Chapter 13: The Island of Cozia
Warnings: Nightmares, PTSD, mentions of illness, underage drinking
The Spade Pirates needed more crew members. Good thing he knew where his crew was, relatively. Aggie and Deuce were strokes of luck, but he knew the D luck wouldn't hold out.
Turns out, he was right.
Somehow, they had been caught unaware of a giant superstorm that originated in North Blue and somehow, it had ended up in East Blue.
"HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!" Ace yelled, his voice, thank God, was loud enough to be heard over the roaring winds and freezing rain, which he didn't feel, thankfully.
Luffy immediately held on tight to Sabo and Ace's waists. Since Ace was used to Luffy hugging him tightly since he returned to being a kid with major issues, Ace didn't turn into fire when he felt someone squeezing him.
Dying in front of the Whitebeards, Spades, as well as Luffy and Garp made him that much more paranoid about the wellbeing of his crew and family. No, he did not forgive Garp. No, he didn't know if he could at this point or even in the future. But he would try and talk things out one day, tell him. Not about Marineford, because hell the fuck no, he was not getting into that with anybody.
Not even Buggy knew all about what happened during Marineford, and all he knew of either Impel Down or the war was what Ace had told him. Akainu had killed him, the marines had exposed who his father was to the world, he was tortured in Impel Down by the guards.
That's it.
But it was enough, it was a lot.
It was something he couldn't even talk about or think about without getting flashbacks to Blackbeard and Thatch.
To his own weakness.
He was brought out of his thoughts as a giant hurricane came out of nowhere. He swore and knew that if the hurricane swept them up, they would be separated, and he did not want that to happen.
"ALL OF YOU, GET AS FAR AWAY FROM ME AS POSSIBLE!" He yelled over the hurricane.
They scrambled to stay on deck as Aggie tied Deuce, Sabo, and Luffy to the double-knotted rope holding him to the large mast of the ship.
Ace turned into fire and reappeared in the crow's nest. The others watched in fear and anticipation as to what the hell Ace was planning. Then, they all found out what it felt like to stand near an open blazing furnace.
"ENKAI: HIDARUMA!" (Flame Commandment: Ablaze) Ace roared at the top of his lungs. A massive circle of flames surrounded the ship and it felt, to those that weren't fireproof that they were being burned alive.
But as quickly as the fire came, it disappeared, but so did the storm and hurricane with it.
Ace jumped down from the mast, not having the energy to change forms and collapsed.
"Ace!" Deuce yelled, untying himself he made his way toward his Captain who was panting on the deck about to pass out.
"Aggie's on night watch." Then Ace fainted.
Luffy and Sabo screamed in terror. Deuce paled as he felt Ace's skin. It was cold. That wasn't good. That means Ace went overboard with his Devil Fruit and did something that was to exhausting for him right now. And since they were in a very dangerous storm, or now that Ace blasted it away, it was over, and they were safe.
For now.
"He'll be fine. He just needs some rest." The blue haired teenage doctor assured the two brothers and Aggie. They really needed to stop at an island and find more crew members. It couldn't just be the five of them, at least not when Ace and Luffy couldn't swim and had a very large disadvantage because of their powers.
Deuce picked Ace up and went to their (finally) fully-stocked infirmary. Luffy and Sabo tried to trail after them but Deuce shook his head silently, conveying that they couldn't be in the infirmary with them. "I'll let you know when you can visit him, but he needs rest. I just want to check something and then I'll give you two the room, alright?" Deuce asked, compromising with the boys turned out to be the best way to get them to be patient and wait.
"Okay." Sabo nodded, but Deuce could see the fear in the boy's blue eyes when it involved his brothers.
"I'll make sure he's alright. I won't let anything happen to my patient." Deuce said to the brothers.
"Okay." Luffy said with a nod, pulling his older brother away from the infirmary.
Deuce went over to the file he had gotten from Captain Buggy and checked over the symptoms that Buggy had documented.
Looking over the list, he didn't see Devil Fruit exhaustion as one of the symptoms, but he didn't know how Devil Fruit users react to this illness. Since Captain Buggy told him that he didn't know if it was hereditary or not, he assumed that one of Ace's parents had this illness.
