A/N: Lol realized I forgot to post this here. ANYWAY! 12k of coby! Thank you all for the lovely reviews as well 333! Anyway, there's better formatting for this on my ao3 (whirlybird70) which also has links to some AMAZING fanart of ace and deuce! Anyway. COBY CHAP!
Warnings for: Cannibalism and canonical character death. Can you guess what this chapter covers ? ;D
Enjoy!
For as long as he can remember, all Coby has ever been able to do is watch.
He only has two eyes, unlike his father, unlike his mother, unlike the boy down the street whose eyes never shut, but it's all Coby is able to do despite his lack of extra eyes, despite his poor eyesight.
All he can ever do is stare, his legs like lead, iron in his veins, arms heavy like boulders. He never acts, never moves – just sits there and watches.
(He watches as his parents die (to pirates.))
(He watches as his village is swallowed whole (by a Beast from the Deep with a thousand fangs.))
(He watches the sun fade and the world turn red as Alvida the Iron Bodied snatches him from his meager safety of a rowboat, and forces him to be what he has detested since his family died in a bloody haze.)
He watches, because that is all a boy made of stone can do.
With Alvida, it's like the stone that is his nature has become like ice. He cannot move, but others can move him easily, pushing and sliding him around to do his bidding while he cannot hold on to anything solid. His fingertips crumble, cracks appearing in his skin, the tiny, pebble wings on his back dusting off gravel, a limp in a craggy leg as he rushes to call Alvida beautiful and radiant, though she grins with a smile made of three mouths and has claws curved like daggers.
(He would rather call her witch, but there is only one true witch in the East Blue, though few know where she is. It would be a disservice to The Witch to call Alvida that.)
Coby is a slave to Alvida's beck and call, always ordered to guard– or attempt to guard, at least – useless things like gold and booze and jewelry. Never anything that has true value, never anything that his nature begs him to defend, to love, to protect, never anything like people, like demons.
(Like family.)
Alvida tells Coby that he couldn't even have protected things like that if he had the opportunity to. Hethinks of the way a man demon slaughtered his parents before his eyes, and knows she's right.
Coby hates it, hates that his heart isn't stone, hates the way he loves, hates that his dream is impossible impossible impossible with how he is now.
He hates it.
(His life and dreams slips away from him before his eyes as he is perched on the crow's nest of the Miss Love Duck, and he wonders if his fate will ever change.)
It's hard to be immobile in the waters of the East – or at the very least, it's dangerous to be. The islands themselves move steady and slow in dark waters, creeping across the waters, dark undercurrents betraying darker secrets.
(The islands of the East are skulls born of ancient beasts with life growing from the fatal cracks in bone, life that is shifted all around by the waves created by colossal monsters. The islands were living once (still are), and it's no surprise they should still move-)
But islands have the shelter of reefs and old bones, of fae spells and demon teeth.
Ships do not, unless a worthy shipwright carves silvery bone into the keel.
(And even then, the price is often a worse fate than the outcome.)
Islands can afford to be slower, to drift along in circles, to be pulled by currents of blood and sea things. Ships must move speedily, flashing through certain waters with all the might they can, if they want to avoid the things that dwell in the deep.
Still things get bitten, fast things get scared, but smart ships stay alive.
Coby sees only one ship go far too slow in these waters (the waters near the Heart of the East, the Waters of Goa) and it is a sight he will never forget.
As he was sitting there in a quiet moment on the rails of Alvida's ship, there had been a marine ship in the distance.
Coby had thought they would attack such a vulnerable, slow moving ship, but Alvida was not stupid.
She knew what risks to take – she knew the waters of the East like she knew the iron in her mace.
She ordered the crew too turn around full speed from the ship, acting like a real captain for once.
The Marine ship listed in the water after them.
(Coby swears he could have seen the whites – or not – of their eyes.)
A moment, the Marines were there, wide eyed and terrified, and the next they were dragged down by limbs of fiery murk, stretching up from waters and the dark shifting mass beneath the surface, before crunching the ship in half.
Coby did not want to think of what happened to those marines.
(He did anyway – their screams echoed in his head at night, the sound of splintering and sizzling wound from miles away, the way the ocean churned and then went absolutely calm as that beast disappeared from sight and sound and breath.
He hated it.)
He hopes it never happens to him.
The first time Coby stops watching (every disaster in the world, every person to close and too far to protect) and starts acting, breaking away from the pedestal of chains he has frozen himself on, is when a barrel is pulled on deck.
The men aboard the ship give the barrel a wide berth after they pull it in, something odd and unnatural even for them exuding from it. They should know better than to pull things from dark waters, especially the waters only a day out from Goa but Sailors are a curious, superstitious bunch…. Who nearly always want booze.
Thus, the barrel is pulled on deck, and rolled down to the cabin by none other than Coby.
(He's following orders, you see, never moving on his own. He wants to run when he touches this barrel, run and never look back. Whatever's in it is unnatural, unworldly, something not to be seen or touched or heard. Every instinct in Coby screams at him, run, run, run, and a smaller notion still protect protect protect but either way he is frozen to the spot as he stares at this small, unassuming barrel.
Its hungry whatever's in this barrel, sealed shut with salt that has crusted far too quickly. Scratch marks mar the edges, but there are no bloody stains or smudges – no marks of violence.
Somehow, Coby doesn't believe that.)
He moves the barrel, living stone hands trembling when he touches the wood. Its light, surprisingly, as if it is filled with naught but fog.
(Lighthouse keepers know to watch for fog in dark nights and the brightest days. When the fog rolls in, thick or thin, dark or light and misty, that is when they are needed most – for some things do not belong in the light, some things are not meant to be seen.
The fog hides the real monsters after all.)
The barrel ends up downstairs, and Coby is ready to bolt when the barrel shifts ever so slightly.
He's frozen, again, like stone not living, terror rushing through what acts like veins for him.
Three men enter the room as the sea salt seal of the barrel start to crack.
Coby watches as they step forward, and watches as the seal breaks at last. His voice catches in his throat as something black and scaled and terrifying erupts from barrel and slashes towards the three men, the three pirates, strong in their own right.
There's crunching slurping and moaning, the sound of flesh being ripped and torn, and all Coby can do is watch as something wreathed in shadows attacks his crewmates before him, leaving nothing but bloody smudges behind.
Three men enter the room, and none of them exit.
(None of them live.)
Coby gulps, and wonders if he will be next, but the thing before him speaks, turning its head backwards on its next to face him.
"Man! I was hungry after that nap! Say, do you have any more food?"
Coby is terrified, but something in those eyes implores him to move.
The thing's name is Luffy, and he is Ravenous, always and without pause. He is controlled, however, despite his limbs like rubber, and the way his presence is barely contained by the Veil and the body he calls his.
He won't eat Coby, he says, but he doesn't say he's full either. Instead, he eats through all of their apples, as Coby talks to him and gets hit on the head, and somehow, somehow manages to feel safer than Alvida.
(Alvida is a woman with a dagger smile and gnarled, warped hands that grip an iron mace made with dark metal. She does not smile kindly or indifferently. Luffy, Monkey D. Luffy, the thing, the demon from the barrel, does not either. His own smile is always smattered in blood and fangs, but there's a knowledge in his eyes. He's sees Coby watch, and watches back, giving him a show and a promise and a resolution.
