asked with a mischievous smirk. "Because—"

"NO!" Thatch yelled in not-quite-faked horror. "Don't you dare!"

Ace and Marco started to laugh, and Izo sighed.

"You should know better by now," he muttered, patting Thatch on the shoulder.

"They should know better," Thatch complained, pointing at them.

"Why? Your reactions are hilarious," Marco teased with a smirk, and wrapped an arm suggestively low around Ace's waist, leaning her head on his shoulder. Ace was still chuckling, but he slid a hand towards Marco's ass.

Thatch faked gagging.

"Okay, my fruit and me are off to have a chat with the pillow. You two go be gross elsewhere."

Marco blew him a kiss and Thatch flipped her off before disappearing through a door.

Something pounding on the door startled Ace awake. Next to him, Marco bolted upright on the bed.

"Marco! Ace! You gotta come to the deck!"

Ace didn't think, he jumped off the bed and grabbed his pants, putting them on as he hurried to the door. Marco slipped into her panties and grabbed her shirt off the floor. Any other time Ace might have commented on Marco leaving their cabin half-dressed, but nobody woke up two commanders in their crew like that unless it was an emergency. The fact that none of the guys outside even cracked a joke at Marco —still buttoning her shirt— when they stepped outside only put Ace's senses further on alert.

They ran down the hallway and out onto the deck, where Ace could see a large crowd gathered where the lights from the many windows didn't reach, though they had a few lamps with them. Marco and Ace ran in that direction, and the crowd parted to let them through.

There was a cleared space in the middle, where Izo was kneeling next to a fallen form. Ace could see a large pool of blood around and beneath the body, staining the white clothes. His eyes, however, strayed straight to the head, turned sideways so Ace could see the face despite the fact the body was laying on its—his chest—

Thatch.

Ace froze, staring at Thatch's face. Thatch looked surprised, shocked, as if he hadn't expected the attack —of course he hadn't, he had a stab wound on his back, and Thatch would never turn his back to an opponent in a fight—

A thud at his left snapped Ace out of his daze, and he turned to see that Marco had dropped to her knees next to Thatch. She reached a hand out to touch Thatch's face, even though if was clear that he… the pool of blood wasn't growing, which meant he wasn't bleeding anymore, because his heart wasn't—

"I want a full sweep of the ship and everyone accounted for. Call the other ships too in case someone stayed with another division. Check our boats to see if any of them is missing. Whoever did this won't have stayed around to watch," Marco ordered, her voice a steady cold that rooted Ace to the present like nothing else could have.

Thatch lay dead on the floor —stabbed to death by one of their own— and Marco knelt next to him, caressing Thatch's upturned cheek with her thumb while everybody scrambled to follow her orders. Marco's face was like a marble mask, and at that moment Ace had no doubt that if the killer hadn't left the ship yet their death would be at Marco's hands.

"Izo," Marco continued in a lower voice, "can you coordinate the reports? I want to go check Thatch's room. Nobody would have attacked a commander without a reason. And make sure someone moves Thatch out of here."

Izo nodded somberly from his place on the other side of Thatch.

Marco glanced down at Thatch one last time before standing up. She brushed past Ace and pushed through the remaining crowd to leave the scene.

Ace turned to Izo to ask what he could do —anything, anything at all to stop himself from thinking how this couldn't be happening, because they had been joking only a few hours ago and everything had been fine then— and Izo fixed him with a determined look that wasn't diminished at all by the moisture gathering in his eyes.

"Go with her," he said, and Ace didn't need to be told twice.

He turned around again and moved through the thinning and openly sobbing crowd to go to the door. He froze halfway across the deck when he saw Pops walk through the same door that Ace was headed for. Their eyes met, and Ace had never before seen Pops look so grim and ashen. Pops nodded towards the door after a long moment, and Ace guessed it made sense that he had crossed paths with Marco. And yet she wasn't with Pops, which must mean that she had brushed him aside to go do as she had said.

Ace looked one last time at Pops before they both started moving again, and he ran down the hallways all the way to Thatch's cabin. The door was open, and he found Marco standing motionless in the middle of it.

"The devil fruit isn't here," she said as soon as Ace barreled into the room. "It wasn't outside either, so it's safe to assume—" her voice cut off when Ace wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"You can cry, you know? It'll be hours before we know who did this," Ace mumbled against her neck. It was odd to be the reasonable one, the one who kept his cool when all he wanted to do was rage and burn down whoever had done this, whoever had dared… But Ace had known Thatch for two years, while Marco… Marco had known Thatch for longer than Ace had been alive, and yet here she was, being ruthlessly efficient and not stopping to feel at all.

"I… I can't. Not now, Ace. If I do, then everybody else should, too, and we can't afford that now. We need to discover who did this."

"But everybody else is crying," Ace whispered, and he pressed his face against Marco's neck, letting her feel how wet his cheeks were. "We can do both."

Marco dropped in his arms. There was no other way to describe it. She sagged and the only reason she was standing was that Ace still had his arms around her. She let out a broken sob and clutched Ace's forearms with her hands. Ace was careful to fall on his knees without letting go of her, and they clung to each other and cried in the middle of the floor in Thatch's bedroom.

