thank you's to: shgray, Ladyktbaby, Deinokos, Asususasa, Lucinda M. H. Cheshir, TooMuchBatman, marvellous-ish, scars from the sun, ays102, Emerald Gaze, TaintedLetter, Lani0108, Jom Ghost, impossibly-lazy, alexc120, Pyro Poet, Leynadoodles, calynrabka96, rainbowpuppies, Xielle Sky, Mugiwara-Kaizokudan, Medeaa, shethoughts, sgabrik, shethoughts, sseumersan, Alkitty, nhihilist, Turpitude, Rosto'sGirl, DreamsOfTheDamn, and guests!

notes. wowzers, what a response! now i'm legally required to say, "well, if you liked the last chapter, just wait 'til you get a load of this one," with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle. this is yet another huge chapter and i was debating on ending it sooner at a certain point. but then i decided to say fuck it. i hope it brings you guys a bit of entertainment and fun during these awful times.

—

methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis #33

slow dancing in a burning room

—

Ace braced himself against her shoulder, hot skin to her scapula, fever-breaths straining.

Gulping in air, he fired off his higan-bullets at the marines—a quick-draw, the sharpest cowboy in the saloon—and then clutched his ribs with a teeth-clenching wince. Sophie finished buckling her gas mask over her face and leapt to his side, holding him upright before he could fold over like a lawn chair. He was the only one here who could shoot fire out of his hands. She wasn't about to have him trip and knock himself unconscious.

They had no time for pleasant thank you's, so Ace gripped the back of her head like she was another son of Whitebeard, his war-brother. Their foreheads knocked together.

Ouchie, Sophie thought, dazed.

She looked back at the marines. With her free hand, she chucked a grenade behind them. The wind from the explosion blew them off their feet.

The battleship snapped clean in half as they burst onto the deck.

"Fire Fist! I won't let you escape!"

The shout was punctuated by a kick through Ace's fiery head. The leg was not attached to a Vice Admiral, but to one pink-haired boy with his glasses pushed up over his flower bandana.

The part of Ace's face that didn't have a leg shoved through it grinned. "Tsk, tsk. Good effort, though."

"Grapefruit-kun!" Sophie cried in awe. "How feisty!"

Koby flushed at her gas mask, undoubtedly remembering St. Poplar. "What a disgrace, being m-mocked by a traitor—"

He was fast, but not as fast as Teresa or Sabo. She raised her arm over her head and his kick uselessly collided with it.

"You sly dog, you have Haki now?" Ace crowed. "You've come a long way since Idyll, grasshopper!"

She returned fire with Arsenic. "Thank you! Now do something useful, please!"

"After Fire Fist!" marines bellowed. "And the witch!"

"Is that all I am to you!?" Sophie shouted indignantly. "I thought we used to be friends!"

"The hideous jezebel! The pox-marked hag!"

Her mask turned demonic, fangs and all. "HEY!"

Something invisible cut through the air. Sophie felt it, lifting up the hairs on the back of her neck. The marines fell like a stack of cards, foaming at the mouth. She turned her bewildered gaze on Ace. It hadn't hurt this time, but… was that the thing that Sengoku tried to do to her?

The ship groaned, tilting horizontally.

"Let's get to higher ground. Oopsy-daisy." Throwing the yelping chemist over his shoulder, Ace leaped onto the topgallant yard of the main-mast. They balanced on the large wooden beam, heavy lines of rope snapping around them. "What's the plan?"

"Right!" She fumbled through her backpack. "J-just a second!"

Lettidore emerged from the smoke, standing on the mizzen-mast. He lifted his two-handed sword. "I never asked why you left. You only ever loved science."

Don't respond, you have no time to respond—Sophie inhaled deeply and retorted in a ferocious shriek, "Am I a robot!? Does that sound like a life to you, you rotten pineapple!?"

"It sounds ungratef—stop laughing, Garp!" Lettidore bellowed, because the older marine was slapping his thigh uproariously.

The other warships were nearing. Vice Admirals were lifting their weapons. There was no means of escape. The moment Fire Fist Ace touched the water, it was over. Garp was grinning fiercely. Ace adjusted his stance, his returning grin all teeth. Something seemed to pass between them. An understanding, maybe.

"Now then." Garp tilted his decorated-war-hero head, looking terrifically amused. "How will you brats get out of this?"

With a loud pop! a fat, helium-filled cloud burst out of her potion bottle. Sophie shoved Ace onto her sheep-cloud, and they lifted up into the air. When it came to outrageous battles with outrageous enemies, running away was always an excellent choice of action. "Let's go, jalapeño!"

Lettidore slashed. In concordance, the Vice Admirals from the surrounding ships leaped forward.

Fire Fist Ace reared his arm back. Sophie threw her hands up, staring between her fingers into the light.

"My fire," he said, "burns everything."

It was as if time stood still.

"Hiken."

That famous right hook, an inferno strong enough to demolish a whole row of battleships, erupted with a roar.

And demolish battleships it did.

The cloud shot into the sky as Garp threw his head back and laughed. Sophie hung on for dear life. When she opened her eyes, the wind was whistling. Below, the fleet grew smaller and smaller, and even the mortar shells they fired weren't enough to reach the pirates.

The cloud slowed, and then they were simply drifting over the ocean, buffeted by the breeze.

They were free.

Sophie and Ace fell back on the springy cloud, inspecting this freedom with sheer disbelief. The stars were coming out. She had just evaded a fleet of marines, including Lettidore. She had just rescued Thee Fire Fist Ace. She took off her gas mask. She jittered, down to her fingers and toes.

Sophie let out a loud shriek, stretched her limbs out, and shook her head with deranged fervor. "Oh my god. Oh my god!"

"Damn straight. Think we'll reach a sky island?"

She shrieked again. "My crew! I need to go back to Sabaody!"

"I'll come with you!" Ace proposed, and then winced as he touched his wounded side. "Sabaody ain't that far. That should be where my little brother is, too." He snickered, looking proud. "The Eleven Supernovas. The world's given you rookies a cocky name."

"I'll tell my captain you said so," she snorted, examining the constellations for a guiding star.

She could already hear Law grinding his teeth. She couldn't wait to kick down the Polar Tang's door, lugging Fire Fist behind her. Sophie giggled to herself. Ace stopped poking at his wounds in favor of watching her. What was he staring at her for? Was it because she was staring at him? Well, she couldn't help that, he was Thee Fire Fist Ace—

A hand touched the back of her head. Sophie flinched as he drew their sooty foreheads together. He seemed to like doing that, as if being nose-to-nose with a poor victim and having them stare into his coal-black eyes was his favorite pastime.

"…Ubwah?"

His expression was serious, grateful, and filled with wonder. "You saved me."

Her brain short-circuited. Sophie started laughing, delirious, weak in the knees. Ace palmed his mouth, smearing the blood there. Then he started laughing, too. His cinder-black hair unfurled in the wind like a sail and his eyes were full of stars.

She would remember that. The sweeping line of the clouds, the rising moon, the triumphant twilight expanse.

She would remember everything.

The cold, sharp wind. How, when she exhaled, her breath fogged wetly. The shiver wracking through her body. Ace's breath also coming out in puffs, and him rising to his feet, all traces of humor gone.

The cloud had stopped moving. It hung suspended in the sky and was covered in frost.

An icy lattice was attached to the cloud, like a kite string.

There was a man strolling up the staircase of ice, his hands casually tucked in the pockets of his white suit and a sleeping mask on his brow.

"Stand back," Ace said.

Sophie didn't need to be told twice. She scampered behind him, shoving on her gas mask.

"That getaway was pretty close," Aokiji greeted as he reached the top step. "Fire Fist, I'm here to… well, you know."

Ace ran his tongue over his teeth. He spat out a glob of blood and raised his fists, all firedrake badass.

"Good evening, nee-chan." He recognized her from the Marineford castle garden, and he was remarkably stoic about it. Not even the barest glimmer of distress or surprise entered his expression. He didn't seem to be emotionally moved at all at the realization that he had watched the clouds with a Marine traitor in disguise.

She gave a tiny, despairing wave, breaking out in cold sweat. "Hi, Uncle. It's, um, kinda ch-chilly."

"Yeah." Aokiji scratched his cheek. "I have orders, you see."

"Uncle?" Ace repeated.

"Marines. We're all one great big family." Her potions spilled out. Sheep-clouds inflated in a herd. For footing. She didn't fancy a drop into the ocean.

"I did say that, didn't I?" Aokiji's features were blue-brown in the evening, and his small, rueful grin was more of a merciless knife. He was, at the end of all things, an Admiral. "Well, let's not make this harder than it has to be."

Then he appeared beside Sophie and touched her gas mask with his frigid palm.

—eh?

"It's unfortunate," Aokiji remarked, "you're out of your weight class."

Ace blasted him with flames.

The world lurched.

