A sunny Afternoon, Fire & Ice
It was another sunny afternoon, but however good the weather was, Ace was quite frustrated. He had now been looking for Blackbeard for about two months without obtaining any unbiased information. Now he has come to a small town that specifically trades' information, he hoped he could get some good info about Blackbeard here.
"Food!" He thought as a small restaurant came into view. He went in and sat down at the bartender's table. "Give me 5 meat pies, 3 cherry plates, 2 curry plates, 5 meat ball plates and 1 beer." He said.
"S..Sir…, are you going to eat it all?" the surprised Os-san asked. Ace nodded,
"Hurry, I'm hungry." What a normal town he thought, no brawls or anything. Then, his ears caught someone singing, it was sweet and it made his heart skip a beat.
"Who's sing?" he asked the os-san,
"Oh, that?" the bartender answered,
"It started a few days ago, sometime in the day, a girl that goes by the name Aria sings. We don't know where she sings but it can be heard all over the town. Everyone loves her songs. She comes here often to help me." Ace thought as he chewed, he had never heard a voice like hers, interesting. The song stopped.
"Why's it stopped?" he asked with his mouth full.
The bartender laughed, "you've taken a liking to it haven't you? You'll like it even more when you see her." He laughed again, "She's a cute girl."
"Os-san" A girl came in. Her hair color was ice purple, tied up in a side ponytail that hanged to her hips. She was about half a head shorter than him.
"Oh Aria, I want you to meet this person," laughing, he pointed to Ace, "he eats as much as you do."
"Really?" She looked at him, their eyes met, her eyes were the color of the ocean mixed with the sky. Ace instantly felt something he had never felt before, a bright and warm sensation. But he dismissed it since he didn't know what it was.
"Food! I'm hungry os-san. The usual of course."
"One Aria special coming up." The Os-san went inside.
He then came out with: 1 meat pies, 5 cherry plates, 2 curry plates, 3 meat ball plates and 3 ice tea.
Ace laughed, and buried his head on the table.
"What's so funny?" She made a pouting face,
"It's just that I rarely meet anyone with the same appetite as me"
She laughed, "me too." This was a good place thought Ace.
Bang, the door was ripped off its hinges and flew about 5 feet in the air and landed a few feet away from Ace. Came in twenty men or so and there seemed to be more outside – they were bandits. "Give us free food old man" the fat leader shouted. "Yea, food" the others echoed. The previous customers that were in the dinner quickly retreated out the back door and only Ace and Aria were left. They occupied every one of the tables there was and their manners were outrageous. Some put their legs on the table while others played around the chairs.
"Who are they?" Ace asked.
"It's the town's biggest bandit gang." Aria gritted her teeth and replied, her eyes flashed dangerously.
The Os-san feebly went around each table and laid down the food.
"That will cost you 1220 Beli in total." He said
The big guys knocked him aside, "no way, for just this little amount of food?" their whole crew roared with laughter. Then he walked over to Aria,
"Little girl, care to play with us for a while?" Ace was raging; how dare he say that in someone else's restaurant. He was clenching his fork so hard that the metal handle was bent.
"Sure" Aria turned around in her chair and crossed her legs and snickered, "Only if you get on your knees and beg me." The big guy's face went red.
Ace and Aria both burst into laughter.
"Good one" Ace said while bang his hands on the table and tears of laughter freely flowed from his eyes.
"I know, right?" Aria was laughing none stop as well.
By now, Ace and Aria were the only ones laughing. The whole crew was eerily silent. No one was joking or laughing anymore.
"Yo…You little..., you'll pay for this…" The big guys face was still red but he had regained some of his haughtiness.
Both Aria and Ace stood up.
"Thanks for the food" they said. Aria went to the os-san and pulled him to his feet,
"I'll pay you later" she told him. Standing up,
"I'll play with you if you go outside," she smirked.
"Me too," Ace added, "you insulted the nice os-san that gave me food and I won't forgive you for that."
The two of them walked out the door and the bandits followed.
"Big place" Ace said to Aria when they arrived at the place where Aria led them. They were on a hill that overlooked the entire town. There was plenty of space for them to fight here. There were no buildings or what so ever to restrict them. The only thing was that there were a lot of shrubs and trees.
"Aria, this is not a good place for me to fight" Ace said.
"Too many trees?" Aria's eyes were full of laugher. Ace stared at her in astonishment.
"How did you…" She put a finger to his lips.
"Shh.. you're quite famous around these parts, Fire- Fist- Ace." Ace smirked.
