Ace returned to consciousness as a jolt of pain racked his entire system.
"Ah...Would you look at that...Sleeping beauty has finally woken up."
Well shit.
The cackling laughter of marines and guards made Ace feel like he'd just stepped into a nightmare.
His head was throbbing and he was caked in dirt and blood– most of which he was sure was his own.
The dirt and blood were an obvious deduction, he had fought with Teach and he had lost. The pulsing in his brain was probably the result of being thrown off the marine warship and onto the dock he was currently lying on.
Worse than the pain in his head was an itch that lay just beneath his skin, a crawling sensation that could only mean one thing, seastone.
For the most part of his life during which he'd had his devil fruit, Ace had managed to avoid coming into contact with it on most occasions.
Now, however, the thick casings around his wrists were enough for him to want to never see it again in his lifetime.
He could physically feel himself loosing strength as his energy was mercilessly pulled away from him.
Perhaps Thatch had been right.
Perhaps the benefits of a devil fruit weren't enough to have such a widely known weakness.
Ace's focus was brought back to the present as a foot connected with his stomach. His muscles contracted involuntarily to defend him from the pain. He had taken worse, much worse.
He knew the types of people that the government employed for these roles, the sadists, the power hungry, the ones that were too violent to sustain a normal career around the everyday citizen.
These people fed off the pain of others.
They needed it, like they needed food and water.
Ace schooled his expression to one of indifference, he would not let them see his pain, he would not let them hear it and he as sure as hell would let them get anything from him.
He would endure anything they gave him, hell, he might even give them a smirk just to really piss them off.
A rough hand twisted itself in Ace's hair, pulling his face up.
"Take a look at the sky Fire Fist, 'cause there ain't no sunshine where you're going."
His eyes flickered to the sun before he was dragged through the gates of Impel Down.
The doors swung shut behind him blocking out the natural light of day, replaced with candles lining the walls, the shadows dancing in more than the corners.
"Move."
Ace stumbled slightly as a strong hand whacked him across the back, he caught himself quickly and walked slowly down the dark hall, his head held high.
He was a Whitebeard Pirate.
He would show no pain and no weakness.
They would see exactly why he was Second Division Commander under the strongest pirate to roam the seas.
It didn't matter what they did to him now. There was no pain worse than that of the guilt that coursed through his body as he realised the real weight of the situation.
He had failed.
His nakama.
Pops.
Luffy.
Sabo.
Dad.
All of them.
He'd failed all of them.
Ace snorted drawing curious gazes from his escort of guards. They didn't ask, and he wouldn't tell. He'd been right all along. He WAS worthless. A waste of space. A nothing. A nobody. A...
His thoughts were abruptly halted as the image of a twelve year old Luffy frowning at him surfaced. It was the 'you're-in-trouble-I-can't-believe-you-face' that she had managed to perfect, first on Thatch and then later on himself.
Why she had needed that face to use on Dad had always baffled him. It wasn't until later that he realised that it worked better to freak Thatch out than her yelling and carrying on when he'd pulled some kind of prank on her, most frequently involving food.
It was also the face displayed before she'd run off, a stupid plan usually forming to somehow get back at her father, brothers or occasionally all of them.
"Promise me you'll always live."
"Luffy, I can't promise you that!"
Her eyes widened as a pout formed on her lips.
Ace sighed, it was a week before he could set sail and Luffy kept spurting out random promises she expected him to keep.
A promise was everything to their family. If you promised something your options were to keep it or die trying. There was no such thing as a broken promise.
They promised that they would always be a family.
Thatch promised that he would wait for them out on the Seas.
Sabo promised that he would live his life the way he wanted.
Luffy promised that she would meet Shanks and Dad in the New World.
Ace had promised Sabo that he would always protect Luffy.
And Ace had promised Luffy that he would live.
With a renewed fire in his eyes, Ace knew that this promise would be just like all the others. For Luffy, he would live.