Her hands fumbled at her ice-covered gas mask—ow, the cold was agonizing, she could feel it through the leather material, Ace had saved before he could freeze her entire head—and ripped it off, taking some skin with it. Sophie took several deep breaths, because what she saw made her feel like she was dreaming.

Out in this wide dark space, Ace was fire incarnate. His silhouette was lost in the Flames, capital f; he was a blazing whirlwind, red whiplash, hot habanero, impossibly godlike for a boy with, ya know, freckles. Branches pronged from the pillars of ice Aokiji solidified out of thin air, from sky to sea, a foothold. They clashed in terrifying magnificence. Two Devil Fruit users, fighting right above the ocean. If they had one thing in common, it was The Audacity.

Of course she was outmatched. But that didn't mean she was just going to sit on her butt.

Sophie doused her hand in her last vial of Lichtenberg zap sap. Her hair stood on end, her own body's protons becoming attracted to the powerful negatively-charged electrons. Hopping on the clouds, she snapped her fingers to create friction and a thunderbolt spiderwebbed across the sky. Ace ducked. A thread of brilliant white connected with Aokiji, and his left arm blew off. He regrew it in an instant, fashioning ice crystals into bones.

Ace gawked. "You had a Devil Fruit this whole time!"

"It's science and some creative Haki!" She whipped Arsenic around—Ace ducked again, sensing murderous intent—and fired.

Aokiji froze the bullets in midair. Water vapor condensed around it, forming a sword.

Sophie threw up her hands, outraged. Seriously!? Great!

Then she lifted up the vial of Lichtenberg sap and drank the rest of it.

It should've killed her in an instant. Her body seized up. Her gloves disintegrated. Electricity nearly ruptured her eyes before she smoothed Armament over them. She was a medium for the voltage; a lightningstruck girl, eating electricity like raw sugar, with only Haki keeping her from burning to a crisp.

A bead of sweat trailed down Ace's cheek as he grinned. "Is this the part where you tell me to stand back and watch?"

She looked over her shoulder, her eyes flaring incandescently blue. "Stop screwing around! Light him up, pyro!"

Sophie met Aokiji's ice-sword with her bare fists. Thunder broke the ice forming on her limbs as fast as he made them. Ace followed with infernos, a sharpness to his technique honed by years of fighting. Meanwhile, she moved like a sledgehammer—BANG, BANG, BANG—pingponging between ice and clouds.

She wasn't used to moving so fast. She hit harder and reacted quicker than ever before. But Sophie was also burning through Armament; she could physically feel her body attempting to die over and over. She couldn't lose focus.

Surprise flickered in the depths of Aokiji's gaze. He froze the air around her to encase her in a ball of ice. The supercharged nerves in her eyes saw the crystals hardening in the air in slow-motion. She smashed through it with zero grace and cracked a bottle of acid over his head. The reaction made some dry ice, but otherwise did nothing.

"I should apologize," Aokiji mused, "for underestimating you."

"Actually, I love being underestimated," she assured. "That's when I do my best work."

Her heart was pumping like it was about to burst. That was a bad sign. She slowed down before she lost control of her Armament, blinking away spots from the sudden vertigo. She flung pyreflower petals on Aokiji's ice pillars and they detonated. He lost his foothold and summoned ice again—but then Ace was hitting him with a million exploding fireflies. Diamond dust shattered. In the vast night sky, beneath the gibbous moon, fire roared, ice glittered, and lightning flashed.

Their reversal of fortune happened quickly. Sophie ran out of grenades, started to wear thin on her Armament, and Ace's injuries from Blackbeard were slowing him down. There had to be something they could do to get the upper hand.

"Ace!" Lightning sparked between her lips, stinging like lovebites. "Can you make blue fire?"

"Like a phoenix?"

"Um—excuse me, Uncle, could you give us a minute?" she called to Aokiji.

"Ah? No, please, I'd rather we finish this—"

"Blue flames burns hotter than orange flames," she said (while Aokiji went, "…" in the background). "Like methane gas. Complete combustion. Granted, gas burns hotter than organic materials, but—well, to put it simply, what are you burning when you make fire?"

Ace wiped his bloody mouth. "Nothing. It's my Fruit."

"Exactly! Then why can't you make hotter fire? You need three things to burn. Heat, oxygen, and fuel. Heat, your Devil Fruit. Oxygen, the air around you. And fuel. I assume that's also part of your Fruit, but theoretically, if you have stronger fuel, couldn't you make hotter combustion?"

Several things happened at once. Ace rubbed his chin, quirking a brow. Aokiji moved. Faster than light, they collided.

"Ice Block: Partisan."

"Shinka: Shiranui!"

Ice spears crashed into fire lances.

But their plan was already in motion. When Aokiji turned to block Ace's hiken, the Admiral was instead hit in the face with a bag of salt (a staple of Sophie's arsenal). NaCl, as it happened, lowered the freezing point of ice and made it easier to melt. Which wouldn't do anything to Aokiji in most cases, except—

If Ace could melt a bit of that ice, it'd make saltwater—an excellent conductor of electricity.

Ace downed a bottle of her napalm. Lighting it up from his insides, he erupted in white fire. She rubbed her hands and struck them together. Caught between the two of them, Aokiji exploded in a deafening thunderclap.

The sky seared.

Flung backwards, Sophie managed to grab onto a passing cloud and roll on it.

"Ow, ow, ow." Whimpering, she curled in a fetal position as her limbs spasmed and jerked uncontrollably. Definitely peed herself a little. Her hand was bleeding. Gasping in agony, she opened her left palm and saw that a fractal-pattern of lightning had been burned deeply into her middle finger.

Cinders fell. The flames grew, became legs, black shorts, and a bloody torso.

Belching out smoke, Ace collapsed to his knees. "Sorry… the wounds Teach gave me are…"

"It's okay, d-don't talk." She held him up. He chuckled as if her concern amused him, despite bleeding spiritedly at multiple points on his body. They were both drained, jelly legs, limp noodle. "You can r-rest now. I'll get us out of here—"

"This has been fun…" Aokiji stood on a branch of ice, a thin line of blood trailing down his forehead. "But I take it we're about done?"

"Oh, fuck it all," Ace swore under his breath.

This, she thought numbly, is so unfair.

Ace staggered to his feet, thrusting his hand out in front of Sophie. It didn't register, for a moment, what he was doing, why he was standing there—between her and death. And then he said, "Let her escape. She's nothing to you. You only want my head, right? In return, I won't run."

In disbelief, she gazed at the mark of Whitebeard upon Fire Fist Ace's resolute back. The only thing worse than leading a legend to his doom was watching him throw himself off a cliff in front of her. "Don't." Her voice cracked; it was so cold her eyes watered; a tear froze on her lashes. "Hey. Don't."

"You have honor, Fire Fist. But I'm afraid not. Apprehending a traitor is one of my…" Aokiji glanced to the side, "easier moral obligations."

The moon was chilly, bright and frost-bitten.

"Aokiji-san," she whispered. I said I'd be back in three days. "Please. We're just trying to make it to the ocean."

Something shone in his eyes. Something less than hate, but worse than pity. "Then don't waste time dreaming of an easier world."

Ice splintered, so cold that steaming water vapor covered the sky. It shrouded everything. Making a split-second decision, Sophie blindly grasped her knife.

The last thing she heard was Ace roaring. Like the final crackle of a fire before it was snuffed out.

—

The tide rolled in, washing over the sand and luminescent blue jellyfish of Noctiluca Atoll.

He was quiet, looking up at the stars. Sometimes, Law seemed to go far away. One foot in the present and one in Cora-san's grave. Sophie appreciated that, but she was also needy for attention, so she kissed him delicately on the tip of his nose and then kicked his knee as a pointed ahem.

The tide rolled up the beach. A hermit crab crawled over his knee. Seamoths fluttered.

He finally looked at her. She batted her eyes with the seductive allure of a hundred bosomy mermaid princesses. He kept looking at her, calm and quiet with moonlight haloing him, and she just about fell apart.

The waves ebbed away.

"You can hate me for this. For what I'm asking you to do."

For asking her to remember he had a goal. However much she wanted… him, this, whatever, it wasn't as important. She knew that. And Sophie was fine with taking a backseat. Sometimes, you wanted something more than it wanted you.

Still, it was pretty lame getting dumped during their very first make-out session.

"Hate me all you want. But say it where I can hear you." All night, he had wavered between control and gracelessness, the avenging Flevanci ex-Donquixote pirate and the man who kissed the hollow of her throat just to hear the tiny gasp she made. And now, as he smoothed his scarred knuckles over her cheek, Law looked embarrassed. He seemed to be forcing himself not to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Don't go where your voice no longer reaches me."

She held Law's face in both hands, and kissed the crease between his awkward furrowed brows. He tensed up, and then a small sighing noise thrummed from his chest as his shoulders relaxed.

"…You are the most dramatically angsty man alive, I think."

And then she whispered—

"You have me."