"It's just exhaustion. Nothing to be concerned about." Deuce muttered as he took Ace's temperature just in case. Ace had told him that he ran hotter than most humans, so he knew that his normal stable temperature was a bit higher than most.
The blue haired doctor made sure his Captain was comfortable and sat down next to him. "Ace…what the hell happened to you?" He whispered, hoping to get an answer to that, but knowing he wouldn't. Not for a long time.
Ace was in Impel Down again.
'Shit, not this again.' Ace thought as he felt the Seastone cuffs on his wrists and ankles. He had forgotten how scared the World Government was before when they found out that he was the son of the late Pirate King.
Ace snorted, reliving his torture in Impel Down wasn't something he really wanted to do during his nights. But he couldn't really help about what he dreamt about, or had nightmares about.
Oddly enough, it wasn't the Zoan guards that were torturing him this time. 'Well this is different.' He thought as he gazed up at the imposing figure that was outside his cell.
It was Akainu.
"Oh shit." Ace muttered to himself as the large frame of the Magna Logia came to the door of his cell in Level Six.
"You should have died the moment you were born." Akainu growled.
"Fuck off you dick!" Ace sneered, annoyed at seeing the Magma Logia already.
Akainu just raised a magma-covered fist; it was the same one that had killed him.
Ace was once again hit with that magma and felt it burn his body. A blood-curdling scream ripped out of his mouth. He didn't even know why he was screaming, he had already been through this exact scene.
So why did it still hurt so badly?
Ace's body caught fire as he screamed, burning the bed he was laying in as he frantically looked around for his little brother.
That nightmare hit too close! He knew that Luffy was safe with him. Sabo was also alive this time around and that wouldn't be changing anytime soon. Not if Ace could help it, which he could.
The infirmary door bounced loudly off of the wooden wall as Ace was brought back into the present.
Controlling his fire, meant controlling his emotions, that's also another reason Logia's were ridiculously powerful. Their emotions fueled their powers more often than not.
"Ace!" Deuce yelled as he stepped closer to his still-burning Captain. "You're on the Spadille! You're safe, with your crew!" He tried to calm him down.
Taking deep breaths helped, but he couldn't help but wonder…if it wasn't for Deuce trying to calm him down, would he have been able to do it by himself or would he have burned the ship down along with the rest of them?
He flung the blanket off of his legs, getting up from the bed. "Hey, wait! Where are you going?" Deuce asked, worried about his Captain.
"Need some space." Ace muttered.
"Ace…" The blue haired teen reached out a hand to help steady the D-Bearer.
"I'm fine. It's not the illness. I don't even know if it's hereditary or not." Ace glanced out at the sea from the porthole window.
"Who had it?" Deuce asked, since this was a medical issue, he hoped that Ace would tell him.
"My father. The crew he was on didn't even know when he got it or if he always had it and that it was just dormant." The black haired boy shrugged.
Ace steadied himself and began searching the cabinets for something. "What are you looking for?"
Ace didn't answer; all he did was continue his search until he went over to Deuce's desk and pulled out the pair of seastone cuffs. Slowly picking it up, Ace grimaced, feeling his energy being sapped but knew he had no choice in the seastone since he didn't have the control he had with the Mera Mera Devil Fruit that he had in the past timeline.
He needed to gain that control once again, if he didn't…he would be in a very bad position to protect his brothers and crew. "Got three years. I can do this." He breathed as he snapped the cuffs shut on his wrist.
"Ace, what are you doing?!" Deuce shouted, horrified at what Ace was doing.
"I have to, Deuce. I have nightmares that make me catch fire in my sleep. I have PTSD. I need to keep the seastone on when I sleep." Ace said.
"I…okay, just be careful with it. I would rather not want your brothers to beat me up because you're wearing seastone." Deuce told the younger boy and Ace nodded.
"They wouldn't do that. Not if it were for medical reasons." Ace said as he left the infirmary.
The young Captain stumbled through the ship in search of the kitchen. He knew that Aggie had bought some sake and he needed some right now. He knew that with his Devil Fruit he could only get drunk if he had seastone on or if he drank copious amounts of alcohol.