It's better, sometimes, to leave the monster you know, in order to go to the great unknown.
That's the life they live out on these seas after all.)
Alvida wants treasure and praise.
Luffy wants to become King of the Pirates.
Coby would say it's impossible, but Luffy does not fit in his skin and his grin is too bright to be anything but deadly. There's something in his step and sway, an easygoing confidence, that makes the insane a reality, a possibility, a fact. Coby finds that if Luffy said he would steal the moon and devour the earth, Coby would have no hesitation believing him.
Luffy's hungry for more than flesh, and does not care if Coby think's he himself is not filled with the same hunger Luffy is.
(The same hunger that makes him never still and so very, very selfish. The hunger for a dream, for an adventure, for a freedom like no other.)
Coby talks back to Alvida, stone fangs glistening in the midday sun, and Luffy slings her off the ship in one solid punch.
She drops in the water, far out of sight, and there's a possibility ringing in the air that she is dead and devoured.
(Coby does not care about her fate.)
This time, Coby watches his ex-captain drown, but it is not the last time his watch is paired with action.
He could think about the way Zoro met Luffy, the way dust settled and the sun froze. Coby could think about the way Luffy met all six of Zoro's eyes with only two, and the way that even tied at the crossroads, the cross, Zoro's bloodlust was able to rival Luffy's.
He could think about it, the way the world went quiet and something more than a promise was formed (the way Zoro saw something that Coby hopes he never gets to see) but he does not.
Instead, he thinks about the dog capped angel in front of him, and wonders if this is his chance.
(His instincts tell him to run more often than not, but always underneath is the urge to protect protect protect.
The world is fucked up, in more ways than one, the corruption in the East running down to its very core. Coby dreads what he will find in the Grand Line – what he will find, one day, as a marine.
But he knows he can help change that, help protect what meager justice is left in the world.
(To be chained at the crossroads is one of the worst punishments of all – surely those who chained Zoro did not know that? Surely?)
(He's lying to himself.
Of course they knew.))
"So," the dog masked man in front of him grunts, pulling Coby from his thoughts and the chipping pebbles in his brain. "You met my grandson."
There's no one else around as Garp the Fist pulls back his mask, revealing a thousand more eyes and two brown orbs more piercing than the rest. His wings flutter so gently as he snacks on another cracker, but there's a familiar presence in the gentleness Coby hasn't known since childhood. It's like thunder, in a way, a rumbling softness.
"Yessir." Coby says, back straight, nodding.
(With how much power reverberates from Garp, there is no other grandson he could have than Luffy, wreathed in darkness like Garp is in light.)
Garp snorts, and eats another cracker. "And you're alive. That's more than most strangers get."
Coby thinks of bloody storage rooms with no bodies to be found, and tries not to flinch.
"Alrighty then. You want to be a marine, boy?" A pause. Coby knows he's not supposed to speak. "You want to fight? For others? You want to work for justice?" The way the Hero of the Navy draws out the word makes it seem like an iron chain, one that Coby is just only beginning to see.
That's okay.
He's good at watching.
(Watching for the weight tied to that chain which will sink him into a hell greater than he has ever known if he lets it.)
"Yessir." He speaks now, watching as a little bit of gravel dusts off his brow from the sway of the boat. It hits the rim of his glasses, a noise far too loud in this confrontation, but Garp keeps speaking despite Coby's shaking.
Despite the way Coby cracks and shatters at every word, a fragile rock amongst bedrock.
"Fine. You and the blonde brat with me. We have work to do if we want to get you up to Grand Line Standard in a month."
Garp turns on his heel, wings drifting just above the ground, and Coby quivers as the eyes of thousands blink at him.
(He'll never be able to watch all of them.)
Helmeppo is not made of stone like Coby. Rather, he is made of gold and softened skin, dripping in the light, pretending to be everything (strong, precious, uncommon) that he isn't.
The shine on his skin wears off within a day, and he's like Coby, stone and metal and weak, but trying to be strong. He quickly becomes Coby's friend, his brother in arms, his brother in blood, because nothing brings demons together better than blood spilt together.
(It's nice, having a friend to struggle with, who's made of weak earth just like you.)
Garp, however, does not care for what they are made of. He shapes them both into something stronger than gold or stone, something more like bone – living and burning with molten energy and potential, stronger than their foes.
(Bones have the power to make islands and destroy lives after all.)
Coby feels cracks forming in his skin with every Fist that lands on his head and every wing that trips him onto his face. It's hard work in the East, in the lowly fortress Garp found to train them in, but nothing Garp throws at them compares to truly leaving the East.
He had thought Garp had made him stronger amongst marines in the East, marines with fangs and horns and scales. Marines with no faces and marines with too many - Coby had thought he had gotten so much stronger than before.
And he had but -
The Passage past the Veil breaks him.
(There's a reason marines from the East only remain in the East, and it is not the Creature of the Line or the dangers of the journey. It is not the humane monsters that live past the wall of calm and stone, and it is not the way people call those from the East weak.
No.
It's the Veil.)
It breaks him, shatters him, (frees him), destroys everything he thought he had built about himself and turns it into rubble and ash. The ship sails through calm waters where the currents of the East do not bleed through, and there is an absence like no other.
Or rather, an existence like no other.
(The Veil is indescribable in its function. Sailors sing songs about it, poets write lyrics, but none can quite pinpoint whether the veil shields you or others from the truest of sight.
Only that true monsters can break past it.)
Out here, on the Grand Line, it is like the Veil changes and chokes Coby, drains his life and tells him go back go back go back.
Weakness drags at him, tears at him, a wing shudders off his back and shatters into dust. Fog and will roll over his brain, drowning him in an experience he cannot quite name and the very air drags at his skin in needles and pain.
Beside him, Helmeppo gasps out something that sounds like a plea for help before he crumples to the ground, limbs molten and claws digging and cracking the floor as breathe wheezes out of his lungs.
And Coby – Coby panics but this is so much more than his normal fright. He has no air, he has no life, he is stone not living without the waters of the East and he will die out here on open waters with nothing to love and protect and guard.
Coby is going to die.
He wakes to gentle light and a laugh like thunder.
Coby is not dead.
He feels like he should be. His limbs are stiff and it feels like a heavy weight is on his just. He is immobile, like stone, and that means he is in danger, that means he is weak, and that means he should be dead.
The light moves, and Coby's eyes, grey and opal, blink past it.
(If he were not a demon, he'd think he were in heaven.)
It's a wing with a thousand eyes, all fuzzy along the edges, like something out of a dream.
Coby groans, breath choking out of him as he struggles upward, but a heavy hand stops him in his path upward.
"Not yet, boy. You'll be a marine yet but … Not yet. Rest."
And that rumbling voice lures him back to the dark death from where he rose, and Coby sleeps.
(If he had looked past the light he would have seen Garp and Garp alone, a tender look in his eye as he stared at Coby, seeing another boy in his place. A different future, perhaps, if men were not made of flesh.)
Helmeppo is just as shaken as Coby is by the Grand Line, though Garp backs them both up. A solid presence saying I'm proud, and Coby knows the unsaid part of the unsaid gesture is for surviving.