The tide rolled up the beach, washing over the hazy night like a dream.

—

Chains clinked on her ankles and wrists.

Impel Down gave a grand reception for the two ragged pirates.

The heavily-armed procession passed over the drawbridge, through the grey-smoke mist rolling in from the Calm Belt, and entered the great undersea gaol. Jailers saluted the marines. Despite being covered in blood, the son of Whitebeard walked with his back straight, as if he bore no injuries at all. Trailing behind him with a limp was the other pirate. She kept her head low.

"Welcome," said Chief Warden Magellan. "We hope you find your stay immensely unenjoyable."

It was quiet within the gaol's stone walls. Quiet, but not silent. There were faint reverberations, a sound even the unskilled ear would've picked up: it was the sound of thousands of muffled screams. The jailers leered, hungry for any morsel of fear on Fire Fist.

"Let's hear a little scream, mmm!?" came a trilling voice, and a whip cracked against his face.

The lash drew a stiff line of blood along his head. A muscle on his cheek jumped and he took it without flinching, his glare dark and hard. Magellan motioned down his excited sadist of a chief guard, and also sent a waft of poison gas to his vice warden, who was muttering about his great fortune in personally incarcerating Fire Fist.

Magellan cleared his throat. "With Enies Lobby out of commission, I've been told to relay your sentences. Fire Fist Ace. Death row. Alchemist Sophie. For your dangerous criticisms against the World Government, you will disappear from history."

—

She thought she knew pain.

They plunged her in boiling water first. Called it a baptism.

She heard Hai Xing mutter, "Listen, they can't kill you if you're already dead inside."

As they steamed her bones, she almost laughed.

When they pulled her out, burning and sterilized, her knees collapsed from overusing Armament. They gave her a lash for every second she remained on the ground. Called that a mercy. Ace was like a statue. He stood tall while dripping in still-steaming water, and indifferently informed the jailers he was made of hotter stuff. For that, they put him on the ground next to her and cut his back to shreds.

She thought she understood helplessness. She thought she was a master of rising from the ashes.

The jailers led them onto the lift. A triple-barreled rifle was resting on someone's back. She stared at the yellow star of Yasopp in bewilderment.

Fury exploded in her heart. She stepped forward. She could slam her shackled fists over his head until his skull splintered apart. She could throw herself at him, and they'd fall into the darkness together—

For looking at him funny, the jailer adjusted his new rifle and gave her another lash. She bit her lip in order not to scream.

In a liminal moment between time and space, footsteps pitter-pattered alongside her. A little girl held up a toy marine ship and cried, Hippo-sensei! When I grow up, I'm gonna send a thousand pirates to Impel Down! I'll be a marine hero! The fata morgana twirled, smiling dazzlingly at her older self.

The lift creaked, stone grinding. The air became scorching hot, then freezing cold.

They descended into the Underworld.

Sophie wasn't entirely sure if she was conscious. It felt more like she was floating along, trancelike. Everything around her warped and swelled like she was looking through a fishbowl at a world that didn't make sense. Nothing seemed real. She'd just have to push her fingers against the darkness and it'd break and she'd tumble out of her hammock in her cabin in the Polar Tang.

She'd wake up any minute now.

The katabasis continued deeper, where the stone walls perspired grey, muddy water. The fetid air reeked of human sweat and terrible rotting matter. Mechanical gears clicked on torture contraptions. The only light came from the torches held by the jailers. She stepped in something wet. She thought it was piss, and then caught in the flickering torchlight a half-decayed finger flattening with a wet squelch on the bare heel of her foot.

She'd wake up now.

She was ready to wake up.

"Steady," Ace muttered. The jailer carrying Arsenic shoved him—purposefully in his wounds—and barked at them to keep moving.

Her feet obeyed automatically. Bile rose up in her throat, tasting metallic. Not yet. She forced it down.

What inspired the most fear amongst those sentenced to the gaol weren't the screams, sobs, and raving yells. It was the lack of them. Because in that stifling silence was the soft, muted thud of heavy objects hitting flesh, whimpers, vermin scurrying, bones crunching. Things appeared in the shadows. Inhuman things, ambling slowly, their spiked clubs scraping along the ground.

The depths of hell was very…

very…

…very dark.

"Look alive, you rotted fungus-brains! Magellan hisself, bringin' us a new catch!"

"What sorry soul will be joining us?"

Eyes peered through the bars of their cages. Giant shadows moved. Voices cackled. The world's most notorious criminals jeered and hooted at the new prisoners condemned to the Eternal Hell. Hands shook the cell bars. The huge, horned Chief Warden cast an acid eye on the prisoners, and though a few of them quieted, most didn't.

"Young blood! Gyahaha… how fierce did ya rampage to get thrown in here!?"

"Does my nose deceive me? It's a woman!"

"Sad little girlie. Won't you say hello to poor Caterina?"

"Hey, hey, the boy next to her… ain't that Fire Fist Ace!?"

A hand smoothed out a golden hook. "They've rounded up a big catch…"

They chained Ace up to the wall, his arms outstretched beside his head, wrists locked with seastone cuffs. As an afterthought, Sophie was tossed into the corner of his cell. She hit the ground in a limbless puddle, tangled in chains.

Magellan spoke a few parting words to Ace about his impending execution, and then they were left in the damp gloom.

After some desperate wiggling, she maneuvered her bound hands from her back to her front. She inhaled through her nose, sharp and wet. The whole world shrunk down into this one jail cell. The walls were scabbed with mildew, and they shrunk and pressed tighter around her. She couldn't get enough air because there was hardly any to begin with. She started to hyperventilate.

She was here. She was truly here.

Impel Down.

Sophie doubled over and retched.

Shoulders heaving, forehead pressed to the ground, she bashed her chained fists against her stomach to get it out. Saliva and bile ran down her chin. The sounds were not pleasant. Ace stared as he saw something gleam in her mouth. Her experiments on eating glass weren't simply fanciful. She had studied how to cover her organs with Armament. She could even smuggle in a—

(—once, near this very spot, a man cut off his own legs and replaced them with swords; in hell, it was survival of the maddest—)

Thus, she reached between her teeth and plucked her knife out of her throat.

Clutched in her shaking hand, Kir glimmered.

—

Word spread quickly, flown on the wings of news gulls throughout the world.

From Kunlun, where shouts rang throughout the bridge-roads… to Idyll Island, protected by the mark of Whitebeard… to Machinastein, where Ixchel Ursa and Ixchel Sundae debated hotly about the news over their morning coffee… to St. Poplar, as a newly-rebuilt Spring Queen opened… to Omiramba, where a three-eyed woman faced the sea and listened… to Sabaody Archipelago, where a new generation of Super Rookies gathered.

Portgas D. Ace's public execution had been set.

Eight days 'til Armageddon.

—

THE FIRST DAY

palm sunday

—

After an hour of stabbing her chains, Sophie concluded that this was harder than she thought.

She sagged against the wall with a malcontented noise. Moodily inspecting her surroundings, she noted some kind of dim phosphorescent algae growing in the stones. Perhaps it had infiltrated Impel Down from the sea—they were underwater, after all—and formed in spore-like clumps over the centuries. In the corner, a very chic clump of black mold grew on decaying bones. The cell bars, never renovated, emphasized the cozy feel. Beyond that, there was a stunning, panoramic view of nothing.

The only amenity was a shirtless Whitebeard cowboy (hatless, unfortunately, peace be upon it), who was watching her in faint, tired amusement.

"Almost got it," she assured, stabbing the chains again. "Wait for me, Sen-chan, I'll get you back."

The chains weighed at least a ton, attached from her wrists and ankles to the wall. No doubt someone told the jailers she had Haki. Maybe Aokiji. Or Garp. Or Lettidore. All three of them could kiss her pineapple. She hoped her backpack had been lost into the ocean. If one of those marines had read her journal… they'd kill her immediately instead of waiting for her to waste away.

"Oh gooooood," she said, hitting the chains harder.

"These shackles are strong. It's held some of the most powerful pirates in the world." Ace watched her for a few seconds longer. Perhaps her stubborn refusal to not give up was enthralling to him. More likely, there was just nothing else to look at. "Do you know how to coat your knife in Armament?"

"Coat…? N-no, but I can learn."

A small snort. "It takes training."

"Hm…" She was now wiggling the tip of Kir in her cuff's lock. Her tongue poked out between her teeth in concentration. "Come on, you annoying thing…"

"Save your energy. Even if you bust out of this cell, there's no way you're making it out of Impel Down. Sophie. Look at me." She obeyed reflexively. He was grimmer than death. "They will torture you until you beg them to kill you. Got it?"

Yes. She knew how crazy trying to escape was. She bit the inside of her cheek, feeling her eyes welling up again. Oh, god—get it together. She clutched the sweaty handle of Kirkira Iska, palming the smooth ash-grey wood. It was the only thing that felt like hope in this sunless pit. She couldn't give up. She couldn't. The last thing she ate was Sengoku's rice crackers. That couldn't possibly be her last meal on this earth.

