Chapter Twenty-Seven | O'er Dune and Dale

"Haki?"

"It's what you saw me use against Smoker." Ace capped off his sentence by raising his fist, a noticeable burst of magic accompanying the sudden shining black that swept over it. "Only way you can hit a Logia is with this… or the occasional element that cancels the other out. Not a fan of water, myself, but I think every fruit user is the same that way."

Thinking back, Quinn could recall how the stranger in Loguetown had actually taken hold of Smoker, his fingers not slipping through his incorporeal body but grasping it with all the strength they would flesh.

"And this isn't a devil fruit power?"

"No. This can be learned. Actually, it's why Grandpa's punches hurt so damn much," he added, turning to Luffy, who gawked at him in return.

"That's why? You gotta' teach me, Ace!"

Putting his hands on the small of his back and giving it a push, Ace sighed in relief as the bones popped. "It ain't that easy, Luffy."

"But it's important," Zoro said, the conversation having gone from interesting to riveting for someone as focused on strength as himself. "Someone like Mihawk would know it. Right?"

"Know it? That man is a master. Fuckin' terrifying, the one time I saw him fight. Why're you asking about a guy like that anyways?"

"Because I lost to him. He gave me this." The collar of his shirt was pulled aside to reveal just a sliver of the knotted scar that ran from shoulder to waist, carving his chest in two. "And then he gave me a challenge."

"Mihawk… Hawkeye Mihawk gave you a personal challenge." Ace whistled and shook his head. "Luffy, you've got yourself an interesting crew here."

"They're the best, aren't they?"

"I wouldn't say that. Not until you meet Pops."

"Pops?"

"What we all call Captain. You can think of Whitebeard's crew like… a very, very big family. Each and every one of us his sons and daughters." He clapped his hands together, smiling at everyone as if he were about to start a speech. "But! Haki. You guys asked about it, so that means it's time to learn. You wanna' be anyone in the Grand Line, you have to learn Haki. By the time you guys reach the New World – second half of the Grand Line, that is – pretty much everyone who's a heavy hitter has an understanding of at least one kind of Haki.

"Armament is what you saw me use earlier, and it's a handy trick for fighting in general. Like I said, it's the only way to hit a Logia user, but it's like a… double edged sword? I don't think I'm using that right, but whatever. You hit harder, and can get hit harder, so it's offensive and defensive." Ace shut his eyes, and if he looked pleased earlier now he looked positively excited. "Luffy, try and hit me."

"Try?"

Eagerly taking his brother's challenge, Luffy cracked his knuckles and readied a punch, his arm stretching further and further until it reached its apex, snapping forward too fast for the eye to see. That didn't matter, apparently, as Ace easily sidestepped the punch with his eyes closed, chuckling all the while. "C'mon, you can do better than that!"

Eyes alight, a flurry of punches and kicks were thrown Ace's way, each and every one of them nimbly dodged with only the barest of movements. Precognition? Is that what he's using? Quinn wondered, taking a few steps backwards so she didn't get caught in the crossfire. What else could it be?

She couldn't feel any magic coming off of him, nothing evident in the same way that, what did he call it? Armament? There was a noticeable echo that could be felt when he'd used armament, remarkably similar to what had driven her damn near insane when she'd dropped out of the sky and a Warlord saw fit to try and cut her trip short. The same power, seeing as Ace had pointed out that Mohawk was a master of it.

The Greatest Swordsman in the World? Of course that was the case.

On and on Luffy swung, and even he began to grow tired, frustrated with how not a single punch ever made contact with his brother. "Why can't I hit you?"

"Because of Observation. I can feel your intentions, where you want to hit me and how."

"You can read my mind?" Luffy shouted, trapped between being impressed and very, very annoyed. Zoro shot a surreptitious glance Quinn's way at his words, raising a single eyebrow in question. She shook her head, returning her attention to the 'fight,' if it could even be called that at this point.

Ace laughed. "I can't read your mind, Luffy. Come on. I'm just… hmm," he turned his back, tapping his chin in mock thought, and still dodged every single punch along the way. "I can tell what you're going to do by listening to your voice. Not your actual voice, but… I can't describe it. It's something you have to feel to understand."

Dancing around Luffy, he put his brother in a chokehold that bordered on artful, Luffy squirming and thrashing in his grip. "Leggo'!" he shouted, kicking at the deck until finally, he saw the writing on the wall and fell limp in his brother's arms, pouting. "I really thought I'd beat you that time."