(The Grand Line is where weak demons go to die after all.
Everyone knows that.)
Helmeppo shakes at night in their shared quarters, cramped in the bottom of the ship. Coby shakes with him, and watches as nightmares come to life around him.
The Grand Line… on the Grand Line your truth is invisible, everyone avoiding you because they know something is off that they can't see.
In the same breath it's comfort, because he's stronger just for surviving the Veil. Just for living, breathing, existing.
(Garp. Roger. Dragon. Demons who survived the Grand Line, and monsters in their own right.)
(Zoro and Luffy, bounty posters pinned to Coby's wall, stronger than Coby could ever hope to be.)
Demons should not be outside the East.
Coby is, and he shakes hand in hand with Helmeppo as he learns to survive.
Here's how the marines work, known to the East and known to the high ups, but unknown to the regular sailor.
East Marine stay in the East. The few that don't are either dead within the week, or rear admirals within the next decade.
They are strong, if you get the right ones, and none as strong as Garp yet.
Flukes, the regular marines will call them, as they make weird jumps in the hallways and avoid their crewmates at night, The East is the weakest.
Caution, the smarter ones, the ones privy to more information, will say, Remember Garp?
(Remember the Pirate King?)
Marines from elsewhere, marines without talons and sharp teeth and supernatural attributes, they don't stay outside the east. Occasionally, they will drift through, confused and skin buzzing at danger they can't see.
They don't stay for long, often begging to be sent back, paranoia dripping in their veins.
(Few are the exception. Smoker, for one, the false devil of the East. But the rest… well.
The East does not take to strangers in her waters. Those who are not hers will be hers or perish.
The smart ones get out before the East takes her hold on them.)
Thus… the East is run by the East, its own devilry sinking into every corruption that passes through in a white uniform.
Coby learns, and is carved into something greater. He grows so tall, his wings becoming talon tipped and capable of flight in the way that stone could never be. His hands hit like rocks, not like a Fist of Justice yet, but strong enough to keep order in a place such as the Grand Line.
Such as Paradise.
(You can go slow in Paradise. You can take your time out in the waters, passing by swathes of calm waves without worrying about monsters under the deep.
After all, here in the Grand Line, sea kings are killable.)
Coby stops shaking at night and he is no longer cracked and broken.
He is more than stone.
Coby has visited Water 7 once before with Garp on a training trip. Garp had business there, something about rice crackers and suns, but Coby heeded it no mind as he was busier dodging cannonballs on submerged trained tracks.
Water 7 had been a sinking city, hope brought to it's people by the shipwrights that built ways off the drowning isle. When Coby first came, he was dazzled by the waterways and the hollow faces, the feel of rising tides in every alley way and heart.
Now, on his second visit, the storm has past and something rumbles in its wake.
The waters are choppier, the sky bright and cheery yet foreboding, and there is a group of pirates hidden in the heart of the city.
A group of pirates that has just razed Ennies Lobby to the ground and cracked open storm and sky alike. A group of pirates that take and take and take. A group of pirates Coby has only met two of, but a group of pirates who have survived the Passage Past the Veil with far more grace than Coby did.
The pirates, he says, like he doesn't want to think about their true nature, the pirates he says, like he doesn't know the Straw Hats by name, the pirates, as if Luffy had not reached into Coby's heart and took everything he loved for his own.
(The Captain of the Straw Hats is hungry for more than flesh after all.)
Coby walks the streets up to the Galley La docks and feels his feet sink into the ground. There's a pressure in his brain to leap up to the roofs and watch this city, let himself sink into the ground and weather the storms Water 7 is consumed by, but he keeps on walking forward.
The pirates, he reminds himself, the Straw Hats.
The reason Water 7 has risen to a new hope, and the reason the city seems to shudder without purpose.
Garp seems unconcerned, and really, why wouldn't he be?
Luffy is his grandson, meaning Garp saw Luffy as he was young and helpless, if he ever was. Garp knows Luffy's nature, in the way that Zoro knows, in the way that Coby doesn't.
Garp is safe, and Garp is Justice.
(The Straw Hats razed justice to the ground at Ennies Lobby, declaring War on the World.)
Garp will not falter in the face of Luffy's hunger and his crew's fangs and power, and neither will Coby.
Garp tells Coby to wait outside, but that doesn't stop Coby from looking as he smashes through the wall.
And not the door.
(What the rest of them don't see is that Garp's wings could not have possibly fit through the door, as splayed out as they are in an unconscious show of power. The horns curl atop his head spark with energy and the fur on his is spiked like a beast prowling into the fight.
Garp is unconcerned, but even he knows not to go into the devil's den unarmed.)
The rest of the Marines gawk at Garp while Coby is far more concerned what lies beyond Garp.
There's two demons in there, another peering through the window, the rest of them posed protectively around their Captain.
Around Luffy.
Who looks to be a sleeping beast, mouth running red and odd delicacies that Coby hasn't seen before on the table.
(He'd feel a little sick, just a little, if blood wasn't a popular dressing in the East, if his eyes didn't cry red.)
Garp flicks out his wings and says something that is drowned out in the call of Luffy's presence.
(He's small, in that chair, bandaged and bloody, some wounds wrapped better than others as if the doctor couldn't see the ones on his horns or the way things dug beneath his scales. As if unexperienced hands hand to do it, to keep the captain from bleeding out. It's deception at its finest because Luffy does not do small, he is too much for his skin, for his flesh, for this very earth. Odd shadows flash around Luffy, sights Coby could not even try to see.
What did Luffy do at Ennies Lobby? What did all of the Straw Hats do? What did they release?)
Suddenly, Garp is across the room, flashing past the curly browed, curly horned cook and the neon haired cyborg. The redheaded tempest cries out as Garp claws down on Luffy, seeming to pass through his very skin in a flash of light and hit something solid.
Luffy, asleep, wakes with a start and screeches, jaw stretching far too wide as something red falls out of his mouth.
"OW-"He starts screaming, and it would be funny to see this demon rolling on the floor because of a hit to the head, but it's Luffy, who can't be hit by bullets.
What did Garp do?
Garp's wings come around once more, a flash of light not holy, and Luffy growls before they launch into conversation.
Same old Luffy, Coby smiles, and does not think of the very real cover reason they came here besides the Straw Hats, does not think of the missing person's list from before Aqua Lagoona, and does not think of the bloody splotches on the floor.
Luffy doesn't want to fight Garp, says Garp almost killed him when he was a kid, and there's some side eyes there, even as Garp mentions training, of the knowledge that there would be people killing Luffy at birth if they were capable.
No one in this room would dare, but Luffy is made of more than this world and there's always a fool out there who would try.
(Coby wonders, sometimes, what he would be doing without Luffy in his life, and decides that is too big a loss to even think of.)
Coby's drifting out of attention, waiting for the time of his introduction when he can see if Luffy (brave bold untouchable, future king of the pirates Luffy-) remembers him, when-
"DON'T TALK ABOUT SHANKS LIKE THAT! I WOULDN'T EVEN BE HERE IF IT WEREN'T FOR HIM!"
The world grows cold like icy ocean depths.