Sophie huddled against the wall, knees drawn up. "What's your escape plan?"

"…My plan?"

The silence dragged on.

"You're tired f-from the fight with Aokiji," she explained, her smile hard and bright, speaking a little too fast. "Once you get a little rest, you'll feel better, and—and then we can start planning a jailbreak 'cause I'll get us out of these chains." And then she'd kill the guy who was walking around with Arsenic. "They'll never see it coming."

His nod was gentle. "Okay. I'm counting on you."

Ace was too nice to say he didn't believe her. That was okay. She didn't believe it herself, either. But it was something to say. Something to latch onto. Her chest was in knots, guilt and despair squeezing her waterlogged heart until it dripped from her eyes. After all… "It's my fault you're here. I told you where Blackbeard was. If I had never mentioned Banaro Island—"

"I asked you," Ace said sharply. "It's my fault for losing against Teach. You tried to help me. Then you tried to save me. We almost got away."

"But—"

"You shouldn't have gone this far for someone like me."

…What?

"You don't know—" his voice cracked a little, and his face was shadowed with anger and weariness, "—anything about me."

"Okaaaay," Sophie said dubiously, frowning, "let's go through this. We hung out together on Idyll Island. You took me to G-13. You wished me luck. We shared pizza on St. Poplar. You fought with me and my captain against marines. You were kind to me. I already knew plenty about you that made me want to help you. So, like, please come off it."

Ace didn't say anything for several seconds.

Finally, a disbelieving chuckle shook itself out of his chest. "Thanks," he said, barely above a whisper. "Thank you."

Sophie didn't know how to reply, so she went back to stabbing her cuffs and chucking bones at the occasional prisoner asking to smell her armpits.

—

There wasn't a huge selection of things to do in prison.

She stared at the wall. She stared at the ceiling. She made popping noises with her mouth. She came up with several new scientific theories, which wasn't hard given her extremely fat brain, and then wondered if she could stave off her growing hunger by licking the wall. Perhaps the fungus had some nutritional value.

She counted the drops of water, catching them on her tongue. It tasted like mildew and cholera. She also counted the frantic squeaks of rodents as they were seized by a famished hand. After that, she stopped counting.

She lost track of the passing time. She fell asleep at some point, and woke up screaming after having a nightmare she'd been imprisoned in Impel Down. Then she looked around, and—well. Didn't remember what happened after that, but her head was stinging from being banged against the wall and blood clotted beneath her fingernails as she clawed the stone. Ace kept saying things like, "You're okay, deep breaths, stay with me," in a soothing voice, which calmed her down. He was a decent guy, that Fire Fist.

Well, anyway.

Sophie went back to knifing the chains. The irony of an underwater gaol wasn't lost on her. Chained up in the ocean herself, yet miles away from freedom.

The prisoners on the levels above were tortured on the regular. But Sophie wondered if they also got food. Maybe even community activities. Support groups for recovering murderers. Level Six was where prisoners were sent to waste away the rest of their days, until Magellan decided death looked cuter on them. There was nothing here. The torture was the darkness. And the solitude. Being alone. Being with your thoughts. Being with yourself.

She was thinking too much.

She thought about what her crew was eating as they waited for her boat to appear on the horizon. She hoped it was something delicious. She thought of finding Penguin and Shachi sleeping sprawled over each other in the engine room. She thought of Law's grumpy scowl in the morning as he made coffee, as Anko yelled over the voice pipes for help in his latest crossword puzzle. She thought of late nights gambling with spare socks and dirty magazines, basking in the fond insults and silly jokes her crew threw at each other. And then she thought of Manette Nellie vanishing into the sky, never to be seen again.

She nearly burst into tears.

The air down here was putrid and thin, stinking of captured dead things that piled on each other and kept on dying. She started thumping her head with her manacles and laughed. She thought, I am going crazy, which made her laugh harder. If Gold Roger couldn't escape Impel Down, why did she think she could? She was never going to see the Hearts again. Wow. Hilarious.

"Curls. Sophie." Ace's voice was very soft. He was probably thinking she had lost all her marbles. "You okay?"

She laughed again, and then realized she couldn't seem to stop crying. Oh, for god's sake. She had no energy for this. Shivering and hungry and dismal, Sophie wiped her face and sniffled, "They d-didn't even give us toothbrushes. What if w-we get plaque? We're at risk for cavities. Cavities! And look at the state of my hair! I need my coconut oil!"

"…Is that your biggest concern right now."

"Those who do not understand the glamorous burden of having curly hair can shut up!" Her face slid into an impression of an old geezer sitting at the corner of the street and muttering about the state of the world. "Fweeeeh, wonder if my imprisonment even made it into the gosh darn papers."

"I don't know if you're taking this too lightly or too seriously, but either way I'm uncomfortable."

"No doubt they're all crowing about you. Fire Fist Ace captured! Sentenced to die! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah—"

"That's too many blahs!"

"—blah blah. Anyway," she segued softly, a tragic shadow falling across her, "I think the worst part about this—"

"Are you being comedic or dramatic!? Pick a genre!"

"—is that my crew is still waiting for me on Sabaody. Wonder how long they'll wait before they…" Sophie couldn't finish the thought, drawing her knees up and rocking herself. Trying to come up with another joke, she bit her fingers until they bled.

"They'll wait. Of course they will. If you consider yourself a part of their crew, have some faith in them. Worst comes to worst, if they do set sail, they'll probably leave behind a message for you, right?"

The mania faded somewhat.

"…Right," she mumbled. It was still painful to think about what might happen in the next few days, but. For now, she was still breathing. As long as she was alive, she had a chance to return to the Polar Tang. Right. Having Ace here was a balm on her misery.

What she didn't know was that Ace was surprisingly protective over people he considered in his care. Even in chains, he was able to keep himself calm because there was someone depending on him. Perhaps he was used to being an older brother.

"That's right," he recalled, breaking the silence that had fallen, "you never said what you were doing in Marineford in the first place."

Wiping her nose, she told him.

"…You're shittin' me."

She sighed.

"Mad lad. You got the worst luck, Curls. Bumping into me right as you were about to sail home? Feels like fate."

"…I met a three-eyed woman who wouldn't shut up about destiny. Made my skin crawl."

"I've never cared about destiny either. But now… I might be in the eye of that hurricane." Ace's head sagged against his shoulder. "This has to be where they kept Gold Roger before they executed him." Then, much quieter, "I used to dream about this place."

He sounds like…

She was unable to fight the feeling that Ace sounded like Law. Whenever Law went far away, the light in his eyes fading like waves receding from shore. Her breath hitched. Did he think he was destined to die because he'd reached the zenith of fame, like Gold Roger? No way. He was still so young.

"You're not going to die," Sophie blurted out. "You're a son of Whitebeard. Executing you would be a declaration of war. The balance between the Government, Warlords, and Emperors is precarious enough."

"…I should've listened to Pops. He told me not to go after Teach. I should've listened, god damn it. This started because I just couldn't calm down. How can I say I'll live without regrets after this?"

"Hey—everyone's made the wrong choice before. Everyone w-wishes they could redo something in their lives. Ace. Look at me." He did, slowly. "It's a part of living. How can you not regret anything?"

After a silence, he said, "I have brothers waiting on the other side."

Their chains fell away. The sky was wide and open.

A hand landed on Ace's shoulder, a friendly pat. Ace turned to face the other man, his smile painfully tender. "His name was Thatch."

She was moving through space—stepping on wooden planks before she knew they were there. He was telling a story, painting a picture of his home, and the world Sophie saw in her mind transformed, rewriting itself in his words.

Their cell turned into billowing white sails. A massive whale figurehead. Black flags, the jolly roger a skull with a crescent-shaped beard. Sunlight flared over the commanders of Whitebeard's divisions. Their voices called out to Ace, shouting that he was late.

In all its magnificence, the deck of the Moby Dick came alive.

—

Ace was home.

(—not really, they were simply dreaming about it in their collective imaginations, but—)

Ace was home, and it showed. He swaggered around in his big clompy boots, probably the youngest in the crew, with bravado big enough for three more ships. He threw a glance at her, his chest puffed out in Super Rookie pride. Very 'look at me now in my natural element, home field advantage, surrounded by all these manly men with thick, pulsating, rock-hard bounties' and what-have-you.

Sophie rolled her eyes. He was not endearing in the slightest. Not at all. Nope.

"Welcome back, Ace!"

"Home at last!"

"Do you know how late you are? It's been months!"

They gathered around him: Diamond Jozu, Vista of the Flower Swords, Izo the samurai, and so many more. Pirates with more adventures to their names than most people could count. They held themselves with the debonair casualness of extremely powerful men welcoming back their youngest brother.

"M-M-Marco the Phoenix!" Sophie went googly-eyed. "Is… is that r-really you?"