Finally getting to the kitchen in the dark, he searched the cupboards and found what he was looking for: sake. He grabbed the whole bottle and cracked open the bottle, chugging the liquor down. It burned his throat since he wasn't used to drinking in this timeline, but he didn't care.
The bottle of sake was in his hand as he made his way above deck and to the crow's nest (or Phoenix's nest), but as his head popped up, he saw that Aggie was there, staring at him.
"Captain…are you alright?" Aggie asked him.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Ace assured the Shipwright/Helmsman. "I'm going to stay and keep watch, you can go to sleep." Ace told him as he brought the bottle of sake to his lips.
Aggie stared at him again. "I'm not going to ask."
"Good." Ace muttered as he sipped at the alcohol. Aggie frowned at the young-looking boy, worried about his Captain but didn't say anything else as he went back down onto the deck to watch the waters of East Blue at the helm of the ship.
Even though Ace didn't want him in the Crow's Nest, that didn't mean that he would leave him to get drunk by himself or let him get injured right after he woke up in the infirmary. Aggie stayed and once he didn't hear anything coming from the Crow's Nest, he climbed the ladder and saw that his Captain was curled up at the bottom of the small area with the empty bottle of sake next to him. Aggie got a blanket from the infirmary and took the bottle to the kitchen. Aggie coved Ace and shook his head. "Sleep well, Captain."
The Shipwright/Helmsman stayed on watch for the rest of the night, watching over both his Captain and his crew while the calm waters of the sea soothed the Piece of Spadille.
Another two days later they had managed to get to an island. However, it wasn't one that Ace remembered going to in the other timeline.
"Where are we?" Ace asked.
It was Sabo who answered. "This is Cozia Island, it was invaded by Germa 66, the Royal Family of North Blue. They wanted to expand their empire and thought that Cozia would be the best island to start with to conquer East Blue since it's the weakest of the Four Blue Seas." Sabo said, a dark expression present on his face.
"How do you know that?" Deuce asked.
Sabo glanced over Aggie and Deuce for a moment before he answered. "I was a Noble." He told the other two.
"What?! So what the fuck are you doing becoming a pirate?!" Deuce yelled at the blonde.
"My family were horrible people. I didn't want to be like that so I ran away and found people that respected and loved me for who I was not what I could be for them." Sabo spat, glaring at Deuce. The blue haired teen gazed down at the ground, ashamed at himself.
"Let's see if we can find anything here, just in case Germa missed something, yeah?" Ace said, stopping the argument between Deuce and Sabo.
"Yes, Captain." The others said together, Luffy took Ace's hand as they made their way into the main city on the island. Even if it was ruined, the city was oddly charming as Luffy pointed out different things in the city.
"Can I look around?" Luffy asked his older brother.
"Sure, just make sure you're in shouting range, and make sure you don't use your Devil Fruit if you find people here. East Blue natives don't believe that Devil Fruits exist." Ace tells the straw-hatted boy.
"Got it!" And then Luffy ran off, searching for…something, probably food from what he knows of Luffy. But it was the same with him, when D's were hungry; their stomachs led them either to food or to trouble.
"'Bo." Ace called out to his brother. Sabo turned to his older brother. "Are you alright?" Ace put a hand on Sabo's shoulder.
"Yeah, Ace. I'm fine." Sabo sighed. "I'm not mad at Deuce, its just I don't like to think about my family. You know that."
"So tell him that. Aggie and Deuce won't pry. I don't think that they are those kind of people." Ace told his brother, who turned to watch where Deuce and Aggie were.
"Okay." Sabo nodded.
Before the brothers could split up again a shot rang out through the abandoned town. The bullet hold was smoking at Ace's feet. Sabo froze in horror, Aggie and Deuce immediately ran over to their Captain and pulled out their weapons to fight.
"We mean you no harm." Ace called out to the person who had shot at him.
"How do I know that?" A male voice asked from one of the rooftops. Deuce and Aggie tried to find the voice, since Aggie was the only one who had a gun; he pointed his pistols in the area of where the voice called out from.
