Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece
Thunder roared and rain beat on the ships wood like bullets as they approached an Autumn Island. If there was one thing better about Paradise, it was that when the weather begins changing you at least know for sure what kind of island you're close to. In the New World, even if it suddenly starts snowing you might just end up on a Summer Island or even worse an island that was constantly attacked by lightning. Like the people there weren't problems enough, what with everyone's superhuman strength, then they had to worry about the constant weather too. But, after living in the New World for a while, she knew of no one that didn't want to stay there, its harsh conditions were home. Unlike this unexciting place, it was no wonder people called the first half Paradise. It was practically smooth sailing.
They'd be stopping by the next island only for an hour at most, to pick up supplies and the like. Because they'd be going straight for Jaya Island, where Teach had been spotted stuffing his fat face with dozens of cherry pies. They were heading there, in the hopes that they'd catch Ace who was on Teach's trail like a rabid bloodhound on steroids. Because seriously, he had to be on something right? The man's body was even more perfect than Marco's, she didn't even know that was possible. To put it simply, if there was anything she had heard about Fire Fist Ace, it was that the pyro commander was hot… and not his temperature. She thought more about Jaya Island, there wasn't really anything particularly interesting about the place and even if they did miss the freckled man there, his Vivre Card was pointing in that general direction anyway, so they'd end up passing Jaya Island whether they liked it or not, might as well stop to take a look. Who knows, they might get some useful info or even meet someone interesting.
Aiko yawned slightly as she lay comfortably in bed, -she had claimed the bottom bunk for the day- having just awoken from her afternoon nap and not wanting to face the world and its shit storm yet. Literally. The rain was beating down relentlessly, it was probably a good thing the ship was made of top grade wood and was reinforced with steel or else they'd be having some serious leakage problems and she wasn't really much of a shipwright.
"Evening, yoi." She looked over at Marco who had just come in fresh from a shower. Drying his damp blonde hair with a towel in all his shirtless, tanned and sculpted glory.
"Phoenix." She greeted, turning her body towards him, but still not even attempting to get up from her lying position. "How long have I been sleeping?" Aiko looked out of the small circular window that instead of the usual breathtaking ocean view, it only provided a blurry, foggy reflection of the ship from the incessant droplets of rain.
"Hmm? A few hours, yoi." His eyes followed hers to where she was, in vain, trying to see through the window, "It's been like that for a while, we're already near the next island." He hung the towel he had been using on the back of a nearby chair that for some inexplicable reason was never used by the two occupants of the room except for hanging wet towels.
"Mmm… Supply run again, huh?" Aiko grunted into the pillow below her, "Makes me miss the newbies on the ship."
He smirked.
He knew the feeling, it had been such a long time since he himself went out to actually go and haggle with greedy shopkeepers for supplies. He'd usually be the one barking out orders to the rest of the crew, who would get what, what they urgently needed and what they needed to cut down on. Now that he thought about it, wasn't he only supposed to do those things for his division? He wondered how they were doing without him there, no doubt running around wondering why their supplies were running dangerously low, especially their alcohol supply. Pirates drank a lot of grog, everyone knew that, but with a huge crew like the Whitebeard Pirates and the ridiculous amount of alcohol they consumed in a day, he had no doubt that they wouldn't know exactly how much to buy with him not there to help. Well, they could suffer with no alcohol for a few days before he'd call them up and tell them exactly how much they need to buy to last, they deserved this for ganging up and teasing him the other day.
Actually, now that he thought about it more, if there were no pirates then most alcohol establishments around the world would probably be in the poor house. He swore they were keeping their pockets lined with Beli.
"You sleep well?" Marco suddenly asked, grabbing today's newspaper from the table and moving to sit next to her on their shared bunk.
"Mmmmmm…" She just mumbled in reply as she sat up, smoothing the back of her bed head in an annoyed manner, "I hate Autumn Islands. Especially when it rains this much."