Time is frozen as for a second, Luffy in his rage, in his defense for one man, becomes so much more, claws stretch back cracking limbs bending out of shape and out of realms. He does not fit, not anymore, and it is like his very soul (if he has one) opens up to devour.
(The other Straw Hats freeze, the one at window has his feathers puffed up as he stares with rest. It is as if they are witnessing a familiar terror, a familiar rage, a familiar horror, and suddenly, Coby knows what happened at Ennies Lobby.)
Garp is unaffected, his hidden wings multiplying and lashing up as he stares down his grandchild.
(Coby thinks of his unspoken promise to be as strong as Luffy one day, and realizes it might never quite be, because if Luffy, who doesn't know half the secrets and powers of the world, is only able to be quelled by a vice admiral at seventeen, then Coby, who fights but who has watched for so long, does not stand a chance.)
The vice admiral hits him again, and Luffy is calmed with the knowledge that Shanks, the Emperor, the man who gave Luffy his hat what the fuck, (how, what the fuck,) is okay.
There are little indents in the stone of Coby's palms, little webbing cracks that quickly heal. An accident, he realizes, with no blood to spill, a tightening of the fist in reaction to Luffy.
Coby readies his stance into something more fighting worthy, and calms himself.
It is not the time for brash movements, not when the Straw Hats are doing all the impulse decisions.
SMACK!
Rage and fear filled fury rush at Coby, the familiar slash of swords calling to him as Zoro charges forward, flinging Marines at the walls.
Helmeppo, shaped into a golden weapon, matches him with his knives in what is a desperate attempt.
Where Zoro goes, Luffy goes, so Coby turns and lunges at Luffy coming out the door, tackling his own fear into fighting spirit.
Shave, he says, a prayer under his breath, and moves far too slow for a predator like Luffy.
There is a second where he think he can win, a second of victory, but then there is eyes flashing and a clawed hand gripping his jacket and slinging him towards the ground.
He yields as fangs are bared dangerously near his neck, and laughs.
Luffy is Luffy, despite how Coby can't focus on him, and when he is not drowning in terror, his only natural reaction to the Straw Hat captain, is joy.
(Luffy won't eat Coby, won't bite into his flesh because Coby doesn't have any, even at the center of himself, not like Helmeppo.
He's safe, with Luffy, this creature who eats flesh and blood, because Luffy has already taken so much more from him, and even if not, he'd be the one not safe rather than anyone else)
Luffy laughs, and Zoro is confused by Helmeppo, so maybe things turn out alright.
But then Garp mentions Dragon, who's wanted poster is shrouded in shadow, and the world gets turned on its head yet again by the events of seventeen years ago.
(Demons show up in ink, did you know? The Veil hides it from mortal eyes, but the horns and fangs and gaps in cheeks and faces show up on photos and posters to those whose blood is polluted by dark waters.
Zoro's poster is crystal clear in the curve of six horns adorning his heads, some broken and welded together again, and the three faces that grin at the world around him in a smile like daggers.
Luffy's is different every time Coby looks at it, something off and fuzzy about the edges, but there's always, always that blood tinted smile and scrunched eyes, so out of place on a creature like Luffy.
But Dragon? Dragon's wanted poster with Luffy's (and, oddly enough Fire Fist Ace's) is pinned up in Garp's office. Coby stares at it, sometimes, at the photo of the world's supposed worst enemy.
All he can see is eyes and a green cloak.
It's like staring into Rage itself.)
And Coby wonders what possibly created Luffy.
At Water 7, in the city that gets closer to the ocean every day, Coby knows he loses and gains a part of himself all at once.
Luffy looks at him, and all Coby can think of as he looks at the fangs that are bigger than his own and eyes that seem to vivisect him in one oblivious glance, is that he will fight Luffy one day – he will defeat Luffy one day, he will capture the King of the Pirates, he will be an admiral-
And he says it aloud, something clicking into place in his chest.
(It's a futile dream, to fight the man whose only formidable enemy yet at seventeen is a vice admiral but – it's a dream, and there's something sacred in chasing after the impossible.)
Luffy laughs, smiling as he takes Coby's dream and shapes it to be as grand as his own just by existing. He takes a part of Coby in his not quite human (or demon) hands, and it is a part Coby is never getting back.
Coby cries, at that, little rivulets of water and blood dripping from his eyes. He wipes them away, red staining his palms, gritty dust from his nails getting into his eyes, but he can stop, can't stop at all.
From the window, Zoro laughs at him, three grins chanting in tandem, and Coby knows he has Zoro's approval.
(He's started to grow horns, Coby has, almost as sharp as Zoro's. He wonders, quietly, if they will ever be able to gouge his enemies like Zoro has done before.)
It's nice, he thinks as he cries in that ship dock, to have your dream stolen from yourself and given back whole and complete and someone else's.
(If he's an admiral, maybe missing people won't happen. If he's an admiral, maybe Justice won't be so twisted as to be burned to naught but ash. If he's an admiral, maybe Garp's hands won't shake as he mentions Portgas D. Ace to the fleet admiral. If he's an admiral, maybe little kids won't lose their parents to pirate attacks and islands to sea demons. If he's an admiral, maybe, maybe, maybe, he can protect the things that truly matter.)
Coby had not met Merry, but, as he sees the future king of the pirates fly out of Water 7 on a ship of dreams, he thinks he hears a laugh, echoing in the breeze.
A small child, drifting a hand along his cheek, like a call – follow me! To Adventure! And if Coby were any lesser man, perhaps he would have given into the urge to sail the seas without restraint.
But he is Coby, the marine recruit, and the future King of the Pirates has given him a dream.
He won't run off – not yet.
He watches Luffy wave from the decks of the Thousand Sunny, small but presence still as strong as the Sun, and waves back.
Not yet.
(Not Ever)
Garp keeps Helmeppo and Coby close after Water 7, as if some unconscious part of him is worried that Luffy's siren call to adventure and freedom will become too tempting, and he will wake up to find that his beloved apprentices have answered it and disappeared into the great blue.
(Ha, as if Luffy's order to fight him doesn't echo louder.)
Or, maybe, it's because all of the higher ups are getting restless.
Something big is happening, something that has shaken the Navy's best down to their core.
Coby doesn't know what it is, not yet, but he can bet it has something to do with the laughing new Warlord, Marshall D. Teach.
(Garp's hands tremble when he meets him, his eyes, every single one of them, trained on Teach when he enters the room. It makes Coby uneasy, makes Helmeppo reach for his daggers. That man isn't safe, not if Garp, powerful and Justice, glares at him.)
Teach – Blackbeard isn't a demon but his laugh still makes Coby's skin crawl anyway.
There's something about him, maybe his fruit, marking him darker than most, in the most unnatural sort of way. He smiles, just like Luffy, but it's like a void instead of the sun. He's a false devil, a false sun, a false dream but –
He's real, and Coby steps away from him as quickly as possible.
(Blackbeard laughs as he walks through Marine Headquarters, a Zehahaha! That is like nails against stone and metal. Unnatural, Coby's mind screams at him, his innermost instincts telling him to run.
He wonders how no one on the Whitebeard Pirates caught on that something was wrong with this man, down to his core, in the same way that Luffy was not quite demon but something darker.
Unnatural, Coby thinks, looking at that perfectly human smile, unnatural.)
