Hey guys, welcome back to the second chapter of Phoenix flames.
I´d like to thank all readers and the few followers so far.
Have fun.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

They were lead out of town by their abductors, unfortunately to the wrong side of the island, away from the Moby Dick.
Secretly, Ace had hoped to run into some members of their Crew, but it seemed they were just unlucky this time.
Instead, he was able to make out the silhouette of another ship and as they stepped closer the young pirate couldn´t believe his eyes.
Right in front of him floated a full equipped warship in all his glory, white sails blowing in the light breeze and scattered through the whole place were numerous soldiers, attending their different duties.
The raven haired felt his heart drop.
It was impossible for their Crew to assume something had happened so far and if they didn´t hurry, Marco and he would be long gone.
Another shove to his back made Ace realize that he had stopped and he cursed to himself for showing how much he was impressed at the sight.
The arrogant smile on the girls face didn't help much either.
Slower than before, Ace sat in motion again, feeling like a prey walking into the lion's den.
He could feel the gaze of the other marines, how they eyed them warily, but not brave enough to approach.
The freckled boy stopped again, facing one of the governments dog and making him jump out of surprise.
He ignored the poking to his back, most likely the young girl, who wanted to test her strength over and over.

Marco knew what crossed Aces mind the moment the pirate stopped for the second time.
'Don't do it, Ace...'
He begged silently, already knowing this wasn´t going to end well.
'Think first, yoi...'
It was impossible for them to do anything wise in this situation, except obeying and looking how things would turn out from here on.
To attempt to escape now was doomed to fail.
When the girl poked his Nakama once more, Marco knew it was over with the boys' patience.
Only seconds later, Ace had turned around, smashing his forehead against the head of the smaller girl, making her stumble to the ground.
He saw the other two men immediately approach the freckled boy, who furiously kicked at his opponents, teeth clenched and snarling at the marines.
Marco wondered if Ace wanted to be hit by a bullet and if he still knew that his body became attackable due to the handcuffs.
Well, if he forgot, it should be enough of a reminder as one of the marines tackled him and Ace hit the stony ground face-on.
The blonde could hear a painful grunt from his friend and shook his head lightly.
This caused the marine, who had carried him the way along, to tighten his grip until Marco had to groan himself.
"Don´t you dare try anything stupid!"
"Don´t worry, will not."
He watched as Ace was picked up just as he was and got carried the rest of the way, still resisting the strong grip.

A bulge formed in his throat as Marco and he got carried onto the ship and inside without further hesitation or delay.
Some level downstairs, the only light was coming from some old bulbs, hanging disregardful from the ceiling.
It didn´t take long to recognize the cells along their way and Ace felt his heart rate increase.
He didn´t want to be locked up, maybe never seeing the light of day ever again.
Before he could form a real thought, his body started trashing again, legs kicking out in an useless attempt to free himself from the strong grip.
"Let us go now!"
His demand remained unanswered.
"I´m gonna burn the whole ship to ashes!"
Threatening didn´t seem to work either.
"You´ll regret this!"
Ace heard the creaking sound of an opening cell door.
Panic completely took control over his mind as he was carelessly thrown inside the cold room, landing hard on his stomach on iron bars, which even extended over the floor.
As Marcos weight landed onto him, the younger pirate couldn´t hold back a painful yelp.
Had the Commander of the 1st division always been this heavy?
Another creaking noise indicated the closing of the door and Ace could hear a key being turned, leaving both of them locked up in an iron cell on a marine warship, still enchained with Kairoseki and tied up.
Ace felt like crying.
It was only for Marcos voice that he didn´t give in to that desire.

"Did you calm down, Ace?", the blonde asked quietly.
The marines, who had brought them down, were gone but they´ve let their guard down before and saw what had happened.
As he got a nod as an answer, the pirate sighed relieved.
Good.
The last thing he needed was an Ace who would only hurt himself more.
With this settled, he started to roll off the younger man, giving him the opportunity to sit up if he wanted to.
Of course, Ace didn´t have to be asked twice.
It took him less than a second to be on his feet again, wandering the cell nervously with a somewhat helpless look.
"What should we do? This is just horrible!"
Marco couldn´t avoid rolling his eyes.
He sometimes wondered how the boy had survived up until now on his own.
"How about we start with removing the rope? Sounds good, yoi?"
Ace stopped his aimless roam and glared down at him.
Marco couldn´t hold back a slight laughter.
He´d been in situations much worse than these and back then, he neither had Ace, nor his ability.
He watched as his Nakama knelt down beside him and started to inspect the cord with more curiosity.
"Looks like I can undo it.", Ace stated after a few more views at the neatly tied knot.
"You´ll have to, ´cause I can´t."
Marco waved with his hands, which were uselessly tied to each side of his body about the upper arm.
Even though he was able to move them better as Ace, he couldn´t do anything as they were still caught in the fine-meshed web.
He watched his comrade turn around.