"No, dummy, I'm just telling you about him," Ace said, in the background. She pretended not to hear.

The striking Commander of Whitebeard's First Division had a long, stubbly face, a cross-and-crescent tattoo over his chest, and a most excellent mop of mustard-yellow hair. Stunning. Gorgeous. A whole, pineapple-shaped man. He peered at her with a lazy grin. "Who's this? A friend of Ace's? A new nurse?"

Sophie looked down at herself.

Ace contemplated. "Now, that ain't too shabby."

"I do not have the d-dexterity to walk in this! Not even in my dreams!" She snapped her fingers and the heels turned into thick lumberjack boots. The dress became pink rompers, a Heart Pirate jolly roger replacing the cross-and-crescent. She kept the leopard-printed thigh-high socks. It screamed Whitebeard's nurse, and Sophie was big enough to admit there was something very sexy about examining a geriatric senior citizen for liver damage.

Especially if that senior citizen was an Emperor.

"Everyone," Ace said, and turned to the gigantic shadow blocking out the sun, sitting at the head of the ship. "Pops. This girl saved me. Broke me out of a Marine battleship. I'm home because of her."

A sharp pain cut through her chest. Was this what Ace imagined would've happened? His gaze soft with wistfulness, he pulled her to his father.

An Emperor of the New World. The man closest to One Piece.

Whitebeard.

He was larger than life even in her imagination: the notorious white moustache, scarred muscles, holding the grand naginata Murokumogiri. His eyes flashed in omnipotent scrutiny, sizing her up while already knowing everything about her.

A hand descended, as though from the mountain of the gods, outstretched towards the awed young woman.

"You saved my son," Edward Newgate boomed. "My gratitude is yours. Now… come aboard!"

She didn't remember how she ended up sitting in the Moby Dick's galley—but it resembled the Polar Tang's galley in her mind—or when the food was made— but it smelled like Hai Xing's handmade noodles with sweet soybean sauce. The tables sagged with numerous dishes. Was it nighttime or day? Was that Diamond Jozu piling food on their plates, or was it Izo, rolling up his sophisticated kimono? Did it matter? It was all a story.

"To Sophie of the Hearts," Marco raised his glass, "who brought our brother home!"

Fists pounded the tables. Sophie flushed pink as Thatch thumped her on the back, snickering. She saw the scar around his eye, as Ace described it, the yellow kerchief tied around his neck, and his jolly crooked grin.

"And to my hotheaded fool of a son with the devil's luck," Whitebeard declared.

They howled again. Ace grimaced and groused and motioned to Whitebeard that he was gonna kick his ancient, shriveled ass, and then chuckled into his shoulder; and Sophie knew he loved his father very much.

"Last but not least." Ace raised his glass. "To Thatch! Tonight, he's drinking with us!"

Sophie toasted with the Whitebeard Pirates. Thatch raised his tankard in the air, throwing his arm around Ace. The rum tasted like starlit fire and she gave a great bleating fwah! as she banged her tankard on the table. She relished the feast, mouth empty as she chewed, tasting Hai Xing's seafood fried rice.

Slender, feminine hands brushed aside her hair. The nurses cooed over Ace's savior, how adorable she was with her fluffy curls and cute biceps. Sophie swallowed hard, a harvest mouse surrounded by sleek cheetahs. This was delightful. She could fall asleep here, sprawled in a disheveled mess in the laps of these ladies—

"'Scuse me, sis, mind if I borrow her?"

"Heeey," Sophie said longingly, looking over Ace's shoulder.

"You're enjoying this a little too much."

"It's my daydream, isn't it?"

"They're my crewmates."

"Oh," she made some garbled, incomprehensible noise, and finished with, "whatever."

The nurses faded into wisps, and Ace took up her hands and pulled her into the center of the galley, and fiddles were playing, and they were all dancing. The world spun around them, warm browns and lively oranges. Vista gallantly twirled her around, Marco showed her how to quickstep, and Ace and Haruta were arm-in-arm in a bawdy jig.

The world turned again. Ace was back, scooping her up, cheerfully admitting he couldn't dance worth a damn.

She held onto his shoulders, breathless. "You have a fabulous family. Each and every one of them."

"My mother's island heard the name Portgas roar across the world," Ace replied, pure delight shining in his face. "I found my place on this ship. That's enough. Fame, power, fortune… none of that matters. I just want more nights like this."

Hands clasped, they danced, insubstantial, through the celebration. The Whitebeard Pirates misted away.

Their footsteps crossed the deck soundlessly, as if they weren't there at all.

The air was nighttime-cool and the wind came. He spread his arms out, a nameless young man on the bow, the whole world open before him. On nights like these, one might feel a dichotomy of existing; a tiny microcosm in the universe, yet large enough to grasp all the stars in the night sky.

(—they had been so close; she had held freedom in her palms before everything went to hell—)

Ace blinked as Sophie relocated his cowboy hat from the back of his neck to his head. She pushed it firmly over his eyes and leaned in. "Tell me stories of your adventures and I'll tell you mine."

He twirled and dipped her, one arm hooked around her back. "You sure? It's full of danger and exhilaration. I might have the best swashbuckling tale in existence, and hereafter no pirate you meet will ever compare to the likes of me."

For a moment—she couldn't helpit, it was all the illusory rum—her heart skipped a beat.

Sophie offered a half-lidded look of her own. Pursing her lips in an indulgent smile, she pinched his freckled cheeks until Ace made a sound like 'hurck!'

"Funny," she said airily, "I was about to say the same."

—

In the pit of Impel Down, a most peculiar sound was occurring. A jail cell harboring a notorious criminal slated for execution—by all rights a most unhappy fate—was echoing with lively, effervescent laughter.

Phosphorescent algae glowed faintly in the stone. Even in the depths of hell, there were still spots of light.

—

THE SECOND DAY

holy monday

—

Once upon a time, a boy in East Blue voyaged out to the sea.

He didn't want to become Pirate King.

He wanted to chase the wind.

The pirate stood against the sky, a cowboy hat perched jauntily over his head and a misspelled tattoo on his arm. With reckless abandon, Portgas D. Ace sailed and explored and adventured. Entire cities reeled in his wake, and the restaurants hit by his dine-and-dashes called him the scourge of the seas.

She peered through the gaps in her fingers, trying to glimpse him between rays of sunlight. Ace was heat itself, invisible, and finding the flashes of him felt like perceiving the acts of violence that lit something aflame and made it burn.

She lowered her hand, brushed down her leopard-printed socks—when you're hangin' around a Whitebeard pirate, might as well keep with the theme, right?—and bounded over to him. He was exploring an odd little island, a small rocky hump in the middle of the ocean, when the ground started shaking. Ace looked up from inspecting his Log Pose.

The ground moved again. A giant eyeball opened and whirled upwards to stare at its uninvited visitors.

Ace—and Sophie, through memory—stood on an island-sized fish.

He braced her against a hedge of coral. "Saw this little guy three years ago, soon as I arrived in the Grand Line. Hang on!"

Waves crashed against rocky scales. She clung to the coral as tight as she could.

Riding the tides, Ace wasn't afraid. He flung his arms out, savoring the wind as if he wanted to vanish into it, like a young god returning home to the wild.

—

"Jozu compares Armament to turning into diamond. Says it follows the same principles."

"Theoretically, maybe. Diamond is just carbon subjected to extreme heat and pressure, and our bodies are made out of carbon. But self-generating seven hundred thousand pounds of pressure is easier said than done."

"The durability of Armament depends on your stamina. Unlike Jozu's powers, it'll run out."

"Hardening into diamond… is that the best comparison? If I wanted to do the most damage against you, I'd imagine turning my Haki fireproof. Huntite and hydromagnesite. Is that how I train it? Imagining? Forming theories out of nothing? What is Armament, anyway?"

"Weaponized willpower."

"So, unscientific sorcery."

"Whatever floats your boat."

The grotto was languorously blue. She floated by the lily pads while he braved the water by sticking his feet in. Her ankles crossed, legs streaming with water, and she looked up at where Ace lounged in the mossy shade.

"Your Haki still has a long way to go. You weren't able to hold Aokiji solid to land a hit on him. Right now it's only this big." There was about an inch of space between his index finger and thumb. "But it's got potential."

"How much potential?" she asked curiously.

"That's up to you. Power is made, not born."

Sophie slipped underwater and opened her eyes beneath the surface, looking up at the delicate ribbons of light. She emerged, hair flattened against her back, and pulled herself up on the wet rocks. "Show me."

"What do you want to learn?" Whitebeard's son asked her.

Water splashed, rippled, cascaded.

"Everything."

—

Perpetual afternoons blurred together, like the pages of a book flipping.

Their fists met, parted, and met again.

He could fight. Well, she'd always known that. Fire Fist Ace was a brawler legendario, and she had obsessively read the papers about his exploits as captain of the Spade Pirates, fantasizing about that brilliant fire. She had fantasized about extinguishing it, arresting him, but here she was now—

She pressed her Haki-clad palms together and pushed them out, sweeping away the fire with a gust of wind.