"Stand down!" Ace yelled, a sliver of King's Haki in his voice, making Aggie drop his pistols.
Another bullet passed by Ace's face. "What was that?! What did you do?!" The man called out, fearful of Ace.
'Shit! That's Mihar, how the hell could I have forgotten that? But…I've never even heard of Cozia before Sabo had told us. So how…'
Ace ducked, broken from his frantic thoughts of his sniper trying to kill him.
"Stop!" Ace yelled, King's Haki in his voice, now truly making Aggie, Deuce, and Mihar fall to their knees. Or in Mihar's case, he fell off of the roof he was perched on.
"Shit!" Ace turned into fire and caught the sniper before he broke one of his limbs. "Are you alright?" He asked the sniper.
"You…what are you?" Mihar asked, scared of the boy.
"No! Don't hurt him!" Another male voice yelled as he and two others came out of hiding.
'What the hell is happening? Why is the rest of my crew here? What is going on?' Ace thought as he leapt away from Mihar.
Ducky Bree came at him swinging. Ace dodged Ducky's every attack and swing. "That won't work." It wouldn't because Ace had Observation Haki, true it wasn't that strong yet, but he still had a decent range.
"Ace!" Luffy screamed as he ran toward him as Saber raised his saber (yes, pun intended) to strike at Ace from behind.
What no one knew (beside Sabo and Luffy) was that nothing but Armament Haki can harm Logia Devil Fruit users.
His crew screamed as Saber's weapon connected with his back, the only thing it did was break his body into fire as it struck him. It didn't even hurt, but it was still shocking as hell to those that didn't know of the power of a Logia.
"Everyone stop!" Ace yelled, this time everyone dropped to their knees, even Sabo, Luffy was still standing but he was swaying on his feet. "We are not here to attack you! All we wanted to do is search this island to see if Germa 66 missed something."
"Why should we believe you?" Finamore asked.
"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already." Ace answered easily. Deuce, Aggie, and Sabo stare at Ace in shock. Luffy just covered his eyes with his hat even more.
The others glare at the man-turned-boy. "So why don't you?" Mihar asked.
"Do you want to get off of this ruined island?" Ace asked instead, Ducky Bree, Mihar, Finamore, and Saber glanced at each other.
Saber was the one to verbally answer Ace. "Yes, we do."
"Want to join my crew?" Ace asked with a smile.
"…What? Why would you offer us to join your crew when I shot at you and could have killed you?" Mihar didn't know what this kid was thinking.
"Because I can tell that you never meant to kill me. You aren't killers, you just wanted to scare us." Ace shrugged.
"You…are a very odd boy." Finamore said.
Ace laughed and smiled a D-smile at him. "Yep! So what do you say? Want to join the Spade Pirates?"
"Can we leave if we want?" Ducky Bree finally spoke up.
"Yes, I will drop you off wherever you want if you don't want to be pirates anymore." Ace promised, if they didn't want to stay with him, he would not force them.
"Okay." Ducky Bree said, "I want to join. I'm Ducky Bree by the way."
"If it gets me off this island, I want to join as well. I'm Mihar." Mihar introduced.
"Why not? I'm…Saber, sorry for attacking you." Saber said, still shaking a bit from shock.
"It's nothing. Also, that wouldn't have hurt me anyway." Ace waved off Saber's apology.
"How did you do that?" Finamore asked.
"I'm a Logia Devil Fruit user." Ace answered.
"Interesting. I wish to join you as well. I'm Finamore." Finamore nodded to Ace.
Ace grinned again, happy with this odd turn of events. "I'm Ace, the Captain." He breathed and said, "Welcome to the Spade Pirates!" Holding out a hand to the four older men.
Characters: Gol D. Ace, Masked Deuce, Aggie, Sabo, Monkey D. Luffy, Akainu/Sakazuki, Mihar, Saber, Finamore, Ducky Bree
Mentioned Characters: Monkey D. Garp, Blackbeard/Marshall D. Teach, Thatch, Buggy, Gol D. Roger/Pirate King
…
The Celestial Dragon/Family of D plot will be explained later on. Next chapter will have a time skip.