He does not want to see this man again.
He knows why Garp shakes and Sengoku's shoulders are so tense in his orders in the following week.
(He knows why Blackbeard is now a warlord, and decides he hates the man.)
The letters blaze across the tops of newspaper pages, a herald of doom and destruction, of war and death, of something Coby needs to stop, but it's his duty to let it go on.
WHITEBEARD COMMANDER, the title reads in bold print, and oh, is that very phrase not asking for trouble?
WHITEBEARD COMMANDER, the title reads, once Coby can get his eyes to move past that first phrase, FIRE FIST ACE TO BE EXECUTED AT MARINEFORD.
Garp has the wanted poster of Ace in the same place he has Dragon and Luffy's posters. Ace's smile mirrors Luffy, his outstretched hand burning alive the same way every time, just as Luffy's seems to change, and sometimes, when Garp speaks of orders and promises, his eyes drift there, to the burning man.
The vice admiral hands Helmeppo and Coby their orders himself, wings tucked close to his body and eyes sealed shut.
The orders are for all Marine forces to go to Marineford, in preparation for a war with an emperor and his crew – his family.
Coby is going to die.
He's on his way to Navy HQ when he gets the news that Luffy has gone missing with the rest of the Straw Hats.
He trembles to think of what Sabaody must look like now, with the effort needed to separate Luffy from his crew.
(How many people are dead, how many trees fell, how many Pacifista's wreaked havoc with the rest of the Supernova's? How many of the Supernova's are left standing?)
He does not think of the thought that Luffy is not okay, does not think of the possibilities of where he might be.
He has faith.
Luffy, unlike Coby, has always been able to protect himself.
Coby has been in small battles before. Skirmishes, ship side attacks, training by dodging the force of an army.
Small things, worthy of a noncommissioned officer. His fiercest opponent, his biggest fight, had been that five second attack with Luffy, nothing more advanced than that.
Luffy was a half-bandaged pirate to most.
(A monster among monsters, to Coby and Helmeppo, who liked Luffy anyway.)
Hardly anything worth writing home about.
But – he had to fight in a war now? Against Whitebeard Pirates? An emperor's crew, who were notorious because of their rage against attacks on their family?
Pirates with experience and years at seas under their belt. Pirates whose elder members had known the King of the Pirates, fought with him and against him, threw fists with Garp in the old era. Pirates, who Coby didn't stand a chance against.
This battle… this war will be a massacre.
(He's never been in a war before. He doesn't think he'll be able to be in another.)
There's an energy in the air when Coby arrives at Navy HQ. Something like the world is holding its breath.
It cracks at him, the tips of his ears chipping off, his hair crumbling in its own odd motion by the sheer presence of everyone here.
The three admirals.
Garp, and the other vice admirals.
The giants.
The Warlords of the Sea, Moria heavily bandaged and Jimbe and Blackbeard missing
Sengoku.
The other few Eastern Recruits scattered throughout the crowd, monstrous and deadly.
And, kneeling like a fallen god upon the scaffold high above the rest, Portgas D. Ace.
(If Coby looks closely, he can see the way the man's skin cracks and shatters with every breath, quiet heat and embers bleeding out of him. Flames, never to be silenced. His devil fruit is locked behind sea stone chains, but Portgas D. Ace has burning alive since birth.)
Everyone is gripping their weapons tightly, twisting swords and muskets in their grasp, the tension rising in the air.
Helmeppo mutters that they are going to die, the gold sheen of his skin standing out amongst the white of the marine uniforms.
Coby nudges his friends' shoulder in a plea for strength, and doesn't have quite the voice to refute Helmeppo's words.
Inside, the words locked away as he watches an empty bay, he knows they cannot fall here.
He isn't an admiral yet. Helmeppo isn't standing behind him on their path to the top. They are stone and gold, still not melded into heroes of the Navy, protectors, people worthy of the name of Justice, and they cannot fall here.
The bay is calm, and the waves do not waver.
Sengoku begins the execution.
Portgas D. Ace, the crowd yells, the son of the devil.
Portgas D. Ace, Garp had said, his grandson.
Portgas D. Ace, Coby had heard, Luffy's beloved big brother.
Marineford is more of a hell than Coby could possibly imagine.
The moment before Whitebeard arrives is disquieting. For all that Coby has seen, has watched before, he could not have predicted the entrance Whitebeard roared into.
The ships on the horizon, Coby saw.
The order to wait, Coby heard, as tensions rose.
The rise of an Emperor of the Sea from the very waters the marines called theirs, Coby felt, as waves broke and the booming voice of the man closest to the throne called out to his son.
(Did he know? Did he know that Ace was burning from the inside out already, dying before the blades of the executioner were even pressed to his neck?)
This, Coby knew, was the power of an Emperor.
Whitebeard walks to the edge of his ship, his fist raised, and in a motion like breathing, cracks the very air with his fist. The world tilts, and Coby falls with it.
This, Coby knows, is the love of a father
Coby shatters as Whitebeard keeps talking, as the order to fight is given. The air shatters and the rock that makes Coby strong, makes his entire being, makes his soul, breaks with it.
There's a rumble in the air, as the announcements about blood from Sengoku are drowned out by the buzzing noise in Coby's ear.
A Tsunami rises on the horizon, stopped only by the grace of an admiral. Coby does not release the breath of fear caught in his throat.
This, Coby knows, looking around at the chaos, is a place where legends died.
Here's how it goes for a marine made of stone on a battlefield.
An emperor strikes. An admiral stops it. War erupts, and the son of the continent puller walks on land. Vice admirals and pirate captains alike are slashed down. Explosions fill the air, the screams of the dying like a symphony compared to the screams of the East Blue.
The simple marine, dressed in white cloth and holding a simple gun, is not expected to win.
The marine made of out stone on the battlefield is expected to be another number in the death toll.
It's how all wars go after all, a hell unto itself.
But – it's a hell different from the one Coby used to call home.
(The East – maybe he should have turned back, and gone back to where the Veil is home.)
He cannot die here; cannot die in a battle he was never expected to win.
Coby panics, like he has panicked so many times before, except this time his chest is cracking open quite literally with his fear, lines in his ribcage gouging deeper and deeper, and he is going to die.
Coby watches a Marine get stabbed to death in front of him, and runs. Helmeppo, his dearest friend, is at his back.
He gets to the back alleys of Marineford before heat and death roll through the streets ahead of him.
(Akainu is a justice that should not exist. A justice that is not blind, but seeks to define itself by his own terms rather than the truth.
Coby cannot look him in eye, not yet, just like he cannot stand the presence of Blackbeard.)
Akainu kills a man for loving his family, and Coby turns tail and flies back to the hell he knows now.
(War.)
He should have known the second Garp called Ace his grandson. Should have known the second he heard Straw Hat Luffy was missing. Coby should have expected it.
But as Luffy, many limbed and wild eyed, shadowy wings stretching uselessly from his back, and fangs bared so much fiercer than Coby has seen before, falls from the sky, Coby finds himself completely blindsided.
(A prophet would say that Luffy is the Second Fall, the Second Rise, when the demons fall from the sky and create their kingdom on the Earth. A prophet would say Luffy is the king of all that comes from death, Luffy is the king of devils and beasts and creatures. Luffy is the reason hell reigns across the earth.
