Chapter 2: Old Habits
April 12th, World Year 1522
Three days of relentless Grand Line storms left Marco grateful for any excuse to enjoy the nice weather on deck. Ace had happily provided such an excuse: he wanted to practice flying, and Marco was as good of a supervisor as any for that sort of thing.
Unbeknownst to Ace, Marco had also roped in one of their fishman brothers from Namur's division. Not that he didn't think Ace was capable, but on seas like these, it paid to be careful. So, they had a fishman discreetly keeping an eye out. Just in case.
Still, with the sun shining, breeze blowing, and ocean glittering, that worst-case scenario wasn't seeming all that likely. Maybe Ace had just asked him to watch as a chance to show off his progress with the way he was blasting himself through the air.
"You're his keeper today?" Thatch leaned up against the railing next to him, eyes on Ace. He whistled. "Damn, he's gotten way better at that."
"I don't think you can really call it flying-yoi," Marco admitted. "It's more like he's just firing himself through the air."
"Potato, tomato."
"Not how that goes. What brings you over here?"
"Ah, we're apparently having some trouble restocking our stores."
"Storms chase away the fish?"
"Maybe." Thatch sighed and turned to rest his elbows on the railing so he could supervise the members of his division fishing on the opposite side of the ship. "It was fine at sunrise, but in the last couple hours, they've all just…vanished. Even the fishmen can't find any down there."
Marco frowned. He didn't know of any New World phenomenon with that characteristic, but it was hardly a good sign. "Does Namur know?"
"Yeah. Nothing else about the water is raising alarms, according to him." Thatch tipped his chin up towards the crow's nest on the main mast. "Lookout's been warned too, same with the other ships. No one's reported any sign of trouble—other than the small issue of food."
"How bad is it?"
"We'll be fine for a week, but if we're not catching anything by the end of today, we should try another spot."
Marco sighed. Over the water, Ace did a barrel roll and then shot himself higher. Marco spared him an encouraging nod. "So much for this being a place of plenty."
"You win some, you lose some." Thatch craned his head back to look at Ace upside-down. "Hey, think he can do a barrel roll?"
"He just did."
"What? And I missed it?" He turned and planted his palms on the railing. "ACE!"
The man hovered in the air a bit unsteadily. "WHAT?"
"DO A FLIP!" Thatch leaned back with a grin. "Fifty beri says he faceplants into the ocean."
"One hundred says he doesn't, and you're getting him if he does."
Thatch looked past Marco to the striped fishman chatting with a spiny brother several yards away. "Isn't Falino keeping watch?"
"He's not responsible for the nonsense you put Ace up to."
"Shake on it."
They shook. During their discussion, Ace had just been hovering there, brows knitted and eyes directed down at the fire by his feet in thought. Occasional flares of flame would rock his balance while he felt out how to do the trick without getting disoriented and accidentally launching himself straight into the water.
Evidently coming up with a plan, he rocketed up dozens of yards. There he stayed for a second, and then, with a visible bracing breath, he threw himself forward and tucked up his legs.
He lost nearly all the height he'd gained before he finished the turn, thrust out his legs, and poured fire out of them to arrest his momentum. Now almost level with Marco and Thatch—just a bit higher, though still pretty far from the ship—he threw his arms up in victory with a wide smile.
Marco held out a hand. Thatch slapped a bill into it with a grumble about prodigies.
"You should know better than to bet against him by now," Marco chided, pocketing the money before the strengthening wind could whisk it away. Clouds had begun to gather. Were they in for a sudden storm? Their navigators hadn't called any warnings.
"My money's always on him when it counts. Can't blame me for wanting to mix things up a little every now and then. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'd never try something like that even if I had a fruit."
Marco quirked a brow. "I've seen you do more reckless things. When the hail was coming down yesterday—"
Thatch waved a dismissive hand. "I don't have to worry about the ocean catching me and refusing to let go when I'm throwing myself in harm's way."
"Think you'll ever want a fruit?"