They only stopped at their own bedroom so that Marco could put on a pair of shorts before heading back to the deck. Thatch's body was nowhere on sight, but the large bloodstain —now far more noticeable in the increasing light of dawn— made it impossible to pretend nothing had happened. Marco took a deep breath and steadied herself before approaching Pops. Neither of them asked the other how they were feeling, because the answer was obvious in the deep creases around Pops' eyes and the dried tear tracks that Marco could still feel on her cheeks. Instead, Marco told him about the missing devil fruit and Pops nodded at the news.

"Jozu and Vista are canvassing the ship to make sure we haven't missed anyone in our search, and we have received news from two of our ships informing that they aren't missing anyone. We should know who did this in an hour or two at most."

Marco nodded. She walked up to Pops' chair and jumped on the right armrest. They couldn't stop to grieve properly, not yet, but she could offer her silent support while they waited. She knew how Pops was feeling, she knew how hard he was trying not to think about how he was feeling. Thatch had joined the crew at a really young age, when they were but a small group of misfits and they… they had basically raised him.

Marco couldn't afford to think about it. Not now.

She had to stay strong for when the news came, someone had. It fell down to them.

Marco stared at the quickly diminishing dot that was the Striker.

Ace had lost it when they had learned that Teach and one of their boats were missing. Marco had, too, if she was being perfectly honest —how long had Teach been with them? Since Roger's days, and yet…— but then Pops had said that he had a bad feeling about this, and one didn't survive in the Grand Line, much less the New World, for as long as they had without developing good instincts. Marco's own gut agreed with Pops' words, and yet the notion of letting Teach get away with this was jarring. But then Ace had refused to listen to Pops and had left anyway, and Marco…

The Striker was no longer visible on the horizon.

"…Pops," Marco called, cutting through the worried and anxious words of her siblings. The deck fell silent, "I'm sorry, but I'm going to disobey you as well."

"Marco?" Jozu asked, puzzled, but Marco ignored him and turned to meet Pops' eyes.

"You say you have a bad feeling about this, and I have to agree," she continued, "but I'm not going to wait here and hope you're wrong."

Pops stared at her for a long moment before he nodded.

"You should go pack a bag, then."

Ace was fuming.

He understood that the crew trusted Pops' gut feelings, he really did, but he couldn't believe that they were going to let Teach get away with killing Thatch just like that. No fucking way. He would kill Teach himself even if he had to chase him all across the Grand Line first. He would make sure Thatch's death was avenged.

A shadow appeared above him on the sea rushing by the sides of the Striker, and he looked up to see Marco flying above.

"I'm not going back!" he yelled at her, angry that she had followed him.

"I know!" she replied, coming down to fly closer to him. "Slow down! I'm coming with you!"

"What?" Ace muttered, surprised, but he did slow down. They had figured out long ago that while Marco was the only person who could ride on the Striker with him —being immune to fire and all that— there was a limit to the speed that it was safe for her to land on it without the boat capsizing on them. Ace wouldn't put it past her to drop on it anyway if he refused to comply.

Marco landed on the small space before the seat, transforming as she fell. She had a bag slung over her left shoulder, and looked annoyed but determined.

"I thought you were trying to stop me a moment ago?" Ace asked, puzzled by her change of heart.

"Yes, but you won't listen, and you heard Pops. I'd rather come with you and make sure his bad feeling doesn't come true than risking…" she paused. "Besides, I want to kill Teach, too."

Ace smiled weakly at her, understanding what she hadn't said and unable to feel bothered by her concern after what had happened. He held the New World log pose to her.

"You should take this, then. You're a far better navigator than me."

She took the log pose from around his wrist and secured it around hers.

"And my map? I know you took it, it wasn't on the desk when I packed."

Ace shrugged, unapologetic. Marco's maps were good, and he had needed a way to figure out where Teach might have gone. He bent down to search through his bag and gave the map to her.

Marco turned around, her back to Ace, and rested against his chest before unfurling the map. Ace wrapped an arm around her waist and kept his eyes on the sea. It was a little cramped for two people on the Striker, but they could manage it, and Ace really appreciated that Marco had come with him.

To be continued

A little bit on the timeline. I know at least some of the translations of Drum say the Blackbeard Pirates attacked the island a few months before Luffy shows up (I don't know what the raw says, it's one of those things I always say I'll check but never do), but we have some other canon info that contradicts it: we saw in the Ace and WB flashback that Ace left right after Thatch's murder (he was too enraged to have had much time to process it), and when Whitebeard first saw Luffy he remembered Ace showing him Luffy's first wanted poster. This means that Thatch died sometime after Luffy's first wanted poster came out. Because we don't have much time between that happening and Luffy reaching Drum (three weeks is the most generous estimation I can make with the information we have in the manga) I decided to have both events happen the same day.

Some of you may be wondering how come Teach didn't know Luffy was Ace's brother after that scene at the mess hall: it's simple, he just wasn't there. While he heard word that Ace's little brother had a bounty, he didn't get to see the poster or care enough to ask for the name. Most of the crew have heard Luffy's name at least once, some of them often enough to find it familiar —like Izo did— but the only person who's heard enough about Luffy to recognize him immediately is Marco.

As you may have noticed, I haven't really followed the anime additions for Thatch's death. I know they're there, but I haven't watched it in forever and I don't remember which episode it was, so I'm using only the manga. I think I got the fact that Thatch was laying face down with a stab wound right from the anime, but I'm not sure.