"Hey, don't sweat it. I've been getting training from some guys who are just as scary as gramps, but a hell of a lot nicer. You're already a terror, and if you had the same training I did?" He shook his head and sucked air through his teeth, letting go of Luffy. "It'd be a real hard fight, that's for sure."

"Then teach me. Teach everyone!"

"I'm only going to be spending a few days with you guys, which isn't nearly enough time to cover anything apart from teaching you guys how to learn on your own. Even then… listen," he said, putting a hand on Luffy's shoulder. "Pops said this to me, the greatest man I know. Haki blooms in battle. You can train all you want, try and teach yourself all you'd like, but it's when you're facing down someone else and getting pushed to your limits, that's where you really learn. Haki is willpower, pure and simple. You have to want with everything you have to punch that guy right in front of you. You have to listen to what's not being said to know how he's going to try and hit you. And when he throws that punch? You have to want it to break on you, instead of you breaking on it."

As his speech went on, Luffy's frown – one that he'd been wearing about a minute into being humbled – grew deeper and deeper, until it looked as though he'd stopped listening entirely. Quinn even brushed his mind to see that yes, he'd quite literally stopped thinking entirely. For a moment she thought Luffy had died of boredom, until Ace finished speaking and he blinked back to reality, completely unbothered. "Okay?" he drawled, scratching his nose. "Sounds complicated."

Ace, for his part, just sighed and shrugged. Brothers indeed, judging by his complete and utter lack of frustration. "Can lead a horse to water…"

"Thank you," Nami blurted, bowing her head slightly. "Something like Haki sounds… very important."

"It sounds like… a Vigiomagus, almost."

"Hm?"

"Did I speak out loud?" Quinn collected herself, mind running a mile a minute. "Sorry. It's… something people can do where I'm from. Something I can do."

Tilting his head this way and that, his bobbing slowly turned into nodding. "Probably your island's name for observation."

Observation.

It sounded like looking, like seeing, like what she could do. Magic made clear even to her mind's eye, revealing the world around her with technicolour blots and the vague illusion of the person it belonged to. With it Quinn could see not just the people around her, but the magic within it. The wards, the sigils and scars that carved their path across the soil and through the air, winding like vines round anything capable of bearing life. It was a necessary, cultivated skill that any cursebreaker worth their salt would learn, and probably one of the reasons why she'd always been absolute and utter shite at occlumency. Quinn was always watching, her mind perpetually turned on, which made it damn near impossible to clear it, as Snape had insisted time and time again.

But observation, according to Ace, wasn't looking. It wasn't seeing. Not solely.

It was listening, calmly taking in the unspoken voice of the people around her and with it their intentions. Not premonition, like she'd first assumed. This wasn't the skill of a seer or any that claimed to have opened their third eye, a group of mages far and few between oft stricken by madness or far more terrible illnesses of the mind. A paranoid and inscrutable bunch on the best of days, Trelawney was a moderate example of what seers were commonly afflicted by. An addiction to cheap sherry would be considered by most of her brethren to be a blessing, rather than fighting day in and day out with the clawing voices of creatures whose words were never meant to be heard by mortal man.

She'd encountered a seer like that before, lost to the hymns of the damned. It was one of the few times Quinn had killed on the job. Often she'd think of it like a mercy killing. Other times that woman's pained whispers would keep her up at night, the image of her scabbed flesh and the runes she'd painted across her hovel with her own blood as clear as day.

Blinking away the memories, Quinn returned to the conversation with nary a hiccup, only pausing at a familiar name being spoken.

"...Which is why I'm hunting down Blackbeard. Kin-killing is… one of the worst things you can do on this sea, and it's my job as Division Commander to put him in his place."

"Blackbeard?"

"You know him?"

Mouth opening and closing, her gaze flicked to Luffy and back to his brother again. Blackbeard? The most fearsome wizard-pirates of all time, Blackbeard? The name alone made her question the danger the man posed. Coincidences didn't often rear their head for magical folk unless for good reason, and to hear of kin-killing alongside that name a world away…

It didn't bode well.

"Can I talk with you privately?"

Biting his lip, Ace gave her a curious look before Luffy tapped him on the shoulder, nodding. "Alright," he said, trusting his brother's silent judgement. "Lead the way."

Making no effort to hide her concern, Quinn lead Ace up to the galley and shut the door behind them. She immediately plucked a cigarette from her pocket and stuffed it between her lips, lighting it with a snap of her fingers before Ace could, the flame dancing on the tip of his finger winking out in embarrassed silence.

"You ate a type of flame fruit as well?"

"Haven't eaten a devil fruit," she denied, a cloud of smoke exhaled in a short puff. "Do you want the short story or the long one?"

