(A/N) A fast update! I managed to get my brother out of his room for a few hours so I could have the laptop all to myself, and I wrote this. Enjoy!

EMZ: I am not going to answer that question, as that would be a spoiler :P Just keep reading and you'll find out...eventually...

Guest: Mine too. I always pictured Thatch to be a flirt,, and somewhat childish at times X)

Chapter 14: The Attack Commences

~L~

I stared in horror at the giant columns of smoke rising into the sky, disappearing behind the clouds. I felt dread settle in my stomach. It couldn't be... I couldn't be to late! There were no Marine ships in sight, they must have been on the other side of the island. Please, let everyone still be alive!

As soon as the ship was close enough to the island I jumped over the railing and took off in the direction of the burning village. At this moment I couldn't have cared less whether or not the pirates were following me. All I wanted was to get to everyone, to protect them from the Marines!

I ran through the forest, taking shortcuts, and noticed it was devoid of animal life. Nothing. Not a single sound. Not a single eye peeking from behind a bush, not a single bird flying in the sky. They were all gone, probably trying to hide from all the chaos.

I was panting heavily as I stepped into the village. Well, what was once the village. The houses were all destroyed, be it by cannonballs or fire, people were lying across the ground, charred corpses missing body parts, pools of blood everywhere. Those filthy Marines must have come onto the island and attacked the people first! Dazed, I wandered around, the burning ruins of houses threatening to fall on top of me with every step I took. I recognized a lot of bodies, the ones that weren't burnt beyond recognition. I finally ended up in town square, where I saw Amy pressed up against the wall with tears in her eyes, trying to defeat a horde of marines who were attacking her from all sides with knives and swords. She had a split lip, and a few stab wounds here and there. I watched, frozen, as they advanced upon her. She had nowhere left to run, not that she looked like she wanted to.

I heard a gunshot. After that, everything happened on slow-motion. Amy's eyes widened, she looked down at her chest, where her T-shirt was quickly soaking up blood, and collapsed. I didn't think - I acted. I took my dagger out of its sheath, rushed up to the marines and started cutting them down one by one, feeling enormous satisfaction every time one of them screamed, every their blood stained my clothes red, every time one fell to the ground - dead. When I was finished, I looked at what I had done for a split second, not feeling an ounce of remorse, before rushing over to my childhood friend. Thankfully, the smoke prevented me from smelling the blood. I had never been near this much, and I had no clue how it would affect me.

I knelt down by my Amy's side. Her eyes were a bit unfocused, but she was still alive.

"Amy? Amy, can you hear me?", I asked, hoping for an answer. Maybe it wasn't to late for her. The bullet might not have pierced any bigger blood-vessel, I might still be able to save her! I tore off the lower part of her T-shirt and pressed the cloth to the wound. I saw something fall to the ground. It was clear, like a raindrop. I lifted one of my hands to my cheek and was startled to realize I was crying.

"L-Lexi? You're here?", she coughed.

"I'm here, I'm here. Don't worry, you're gonna be alright, it's gonna be fine." She smiled weakly and shook her head.

"No, it's not. I think the b-bullet *cough* nicked my aorta. I'm glad I'm *cough* not dead yet. I n-never got to thank you *cough* for all t-that you did for the island. None *cough* of us did. I know it m-must have *cough* been hard, w-working for the people you *cough* hate to protect us. So I *cough* speak for all the c-citizens of *cough* this island. T-thank you." She smiled one last time, before her eyes glazed over and her whole body fell limp.

It was then that I lost it. I screamed. After that, I lost control of my body. The pain, sorrow, guilt, regret, everything came crashing down on me. All I saw was white. I floated in it for a few seconds, but then the memories started coming back. I shut my eyes as hard as I could. I'm not sure what happened afterwards. All I remember is the blackness seeping in, drowning out the white...

~M~

I jumped off the ship, my division following me. The other divisions and their respective commanders were somewhere behind us. As quickly as possible we made our way to the source of the smoke.

The second I entered the village, I knew it was too late. Corpses charred to the bone littered the ground, blood pooled around them. All of a sudden, I heard an earsplitting wail. It sounded like a wounded animal. It sent shivers down my spine. The worst part was, I recognized the voice. It was Lexi.

I ran in the direction of the sound. Lexi was kneeling on the ground, near a body. She covered in a bit of blood, and her hair was slowly turning black. This kind of shocked me. The other times I had seen her transform, it was always quick, with something similar to Conqueror's Haki following it up. But this, this was much different. It was all happening slower than usual. Once her hair had turned jet-black, crimson horns started growing from her head, and her wings pierced through the back of her and slowly unfurled. Next was her tail and claws. From this point of view, I could one of her eyes. It was shadowed. Black started to seep in, overtaking the white of her eye. Then, all of a sudden, the pupils disappeared instead of turning into slits, and the iris turned into a glowing crimson. Last to go was the light. You know that light every living creature has in their eyes, right? It was gone.

I tried to take a step closer to her, but kicked a rock by mistake. Her head snapped to my direction. I stood rooted in place. This wasn't the girl I knew. She was gone. In her place was some sort of monster. I blinked, and she was gone.

I had no doubt in my mind that she had gone for the Marines. When she looked at me, I got the feeling that she didn't recognize me. I'm not sure what it was that kept her from attacking me, but I sure as hell was thankful to it. Maybe it was the fact that I wasn't wearing a marine uniform. I decided to go back to my division and get to the marine ships as fast as we could. After all, no matter how strong she was, there was absolutely no way she could take down 10 Marine battleships, with over a thousand soldiers on each one, along with 5 Vice-Admirals.