Coby is not a prophet, so when he looks up at the sky at the yell for Ace! all he sees is desperation in the form of a king to be.)
The middle of Marineford fades out in Coby's mind, in the aftermath. He cannot tell what happened first, what happened second, and what happened before or after that, if it even happens at all.
He vaguely recalls the death of a giant in his nightmares.
He remembers the joy he got at seeing Luffy's brother free.
He still feels Helmeppo dragging him out of the way of a sword slash and the way they huddled together as cannons and Pacifistas blasted the world apart overhead.
He doesn't think about it much, after. He doesn't want to remember.
What strikes him with vivid clarity, always, always, always, is the end.
When Akainu struck and the world went dark, because that was Luffy, dark and crawling along the floor, weaker than Coby had ever seen him, and Ace, burning alive and now burning dead, with Akainu's fist straight through his chest.
(Coby wonders if Luffy wonders sometimes, if Ace felt it, dying, or if it was just another bit of heat inside him. He wonders if Akainu knew that the fire trapped in Ace was stronger than Akainu's if only Ace could let it go, wonders if Ace was not already flame, maybe, maybe he could have survived.)
There's moments, precious moments, as Akainu is fended off and Coby sees Luffy cradle his brother one last time.
(He should have seen the flickering edges of Luffy's form and started running)
Coby watches as Portgas D. Ace's last words fall from his lips, and the fire inside him stops glowing for the briefest of seconds.
(Enough to die entirely.)
The world grows still, as Ace falls to the ground, his arms unable to hold onto his little brother anymore.
The world grows still as red beads, enchanted with the life of a witch that any demon could not immediately, snap apart at Ace's neck and scatter across the field.
The world grows still as Ace hits the ground, a serene, happy smile on his face, and flares for one, final moment, as a supernova, loved and dead.
(The Pirate King burned three days after his death, the last of his Will clinging till his body even as the executioner's blade left his neck. Some say it's because he wanted to see what his will would create, and others say it was because his reign wasn't done yet, not even close.
Portgas D. Ace, however, burns immediately, defiant of his blood to the last breath.)
There is a second more of peace in the midst of war, before a howl of grief rips itself from Luffy's chest, and all that there is left is rampaging death.
Coby's not quite sure what takes Monkey D. Luffy out, only that he (Coby, the coward) hid throughout the entire thing yet the screams still haunt his dreams and his waking moments.
The scratch of claws, the way Helmeppo held onto them as Admirals screamed commands overhead, calling for help, for backup, for something, the way there was a flare of light as Sengoku chained an angel to the earth –
There's so much.
So much.
(And even then, even then Luffy is not the only thing happening on this battlefield. Coby sees an emperor die, a new one rise, (it was Blackbeard, the bastard, and if Coby wasn't already shaking he would start too) and that phrase, echoing out across the world -
The One Piece is Real!
And his corpse stands tall.)
Coby blots it out, and it is only when Luffy collapses and the shaking of the earth and the cold feeling in his chest stops does he crawl out and face the battlefield.
They are retreating – the pirates are.
Coby watches, and watches, and watches as Marines get cut down by desperate men and the opposite happens.
Helmeppo tells him to retreat, and with one last look at the horizon where Monkey D. Luffy is attempting to disappear in, Coby tries to.
A hand grabs at his legs, clawed, a fellow demon from the east decked out in the marine uniform.
Help, he says, snake tongue begging help me.
Akainu stops him, forces Coby onwards.
The Marines, apparently, do not retreat.
They attack.
(In the distance is the still flaming pyre of Ace's funeral place. The light illuminates all the creases in Akainu's face and the way blood is splattered on his chin, the way that there are gouges not quite healed in his side from a rampaging demon.
Coby hates him and his justice in that moment.)
Coby trudges onward, the instinct that he didn't even know was buried in fear rising to the surface.
Protect. Protect. Protect.
He trudges onward.
(Someone, he thinks, steals Whitebeard's fruit. There's only one person that could be, but Coby's too scared to think of the consequences, then.
It haunts him, afterwards, as he reads the newspaper.
The false devil reigning as an emperor –
The world is going to burn, sooner than later, if this continues.)
More marines call to him. He tries to run.
Coby can't.
This isn't right, none of this war is, why can't they just go? What is this worth? What are they protecting that is worth all of this? What is this wretched justice that has killed more than it saved?
Their voices - the voices of pirates and marines and just souls lost - call out to him, and it hurts, and he doesn't know why.
HELP ME! MY FAMILY OH GOD PLEASE! SAVE ME! IT HURTS OH IT HURTS!
(One by one, the voices drop off in tandem with sword strikes and gunshots. It hurts, that's absence in the world, it hurts like a dagger in the chest twisting like the heart of Goa.)
He can't stand it, the cracks in his chest growing just a little bigger, the lines over his rib cage digging a little deeper.
No one is speaking but he's stumbling, bits of himself falling off, eyes glowing bright, hands slapped over his ears in an effort to muffle it all, he's changing, he's raging, but he can't lose himself he can't-
And these people can't die.
There are bloody tears, again, down his cheek as whatever panic that's resting around his chest breaks free.
Wings, Helmeppo gasps from beside him, another pair of wings that no one mortal can see, a pair just like Garp's, a second pair that raises him up and gives him strength,
He's bloody and broken and crying, but people, innocent people, people who do not deserve to die are dying, and he cannot stand it anymore.
With four sets of stone wings, Coby rises from the earth, trembling, and screams at the top of his lungs.
"STOP THIS!"
And somehow, by some miracle, some people listen.
Akainu is going to kill him, for his defiance or because Luffy escaped in the breaths between his words, but Coby's at peace with it.
He knew, going in, that he was going to die.
At least, this way, he's dying for something worth protecting.
(People. The smiling faces of marine families. The fate of the world. The truth of Justice. The War. It's worth it.)
The heat comes closer to his face, and he realizes he is going to die just like Portgas D. Ace did.
Strangely, he thinks it's the best way to go out.
Then –
WHAM!
The heat is stopped, and Coby doesn't die, because an emperor got in Akainu's way and told Coby he just changed the fate of the world.
This would make a bigger impact on Coby if he had not just crashed to the ground and fallen unconscious.
He wakes to Helmeppo's tears and an odd happiness in his head and heart.
Alive, the voices seem to say so happily, alive.
The doctor tells him he awakened his haki, whatever that means, and Helmeppo tells him he has four wings now, which he only vaguely recalls happening.
What, he thinks, the fuck.
Helmeppo laughs at his expression, and hugs him harder.
"I thought you were dead," Helmeppocries into his shoulder, dusts of gold streaking on Coby's gown. "When you shouted – the entire war heard you, and Akainu looked so mad. You were flying Coby, and no one can agree what happened to you out there."
Helmeppo grips him tighter.
"You're a hero, Coby. Thank you."
(Without him, Helmeppo tells him at night just as his fellow sailors do in the day, Luffy would have died, and the war would have gone on and on and on – because Shanks would not take the death of his bet lightly.)
Coby's a hero.
A hero.
(He finally protected something for once, even if it left him cracked and broken with two more limbs than he started with.