"I… don't know?"

"Luffy trusts you, so I trust you. It's either or."

"...Short one."

Taking a deep breath, she began. "I'm a witch from another world. Fell through a portal and ended up here. Ended up joining Luffy's crew." Her words were reinforced with a ball of light erupting from her open palm, whizzing through the room before disappearing. Quinn then lifted Ace into the air with a flick of the finger, setting him down again a moment afterwards. "Magic is versatile, as you can see."

Stunned, Ace bounced from heel to toe, arms crossed and a pinch to his brow. "A witch," he deadpanned. "Alright. Whaddaya' know about Blackbeard?"

A veteran of the Grand Line, she noted at his complete lack of surprise. Must have seen and heard all kinds of things.

But how to start? All she had was a gut feeling and the rest of the crew was surely wondering what she had to tell him. Did Quinn need to bring Ace to the galley? She didn't much want to discuss her past in front of Marianne, who quiet though she may be was very evidently listening from her usual spot by the rails, feet hanging over the side of the ship and her gaze cast seaward.

Better to start with the basics, she thought, than in the middle of things.

"Your Blackbeard? I know nothing about him. The Blackbeard from my world? Enough to assume that yours is bad fuckin' news, and not to be underestimated."

"Explain."

Sighing, she pointed with her cigarette to the dining table, sitting down and drawing up what she'd learned of Blackbeard from memory. "The man in my world was… a frightening pirate and an even more terrifying wizard. He went from a nobody to being known the world over in the span of a single year, building a crew out of nothing. Magical communities along any coast were decimated by him, cities – countries laid to siege, and most of his crimes scratched from the history books because of how heinous they were."

"And what does this have to do with my Blackbeard?"

"Because if the two are anything alike, going after the guy by yourself is suicidal."

Ace frowned at her, scraping his knuckles across the tabletop in a soft rhythm. He did that for a short while, mulling over her words before lightly tapping his fist against the wood and sighing aloud. "That's it?"

"It's… a gut feeling, I admit. But I don't think it's a coincidence that this guy's name is Blackbeard. That he killed a crewmate and then fucked off to who knows where. And… and you said he attacked Drum?" she asked, vaguely remembering Ace mentioning that when she'd been thinking over haki. "By himself?"

"Eh. This is Paradise. First half of the Grand Line," he added at her curious look. "A pirate like him? Nobody there would be able to stop him."

"Look. All I know is the Blackbeard of my world held damn near every ocean hostage after appearing out of nowhere. He'd minded his own business until deciding one day to raise hell, and then tore a path of destruction across the Atlantic. His rise was… meteoric, and the only reason he fell was because half the fucking mages in the world decided to gang up on the bastard, and even then it was a close call."

The history books in non-magical circles were kind to Blackbeard, much of his rise and fall shrouded in mystique and a carefully cultivated image, peddled by himself and those unfortunate enough to have crossed his path. In magical circles things were different, the pages of a select few tomes unfettered by the censures of many an embarrassed nation, their efforts better served preserving the Statute and erasing any mention of the wizard Edward Teach from the world's collective memory. Muggles thought him a murderous figure, yes, but they were completely in the dark when it came to the true damage he had caused, and how close the world's oceans had been to an uncontested takeover.

He would have been made King of the Seas – King of the Pirates – had the magical world not pooled their resources together and burned his empire until not even the ashes remained.

"He was one of the most terrible wizards to have ever lived. The most terrible pirate, bar none. I cannot overstate how dangerous that man was."

"Dangerous, yeah, but a different man. Right?" Sighing, he stood and made for the door, casting a look over his shoulder as he continued. "Teach is my responsibility. I'll take care of him one way or another, and I'm… thankful, I guess, for your concern – but like you said. Another man. Another world. I'm sure plenty of people have named themselves after the colour of their hair. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's some upstart named Brownbeard who's been throwing his weight around."

With that the door shut behind him and Quinn groaned, taking another long drag and blowing a lazy smoke ring, twirling her finger to make it dance about the room.

"It's not just a coincidence," she muttered, complaining to no one but herself. "I'm sure of it."

-::-

The "Green City" of Erumalu was nothing but sandswept ruins, the crumbling buildings swallowed by the desert and desiccated beyond repair. Towards where they'd set anchor, Luffy was teaching a gaggle of Dugongs how to fight, throwing punches and shouting words of encouragement as they imitated him.

"Crocodile did this?"

"With Dance Powder… yes."