He just absent mindedly nodded his head as he thumbed through the different headlines of the newspaper, searching for one that caught his eye. Strawhat was in the news again, seems Ace's little brother was gaining fame, his brother had the same stupidly huge grin, but his eyes seemed a little bit slower when compared to Ace. But, the headline for the day was them once more. That's just how it was when you were well-known pirates, no matter what the accomplishment of some other less famous pirate was, if you were a big shot in the pirating world and you did something as trivial as accidentally stubbing your toe on some random table in a furniture shop, those pesky reporters would be all over you in a heartbeat. Placing you on the headline as if you weren't human like everyone else. Though, in this case, Marco supposed that what they did was front page material worthy.
Phoenix and Killer Punch Spotted Again.
Marco the Phoenix and Killer Punch Aiko, the unlikely duo that had been reportedly travelling together for unknown purposes seem to have completely destroyed a Marine facility on Lowe Island, leaving little to no survivors. It was said that the pair was looking for certain documents, what documents exactly and whether they actually found what they were looking for, there is no way to know for sure as they had quickly fled the scene with only destruction in their wake.
Marco looked at the picture printed next to the vague article, it was of the Marine Base they had visited, well, at least what was left of it.
"Anything interesting, Phoenix?" Aiko asked, taking a peek at what he had been reading so intently, "Ah! News travels fast." She grinned.
He nodded slightly, before giving her his usual blank stare and saying, "We'll probably reach the next island in a few hours. I think I'll give Pops' a call, yoi. Tell him the information we got from that sorry excuse for a base."
"Alright. I'll give Captain a call too, I think he'd be interested in what I found."
He only nodded again, before taking out a small baby DenDen Mushi that had the Whitebeard symbol on it and a miniature cape. Marco didn't really feel like talking through that old fossil of a transponder snail, its appearance distracted him too much. Getting up with the baby transponder snail gently sleeping in the palm of his hand, he took four long, but lazy strides out of the room, so they could both have some privacy. That, and he didn't really want Aiko to hear the teasing of his mates.
Aiko watched him leave, before getting up and going over to the two large DenDen Mushi on the table. Going over to the Shanks version and dialing the number.
Purupurupu—
Kacha.
"AIKO!" Shanks' voice came out through the receiver she was holding at arm's length, fully prepared for her Captain's endless yelling. As expected of her childish Captain, to pick up the phone even before the second ring. What the hell was he doing? Sleeping with the damn snail, waiting for her call?
"BENNIE, ROUX! COME OVER HERE! IT'S AIKO!"
"GWAHAHAHA!" She could make out the many members of her crew laughing on the other end as they all began talking at the same time, as if she could talk to all of them at once.
"Yo, Ai! How's life with a Whitebeard Pirate? I bet you miss us now, huh?" She could clearly identify that as Yasopp.
"We miss you a lot Aiko! Hurry up and come back, we'll have a party!" That was most definitely Roux.
"AIIIIKOOO-CHAAAN~~~" Rho.
"Oi, oi. She called to report." Benn said in his ever calm voice, trying to get the rowdy crew under control.
"Aiko we-"
"Come back-!"
"Having fun with the first division comm-"
"Stop, love struck idiot. She probably won't even recognize your voi-"
"OI! Watch where you're goi-"
"AHAHAHAHA!" She heard Shanks' laughter booming above everyone, his voice drowning out all the rest. He was probably still the one holding the receiver, since she could hear him so clearly. His voice took on a fonder tone, "Is everything alright there Aiko?"
"Yea." She waved a hand, not like they could see it. She could just imagine the looks her crew had on right now. Hell, she missed them. "We've found some info on Teach, hopefully we'll see Ace on Jaya Island, but if not then we could ask around again."
"Jaya Island, huh?" Shanks recalled the place, he hadn't been in Paradise for years. "Hey Bennie, they had some pretty good sake there, huh? Bring us home some will ya, Aiko?"
She could just imagine the stupidly large grin he had on right now. "No way, Captain. I'd rather drink it myself."
