Wrath

Spitfire raged, sword and seawater lashing through the air as she attacked the bastard admiral who had tried to murder her baby brother. The tall mermaid had inherited the full measure of her father's temper and it showed: blood fell around her like rain as she sliced through anyone who got close rather than simply batting them away.

"You dare to strike down my brother!" she roared, batting a lava ball into a knot of Marines, "I'll cut you down to size, you bastard!" She abruptly stuck her cutlass through her belt and pulled her hands together. "Ultramarine!" The massive torrent summoned flattened Akainu and everyone unfortunate enough to be near or behind him, temporarily flooding the Plaza in four feet of seawater. Spitfire didn't wait for the foul man to recover, chasing after him at high speed and drawing a knife.

Spitfire had never really bothered with the short –two foot– blade Fox had given her as a gift one year; she'd never had much need for Kairoseki. Now however, now she had a use for it. As the admiral levered himself out of a hole Spitfire brought the knife down on his left hand with vicious accuracy. She grinned with vindictive glee as the ends of half his fingers were cut away and blood flew.

"Nobody hurts my family and gets away with it! That's my justice, you stinking dog!" Spitfire kicked the severed fingers away into the retreating water and brought a haki-reinforced fist down on the Admiral's head for good measure. Then she hopped a good distance back to avoid being disembowelled by another giant.

The giant didn't last long in the face of her blinding fury and in a short lull she glanced around, making sure her people were safely away. Then the fortress above them crumpled further. Spitfire spun and dashed towards Whitebeard, who had half his head missing and had just curb-stomped Akainu. She grinned; the old geezer was cool. Cutting the Plaza in two however was less cool.

"Oi! Old Man!" she shouted, blasting forwards to stand beside him. "That was dirty!"

"Whitebeard glanced across at her. "Spitfire? I didn't see you there."

"Then you must be going blind; I'm not that short," Spitfire snarked back, taking in the size of the gap and the Marines arrayed against them. "Never mind; Runt won't have a problem." She cooed under her breath, the low frequency spreading out and calling her favourite pet to her. "In the mean time, I gotta request before you die," she added quietly.

Whitebeard eyed her sideways. "Oh?"

"Yeah. You see the curly ginger with the bisento loading people onto the seahorse-turtle Sea King?" Spitfire murmured. The white-moustachioed man who matched her height turned, looking over his shoulder.

"Yes?"

"That's Tempest; your firstborn," Spitfire said bluntly. "I want to know if she and the others have your permission to carry your name into the new era." She swung her cutlass at the Marine Captains who tried to take advantage of the old pirate's momentary shock. "Oi! An answer would be nice!"

"Others?" Whitebeard asked, batting a dozen men away as he recovered his mental balance.

"Five on Fishman," Spitfire said cryptically, "Youngest is ten and cute as a button. Us pirate-born look out for each-other."

"And this was never mentioned before because," Whitebeard growled.

Spitfire laughed. "We're the children on the sea, old man! Every last one of us! Blood only matters to us if our would-be father acknowledges us! But if they aren't interested, if they don't think to ask, we take care of ourselves. Always." She called up another blast of water, clearing a space for a little more privacy. "I'm only asking 'cause you care about your kids so I though you wouldn't mind a few more; it really isn't done to tell a guy if he doesn't show an interest first." She winced slightly at the massive taboo she was committing.

Whitebeard chuckled. "Gurarara! I would be honoured! Please keep an eye on my children as well, now I won't be able to."

"Like I'd abandon Tempest!" Spitfire snorted. "She's my right hand; keeps everyone in order and out of trouble for me." She grinned. "A better nakama no pirate could hope for."

There was a deep, bass rumble behind her and a blast of air like a geyser as the Marines suddenly panicked a bit more and a shadow fell over them both. Runt tilted his head so that Spitfire could swing herself up onto his nose. "Not coming then?" She called.

"No!" Whitebeard shouted back. "Watch over my sons for me!"

"Say hi to dad when you see him!" Spitfire called back, rising high above the fortress on the end of Runt's nose as the immense Sea King turned his head to deposit her on the top of the sea wall. "Oi! Marco!" she shouted down to Whitebeard's First Division Commander. "Snouty over there can take a hell of a lot more passengers than he's got," she waved at the seahorse-turtle Sea King who was wrapping people in bubbles and hiding them under his shell, "and he's quicker than the ships! Get people moving!"

"Why didn't you bring Pops back?!" the pirate shouted back at her.