Vivi was propped up by her sorrow, the unashamed mourning of her country written over every inch of her. It was in the set of her jaw, the white of her knuckles, the steely pinpricks that were her pupils. Grief and fury were her closest partners, two emotions that Quinn was intimately familiar with.

"It took the rain from places like this and drew it all to Alubarna. Now there's nothing left but bones and dust."

The sight of it all drew bile to Quinn's throat. It was almost worse than what she'd witnessed in the war, the long-standing aftermath of a battle lost and the bones of its victims left to bleach in the sun. "He's going to pay," she growled, unable to help but wonder whether this resembled Britain's would-be demise, given Voldemort's triumph. "You can trust me on that. Luffy might have to fight me to get a chance at the bastard before I get to him."

Clenching her fist, Vivi gave a stern nod. It looked for a moment as if she were about to speak, but no words came out, only an air of grim determination. A few steps away, Ace surveyed the land with his own dour aura, hands on his hips and a strained look of contemplation written all over him. He glanced up towards Quinn before quickly looking away, a sudden anger ebbing off him in waves. She could feel it even without reaching out with legilimency, the sensation so clear as to give her momentary whiplash, trying to decipher why she infuriated the man.

Quinn hadn't bothered him about Blackbeard since their initial discussion, choosing to ignore it in lieu of sparking tension with – as much as he didn't act the title sometimes – her Captain's brother. But from the short trip to Erumalu and a brief but no less impressive run-in with Baroque Works, one that ended in a terrifying display of power by Ace in between their talk, he had given off a tangible presence of anger. Emotions that were difficult for her not to pick up on, her own frustration growing as she leeched off that fury and, whether she wanted to or not, made it her own.

Something had made Ace hate her. Not wholly, which was a silver lining that left her more confused by the entire thing. There was hope there, just a sliver of it, but it padded his anger and left it dull enough to not sting every time his emotions ran wild.

She'd confront him about it, but after witnessing the man destroy a host of ships with a single, fiery punch, Quinn knew that was a battle that would be lost before it had even begun.

Thankfully, it looked as though Luffy had wrapped up his quick training session with the Dugongs, but the cheerful expression he'd worn since running into his brother dwindled when he set eyes on them. With just a glance he'd picked up on Vivi's mood, his brother's conflict, and Quinn followed his wandering gaze until she settled on Chopper, who had been digging through the sand beneath the shade of a tattered awning. He held a skull between his hooves, tilting it this way and that, trying to decipher some puzzle it held that only he could see. Chopper seemed to notice the attention on him, reverently setting it back in the sand and wandering over to Luffy.

The two talked for a moment in quiet tones, Luffy growing more serious with every word. Whatever Chopper had to tell him was brief, and Luffy turned to the northern horizon, desert stretching out before them, his eyes hidden beneath the shadow of his hat. Somehow, Quinn could tell he was glaring, his own anger directed northbound, towards Crocodile.

"Alright everyone!" he declared, cracking his knuckles. "Let's get moving!"

-::-

Ace didn't understand her.

And it wasn't the whole 'other world' deal. The New World had been made his home a long time ago, and when you're told about a time traveler who was wedded to one of his long lost brothers, and the next day witness your oath-bound father laying cracks through the air itself, you tend to be more forgiving of what doesn't align with your sense of reality. So, no, Ace could believe Quinn when she said she'd… what the hell was it? Fallen through a portal?

Three years ago he would have laughed in her face. Nowadays? Hardly a raised eyebrow in sight. Especially for people like him, notably those who tried not to think too hard about things they knew were well out of their wheelhouse. If he wouldn't understand it even if he buried his nose in a book for ten years (and ugh, he hated reading) then it wasn't something worth learning more about in any real depth.

He didn't give a damn who she was or where she came from. All that mattered was how she acted. How she treated other people, especially Luffy. But then his brother let slip a secret that he knew was meant for his ears only, what with the damned blood that ran through his veins.

Family.

Proper, honest, blood family.

The Pirate Cunt's sister of all fucking people, and she was a part of his brother's crew.

And he knew that Roger wasn't a monster. Now, at least. But growing up in fear, in pain, hidden away in a jungle on some nothing island in the middle of fucking nowhere because his- his corpse of a sperm donor had to go and die. That son of a bitch left him alone, tucked out of sight and left to be raised by bandits and, on occasion, smacked around by his crackpot rival.

Ace hated him. He hated him. What the man did to him, to the world, to the mother he never had the chance to meet but had taken the name from anyways, because at least she held on and tried to give him even an inkling of safety, all at the cost of her own life. She sacrificed herself so that he could live.

He often wondered if she'd made the right choice.

