Ficlets from the Drabble Thread (part 3)
More ficlets from the Pre-564 Chaos Thread of Doom. These ones are, on the whole, longer than the first batch.
Whitebeard reacting to the news of Ace's capture
Captured.
Fire Fist Ace, Commander of the Second Division of the Whitebeard Pirates, has been captured and taken to the great prison Impel Down.
He’s… almost relieved.
Teach’s betrayal was a bitter pill to swallow; that Satch lost his life as a result of Whitebeard’s poor judgment grieved him almost as much as the death itself.
Ace’s anguish-fuelled rage, while not unexpected, was no easier to deal with.
Ace would not be deterred; he would not change his mind. And he was right, in his own dangerously reckless way.
So Whitebeard gave his leave, and Ace left, and for one bleak moment he wondered if he would ever see his son alive again.
…will be executed at Marinford at 3 pm…
He’s alive though.
Whitebeard might yet lose his most reckless son, but Ace is still alive, for the moment.
He lost and Teach did not kill him.
Whitebeard knows that a deal between Teach and the World Government can only bode ill. Know what Sengoku intends to accomplish here. Recognizes the execution for the challenge it is.
He knows that that brat Shanks’ assessment of the changing era may be more accurate than even Red-Hair realized.
But Whitebeard cannot let the challenge pass unanswered. None attack him or his with impunity. That is his law.
It is the law that so many depend on for protection.
And he has a responsibility. He didn’t order Ace after that traitorous rat, but he didn’t stop him either.
Bear with it a little longer Ace.
~~
Captain Usopp and his Devil Fruit Power
The whole thing starts with rotten fruit.
Or so he thinks at the time.
Usopp throws the rancid fruit away and doesn't spare it a second thought.
Until he dives in after Chopper a week later and discovers to his horror that he. Can’t. Swim.
It takes them to longest time to discover what his power is; Usopp doesn’t remember what the fruit looked like - which is a moot point as they don’t even have the reference book to begin with, and there’s no obvious physical change.
It’s a fluke when he finally understands the nature of his curse, although he has probably been using his powers without any of them realizing it from the moment he first ate the fruit. They’ve landed on an island with a significant Marine base, and Usopp doesn’t know who blows their cover, but he finds himself cornered by several huge and angry-looking Marines
“Stop! You don’t want to hurt me! I’ll-”
“We don’t?” The Marines stop, look confused.
“O-of course not! I’m the great Captain Usopp! If you lay even one hand on me m-my giant man-eating bird with swoop down and carry you off!” Usopp points dramatically behind them - “Look! It’s coming for me!” - and bolts, hoping he gets even a thirty-second head-start.
When the anticipated yells of “get back here you dirty liar” don’t happen, replaced instead by screams of terror, Usopp halts his mad dash long enough to look back. The Marines aren’t chasing him any more, choosing instead to dive for cover, with cries of “look out for the giant bird!”
For a heart-stopping second Usopp thinks there really is a giant bird attacking the town- But no, the skies are clear. What the…?
Later, a little experimentation with his volunteering nakama confirms what he has begun to suspect: Usopp can now make people believe his lies.
It takes some adjusting.
He can certainly hold his own in a fight now, can protect himself and his nakama (not that most of them need it) as he could never have before. Enemies flee from the threat of his eight thousand followers; he can make himself invisible in the minds of pursuers, and convinced a crew of attacking pirates that they were harmless ducks not three days ago.
But when Chopper clings to every words of an absurd story (lie) he spins, it isn’t because Usopp is a great storyteller - the greatest of the five seas!
Chopper has no choice but to believe him
When his reflexive “it’s wasn’t my fault!” stops Nami mid-rage after he accidentally knocked ink onto one of her half-finished maps, Usopp wants to curl up in a corner and never speak again.
He doesn’t dare use the Usopp Spell anymore.
Usopp has long depended on misdirection and untruths to fight and protect himself, to entertain his nakama and make them laugh, but now that he can compel people to believe whatever he says… he feels, somehow, less than he was.