It feels good, if not complete, not yet.)
Garp leaves the Navy, all his eyes that were once closed, blind to the murder of Justice, wide open now.
He leaves for the East Blue with one last word to Coby and Helmeppo, raising the both of them to Lieutenant Junior Grade immediately.
Coby's a commissioned officer now, no longer an NCO, no longer taking commands from just any body.
He is a leader, a hero to the sailors of Marineford, and he's still rising to his distant goal.
(Sengoku failed them. Akainu failed the. Coby won't fail them – them, the people of the world, the marines.
He'll be an admiral, a fleet admiral, and change it all.)
He needs to start training.
Coby's unconscious when Monkey D. Luffy runs through Marineford one last time. He hears stories though, from people with only mortal sight about how Luffy was there one minute on the edge, and in the heart of Marineford the next.
He hears how Luffy tossed flowers and something like blood into the canyons in the ground, and how over the burnt ground of Ace's death he traces something in the ashy ground.
(Tears, one recruit says, there were tears in his eyes.)
The marines tell him how Luffy rang the ox bell, but Coby thinks he might have heard that in his sleep.
The sixteen rings, echoing like golden bells of thunder in his mind, sharp and clear and threatening, the entire world quiet for each one. At the end, a howl let loose, the call to freedom that everyone in the East knows.
He could not unhear it if he tried, Luffy's reign into the new era reverberating through out his entire being.
Luffy's alive, Coby knows, tapping stone claws on his cheek as he stares out to the horizon, and he's not going to wait for me to catch up.
It's time to answer Luffy's challenge, and rise.
(The news does not stop talking about it for weeks. People thought Blackbeard would be the new challenger, but now, looking at the bandaged boy trotting into Marineford with an ex-warlord and the first mate of the Pirate king, they are having second thoughts.
3D2Y, Luffy's arm reads on the poster, scratched in blood to make it through the scales. Luffy is not smiling, but his stance shouts a promise to the world, and Coby is terrified of what it will be.)
In the next two years, Marineford does not fade from people's memories. It's everywhere Coby looks, familiar faces from the battlefield flashing in Wanted Posters and in marine base hallways, each calling up a different, forgotten memory.
Reporters still scramble for every bit of news, such as the suspicious missing persons list, even with the bottoms of ravines searched, and the scraps of knowledge about Red Hair and the Whitebeards.
Coby's sick of it because can't they see? Can't they see that that era is gone, with Sengoku and Garp and Whitebeard? Can't they see that there are new players entering the stage, players that have no fear and a faith in the era of dreams restored now they know the One Piece is Real?
Don't they know that its what's going on now that's important, can't they watch as Coby watches, and see the absence of the Straw Hats and the murder of civilians and the rise of the supernovas?
Coby passes Akainu in the hallway, fleet admiral and Marineford Victor, and does they can't see with this blindfold of justice over their eyes.
Guess Coby will just have to work for it himself.
His haki, observation and armament, is awakened entirely by the first anniversary of Marineford. By that point, he is a Commander, leading crews throughout Paradise, rising up the ranks faster than anyone else.
People ask him, sometimes, how he learned sky walk, but he hasn't.
Guess that's how his wings look, shrouded in the Veil.
(What else does he look like? What else do people think when they look at him? Or Helmeppo? Or Luffy?)
He fights new upstart pirates and trade blows with pirate captains when he arrives on land. He grows stronger, stronger, stronger, and he's not that great yet, but soon, soon he'll be worthy.
Soon.
At Rocky Port, he becomes in truth what those at Marineford already call him.
Hero.
Trafalgar Law, the Surgeon of Death, orchestrates a massacre on the small island. Coby is the one to stop it, to stop the ships from pouring into the bay, to stop the rocks from hailing from the skies above.
(His wings spread so wide they blot out the sun, and he doesn't think he is imagining the flash of recognition in Trafalgar's eyes as he looks up, up, up at Coby, and his wings.
They are wings of stone, but they fly just as well as any other feathers, and they are deadly and sparkling.
When Coby plummets to the earth, straight into Trafalgar, the stone hurts him, and Coby gives a feral grin.)
"Hey," He asks, trading blows with Trafalgar as he tries to stop this seemingly pointless massacre, "You saved Luffy, didn't you? He's doing alright, yeah?"
Trafalgar, bleeding and furious, doesn't answer, but the mink he has for a first mate flinches at Luffy's name, and honestly, that's all Coby needs.
He's alive, at least, and deadly.
Trafalgar spits blood into Coby's face, sheathed sword hitting one of Coby's horns straight off at the middle point, the bastard, and tells him one thing.
"That man is a monster."
Coby grins, because he already knew that from the moment he saw that barrel, and doesn't even find it in himself to be too mad when Trafalgar says Room and teleports away from the grinning demon of stone.
Luffy's doing alright!
He becomes a captain after Rocky Port, medals adorning his jacket as whispers start up in the halls.
The next Garp, they say, but they are wrong.
Coby will not be chained to the Navy's justice, not like Garp.
Luffy sang to him a siren call of freedom, and so Coby will find his own Justice, the true Justice, and he will not be chained.
It's freeing like that, as he makes his own missions and saves people under his own power, though it always, always invites the thought of –
If I was at Marineford now…. What could I have done?
Who could I have protected?
Whatever.
Look to the future, to the present, and Coby will not just watch as he did at Marinford, like he did in the East Blue, but instead he will defend.
He will.
He will.
Luffy comes back in a grander entrance than Whitebeard's, declaring war with an emperor and claiming an entire island as his own. The entire crew is back, stronger than ever, changed down to their very core, and Coby is so excited.
The rest of the New Era is here, and already rising higher and higher and higher than everybody else.
The future Pirate King has arrived in the New World, and it trembles at his might.
Doflamingo arrives in Impel Down missing an arm, cut off at the shoulder and still bleeding sluggishly.
According to the marine grapevine, Doflamingo mutters that it is payback for a law, and only Coby and Helmeppo know the reason why it looks like a wild animal gouged it out with teeth and fangs the size of a monsters.
Admiral Fujitora asks Coby how Luffy looks, and surely the admiral must know Luffy's true nature with his observation haki, but he asks, still –
"Does he look kind?"
And all Coby can say, thinking of the cheers from Dressrossa written in the newspaper, and the way Luffy cradled his brother, and the city of sand that blooms with flowers now, is -
"Yes."
(He isn't kind, but Luffy smiles, and eats the innocent quick, and that's the kindest a demon like Luffy can get.)
The Reverie is coming up, and though the East Blue has never really had a say in it as demons, there's always a few there anyway.
Garp's going this year, a sort of unanimous agreement that he's the one who truly knows the East, old as he is, with his hands shaking the Witch's every visit back home.
(Stelly, from Goa kingdom, is just a coward with his wings strapped to his back, a changeling child unwanted by the forest and traded for something better. Coby met him once. He doesn't like him.)
Coby's never gone to the Reverie, the name itself reminding him far too much of faery circles and traps, but he is sailing the seas around Mariejeoise, providing protection detail.
(The One Piece is Real – Coby will never forget those words, the way they echoed out throughout the world, like a mirror of the Pirate King himself. That phrase, that damn phrase, jumpstarted the pirate era again – without Whitebeard, with proof that the One Piece was out there – the world was ready to set sail and conquer again.