"EHH?!" Shanks lost it, losing his emotions like the man child he was. "That isn't fair Aiko! Where are you now, huh? We'll go get you ourselves, then we can have a banquet in Paradise!"
"Oi, oi, Captain." Yasopp interrupted, "She probably doesn't want to see us. Since, Aiko's with her lover after all."
Aiko's eye twitched at Yasopp's words. That bastard. He was definitely taking advantage of the fact that she wasn't there to throw something at him.
"WHAT?! OI, AIKO!" Shanks screamed once more in a surprised, but at the same time scolding tone, she didn't even know how that was possible. If there was anything that could be said about Red-haired Shanks, it was that the man had one hell of a pair of lungs on him. "DON'T GO LETTING THAT FILTHY PIRATE TOUCH YOU."
Oh, so now he was filthy? Aiko grinned, hadn't a mind-blown Shanks just a few weeks ago, asked that filthy pirate to join his crew and become nakama?
"YES!" Her grin broke out into a full-blown smile as she heard Rho's loud agreement to her Captain's words, "IF THAT GUY COMES NEAR YOU, I'LL PERSONALL-"
CRASH.
What the hell was that?
"Yea, yea." She now heard Roux, the man probably hit the doctor over the head with his ever present meat and sent him flying into a nearby rail, Lucky really didn't keep watch of how much strength he put into his hits sometimes. "He means, have fun, Aiko-chi."
"NO LUCKY! THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEAN!" Even without being there, she could imagine Shanks' hands on his head and eyes wide as if someone had just died before his very eyes. "HE'LL TAKE HER AWAY! LIKE IT SAYS ON THE PAPERS! THAT MARCO WILL TAKE HER AWAY TO ELOPE AND-"
"Anyway," Aiko interrupted Shanks' tirade of panic from his overactive imagination. "I found something interesting for you guys to do." She tried to keep her voice as even as possible to get his interest. "An adventure."
"Hmm?" She could tell she had Shanks' attention now because he calmed down and went from epically wild little kid to freakishly focused adult in the span of half a second. "What's up Aiko? Must be hard out there on your own."
She knew he really wanted to know now. He was always like this, small talking in that kind and friendly way of his, so you'd tell him whatever it was he wanted to know.
"A devil fruit in the New World." She took a moment to grin and slowly build up the suspense before continuing, "On a paradise rum-filled beach island."
"SERIOUSLY?!" The whole crew excitedly yelled at the same time.
Marco, who was seated in the small mess hall connected to their kitchen, well more like dining table, since it couldn't really be considered a mess hall because of its small size. He stared unwaveringly at his mini DenDen Mushi. He could hear the shouts of the Red-Haired crew all the way there, even through the thick wooden walls of the ship. That DenDen Mushi Aiko was using would probably die early from extreme use of its poor vocal chords. He sighed a bit, envying how she could call her crew so easily. He needed to have a mental debate with himself first as he just imagined the amount of teasing his mates would throw his away.
Schooling his expression to his usual bored one, he punched in the number of the Whitebeard ship.
Purupurupurupuru…
Purupurupurupuru…
Purupurupur—
Kacha.
"Marco." Pops' deep and steady voice came out.
"Pops', yoi." He started, "We've got a lead."
Good. He couldn't hear any other voices in the background meaning Pops' was most likely alone somewhere, hopefully in his room. Far away from any of the crew.
"Get Ace back, Marco. I have a bad feeling." Whitebeard said it in a voice mixed with worry and displeasure, to others it may have sounded normal. But, Marco had been with Whitebeard for years and clearly knew that the revered strongest man in the world was feeling anxious. Anxious for his son. "Pick up a few Devil Fruits or anything else you may find interesting there, Marco."
"Roger." He muttered, letting the weight of the mission rest heavily on his shoulders. In truth, he was actually brimming with barely restrained fury, hiding it behind his cool, composed, indifferent mask. He was absolutely livid. Filled with anger, anger at Teach and what he did to Thatch, anger at the Marines for taking advantage of the situation to bring Big Mom upon them, anger at himself for not realizing Teach's true nature. He wanted to let out all this fury. The fury of an enraged brother.