Now here in Alabasta of all places he'd come face to face with someone that shouldn't exist. Someone that would be hunted the same as him if the world knew what family she belonged to, and Ace had zero doubt in his mind that Quinn was who Luffy said she was. For one, he didn't even know if his brother could lie. Any time he'd ever tried had ended in him squinting and puffing his lips out, looking anywhere but at whoever he was talking to as he stammered out a whole load of nothing.

Secondly, as soon as Luffy had told him Ace had almost smacked his own forehead and cursed at the top of his lungs. Why? Because he should have noticed, and now that he had, he didn't understand how the first thing that came to mind upon seeing her wasn't recognition. In the ragged fall of her hair, the sharp cheeks, the rigid jaw – Quinn was a dead ringer for Roger if it wasn't for the rings around her eyes and the colour of her hair.

He couldn't even catch a glimpse of her without feeling two decades worth of rage bubbling in his throat, the familiar twinge of flames begging to be let loose from every inch of him. Ace wanted to shed his own skin, to roar across the ocean in a torrent of blazing red until the sea boiled beneath him and any memory of Roger was burnt to ash along with it.

But at the same time he wanted to know more. How, for one. How was it that she was the same age as him? Was she a time traveler as well, just like Toki? Did she know Roger's legacy? Would she understand the horror and anger that tore at his heart, or would she act just like some of his brothers who'd met the man, passing about what amounted to excuses that, at the end of the day, told Ace nothing of import about his cursed lineage.

She'd seemed to notice the conflict that scratched at his psyche, shooting concerned glances his way as well as something that looked like an unspoken question. Did she know who he was? What would she say, if he asked her whether or not his life was worth a damn?

A thousand questions and a thousand more ricocheted through Ace's mind even as his sandaled feet kicked up sand and Luffy told him a story, the two of them heading the desert march towards Yuba. He'd have to leave soon, vengeance calling his name and the crooked laughter of Teach echoing alongside it.

He almost didn't want to go, a small part of him begging quietly to just stay a little longer. Listen to one more story, laugh at one more joke, annoy his brother one more time.

But he was a Commander, and a title like that (one he worked for, the cost paid with his own sweat and blood) came with a host of responsibilities. And Ace would never, ever betray his father's trust, even if it cost him his life. Because Whiteboard – pops – he was going to be the Pirate King one day, and Ace was going to do everything in his power to get him there.

Next to him, either ignoring or not noticing his brother's introspection, Luffy's arms waved as he waxed on about the island whale at the foot of reverse mountain, and how they were now friends. Probably a bit of both, Ace thought. He couldn't count to twenty, but Luffy had a gift with people.

"What do you think she'd say?" he murmured, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the woman in question, Quinn caught in a conversation with the cook with strangely familiar eyebrows. How swirled eyebrows were familiar to him, he couldn't say, the memory they sparked forever on the tip of his tongue.

She'd been drilling him – Sanji, that was the guy's name – on the Revolutionaries and Marines, the conversation loud enough for Ace's keen hearing to pick up on it. All the while the two of them smoked, a billowing trail of brackish gray floating behind them. On occasion he could feel a chill sweeping across the whole convoy when Quinn snapped her fingers. Very useful, that was, and the tiny doctor his brother had picked up looked like he was about to start worshipping the woman for staving off the desert heat.

Ace didn't much envy him. Fur in Alabasta? Not a chance that would end in anything but heat stroke.

The water was the most impressive thing to him. She drew it out of the air itself, making what would be a grueling three day trip into a simple, yet no less lengthy hike. In fact, it was the only time he'd seen someone outside of a Fishman do anything with water, let alone conjure it out of thin air. People would kill for a power like that, he thought, a seed of worry planted deep within him.

"What'd who say? Huh?"

"You know who."

Luffy swept a thumb across his brow, frowning, before his eyes shot open in recognition. "Ooooh," he stage-whispered, nodding to himself. "Um- she'd probably… huh." He tapped his chin, thinking on it. "I dunno' but she'd probably think you're cool. Because you are. And also, she's our sister! But she doesn't know that," he added, the quietest Ace had ever heard him, a finger pressed to his lips as he spoke.

"Aunt." Ace exhaled sharply. "She'd be my… no. Our aunt."

"Eh. More like a sister. Aunts are old."

He snorted, lightly punching Luffy's shoulder. "Idiot."

"Hey! I'm not an idiot!"

"You almost got all your supplies stolen by rushing ahead. You're an idiot."

"You- once I learn that hankey stuff I'm gonna' kick your ass."

"I'd like to see you try."