"Not bad," he acknowledged, and then punched her in the gut.

Fighting came so easily to him. Like breathing. He could kick her ass in his sleep.

They circled each other. Ace—his calculating stare like a tiger, a vicious sheen of sweat on him—held his palms out, inviting her to come at him again. His self-confidence was indomitable. He took everything in stride, even as she threw sand in his eyes and tried to knee him between the legs.

"Good." He pinned her down as she wailed in frustration and spat out grass. "No honor in a fight between pirates."

He taught her the principles of Armament. Breath. Muscle control. Mindfulness. She had to learn, as Ace put it, how to command its flow throughout her body, which was a technique he had learned in a hidden country in the New World. But first, she had to understand her Haki.

"Everyone's Haki is a little different," he said. "Yours is… diabolical."

"Like a scientist?"

"Like a masochist. It feels like a soft target, at first. But I think it likes getting hurt, so you can learn how to hurt me harder."

"That's gross," she sighed. "But it tracks. Pain's always been a consistent teacher."

Here was something about Ace: he wasn't an idiot. He could spit out big words with the best of them and, even more impressive, he was unerringly polite. He said, "Good job, that was close," every time he knocked her flat on her rear, even if it was paired with a nonchalant grin, and, invariably, ended up with her wincing on the ground again. There were times he acted so silly that she assumed her old tendency to faux-groan about Incorrigible Overpowered Pirates, and then other times he'd say something like do you always know so very much about everything? with eyes that cut right through her.

Sophie was pretty sure she didn't know anything at all compared to Ace. He taught her how to break a boulder with a single kick, and then how to handflute. Owl hoots, kookaburra, ocarina. He roasted wild boar meat with ghost peppers for them to share. They spat peach pits to see who could knock down the most cans, and then compared the cleanest technique to break somebody's neck.

She wanted to show him things, too.

Sophie told her stories over the campfire, catching Ace up with her adventures. The shadow on the palm tree behind her turned into a girl careening through an opulent brothel, sailing through the dark mist of the Florian Triangle, and bumping into the Revolutionary Army in Omiramba.

"Huuuuh," said Ace, chin on palm. "Those guys?"

"I thought you'd be interested! Dragon the Revolutionary is Straw Hat's dad, right? And Straw Hat's your brother?"

"Oh. Uh. Shit, really?"

"…You didn't know?"

"Man, I don't even think Luffy knows." He picked at his ear. "In any case, we're not actually—"

"Blood-related, yeah."

"The hell? How come you know so much about us? You psychic?" Ace modestly covered his bare chest. "A stalker?"

"No, you empty bottle of sriracha! Their Chief of Staff told me! He said he's sure Dragon only had one kid!"

Ace slouched against the palm tree, chewing a tall stalk of grass (as Sophie muttered, "Stalker, please, as if I ever researched your height or your birthday to see if we were compatible or kept track of your history of piracy, I am not a fangirl, my interest has always been casual, c-a-s-u-a-l—"). "Revolutionaries stay clear of Emperor territory. I've never met 'em and don't know much."

She supposed that was fair. "And then I went to Marineford, to the extreme delight of my crew. No, I'm kidding. My captain will cut my head off for this. Again. It's going to be so annoying, and not even a little dirty." She was briefly lost in her own imagination. "Unless I… no, I shouldn't… well…"

"Did they all know you were World Government?" Ace asked.

"Naturally," Sophie scoffed, rather puzzled by the question. "I defected for them."

"Is it still hard?"

"In what way?"

"Do you ever think…" He rubbed his chin. "That they might… I don't know, secretly dislike you?"

She gaped. "Secretly? Oh my god, I wish they'd keep it to themselves! They call me a nag right to my face, you know! Just the other day, I tried to clean their cabin at the respectable hour of five am, and they barricaded the door and called me a bloody nuisance for being punctual with my chores! And don't get me started on the things they said to me before I joined. As if they're scared of insulting me. Or anyone. Puh-lease."

She didn't know if that was a good reply or not, but Ace seemed to like it—judging by how he was laughing his head off.

Talking about her crew made her smile, and it also made her think of another memory.

The beach faded away, turned into the walls of the captain's cabin on the Polar Tang. Two pirates on the bed, breaths tangled together. She was unbuttoning Law's jeans, knees digging into his bed as she scooted backwards, and then her hand was on his hipbone, her mouth on his…

Ace gaped over her shoulder, his eyes wide as saucers.

"NOOOO!" Screaming, Sophie frantically slapped him away from the memory. "Don't look at it!"

Rubbing the lumps on his head, Ace eyeballed the woman gathering the remaining shreds of her dignity. His own cheeks were rather red. "You and the Surgeon, huh? He seduced you with… medical malpractice?"

"We're—just lab partners," she choked out, covering her face.

"Yeaaaaah. Alright. Shit, that's cute."

Sophie let out a sharp breath and mumbled in embarrassment, "My captain doesn't like me… that way."

"You're kidding." A beat. "Not even after that?"

She whacked him in the arm. "I thought you were different from other men, Portgas D. Ace! Now I see what the D stands for! But my heart is too delicate to say it! Anyway," Sophie huffed, "Law has… more important things on his mind. So it's fine. And I… haven't even told anyone in my crew about this. I finally found a place that—when they say they love me, they mean it. I don't want to ruin anything. I don't want to… be difficult."

"Is your crew," Ace said, "the kind that'll throw you out for being difficult?"

She smiled. "Absolutely not. They're the best. That's why it matters so much, why I can't mess up."

(I will go back to them, said a voice in the back of her mind.)

"I get it. Everyone says friendships are supposed to come natural." He played with the beads around his neck. "But it's hard. My crew accepted me onto the Moby when they had no reason to. I gotta make sure that wasn't a mistake. Never had many friends growin' up. Just my brothers. I was, uh, pretty rowdy as a kid, too… so, well…" He laughed, vaguely flustered. "Sorry! Man, what the hell am I saying? I'm talkin' way too much about myself!"

Sophie snapped her mouth shut, for it had fallen open. "Not a-at all!" she assured, trying to keep her head from imploding. Fire Fist Ace, charisma personified, could be socially awkward? Perhaps even a tad… insecure? Improbable! Then she thought: Wait. Brothers, plural?

"Anyway, Curls, you can really get down to business."

She smacked him in the gut.

"Oof. Hey, your Haki's getting better."

"Tabasco pervert! Were you r-raised by w-wild beasts?" she demanded, blushing vigorously.

"Yeah. And mountain bandits."

…Well, she hadn't expected that.

The conversation returned to exploration, as Sophie boldly claimed she one-upped Ace's adventures by meeting the revolutionaries, something he had never done. Well, he wasn't gonna take that lying down. He said there was something he wanted to show her, and could she lend him Arsenic for a sec. He brought out the tools he maintained Striker with. Mechanical banging noises followed.

She chewed on her chipped nails, winced, and gasped, "What are you doing?"

Her rifle levitated above Ace's outstretched hands, long and glossy like a witch's broom.

He grinned mischievously. "Giving you wings."

Anything was possible in a story, after all.

They soared through the sky, looping and rolling and generally being very irresponsible with her new magic flying rifle.

"Caelum whales!" Behind her, he pointed heavenwards. "Saw 'em right after crossing into the New World!"

A pod of galactic whales swam among the clouds, shining like a million crystallarium things.

Ace cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. It was a vast yell, a yell that came from the pit of his belly, shivered up Sophie's spine, and echoed across the sky. The whales seemed to hear. They arced backwards, blowing out stars that scattered over Ace, donning upon him a crown of glimmering light.

They flew over giant koi fish leaping up a high waterfall, blooming sakura trees, a snow-capped mountain peak, and touched down lightly in a bamboo grove. Ace flicked the stars off his head as if the royal sparkle mattered to him as much as dust, and put on his cowboy hat again. Sophie gazed around, inhaling the fresh, fragrant air.

"This is Kuri," he introduced, "in the land of Wano."

—

She saw more of the scenery as Ace described it—the sloping rooftops of Bakura Town, factory smoke rising over the parched land, and in the distance, the ruins of a castle he said once belonged to the clan leader of the Kuri region, Kozuki-something-or-other. He told her other things, like a young girl who taught him to weave kasa hats, the terrible suffering at the hands of the undying Emperor, Kaido of the Beasts…

How fascinating! To think Ace had snuck into the famously isolationist country, shrouded in myths and rumors for centuries! Before, she wasn't even sure if she believed in the existence of Wano Country.

"You win this round," Sophie relented.

A stick of dango wiggled in his mouth. "I know." He shot her a brilliant grin.

Gah. He was too pretty to look at directly. She preferred Law's moody sarcasm. That was much easier to make fun of. "Until next time, that is."

"Next time?"

