Almost another year later, the next chapter is here :D No promises this time.
Chapter 9
The oasis of Yuba was an absolute wreck.
Marco sat on the roof of the abandoned inn they would be sleeping in and looked over the run down town that must have been prosperous at some point, long before sandstorms began to take it away from the inhabitants.
"It's a mess," Ace said from next to her, elbows resting on his knees and face pillowed on his hands. "You think they can save this place?" he asked, looking sideways at Marco.
"Perhaps. It'd depend on how natural this weather actually is," she replied. Marco had met Crocodile in the past, and she wouldn't put it past him to destroy a town just to further his plans.
"Was afraid you'd say that," Ace muttered. He moved to drop back on the roof, arms stretched at his sides.
They fell silent, the calm interrupted only by the ruckus the Strawhat Pirates were making downstairs. They certainly were a lively lot.
"We should leave tomorrow," Ace said suddenly.
Marco turned, surprised, to look at him.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
Ace sighed.
"Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to stick around, but I'm pretty sure shit's going to go down, and I'd get too involved. I know he's got to be stronger, but I still think of Luffy as the kid I left back home three years ago," Ace confessed, a hint of shame in his voice.
Marco reached down and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I understand. It's hard to stop being an older sibling sometimes." Especially now.
The original idea had been to head back to Nanohana, where they Strawhat Pirates would go to the oasis of Katorea (the rebellion's new base, because they hadn't been at Yuba anymore) and Marco and Ace would take the Striker to continue on their way.
That was until Luffy decided to sit against a dried up tree right outside of Yuba and announced he wasn't going.
Ace watched with a sense of wonder and actual admiration for his little brother as Luffy and Vivi argued, as Luffy pointed out why they should be going after Crocodile instead of the rebellion. When Luffy and Vivi started to actually fight, Ace could really see how much Luffy had grown since Ace left their home island.
"Looks like we're parting ways now," Marco said in a low voice next to him. When Ace looked at her, he saw a tiny smile pulling her lips up.
Usopp nearly fainted when Ace and Marco announced they were leaving. They had been his security blanket in this whole Crocodile disaster, but with them gone they would be back to square one. A small rookie crew against a Shichibukai and his very large personal army of bounty hunters.
Shit.
Luffy just grinned, as though he'd been expecting just that.
"You be careful," Ace was saying, pointing a finger at Luffy as though Luffy would listen. "Don't underestimate that asshole, okay? Shichibukai are no laughing matter."
Luffy bobbed his head in a nod, his serious expression not reassuring in the slightest. It was the sort of face that had preceded all of their previous battles.
Then Luffy turned to Marco.
"Next time, we'll go flying!" he announced in that way of his that meant his words were a fact and you could do nothing but accept them.
Marco snorted.
"Earn it. I don't fly with just anyone, brat," she said good-naturedly, and Luffy laughed.
The trip back to Nanohana was a fast one. They flew over the desert, high enough that the blinding sun should prevent anyone looking up from spotting them. Marco took a quick detour over Katorea, and they quickly saw the massive rebel camp from the sky. That was no longer in the Strawhat Pirates' hands, Marco guessed, but she wondered how this civil war would end.
Returning to the Striker wasn't particularly pleasant. Weeks into their search, the Striker had become cramped and uncomfortable, and even Ace complained.
According to what their map said, their next destination was an autumn island, and Marco's estimation was that the trip would be two days long.
In the end, it took them over three days to reach the island. During the first night, at around the most annoying possible time, the Grand Line decided to make a show of how unpredictable the time would be. This distraction also meant no news coos approached the Striker after the second day of sailing, and thus it wasn't until they reached their destination that they read the news.
They received a very disapproving glare from a shopkeeper when Ace all but squealed and snatched a newspaper up without a glance at her. Marco sighed, paid for the paper, and dragged Ace off to a less crowded area of the port while he was still reading.
Despite being on the cover, the article was a follow-up from yesterday news.
The civil war in Alabasta was over. Both sides of the conflict had stopped fighting halfway through a bloody battle in Alubarna. Crocodile had been arrested, suspect of engineering the whole thing.