"Ah," Thatch blew out a breath and watched Ace as he arced through the air with faint whoops of exhilaration. "Tough question, Marco. I don't think so. Too high a price for me. Besides, if I'm an anchor like him, who's left to get us out of trouble?"
"You could simply not scheme together."
"As I said: too high a price. And on the topic of high prices, one of our freezer's pipes burst, so we need—"
"Wait." Marco straightened. Ace was hovering again, but something was different this time. There was no obvious reason why, but Marco's skin was prickling. The sky, so big and open mere minutes ago, was low and dark with clouds. When he tapped into his observation haki, he cursed and blinked spots out of his eyes.
"Marco?"
"Something's wrong-yoi." That brief instant of haki had left him trying to piece together why it looked like the sun was trying to swallow Ace. Blue fire sparked on his shoulders in preparation for the wings to follow. "I'm grabbing Ace."
He had one foot up on the railing and Ace's name on his lips when fire exploded from Ace's chest. The force of it knocked Marco back and only Thatch's quick hand—his other locked on the railing—kept him on his feet.
Past him, the fire that had been a ball around Ace had rushed up, expanded, and begun to swirl, a twisting pillar connecting sea and sky.
"WAVE!" screamed the lookout, and a dozen fishmen jumped into the water to try to head it off. Swells were already rocking the massive Moby Dick like it was a mere dinghy. Marco squinted against the blinding light and salty ocean spray to try to pick out Ace's form in the fire, but it was hopeless.
After his earlier attempt, his observation haki was useless, burned out and painful to tap into. Whatever he had sensed in the instant of its activation—whatever lay at the core of the fiery tornado churning the water and scorching the air—had been so bright and big that it had been impossible to get any sense of what it was.
Meaning that he had no idea what condition Ace was in. Thatch had let go of his arm and so he summoned his wings.
"Are you seriously flying into that?" Thatch yelled over the chaos.
"Do you have a better idea? Or do you want us all to burn?"
A wave the fishmen couldn't turn back crashed into the Moby Dick. Wood groaned and splintered, and Marco leapt into the air when the deck lurched out from under him. Thatch hung onto the railing for dear life. On the opposite side of the ship, several people went overboard.
Cursing, Thatch released the railing and went after them.
Marco shifted fully into his phoenix form and shot towards the epicenter of the inferno. The heat wasn't much of a problem for him—what overwhelmed his natural resistance couldn't burn him faster than his own flames could heal him—but the wind it generated shoved Marco around like physical blows. He quickly lost all sense of direction.
And then the fire died. Like a match going out, it simply ceased to be, and Marco was left to flap in empty air with only the churning ocean below as proof of what had happened.
The churning ocean and Ace's falling body. Ace's bloody falling body.
Marco dove.
He didn't make it.
Ace hit the water and Marco flared his wings to avoid meeting the same fate. He looked around wildly, about to call for help, only to see a fishman's silhouette—Falino, good man—streaking through the currents below.
Useless over the water, Marco flew back to where the Moby Dick was settling back into the calming waves. The ship was scorched in several places, the fire having flared far enough to reach it in the moments before it dissipated, and the ocean's fury had splintered the weakened wood. Pirates inside were already bailing water.
On deck, Thatch ran over to greet him, clothes and hair sopping wet. He'd helped pull their brothers and sisters from the water. "Where's Ace?"
"He fell. Falino's got him. He's injured."
"Bad?"
"Looked like it."
"I'll get Tasuka." He turned on his heel and sprinted away without another word.
Falino erupted from the water with a great splash and stumbled when he hit the deck. Ace, thrown over his shoulder, was completely unresponsive when Falino laid him out on the wood planks. Marco saw blood and was already kneeling next to him before he fully processed that Ace's chest was in ruins.
Blue and gold flames of restoration roared to life over Marco's arms. Even as his powers took hold, though, he knew it wasn't enough to counter the horrific wound. At best, he was delaying the inevitable.
"Was he attacked in the water?"