"He didn't want to come!" she bellowed. "He's dying, you twit! Let him go out like he wants to! Like my old man did!"

Marco made a face like he'd bitten something sour, but directed more of his crew towards the Sea King. Spitfire then looked around for Luffy. The Straw-Hat kid was Ace' little brother, so as big sister she had to look out for him on her baby brother's behalf.

Fox landed in Shanks' cabin and immediately discarded the mask, kicking it under the bed and sliding her sword after it. Then she ripped off the smouldering cape, placed Ace on top of it and pulled her shirt off over her head. The knife-sheathes followed it onto the floor, as did her gloves. Then she knelt over the cooling body of her best friend and placed glowing hands over his ruined torso.

Ace wasn't in right now; she'd felt him fading as she held him in her arms and had pulled him into herself before he could get away. Even now he was tethered at the edge of her soul with Zoro watching over him. Being pregnant had a great many disadvantages, but a real advantage was that her body was currently primed to support and nurture other living things.

Fox did not think about the consequences. She did not think about how she and Zoro would have to adapt to adding a third person to their mental tangle. Her captain had ordered her to save Ace no matter what and Fox would do it. Carefully compartmentalising so that her unborn child would not get caught in the challenge ahead of her, Fox set about cleaning out Ace' torso so that there would be no dead, cooked organs to impede her nakama's recovery. As bubbling ooze seeped out of the hole in Ace' chest and spread across the floor Fox immersed herself in cataloguing the damage.

Spinal cord severed and partially gone, liver and pancreas terminally fried and mostly gone, kidneys fried, heart partially fried, lungs damaged, large and small intestine ruined, all the muscles between the shoulder and the hip damaged in one way or another, several vertebrae vaporised and the lower ribs are charred to uselessness, not to mention the massive amounts of damage to the nervous system, circulatory system and lymphatic system. This is going to be a very long job.

Fox never even considered failure. She had her orders and that was that. Pausing only to scribble a note using some of the blood soaking her hands and stick it into a message case she bent back over her patient and set about rebuilding him, her focus divided between healing the damage, ensuring the still-living areas didn't die while she was busy and ensuring the soul didn't come unstuck. Ace was having an out-of-body experience right now, but he would be going back as soon as there was a working body to go back to.

Zoro perched on a reef in the ocean that wasn't really ocean at all but a part of his lover's inner world, watching the bubble containing Portgas D. Ace. He'd been napping ever since Fox started preparing herself for the fight and had been watching her from the moment she landed at Luffy's feet. Feeling her leap into battle had been beautiful, seeing her become one with her sword and move with such precision and power. Zoro had known Fox was stronger than he was, but damn if he didn't have a long way to go if he wanted to match her. Strength was easy; skill, accuracy, speed, stamina and pinpoint judgement were what he really needed and they were so much harder to gain.

He'd been watching when Ace fell to the admiral with the lava Logia and had known instantly what Fox was going to do when Luffy ordered her to save Ace. He never considered stopping her; Luffy was the captain for a reason and though this was going to mess up their lives even further, the swordsman refused to fail his captain in any way. So he sank deeper into his lover's mind and when Luffy's brother's soul appeared, light and fire encased in a bubble of living power, Zoro carefully herded it to the edge where his own mind met Fox' and set up a watch on it.

This particular reef was special because it had a paw-shaped pool in the middle of it and was full of fresh water rather than salt water; it was the point where Zoro could get in and out of his lover's mind regardless of the distance separating them. Zoro knew perfectly well it didn't exist in conventional terms, but it was a nice place so he ignored the impossibility of it. Currently Ace was floating in his bubble above the pool like a genie in a bottle, but Zoro knew in his bones that when the other man woke up the bubble would pop and Ace would be loose in both their minds. That was why he was on guard: He wanted Ace to know where he was and the risks associated with running about willy-nilly.

The swordsman had worked out that most of the reason he was so uncoordinated was that he'd spent so much time thinking Fox' mind was his own, which had confused her as well. Ace might not be terribly coherent when he came to, but Zoro intended to play babysitter while Fox was busy. He had an ulterior motive, of course: attached somewhere in here was his unborn child and that was one thing Zoro did not want Ace to go anywhere near.

Resettling himself on the reef, the green-haired asura kept his eyes on the fiery soul of his captain's brother; hopefully this would not take as much of a toll on Fox as healing him had done.

So, four chapters of action yesterday! Things are winding down a bit now, but Ace isn't dead yet. Well, he's mostly dead actually, but he'll recover.