Just… Not now.
He shook his head slightly, clearing his mind. He was never one to let any type of emotion rule over his decisions. Especially not anger. People make bad judgment calls when mad and that was something he couldn't afford to do as the first division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.
He let out a breath, he'd make sure to give Ace a solid haki enhanced kick to his grinning freckled face the next time he saw him. "Oh, Pops', we trashed up that base like you asked. I doubt the Marines will be spreading any rumors about us to Kaido or Big Mom anytime soon, yoi."
"GUHAHAHA! That was good work, I see though you're still attached to the hip with that woman." Marco kept his lethargic expression, but on the inside he frowned slightly. He was feeling lucky that none of his other mates were around but did Pops' really have to tease him about it too? "She seems like good company for you, Marco."
The Phoenix commander closed his eyes as he answered in a lower tone than usual, as if she'd hear him if he spoke any louder. "Seems so."
"Take care of her, Red-hair will be at our necks if something happens to the woman." He just knew his Pops was grinning widely. "Watch out for yourself, son."
He smirked. A smirk of pure confidence. "Like any of these weaklings out here in Paradise stand a chance against a Whitebeard Pirate, yoi."
"GUHAHAHAHA!" Whitebeard's laugh bellowed, the sound echoing in the mini mess hall Marco had secluded himself in. "Let loose and wreak havoc out there in my name, my son! It's been too long since you left my side. Enjoy your time with her while you search, Marco. You've been given the chance to travel with a rival pirate as nakama. I can guarantee you there won't be another."
Marco sighed slightly. Just what exactly was his Pops' getting at?
"OI! MARCO!"
Wait.
That voice was…
"How's the sex?"
Sixth Division Commander Blamenco.
'Damn.'
"Oi, uncouth bastard." Haruta, twelfth division commander and only actual commander that was a girl yelled at him. Seems the commanders had gathered, no doubt Pops' had probably called for them. He sighed and mentally steeled himself for what was definitely about to come.
"Phoenix!" Aiko searched the corridors as she called out to him, but the man wasn't responding at all to her continuous calls. She looked out the window, seeing that the rain had died down to a light drizzle and the sun was now showing off its beautiful rays as it faded into the background. Some stars were already quickly becoming visible. She quietly opened the door to the kitchen, eyes immediately eating up the blonde commander who was busy bantering with some of his mates who seemed to be laughing happily, even though the man himself had kept on his usual apathetic expression, as if he was completely disinterested in what his mates were saying. The fact that he was still there listening to the steady stream of voices that flowed out of the transponders snails' mouth was the only sign that he actually gave a shit about his mates' words.
"I'm the first division commander, Marco the Phoenix, yoi." He said smugly into the receiver. "It takes a lot more than that."
"Oh?" She could recognize the voice that responded as Speed Jill's and she could make out conversation in the background identifying the voices of some of the different commanders, "Killer Punch must be pretty amazing then, huh? To conquer you."
He tsked lightly. "Don't get cocky, yoi. I can still kick your ass."
"Phoenix!" Aiko called out to him again, louder now. Making him turn towards her slightly. "I can see the island, Phoenix. You almost done?"
There was silence, before:
"OOOHHHH!" She could clearly recognize the voice of Izou, the okama commander seemed to have fun constantly teasing the others of his rank. "Is that Aiko-chan? How are yo-"
Kacha.
Marco hung up the phone, before letting the okama commander speak any more than he already had. She took a moment to look at Marco with a raised brow then another to stare down at the small baby snail that was gasping for breath from many voice imitations it had done before she burst out laughing.
"Hahahahaha! What the hell, Phoenix? Afraid they'd tell me some of your embarrassing secrets?" She teased.
"Shut up, yoi." He muttered, in one of his rare irritated moods as he scratched the back of his head.