The last ship was a good 15 meters away from the island. I figured that there was some underwater drop-off there, because otherwise the water would have been to shallow for them to be able to sail there with such big vessels. There were a lot of fishing boats here, though most of them had been ruined by cannon-fire. I could only make out about 5 that looked like they were in good enough condition to sail with.

"Whoever has no other means of getting to the battleships, take the fishing boats that aren't destroyed and sail over there! Once you get there, don't hold back. Take down as many marines as possible!", I ordered.

I transformed my arms into wings and took off towards the ship nearest me. Instead of fighting the marines, I made sure none of our guys were there and set it aflame. I flew over to the next one. Unfortunately, I couldn't do the same thing as before, since I recognized at least 12 faces in the chaos below. I landed in the middle of the deck. The marines in that area turned to me, expressions of absolute horror on their faces. I smirked evilly.

"Boo!", I said. Most turned on their heels and fled. Cowards.

"Hey, what are you guys doing? It's just one pirate?!", someone shouted. I looked in the direction of the voice.

"Do you know who that pirate is? No? Well, that's Marco 'The Phoenix', First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates! I don't wanna end up dead yet!"

I shook my head, and sprinted towards the marines.

~M~

I jumped over to the last ship. I tried flying, but my Devil Fruit ability suddenly stopped working. I ran over to the front of the ship, where sounds of fighting were coming from. Weird thing was, I only saw three of the Vice-Admirals during the battle. That meant that the other two were either hiding, or fighting.

I got there. I was able to make out Lexi fighting one of them. She dealt a strong kick to the man's collarbone, and he went crashing into one of the railings. She stood there panting, and covered in blood, before tensing her muscles and preparing to jump at him and deal the finishing blow. I surveyed the area. Marines with missing body-parts (heads, fingers, legs, you name it), torn out insides, and slit throats were all lying dead in pools of their own blood. The place looked worse than the village back on the island. I couldn't believe that Lexi was capable of murdering all of those people in cold-blood. You know what, scratch that. I could. I would've probably acted the same if they had done that to my hometown.

Lexi's opponent had gotten up again, and charged towards her with his sword. She easily blocked it with her dagger. Suddenly, a sinister smirk appeared on his face. I looked at him confused. Until I saw a glint of metal behind the demon-girl.

"Look out!", I yelled to Lexi, but it was too late. The other Marine Vice-Admiral had jumped out from his hiding place with a long knife in his hands, and stabbed her in the back of her left shoulder. Lexi didn't make a sound, nothing to signify that she was in pain. Instead, she turned towards him and brought her fist up, ready to punch him in the jaw. The other marine had taken to watching what was happening with a sadistic grin on his face.

Then he tore the knife out, and stabbed her again. Right through the left side of her chest, through the ribs, and out the other side. The transformation started fading, her wings turned to dust that got blown away by the wind, and the color started fading from her hair, but the marine wasn't finished yet. He twisted the knife. Lexi fell to the ground, trying to catch her breath. It was weird. When the marine pulled the knife out, her breathing started to sound very odd. There were crackling noises. That was when it dawned on me. He had pierced her lung. Most likely in two places. I rushed into the battle, taking out the first marine with a strong kick to the solar-plexus, and knocking the second one overboard. It wasn't as hard as it should have been. None of them had noticed me before, and they were tired from the constant fights they had endured. I rushed to Lexi's side, my heart pounding, and tried to remember what I should do in a case like this.

I would need something to cover-up the wound (or wounds, in this case), so the air won't get in through them when she's trying to breathe. I took off my jacket, pressed it to the injuries, tied her to my back with a rope I found nearby, and took off to the Moby Dick, hoping that I wouldn't be too late to save her.

~M~

I walked back and forth in front of the infirmary door, worried out of my mind. The doctors were doing surgery. Because of the knife being twisted while inside her body, the puncture wound that should have been two one-and-a-half inch cuts became a big hole in her lung. Apparently, her chances of survival were very low. Damn! If only I had reacted sooner!

When Daniel, the head doctor, finally came out, I was pretty sure my frenzied walking had created a dent in the floorboards.

I took one look at him grim expression, and thought my heart would stop.

"Well?", I asked, fearing his answer.

"We did all we could, and managed to stabilize her." I sighed in relief. "She had quite a few injuries besides the punctured lung, and suffered major blood-loss. She has a broken wrist, a deep cut requiring 5 stitches in her side, one shoulder is dislocated, the other has a stab wound, bruised up legs, waist, and arms. And Marco... There's something else."

"The scars?", I asked.

"Yeah. How did you know?", he asked, surprised.

"Chopper checked up on her back on the Thousand Sunny."

"Why would he need to do that?"

"She started coughing up blood", I shuddered at the memory.

"Ohh... That's not good." Daniel was about to rush back inside, but I grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

"Will she make it?" He grimaced.

"Can't say for sure."

"What do you think?", I insisted.

"95% chance."

"Of survival?", I asked.

"No. Of death." I let my hand fall off his shoulder. He walked back inside the infirmary.

(A/N) I kind of cut it there, cuz I wanted to get this out as soon as possible. But hey, It was out faster than the other one, right? It's progress. And it's not too short, if I do say so myself It's got almost 2,500 words!

We're at 122 reviews, people! A few more, and I'll be giving out a prize!