Garp couldn't believe his eyes and ears.
Not only had Ace been rescued, seemingly right off the transport ship, but Luffy was currently invading Marineford with the rest of his crew and the Whitebeard's.
Well, that at least answered the question of where his grandson had disappeared to in the last two weeks.
Although he didn't see or sense the two female Strawhat pirates, he was pretty sure he knew how Ace was freed.
He honestly felt like celebrating right now. His grandson's were safe! Well, one was here, and this wasn't exactly the safest place for him to be right now, but... he was with the Whitebeard's, and he was pretty sure Luffy would be fine at the end of the day.
(As much as he hated seeing his grandson surrounded by those pirates!)
He laughed and got up to leave, wanting absolutely nothing more to do with this farce of a war. He only came out in the first place to be with Ace in his last hours.
"Garp, if you dare do anything but join the fighting and destroy these pirates, I will end you." Sengoku promised darkly, correctly assuming Garp's intention to leave. "Sit back down."
Garp snorted. Senny couldn't kill him, and they both knew it. Senny had never beaten him before, and wasn't likely to now. But they both knew that such a fight would cause far too much damage. Physically, politically, and to the Marine's public image, and to morale.
Reluctantly, he sat back down and took out a bag of rice crackers, and another bag of rocks from his pocket.
He then started amusing himself by flicking said rocks at Akainu.
All the Admiral could do about it was turn and glare at him, while Senny sighed and rolled his eyes at his oldest friends antics.
"Is Garp really flicking rocks at Akainu?" Marco deadpanned, and Izo shrugged daintily.
"He's Ace and Luffy's grandfather. What do you expect?" He asked, and readied his weapons. Beside them, Luffy was vibrating while he waited for the opening shots to be fired.
He didn't have to wait long, the Whitebeard's jumped over the sides to land on the icy platform so thoughtfully provided by Aokiji moments before, with every Devil-fruit user carrying a personal bubble, just in case they ended up in the water. (Robin and Nami's idea from the many times Luffy or Robin got knocked overboard during a fight.)
As soon as the Whitebeard's hit the ice, the Monster Trio was already halfway across the bay after Luffy slingshotted himself and 'accidentally' took the other two with him.
"Impatient brat." Whitebeard grumbled, and glanced at Dusty and the five with him who were supposed to be by those three's sides at all times.
They were standing there, blinking in shock towards their charges, who were suddenly half-way across the battlefield without warning. After a moment, they started scrambling to catch up with their charges, Usopp and Chopper wishing them luck loudly.
Kids these days, always rushing into things. And people wondered why pirates didn't usually last long anymore, especially here in the Grandline.
He turned his attention to the scaffold on the other side of the plaza and narrowed his eyes. So... that's where they were going to kill his son, was it?
Such an eyesore should be removed from existence... it was only right. The world might thank him afterwards, even.
Crack. The air trembled as he threw his hands out, gathering all the energy of a major earthquake into them, before unleashing it towards the platform. As soon as his children heard the air crack, they'd automatically moved out of the way, forming a straight path from the ship to the platform, pulling the nearest Strawhat along with them.
Marines, on the other hand, weren't so quick to move, and many were torn apart by the wave of pure power, along with the ice and the pavement beneath their feet.
Luffy stopped to watch, along with the Marines and his crewmates. "So cool." He breathed, watching with sparkling eyes as the wave of destruction reached the platform... and was stopped by the Admirals. (The Whitebeards nearby smirked at his reaction).
Whitebeard only smirked at the young upstarts before sending two more waves at the platform, determined to bring it down. He sent a third wave towards the half-circle between the plaza and the water, where Robin had indicated (and Namur confirmed) that the Marines had their wall, hoping to do further damage.
The second wave towards the platform was stopped, but the Admirals weren't able to recover in time to stop the third and final wave, and the platform was brought down in a cloud of dust and debris.
Whitebeard grinned and grunted in satisfaction while Marco huffed in amusement and the rest of his children cheered at the destruction.
As soon as the dust cleared, Akainu growled. "Enough of this." And disappeared towards the battlefield, where he took out a group of Whitebeard's. Immediately, Marco and Jozu were on him, giving their remaining siblings in the immediate area a chance to get away from the Admiral.
"They're starting to come out." Marco grunted as he blocked a fist coming towards Jozu's head with a hard kick.
"It'll get interesting, now." Jozu responded, ducking underneath another fist while blocking another one from reaching Marco.
"Tch." The ice- and light- admirals looked behind themselves to find Sengoku and Garp, neither looking so much as ruffled, standing in the ruins of the platform. "So impatient." He muttered, unintentionally echoing Whitebeard. Then he glanced towards Whitebeard, who had started to unleash quake after quake, both towards the island and towards the sea below... he narrowed his eyes.
"What is he up to?" He muttered to himself. It hit him suddenly a moment later as he spotted the water shifting in the distance. "He's set off a sea-quake." He said in horror. "Aokiji. Freeze the coming Tsunami!" He ordered urgently. If he didn't, they were all going to be swept out to sea, and most of them drowned as a result.
A Tsunami the size he had set off would now doubt be no problem for the aged pirate and his ships, he could simply quake a hole in the middle of it big enough for his ships to go untouched, much like the Strawhats had reportedly done during the Aqua Laguna wave. His 'children' would probably have measures in place as well, to ensure their own safety, it was only logical that they would be able to avoid one of their captain's tactics.
The island of Marineford and all the Marines or dependents that called it home, on the other hand...
Wait...
Dependents. Civilians.
Shit.
He should have listened to Jimbei when he asked Sengoku to at least evacuate the civilians from the island. But he was so sure in the strategy he and Tsuru had come up with, he never even considered that the civilians would ever be in any kind of danger.
Turning, he barked orders to the closest Marine captain. "Go evacuate the civilian families on the island. Whitebeard is going to try and sink us." He said grimly. This battle was over before it ever began, he knew that as soon as he was told Ace escaped moments before the Whitebeard's showed up. All he could do now was get as many people off the island alive as he could.
The Whitebeards had predicted every move the Marines were going to make today, right down to the containment wall around the bay. It had been sabotaged from below before Whitebeard even started throwing quakes at it.
As soon as he got word that the civilians were on the ships, he'd call for the lower-ranks to start being evacuated while the higher ranks covered them. That would be a double edged sword, the grunts would be out of the way for the more powerful Marines to let loose a little more, but there would also be less men in the field to hopefully overwhelm the Whitebeard's with sheer numbers.
The captain's eyes widened before he ran for the base-town. If Sengoku remembered right, that captain's family was one of those still on the base.
He cursed as Whitebeard unleashed another quake, that his crew seemed to instinctively know to move away from without even looking at the general area it was aimed at. This time, he felt the ground tremor and shake long after the quake dissipated.
The island was becoming unstable.
"You two, keep Newgate busy, do not let him set off anymore quakes." He ordered the remaining Admirals. "Garp, see what you can do to speed up the evacuation. And get as many of the records in the Archives moved to a ship as you can." He ordered the Vice-Admiral, who gave a lazy salute and gratefully disappeared from the battlefield.
"Franky!" Luffy yelled. "Let's show them what our ship can do!"
"SUPEEEEERRRR!" Franky yelled, and Usopp ran to get in position while the Second Division members left on the ship were instructed to hold onto something.
"Ready!" Usopp announced.
"FIRE!" Franky yelled and pulled the right levers.
The battlefield ground to a halt as everyone stared at the destruction. The Marines in horror, and the Whitebeard's in amazement and envy.
They wanted one.