Aces back was facing Marco as he sat down and crossed his legs, sliding closer to the blonde pirate until he could feel the rough fabric against his fingers.
He took the knot in his grip and started to fumble for the right thread to untie it.
"Not that one, more to the left. The other left."
"That´s not helping, Marco!"
It took Aces whole concentration to build a fictive image of the knot in front of his eyes and he was glad the other kept quiet now.
The whole thing wasn´t so easy with his hands cuffed to his back and being unable to see what he was doing, his own rope restricting his movements even more.
It was already hard enough to distinguish the different threads, but Ace was able to grab hold of the important string, immediately feeling the knot loosen.
"There we go..."
Another skilled pull and that thing finally released his Nakama.
Turning around with an arrogant smile on the freckled face, Ace was met with the almost same expression from his blonde friend, although Marco still looked kind of sleepy.
"Well done, yoi."
With these words, Marco finally sat up, taking a closer look at the tangled net about his ankles, shaking off the remains of the rope without further notice.
Ace made a bit of room to move for the older male as the pirate started to untwine himself from the irritating web.

It took a few seconds before he was able to arrange the mess around his feet but finally, Marco managed to stick out a hand, smiling triumphantly.
The rest of his body followed the lead, throwing the web disregardful into a corner as soon as he got out.
Frowning, Marco regarded his hands first and Ace afterwards, who just stared back with a questioning look.
"Something wrong?"
"How long does it take the devil fruit power to return?"
"Immediately, why do you ask?"
"I guess we have a problem then."
"Don´t tell me..."
"Yep, seems like this whole cell is made out of that stuff, yoi."
Marco couldn´t help but sigh as Ace rammed his head into the ground in despair.
"Stay like this, will you?"
He knelt down behind his Nakama and started to untie the raven haired boy, even though he wasn´t so sure about this being a good idea, considering the amount of self inflicted injuries Ace had shown in the last half an hour.
He could hear a quiet mumbling from the younger man and chuckled.
Maybe his friend was able to read minds?
The rope dropped to the ground and as Marco felt the younger pirate sit up, he pushed his head back down.
"Stay like this, will you?"
"You don´t have to repeat yourself."
"Then listen."
Marco cowered lower to inspect the Kairoseki handcuffs with a skeptical look.
"This seems kinda difficult, yoi."
This time it was Ace who couldn´t hold back a sigh.
"Just take them off?"
"Already at it."

Ace blinked in surprise as Marcos backpack was displaced beside him.
"Don´t tell me you still have that thing?"
The older pirate gave a halfhearted shrug.
"The marines tied me up with it on my back, so of course, I still have it. Where´s yours?"
Aces mouth dropped into a frown at the question.
"Probably still in front of that damn shop. I dumped it to help the girl, who turned out to be a decoy."
"So that´s what happened..."
"Mostly..."
Still sulking, Ace watched Marco dig into the contents of the fabric, pushing spices and ammunition aside, which both were totally useless in their current situation.
"Found anything helpful yet?"
"Don´t be so impatient. I know it´s somewhere in here...", the older male responded.
Another thing on their shopping list had been picklocks for Haruta, which Marco intended to use now.
He wasn´t as good as the 12th division commander, but it should be enough to get Ace out of the handcuffs.
Right under the knives for the head chef, Marco finally found said picklocks and took them out, crouching down behind Ace again.
"Let´s see how subtle I am, yoi."
'Although I wish, it would be brighter in here.'

Still huddled on the ground, Ace was waiting for Marco to unchain him, his eyes wandering around the cubicle, finding nothing of interest.
"I never thought we would end up in here, you know?"
"Hm."
"And we were almost returning to the ship."
"Hm."
"Do you think they miss us by now?"
"Maybe."
"I fear the marines already set sail."
"That would be bad."
"Are you even listening?"
"Not really."
It took the blonde pirate some time, but when he at last heard the clicking sound, he let out a relieved gasp.
He sure felt more comfortable with his Nakama freed from these damn things, regardless of his urge to hurt himself.
Marco tossed the handcuffs careless into the corner as Ace sat upright, rubbing his wrists.
Now that both of them were able to move unhindered, the pirates could concentrate on breaking out of this prison...

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