The Whitebeard's ship was sailing far off an island that looked recently destroyed. Ace didn't look twice at it until he, and a few others, felt that terrible haki coming off the island, as well as loud tremors, making the water slosh a bit. Ace's eyes widened and no one could stop him before he fetched his mini ship powered on his flame powers and sped off to the island.

Marco would have followed, but he was below deck, working on something with the shipwright. Ace was already there before he came on deck. Whitebeard ordered the sails up and anchor lowered. He couldn't stop Ace now, but he could wait for him and keep his crew safe in case Dark Luffy decides to break his promise with Luffy.

Ace found Luffy fighting Teach of all people. And he was winning. For some reason, they were having what would sound like a nice conversation, only that Teach, the idiot, was telling Dark Luffy how to use the power of his fruit.

Ace almost couldn't look at what Luffy looked like. His eyes were completely black and he looked terrifying. Ace was flat against a building so he could watch the fight without being seen. With Luffy's wings, Dark Luffy was using the quake quake fruit in midair, slamming both hands in front of him to make a shockwave towards Teach, breaking apart the ground. The fat man was becoming undone and angry with his losing. And was even angrier when Dark Luffy beat one of Teach's crewmated to death with a diamond coated leg. Ace had just seen Luffy's body brutally ram a man's head into the cobblestone. He wanted to throw up.

Dark Luffy was skilled with using the fire as well, in ways that Ace hadn't used much. Then he picked him up with Marco's talons and lifted him into the air and then dropped him down. But Teach popped back up from his own darkness, breathing heavily. Ace didn't know what to do. But then, Luffy suddenly fell to the ground, and Ace gasped as he landed in the darkness.

Instead of Luffy's body getting sucked into the darkness, the black of his wings were sucked out of his body and into the darkness, which immediately disappeared as Dark Luffy became Dark Teach.

This was it. While Teach looked in the other direction, still confused about what had happened, Ace flew out as fire and snatched up Luffy's body, hurrying back to behind the wall. He made sure Luffy was breathing, and hugged him close. Was Dark Luffy completely gone? Ace looked through a crack in some boxes at what Dark Teach was doing. He casually said that Luffy was going to die soon anyway, making Ace very scared.

He covered his mouth when he watched the demon casually shoot one of the crew members in the head. He was so cruel; shooting a woman in both eyes, dropping a man from a four story level to the ground to snap his neck. It made Ace feel sick that something like this was once inside Luffy's four year old body.

Ace knew that his crew was very lucky that Luffy had made Dark Luffy promise to stay away from them in exchange for control over the body. But, as Ace looked at Luffy, he became very concerned.

Luffy had purple bags under his eyes, he was very skinny, and his arms were bruised all over. But he was alive, and not possessed. Ace looked up as he heard Dark Teach say, "So long, Luffy," and leave. He left behind the mess of dead bodies behind him as he started out fresh again with a new body.

Ace picked Luffy up in his arms, completely limp, and ran back to the docks to his little boat. He saw Marco fly over, late to the party. When he saw no Luffy or Ace where they had both been, and where the evil haki was still near, he looked down as he went back to the docks and saw Ace carrying the little boy, whose wings were pure white. There werent any black feathers. He hoped for the best, and followed Ace as he sped back to the ship

Luffy woke up in a soft bed, wondering how he got from the prison cell to this comfortable bed. He didn't feel good at all. He was exhausted, and his body felt a little numb. He was hungry and ached where he wasn't numb. He slowly turned his head to the side.

"Ace?" he mumbled. Ace looked down with a relieved grin. He ran his hand through Luffy's dirty hair. "Wha.. Where am I?" he asked, looking at Marco smiling at him. Then his eyes widened. It was so quiet in his head. He didn't feel the tickle that Dark Luffy was there at all. And he felt no fear when he looked at Marco.

"Where is he?" he mumbled. "It's so quiet."

"What do you remember?" Ace asked kindly.

Luffy thought through his foggy mind. Things were fuzzy, and he couldn't string full thoughts together. He was able to say, "I was strapped down… how did I end up here? And I don't hear him anymore…"

Marco looked shocked. "You don't remember anything after being in the confined space?" Luffy slowly shook his head. Ace gave Marco a stern look.

"You've been gone for awhile, Luffy. A few months. You encountered the man who I told you tried to kill Thatch, and Dark Luffy has somehow transferred into his body.

"You're free, Luffy. No more dark thoughts or blackouts. Even your wings are back to being white. You get to start over," Ace said, gripping the child's hands. Luffy smiled and had watery eyes.

Then he frowned. "What did I do during my time away?" It must have been bad in a couple months.

"Let's talk about that later, okay? I have a question about your Devil Fruit," Ace said, changing the subject. Luffy looked confused.

"I never ate one…? Well, I don't remember ever eating one…" he said, trying to think of anytime he might have eaten a Devil Fruit.

"Well, while you were away, we found that you have a very powerful Devil Fruit, called the ab ab fruit. If you touch any fruit user, you can get their ability. That's how you got a high bounty over the last couple months. You're gonna have to be careful now. You have a 300,000,000 beri bounty. You used my, Marco's, Jozu's and pop's Devil Fruits to become known. Now you have another power from the bad guy you defeated. But let's not talk about that one."

"I never knew that," Luffy mumbled.

"Told you," Ace said quietly to the others in the room.

"So, I have a question for you." Luffy nodded and watched Ace nervously. "Now that you get to start over, do you want to be part of this family?" Ace asked with a grin.

Luffy returned the grin, the first time he'd ever smiled like this, and vigorously nodded his head.

...To be continued.

Review!