"Touchy, touchy, pineapple head." She stuck her tongue out at him and in a flash he was in her face, catching her off guard as he quickly wrapped a strong hand around her middle, bent and threw her over his shoulder, all in one fluid motion. As if he threw women over his shoulder every minute of every day. She noticed he had quickly started walking out onto the deck, pace not at all hindered by her added weight. "Oi, haha. Chill now, don't throw me overboard." Her voice was slightly panicked, "I was joking, Marco. JOKING."
When he wasn't responding nor stopping, she started flailing her limbs, gauntlet enclosed hands balled into fists and hitting his back with haki infused smacks that would have sent any lesser man crumbling to the floor in worlds of pain. But he didn't even flinch any time she'd hit him. Her eyes quickly saw his blue flames flicker over after every blow or two and heal him completely.
Damn, this flaming turkey.
Damn him to Hell.
"I'm not going to throw you overboard, yoi. So stop hitting me, it hurts." She heard him say, her thrashing limbs coming to an immediate halt and he felt her relaxing slightly in her uncomfortable position over his shoulder.
"So, you actually just wanted to feel me up, eh, Phoenix?" She immediately shot at him.
God. This woman recovered quickly. Wasn't she just losing her mind a moment ago, now she was back to playfully teasing him?
"Always, Hon." He gave a cocky grin. Posture lazy, yet self-assured at the same time.
"And here I thought you had a thing for younger women." She used the best jealous voice she could muster in her uncomfortable spot. "Tell me Phoenix, was she a good kisser? Who was better?"
He rolled his eyes at her. "I didn't realize you were so insecure, yoi."
"Tsk, tsk." She shook her head, the action making her slightly dizzy from all the blood rushing there in her position. "You're avoiding my question."
He smirked slightly, looking back and meeting honey colored eyes with his own slightly amused ones, before playfully commenting, "And if, hypothetically speaking of course, I said she was?"
"Then obviously, hypothetically speaking of course, I'd call you a li-ar." She clearly pronounced each syllable of the last word just to make sure.
"Even though I've already told you once that I really don't want to lie to you, yoi?" He gave her his best lopsided grin. "This is all hypothetically speaking, of course. Because you know I'd rather be kissing you."
She rolled her eyes at him and pretended to pout, to hide the blush that suddenly decided to appear on her cheeks. When the hell did she start blushing from their little harmless game? She'd definitely turn the tables around. She got as close as possible to his face, even though the awkward position somewhat hurt because his hard body was digging into her stomach and planted a kiss right on the side of his lips. As she pulled away, she could see his eyes widen considerably, before turning his head back in front of him.
"You're not playing fair, yoi." She heard him mumble.
"Just wanted to see what she thought was so interesting." Aiko replied back, doing her best to keep a level voice, even with the blush across her face. What the hell? Wasn't she supposed to be getting back at him?So, why the hell was she still blushing like some teenage virgin? She schooled her expression back to her usual grin and fought the red tint down, there was absolutely no way in the name of all the four blues she'd let Marco see her embarrassed, especially after all that he had already seen of her body. Being self-conscious just wasn't something that happened to her whenever the blonde phoenix commander was around.
Marco tightened his grip slightly on the woman over his shoulder, the action just making him remember that god forsaken kiss. No, that wasn't a kiss, it wasn't even on the lips. That shit didn't count. He sighed inwardly before looking out to the East, towards the island they'd be stopping by on for some supplies. What he saw though had his eyes once again widening significantly. Disbelief clearly shining through them and had already impossibly arched eyebrows shooting up even higher. All previous thoughts in his mind of that slight graze –it wasn't a kiss- replaced by only one sentence.
What the fuck was that?
A/N: More actual plot in the chappies to come :D For those that think it's moving along too slowly I'm not really in a rush with this story's plot, haha, cause well they haven't shown Marco in the latest chappies of the manga yet and I don't really want to rush this story too much. I've got a whole 'my pace' attitude thing going on... Anyway,
Please Review!