"My future adventures are going to be excellent. Maybe I'll also sneak into Wano. Why have they been closed off from the rest of the world for so long? That totally means they're hiding something, right? Fabulous secrets! Ancient conspiracies! The possibilities!"

"Maybe we'll bump into each other again." Ace bit off the last dango on his stick. "I got unfinished business in this country."

"Then we need a plan to break out of Impel Down. Happy days for you, my wee cayenne pepper, 'cause I got one."

"Yeah?"

"They'll take you to Marineford for the execution, right? When they move you out of the cell, take my knife and stab the jailer with the keys to your cuffs. Free yourself, take out the rest, free me, and we'll make a break for it!"

He kept watching the Wano sky. "Sounds like a plan."

"Six more days," she declared. "Until then, we'll bide our time."

The world shifted again, restructuring itself into a field of soft grass, a village surrounded by a bamboo forest.

Ace, now weaving a conical hat out of straw, remarked, "You don't back down."

Lying in a patch of sunlight, Sophie stretched her arms up over her head. "I'm not strong enough to think everything will somehow work out. Even if I have to bite and claw and humiliate myself, I'm going to survive. And why shouldn't I?" she muttered defensively. "This is my ocean, too."

For some reason, as she dozed off, she thought she saw Ace mouth to himself this is my ocean too. In a sleepy haze, she registered that she had moved closer to his body heat. As she tried to wiggle back, warm arms pulled her right on top of him like she was a particularly squirmy pillow.

After several miuntes of silent panicking, she relaxed slowly against his chest and he rested his chin on her head. Ace wasn't just Ace. Ace was also a snoring Bepo, was also the warmth in her cabin, was also the crowded galley of the Polar Tang during dinnertime. She supposed she also wasn't just Sophie. She was also the Moby Dick, was also his bed on the ship that he loved, was also the family he missed.

All of this was, of course, a phantom warmth.

But they could dream it anyway.

—

THE THIRD DAY

shrove tuesday

—

"Man, you look terrible. You still breathing, Ace?"

They lit the torches for Garp. The cold, crackling light framed his dark silhouette as he sat, cross-legged, on the filthy stone floor a scant foot away from the cell bars. He motioned for the jailers to give them space, and with a salute, they left.

"That escape was close," Gap said with palpable brittleness. "Nearly there."

"It was a disappointment to me, too," Ace replied.

Sophie, who had been practicing the breath of her Armament by digging Kir into her hand, hid the knife behind her when Garp appeared. She curled up into a ball, hugging her growling stomach. He didn't insult them by asking how they were.

"…Well, here we are. Your execution's been announced to the world. Nobody can stop this anymore. We have angered the King of the Seas."

It hurt to pull apart her dry, cracked lips. "This is just—it's a bluff, isn't it? Is the World Government going to sacrifice everything just to execute him? If there's a war with an Emperor, think of all the marine lives you're putting at risk."

"I didn't want this to happen, either," Garp sighed. Yet it didn't seem to matter. "Ace, I don't know how… but Sengoku found out the truth."

"I'm dying because of that bastard?" Ace said, and for a moment she thought he meant Sengoku. Then he said, "I'm dying to pay for his sins?"

There was tension in Garp's shoulders, and the muscles of his jaw flexed repeatedly.

"Would it have been easier if I hadn't been born, Gramps?" Ace flatly inquired. "Do you regret helping my mother?"

Perhaps Garp would've answered those questions had the interloper not been in the room. Perhaps not. He cast a sidelong glance at a bewildered Sophie, and she wondered why the two of them looked so very sad. "This… might be the last time we see each other." His mouth winced, as if the words were painful. "Any last requests?"

"Yeah," Ace said roughly, meeting his grandfather's eyes with black steel. "Take Sophie out of here. Sneak her out on your ship. She has no part in this."

"Don't ask that of me! I'm still a marine!" Right as that burning hiss left his mouth, Garp dug his thumb and forefinger into the sockets of his eyes. "Oh, you fool, you are so like him…"

Sophie hadn't even fully registered what Ace said before Garp shot it down like it was an aggravating fly. Still reeling from the burst and then immediate death of hope, it took her another second for her to notice that Garp was talking to her.

"I have in my possession," he was saying, "a curious piece of writing."

What?

"Rest assured, I haven't shown it to anyone. My first instinct was to burn it. Perhaps I still might. You've been writing down some dangerous secrets."

Oh. Her journal. Not good. Breath held, her voice shuddered high and fine inside her own skull. "What are you going to do to me?"

Garp sighed. He seemed to be built of sighs, today. "I'll thank you for your service, soldier. Even if it is too late."

It wasn't said unkindly, which was the most surprising part. An acknowledgement that even though she was a pirate now, she had fought for years for the World Government. And her bombs had taken lives, they had also saved the lives of marines. Ace shouting, "Don't thank someone if you're going to let them rot in here!" rang after Garp's footsteps.

"Damn it," he said, in the silence.

Yeah, she thought, rubbing her eyes. "It was nice of you to try to help me."

"It didn't change anything."

The gravel bitterness in his voice was furious enough to cut glass. Ace was scary when he sounded like that, even though it was clearly directed inwards, at himself. She thought about asking what he meant when he said I'm dying to pay for his sins. She thought about saying I'm sorry your grandpa seems pretty chill with your imminent execution. Sucks. "Yeah. Still."

Sophie closed her eyes and fell backwards, and they sprawled on the Moby Dick's figurehead like lizards basking in the sun.

After several minutes of mutual commiseration, she voiced a thought aloud: "What if the Pirate King was held in this very cell, twenty-two years ago? Maybe this exact spot. Wouldn't that be crazy?"

Ace tilted his head to look at her. She saw the movement in peripheral and turned her head as well.

"Ah, right. I remember on St. Poplar you said you weren't interested in Gold Roger or One Piece. You don't care about the crowns and titles."

"Yep. And you told me take them anyway and burn down Roger's legacy. 'You're Fire Fist Ace. One day, this ocean will be yours.'"

"Habanero-kun," she said, taken aback, "you remembered?"

He faced the sun again, closing his eyes. "It stuck with me for some reason."

He was going far away again. Vanishing inside himself. From her angle, the curve of his cheek and the tip of his ear caught the sun, glowing like a piece of paper catching on fire.

After a lengthy pause, his heavy-lidded eyes cracked open. "What," he murmured, "are you doing?"

She was looking at him through the gaps of her fingers, finding Ace on the cusp of disappearing into the light. "Making sure you're really here."

—

It was a simple question.

What happened with Teach, exactly?

Ace had mentioned the basics on Idyll Island. A dead crewmate. Betrayal.

They had nothing but time, so he showed her the last night.

—

It had been a quiet evening in calm waters. Fireflied in spots of lantern-light, two pirates were laughing on the deck.

"I don't remember what led up to it," Ace said to Sophie, "but we were talking about why Teach refused the position of Second Division Commander. Guess I just felt in a reminiscing kinda mood. I asked him, and he gave me some bullshit answer…."

Exactly on cue, the large, scraggly man chortled, "I ain't got the ambition for it! If one of us were to shake the world, I'd place all my bets on you!"

As if an actor returning to his play, Ace took his position upon the stage and scoffed, "I don't know about that."

Teach canted his head in confused sympathy. "Commander?"

Ace heaved an exaggerated sigh, elbows on the Moby's railing. His head drooped backwards in an attempt at nonchalance, though it seemed to her he was too self-conscious to look Teach in the eye. "Even those born knowing their lives are of great importance… can still think it's meaningless."

"Hey, now," Teach said firmly, and the stalwart tone of his voice surprised Sophie. "You'll be a legend, Commander Ace. Trust me. I've seen rookies come and go with all my years on the Moby, but you, you're different. Let me take a good look at you, lad."

He clasped his hand behind the younger man's head, holding him in that Son of Whitebeard way, foreheads touching.

"Aye," he declared, after spotting whatever he was searching for in Ace's eyes. "You'll shine a light upon the whole ocean, glowing like meteor fire. They'll write your name upon the stars, they will."

How could it be, she thought, disoriented, that this man killed his own crewmate? It didn't seem possible.

Ace laughed off Teach's words, and his faux-nonchalance was desperately hilarious, because he was on the verge of tears. It had clearly meant something to him. Maybe it still…

Teach spread his arms out with his goofy, gap-toothed grin. "Oh, but if you could let me stand beside ya and catch summa that light… I'd be a happy man indeed." He laughed softly, rubbing the plain blouse over his chest. "A mighty happy man, callin' himself a brother to the great Fire Fist Ace. We're brothers, ain't we?"

"I called you my brother, Teach," Ace whispered, stepping back from the stage.

Oh. He was heartbroken.

A scout on the crow's nest called, "Fourth Division's back! Let's go see the treasures Thatch found in the raid!"

The lights dimmed. The memory—Teach, the Moby Dick, everything, faded away.