"You've got a good sense. But if you knew then why did you make the battleground here?
"I will contain you because I am Ice" She grinned as his eyes widened once again.
"A fellow devil fruit user, eh?" Shaking his head "I wonder what kind of combination we'll make." Aria laughed and pulled him to the center as the bandits surrounded them.
In a swift motion, Ace lifted up Aria and hoisted her up to his shoulder. Her cheeks gained a little color,
"What are you doing?" she stammered.
"If you're going to contain me, then you need a good view right?" Ace grinned "you're light; a little weight won't hinder me."
"What are you guys waiting for?" the fat leader shouted. "Hurry up and get them!" The bandits charged towards them.
Laughing a little, Aria said, "You are certainly one weird person." With one wave of her hand, the ground started shaking. A barrier made of ice rose up to engulf all of the bandits. In their view, it covered a third of the sky.
"What?!??!" The bandits were surprised, "how is this even possible?" the fat leader shouted.
"Wait until you see this Ace!" Aria laughed. The tip of ace's hand started glowing and a second later, it burst into flames.
"Let's do this Ace."
"Yea, you bet."
From the outside, beams of flame could be seen shooting up from the ice dome. The villagers were staring at it in shock. This was not something that you see every day and just what was making those beams and how did that dome just grow out of the ground? Almost everyone in the town gathered outside of the dome wondering what on earth had happened.
The ground shook again. This time, the dome retreated back into the ground. The locals gaped. Inside, there were the 200-300 bandits. The ground was frozen up. Most of them were charred and a few of them were frozen into solid blocks of ice.
"BURNT??"
"FROZEN??" the locals were shocked.
In the middle of this mess were Ace and Aria. They were laughing.
"That was great" Ace finally said as they calmed down.
"Yea, a blast" Aria said "but they put up no fight at all… oh well"
Aria opened her mouth and sang. The sound that came out was sweet and was like that of the pure bells ringing. It was even better when hearing her close up and it was the most beautiful song he had ever heard in his life. Then, an old man with a walking stick came up to them,
"Please accept our gratitude for defeating these bandits; they were making lots of trouble around this town."
"FOOD!" Ace and Aria chorused at once.
A party was held in their honour for defeating the bandits. Ace and Aria had an eating competition, and they tied. Everyone was celebrating. Aria went up to the Os-san and said,
"Here, this is the fee for everything I ate from the time when I got here." In her hand was a ruby the size of a golf ball. The os-san's eyes almost popped out of its socket,
"It's much more than the fee, are you sure you're going to give this to me?" Aria grinned
"Yes, and I'm leaving tomorrow."
The next morning when Ace woke up, he couldn't find Aria anywhere.
"Os-san, where is Aria?"
"She didn't tell you? Yesterday she said she was leaving today." Ace went blank for a moment. Then he grabbed his bag and asked:
"Did you see where she was heading?"
"She was heading south I think.." the os-san didn't even have time to finish when Ace ran off. When Ace finally caught sight of her near the beach, her expression made his heart stop. She looked so sad, as she gazed off into the horizon. He ran towards her and swept her into his arms.
"Why are you so sad?" he whispered into her ear.
When Aria finally recovered from the shock of being held in Ace's arms, she pushed him away.
"Don't concern yourself with me, people I get close to always gets hurt in the end." Tears rolled down her cheeks.
"No, I won't leave you alone" Ace said firmly. "I don't know what's wrong with me but when I see you with a face like this, I want to make you smile and laugh like we did yesterday."
"But…" Ace wrapped his arms around her again,
"It's ok, I'm strong" he said as he stroked her hair. She kept on sobbing onto his chest even when they sat down in the sand.
An hour later, Aria had finally calmed down. She said:
"Then is it ok if I requested you to stay by me so I won't be lonely anymore?" She said.
"Of course" Ace gently said and held her closer to his body.
"Thank you" she said and kissed his cheek. 'Such broad shoulders…' Aria thought and fell asleep. She fell asleep so fast that she didn't see Ace glowing red.
When Aria next woke up, she was sitting on Ace's lap. Ace's feet were on fire and she realized that was what was powering the engine of the little boat and it was what made them go forward. Ace himself was awake and watching her. She smiled and said
"By the way, call me Ari from now on ok?"
"Anytime" Ace took her hand and they headed south.
Sorry guys if it's really bad…. It's my first time writing so ……
Plz review ., criticism is welcome, I'll try and improve next time I write.
:P