No mention of the Strawhat Pirates was made, but there was a mention of Princess Vivi's reappearance, and that was enough for them to know Luffy and his crew had been involved. For the rest of the day Ace was a very proud older brother, and Marco was rather impressed. What could she say? She liked those kids.
Unfortunately, they had no other good news.
"I can't believe nobody saw him," Ace complained that night over dinner in a pause from inhaling the food from a pile of plates.
Marco frowned.
"It doesn't make much sense," she agreed. It was one thing for Teach to keep a low profile at Alabasta, but here? This island had nothing special, and such a long silence didn't fit the behavior pattern they'd encountered so far.
"You think he switched routes?" Ace asked after a short pause. He was glaring at the table so intensely Marco wouldn't have been surprised if it caught fire.
"I don't know," Marco said honestly.
Unfortunately, even if that was the truth, they couldn't leave the route. Not here. This island had nothing but a tiny town with little more than the locals needed. It was too close to Alabasta to be a commercial port in any merchant routes, and the log pose set quickly here, so people barely spent the night. Aside from a few inns, Marco had seen little in the form of useful shops.
"We need information. We can't just change routes blindly."
Ace grumbled something, but they didn't really have a choice.
The next morning, they awoke to the news of the new bounties on Monkey D. Luffy and Roronoa Zoro.
It was no small feat that Luffy had made it to super rookie level so early on in the Grand Line, and Ace laughed as he showed the bounty to Marco.
"Wish I could shove this into Izo's face," he said wistfully, remembering Izo's disparaging comment about Luffy's first bounty what felt like a lifetime ago.
He regretted his words immediately. With mention of Izo came the reminder that they hadn't spoken to the crew at all since they had left, and Ace found himself incapable of meeting Marco's eyes after this thought. He missed them, but Marco must be worried sick. She was too much of a big sister and a daughter to not be.
"Maybe we should find a den den mushi?" Ace offered to Marco's sandals.
"…Yeah," Marco said.
It was then that it occurred to Ace she hadn't suggested they contacted the crew either.
Marco spent most of the morning on the Striker engrossed in the newspaper. The Strawhat Pirates' new bounties had come along with a stack of new wanted posters, with no story to explain them and thus no outrageous article about a rookie wiping the floor with a Shichibukai. It was a pity, but an expected happening all the same.
That didn't mean the paper lacked in interesting information.
The Shichibukai were expected to meet later today, purportedly to discuss potential candidates to fill Crocodile's position. Which to her was code to say the World Government was making a show of reminding the world they still had other six Shichibukai while the Gorosei struggled to find a replacement. The paper spent four pages talking about the potential candidates, some more likely than others. Marco's money, if she had to bet, would be on the Pirate Prince Cavendish: from what she'd heard, the guy was vain enough to accept the position, if only for the attention it would bring him.
Their next stop was a considerably larger port town. After Marco had ascertained that —unsurprisingly— Teach wasn't around, they decided to separate to cover more ground. Three hours after their arrival, she was rather certain that they would find no news of Teach here either, so she'd begun to ask about navigation supplies as well. It might be good to locate an eternal pose or two in case they heard news from some other route.
She was talking to a street vendor about Jaya, a nearby island that had some potential because of the large pirate port it held, when she heard a commotion. She'd sensed Ace's presence even before she turned around, but that didn't prevent them from being thoroughly confused when she turned around just in time to watch as he was dumped into the river by a bunch of angry townspeople.
The fuck?
Thatch was laughing as he brandished his wanted poster, waving it around for everyone to see.
"Not bad, eh?" he would ask every time, and while the crew mostly rolled their eyes or indulged him, the random strangers Thatch stopped gave him very puzzled looks. Marco hadn't missed the empty space that was forming around them.
After the tenth embellished version of the story that had earned Thatch the bounty, Marco decided she'd had enough.
She fished out her own wanted poster, rolled it up, and threw it with what she thought to be astounding accuracy at Thatch's face.
His offended expression and the week-long cold shoulder that followed were entirely worth the sulky silence that followed her action.
To be continued
…Remember Ace's cover story? :)
Okay, I know in canon Ace ran into Buggy, and as hilarious as it would've been to have Marco meet Buggy, it couldn't be. They stayed a day longer in Alabasta than Ace did, so their paths never crossed.