Falino shook his head helplessly. "No. No fish. No sea kings. Just him and his blood."
Right. He'd been bleeding when Marco saw him fall, but that didn't make any sense. None of this did.
Ace was so pale. There was so much crimson staining the deck and the puddle was only growing. Marco's flames were sputtering.
More and more pirates noticed Ace's condition. Whispers grew to whole conversations, but when Tasuka came barreling out of the depths of the Moby Dick twenty seconds later, a bag of medical supplies hooked over one shoulder while her brown eyes blazed and her braided hair swung wildly back and forth, the crowds cleared instantly.
"Get away from the subject!" Tasuka roared. Thatch trailed in her wake, a glorified pack mule with more medical supplies in hand.
Marco was the only person unfazed by the nurse's headlong dash to Ace's side. He gave a quick summary of what had happened, starting from Ace freezing in mid-air to Falino pulling him out of the ocean.
For her part, Tasuka listened with half an ear and examined Ace with everything else, poking and prodding the unconscious young man with efficiency and precision while her other hand packed the wound.
"Any sign of what caused this?" she asked while she pried one of his eyelids open.
"No. There wasn't anything in the water."
After a few more tests, she growled and jammed a syringe into Ace's skin next to the wound on his chest. Seeing Marco's questioning look, she brusquely explained, "Anesthetic, in case he somehow becomes conscious, but with this amount of blood loss it'll be a damned miracle he wakes up at all. Is your fire having any effect?"
He did a mental check and removed his hands so she could apply pressure to the wound. "Not anymore. It was initially."
"Tasuka!" a new voice called. "I brought the stretcher!"
"Get it over here!"
Kisha, the head nurse in charge of caring for Whitebeard and all things medical on the Moby Dick, gestured for the crowd to part again and rolled the stretcher to Ace's side.
"How bad is it?" she asked, kneeling next to her sister while the other nurses prepared to move him.
"Bad. He still has a pulse, somehow."
"Marco, what happened?"
"I don't know. He was practicing with his fire, and then…it went out of control."
"That's not exactly a common thing for you pirates," Kisha muttered while the other nurses gently eased Ace onto the stretcher. "Hannah, prep three containers of blood; cabinet C, please. He needs a transfusion immediately. Tracy, alert Gekai. He needs emergency surgery. Tasuka, stay with him and give him whatever drugs will keep him alive. He's not dying here."
Tasuka grinned and thumbed the belt of syringes she always wore, though it came off as more performative than usual. "Certainly."
Thatch leaned over his friend, face lined with worry. "Ace, you'd better pull through, you got it?"
Marco and Thatch prepared to back away and let the nurses do their jobs, but they both stilled when Ace's eyelids twitched. After a second, his eyes opened, revealing a glazed look and dilated pupils. Despite his fugue, he latched onto Thatch, and quite suddenly the man with a hole in his chest and his blood staining the planks was trying to sit up.
"Hold him down!" Kisha ordered, and the nearby nurses hurried to comply. "How is he awake?"
Ace still struggled, and for a moment, as weak flames sputtered around his drenched skin, Marco feared that they would actually be forced to use sea stone on him. His worries were unfounded: Ace's strength gave out. He went limp, and then he went under, and the nurses panicked, and the last that Thatch and Marco got to see of their friend and brother was the door of the operating room being slammed in their faces. Not even commanders were allowed in there during an operation.
Marco, at a loss for how such a calm day had turned into this, looked to his friend but found anything he wanted to say wilting on his tongue. What could he say?
Thatch reciprocated his consternation. "If someone hurt him—"
"They'll pay," Marco promised, putting a hand on his fellow commander's shoulder. It was an easy thing to say, but in the privacy of his own mind, Marco had his worries. The ocean had been empty; there wasn't anyone around to hurt Ace. More importantly…
The edges of Ace's wound had seemed almost melted, the skin around the hole blistering and burned. There had only been one source of fire nearby when Ace's injury had appeared.
But he'd moved past that after joining the crew…hadn't he?