"It was all over a Devil Fruit," Ace snarled, scrubbing at his eyes. "He stole it from Thatch and slipped away into the night. Marco and Pops were the first to feel that something was wrong. But I was already looking for him. I got hungry. Wanted him to cook me up a midnight snack."

Silence.

"I found his body."

"I'm asking you to listen, Ace," came Whitebeard's rumbling voice, and she turned just in time to see him stand with a great bang! of his naginata. "Just this once, listen to me. Do not go after Teach. I have a bad feeling."

But his hotheaded fool of a son had already leaped onto Striker, backpack in hand. "I have to set this right. Thatch's soul won't rest until I set this right!"

His crew tried to stop him, Marco, Jozu, all of them. "Come back, Ace!"

It was too late. The rest was history and falling dominoes.

His search for Teach led him to the snowy hills of Drum Island, then to the sandy dunes of Alabasta. Far away, the hanging temples of Kunlun blossomed with peach trees. It was the setting for a crew of pirates that had fallen out of the sky. Waving goodbye to Cherry Pie Man, she had watched him bellow like a fool, "Zehahaha! Jaya will be Blackbeard territory!"

The palm trees of Idyll Island waved. There, on the way to G-13, she had sat on a pier with Fire Fist Ace, pointed westward, and said, "That Blackbeard guy you're looking for? He's in Jaya."

The water of Toa Sang Bay glittered. There, surrounded by his crew, Teach had held out his hand, his black captain's coat whipping behind him. "Tell that boy made of flames to come light up the darkness… if he can."

The rain fell ceaselessly on St. Poplar. There, two pirates had found shelter beneath a canopy, and she—the unwitting messenger in Ace's story—had relayed, "He said he'll be sailing to—"

Like a labyrinth of rivers and tributaries converging at a singular point into the ocean, Sophie looked down from a bird's eye view at the tapestry she had inadvertently woven together. There, near the end, the thread spun itself into the ruins of Banaro Island.

With a hiss of shock, she stumbled over the cracked, dry earth.

A completely flattened village, a decimated landscape… and a young man with cinder-black hair was on the ground, brutalized and bloody. Standing over him in victory was Teach's crew. She sunk to her knees, catatonic, unable to do anything but watch the memory play out as Ace recounted it.

"Why," he was slurring, half-unconscious, "why did you have to kill him? Why didn't you just take the Devil Fruit and leave?"

"He would've fought back," Teach said, very gently. "Thatch wasn't the sort to let things go easy. Right, Commander?"

A half-choked roar. Ace dug his head into the ground. "Then you should've fought him for it like a man!"

"He would've screamed. Woken up the whole ship. Rest assured, it was quick. I wasn't so cruel as to let him suffer."

"All over a goddamn Devil Fruit," he rasped, dirt sticking to his flaring nostrils, the sweat running between his mouth. "You killed Thatch for nothing."

"IT AIN'T NOTHING, ACE!" Teach thundered, dropping his mannerly façade for something primal and enraged. "And you, a mere lad of twenty, capable of burnin' the seas from end to end! Why, if I had that kind of power at your age, there's no tellin' the legend I would be now! I've waited too long and sacrificed too much for anyone to call this strength meaningless!"

"YOU WERE STRONG ENOUGH!" If Ace didn't have seastone cuffs on, he would've burst into an inferno. "You belonged to the fiercest pirate crew in the world! You had all of us at your side! We would've fought to the death for you!"

Teach flinched. Very slightly. It changed nothing. He lifted a hand to the ashen sky. "It's all fated. My name has already been written among the stars."

"You had everything, you faithless bastard. You had a father."

"Our old man's ambition," Teach said, "was too small for me."

Sophie dragged herself forward, heavy shackles scraping behind her, into the howling wind. Blackbeard laughed, vanishing in moonlight and shadow. As the gale bit at her hair, her arms, she fought her way to Ace and pulled up his hunched body—oh, come on now, don't get all wet noodle on me. His forehead hit her shoulder, again and again, in the bleak coldness of their jail cell. Sophie winced and clenched her teeth, letting him bruise the bone.

"I couldn't win. I couldn't win for Thatch or Pops. What's wrong with me? I'm pathetic. I keep losing brothers," oh, he was sobbing now, ash falling down his face like snot, "I keep losin' 'em. God damn it. God damn it!"

His face turned an anguished red, and then began to melt. The mighty, charming, infamous Super Rookie was unraveling at the seams. She held onto the fire, trying to keep it from dancing away. Her hands were already burned. More scorch marks didn't matter.

"Why did I have to be born?" the flames crackled. "What good am I? I've done nothing right in my entire life."

"Stop," was all she could whisper, "please stop." Stopsayingthisaboutyourselfhowcouldyouthink—

"I only had a father for two years," he snarled, digging into her arm so hard she nearly cried out. "Teach had him for twenty-six. How could he be loved for so long and still say it's not enough? He had everything I ever wanted and still said it's not enough."

She bit her lip, forcing herself not to weep in understanding. Ace was literally melting down. This was not the time for two concurrent breakdowns. Taking a deep breath, Sophie pulled her hair up in a ponytail like an old, hardy milkmaid about to confront a bull undergoing an emotional crisis.

"I'm cursed!" the fire roared. "I keep f-failing! My existence is a blight!"

Sophie was cursed, too. Cursed with being surrounded by melodramatic, self-loathing young men.

"Ace!" She threw her arms around him, pressing herself as close as she could. Then she said, "Deep breaths. Let it out."

The fire washed over her, enclosing her completely. She let it. Glowing embers escaped her mouth like air bubbles, and her eyes were golden-bright. It was a gorgeous fire, raging with grief and burning with fury and finally… finally… finally dying out. Sometimes you have to let the flames run its course. Entire forests grew back in the soil of volcano ash.

The fire pulled away, leaving her unharmed, and became a boy again.

Ace drooped over her shoulder, slowly regaining control of his breathing, his face wet and embarrassed.

"Y'know," she said softly, brushing a hand through his matted hair, "my parents died in a shipwreck. I was found in the ocean and was never able to meet them. So I get it, a little. Losing yet another family… another home… when all of it keeps piling up, it's really hard."

"I'm sorry, Curls."

To think, even in his current state, Ace was kind enough to empathize.

"Oh, it's not so bad. I mourn shadows instead of people. The only ghosts are the ones in my dreams." She was still flabbergasted at how little regard Ace had for himself. He was charismatic and jovial and—and he had stepped between her and Aokiji like a hero. How could he say such things about himself? "Hey, do you… really think you shouldn't have been born?"

"What do you think," he rasped bitterly. "I put you in here with me."

"You stupid habanero!" she burst out. "I told you to g-go to Banaro Island."

"No, Sophie, you believed in me when my own crew tried to stop me. And even though it all turned to shit—they were right, it was my own damn fault—I still… appreciated it." Ace managed a small laugh. It was far less cheerful than how he usually sounded, but somehow more genuine. "The legends say ocean children bring good luck to others. The lost castaways, kids orphaned at sea. They say the ocean blesses them with all its love."

She felt profound, visceral confusion. "What kind of blessings have I given you?"

"The kind where I'm not alone."

There was truth in that. She couldn't go back in time or change the current reality of their predicament. But at the very least, they could talk each other through the hunger, the loneliness, the misery. They could dream together, painting worlds as they described their adventures. As the world burned around them, they clasped hands and danced beneath an ocean of stars and floating whales.

…But their dance was interrupted by metal rasp of a key sliding into a lock and turning.

—

A new prisoner had arrived.

In the flickering torchlight: an enormous blue body wrapped in chains, a sun tattooed over a broad chest, and a bloodied kimono. The jailers slammed the cell door and left with the torches. Darkness descended once again.

"Is that… really you?" came a quiet croak from Ace.

The blue shadow began chuckling. "Forgotten this mug already? Shall I wipe the floor with you again so you remember, Ace?"

A sharp inhale. "You're getting senile, old man! It was the other way around!"

"Eh?" gasped Sophie, legitimately speechless. "Eh? Eh?"

"Greetings," said Jinbe, Knight of the Sea and one of the Seven Warlords, as he sat cross-legged across from them. "I'll make myself comfortable here!"

to be continued

notes. i heckin' adored reading all your theories about what might happen this chapter! cannot believe i wrote another 13k monstrosity when i promised myself i'd try to keep it at a sane length. but i also really really wanted to write some ace development because i guess i love pain. anyway, now that jinbe is here, we'll be getting some canonical ace retelling childhood stories in foosha next chapter! won't that be exciting? :D

also, is anyone else weirdly invested in blackbeard or is it just me? i made a few hypotheses with his dialogue choices here, trying to write more parallels between teach and ace. he is so awful and i really really want him to have a fascinating backstory. it could very well simply be that teach is just a plain sonuvabitch, but i am giving him some complexity in mnp because, as the saying goes, the ground is soft and i am ready to dig.

trivia

caelum whales: caelum is latin for sky. most definitely inspired by space whales from treasure planet.