They said Marineford was a victory, but really it was just a platform for the New Era to leap off of.
And now, Coby has to deal with the pirates who think they can hack it in the New World and attack the innocent people there.
Great.)
(He loves doing it.)
Now, he's tracking some kidnapped princess, out in the waters of the New World.
They're almost there, above the submarine brimming in Coby's mind, location made clear with haki, when a torpedo shoots forth.
Coby does not hesitate.
Coby dives.
(See, he's made of stone, he should sink like boulders and weights, should be like a False Devil in the water, dead and useless. But Coby is not just stone, he is living stone, rushing forth and breathing life into every speck of his being.
When Coby looks out toward the sea, he does not see death.
He sees a chance for victory.)
His wings rush against the water, tucked in as they are as nails sink in and grip the Torpedo. It isn't more than three, maybe five seconds before the torpedo is shot out of the water and safely away.
(The explosion does barely more than dust black ash on his skin. Coby is strong, now, haki and stone combining to make some armor greater than mortal instruments.)
He bursts out of the water, wings flashing in the light, shiny new feathers made of molten metal stretching through his limbs. To the people on this ship, it looks like he is stepping through air.
For him, it is just simple flight.
He lands on the ship, making his introductions with a humble flair to the Dressrossa-Prodence Party, wringing out is jacket as he does so.
It is normal – people recognize him, he takes care of marine business, brushes off the praise for just doing his job – until it isn't.
Until the pink haired girl unfolds the paper, and gives a gasp of a name that Coby would recognize anywhere.
"Luffy?"
He grabs the paper graciously, and starts crying, no matter the weird start the Kyros guy gives him, or the odd stare the King has on his face.
(He wonders if that's because they are tuned into the fact that Coby's tears are blood and his smile is sharp, that his hands are made of unbreakable stone and that there are wings on his back, new and old. Some people are like that – able to glimpse past the Veil for the briefest of moments, battle honed instincts warning them of things that aren't what they seem. Coby occasionally wishes it worked in reverse, letting himself know what he looked like to others, what he looked like as a human, not a demon.)
His words scan the headline again, in the same manner he did when reading the execution order of Portgas D. Ace.
Disbelief, tears staining the papers red – but this time, joy.
5th EMPEROR OF THE SEA STRAW HAT LUFFY TAKES TOTTOLAND BY STORM
Luffy… Luffy is there, smiling, teeth sharp and face blurry but joy radiating off the page as below, a bounty of 1.5 billion berries stands.
Luffy… Luffy's an emperor of the sea now, if unofficially.
He's come so far, from that tiny barrel and that snack of three pirates. He's come so far from that dusty day in the courtyard, from that small dinghy, from those pirates who were all but appetizers to him.
He's come so far, and Coby wants to know what other dreams he has stolen and made grander and better than thought possible.
(What does he think of Coby now? Coby, who Luffy only met in glimpse at Marineford. Coby, who promised to capture him. Coby, whose only a captain and not an admiral yet, not like Luffy who's already a great pirate, great being, great demon, the future King.)
He cries, and escorts the party to Mariejeoise, praying that Kyros does not pry into his stone skin and no one looks to closely at Helmeppo in the sun.
It's become a risk, now a days, with people who have met the Straw Hats. Everyone becomes so much more in tune with what is and what isn't, in the way that Luffy opens the eyes of everyone around him (and blinds them to his own nature.)
Whatever.
If it is revealed, Coby will smile, because it is not like he has tried to hide himself.
He settles into the night watch, and waits for dawn.
(Waits for the Reverie, when the world will be turned on its head yet again.)
Five days after the Reverie finds Coby drifting in the open waters of the Calm Belt, the men under his command working hard to propel the ship through the waters.
He's a Rear Admiral now, because anything less would be an insult to who he has been set to capture.
With Luffy in the picture, taking out another War Lord, and allying with two others, it seems the World Government has had enough.
The seven warlords of the sea are no more, meaning that their arrest is now an immediate concern, since they are out of government control.
(Coby thinks of the way Mihawk sliced glaciers apart with a spare glance, the way Doflamingo's fall fucked up everything in the underground, the way Hancock kicked apart every man in her way, and knows that they weren't ever under Government control in the first place.
Monsters, they were, human but monsters in terms of power. As if those with conquerors haki would ever bow to someone else.)
Helmeppo isn't with him for this mission, though Coby wishes desperately he was. He's been sent off to capture Buggy the Clown, gold a match for a genius jester and Coby….
Coby has been sent to the Island of Women with an entire fleet, for the capture of Boa Hancock, the Snake Empress.
(According to the rumors, she's head over heels in love with Luffy, Luffy, who isn't man nor beast nor explainable. She went to war with him, got ignored by him, and still fought on.
Coby is wary of her – because she is either ignorant of Luffy's truth, or is the conquering king she truly is, and knows to see past the veil to who Luffy truly is.
And he can't decide which option is worse.)
Coby does not know if Hancock has met more demons than Luffy before, but he does know she has looked to the eyes of gods and spit in their faces. She is the Snake Empress, the Gorgon, and those who meet her turn to stone in the face of her furious wrath.
Coby arrives on her island, trespassing like any good marine and falling from the sky, and looks her in the eye.
(She's a conquering king, and she, like Luffy, like Shanks, like Whitebeard, like Doflamingo – she knows his nature. Or can, if she wishes it. Coby is but a candle to her sun but –
He will not yield.
His dream depends on it.
He can't falter here.)
Hancock looks back, a sneer marring her features, and Coby knows that if he were human he would be dead right now, cemented in love struck stone.
But he is not, for he is living stone, and what is a gorgon to a demon?
Her eyes trail up to the sky from which Coby fell, stone wings giving him a heavier drop into the courtyard in the center of Amazon Lily.
He's fast, has to act fast or his men will die, so he had flown high above the clouds, which were still, still in the range with Amazonian arrows.
He does not die, but there is a scratch on his cheek, a little indent n the stone, of where an arrow had grazed him.
Coby stands, brushing dust off his uniform, before looking the empress in the eye.
"Boa Hancock," He says, grinning as her eyes widen. The brush of conqueror's haki is brief, but certain, and suddenly, Coby is watching as she realizes he is already stone. She cannot trap him (though she still very well could kill him. "We need to talk about a certain pirate."
Her sisters bristle, her fellow gorgons, but Hancock raises a hand, haughty and sure of herself.
"And what pirate is worth my attention?" She sneers, and if she were from the East she'd have her fangs bared in that moment.
Coby grins, and maybe, just maybe, he and his crew won't die on this suicide run. Maybe he'll keep to his promise to protect, his crew, maybe he'll be worthy of that title of hero.
(Or maybe, under Akainu, it'll be traitor instead.)
Coby widens his stance, ready to fight, and flares open wings that only Hancock can see. He sinks, heavy, into the broken tiles, and speaks the name of the creature that will be king.
"Monkey D. Luffy, of course."
And this time, Coby does not watch but acts, and changes the fate of the world yet again, for the briefest of moments.
(He is stone. He is the protector. He is done watching. He is Coby.
And he is not going to die here.)