Until Robin smiles at him, late one evening when they are all languidly roasting the last of the marshmallows Sanji found on this deserted island, and says: “Tell me a story that is true.”
~~
The one still standing
He was always a rash one, Captain said, rushing in first and thinking later.
It earns him a broken arm and a concussion not five minutes after they board the Oro Jackson.
Not dead though, which is what he should be for jumping Roger “like the dumbass amateur rookie fool you are” First Mate Eric informs him as he drags him back to their ship.
He would argue - not with the words, those are true - against leaving: he still wants to fight, even if looking at the way his arm is twisted the wrong way makes him want to throw up. But his head is spinning in a thousand directions and he can’t find the words.
Eric lays him down on the galley table and heads back to the fight. “Don’t move idiot,” he orders, “we’ll set your arm once we’ve seen to these punks, eh? …Try not to fall asleep, okay kid?”
He realizes he failed even that when he wakes up, still where Eric left him, to a completely silent ship.
He lies there for a day. Maybe longer. At some point hunger pangs and thirst join the pain in his arm and his agonizing headache. He passes in and out of consciousness until he can’t tell the difference between the two.
At first he thinks the giant is a dream, a strange but beautiful dream, where someone finally tends to his arm and the giant carefully tips water into his mouth. It’s so good, the water, cool and wet and he doesn’t want to wake up, not to more silence please.
It’s at this point that he realizes he is awake and the water is not a dream and the giant is talking to him:
“Boy, this is no place for you to die. Take my hand and sail the seas as my son.”
The giant’s hand is warm and heavy and enfolds his completely. Squard blinks back tears and grasps his future.
~~
Luffy; chains
Ace finally catches up to Teach on a tiny island half a day from Water 7.
“Commander Ace! How’ve you been?”
He’s seconds away from retorting scathingly, when a familiar but horribly out-of-place voice snarls. “You bastard! What did you do to my nakama?!!”
Without looking, Teach casually kicks the chained bundle on the ground behind him, and instead of absorbing the blow like he should, Luffy - Luffy - folds in half with a gasp.
“We were just on our way to Marinford,” Teach continues cheerfully, “I’m gonna trade Strawhat in for the position of Shichibukai! Ace, you gotta join me!”
Ace is breathless. He has never wanted to kill Teach more badly than he does right now but his quest for revenge has just been upgraded to a rescue mission and if he makes one wrong move his little brother could be hurt.
Hurt worse that he already is.
“Shichibukai? You never struck me as the Marine type.” He says inanely, stalling for time. Think think think!
“Oh, that’s just the start.” The back-stabbing, flea-bitten, bilge rat says with a wink. “I’ve got plans, Ace! Whitebeard’s time is over, I’m gonna be the Pirate King, you’ll see. And between the two of us the world is ours for the taking!”
“Yeah but… a rookie, Teach?” He shoots a sceptical look in Luffy’s direction; judges the distance, how fast he’d need to run- “I think the World Government is pretty particular about its pet pirates… I suppose if you took out a bunch of rookie pirates crews they might consider you, but I don’t think one kid is going to cut it-”
He realizes his bluff isn’t going to work the second Teach starts that booming laugh that had once meant camaraderie but now freezes Ace to his core. Luffy did something big then, to garner this attention, and it must have been recently or Ace would be in the know. Shit!
“A-ace?”
Teach blinks, surprised for the first time since Ace arrived. “Eh? You know each other?”
He doesn’t bother answering.
Teach and his crew are all standing, easy targets. Easy to burn without risking harm to Luffy.
Someone shoots him - pointless exercise - but then the gunman is occupied beating the flames off him. Teach is howling in pain, and later Ace will draw grim satisfaction from that.
Ace throws his brother over his shoulder and bolts for his skiff.
He has no idea what direction he’s headed in. Has no thoughts beyond getting as far from Teach as fast as he can.
If he were alone, numbers be damned, he could take Teach and his crew without a problem. He had still considered a fight if he could get those chains off Luffy.
The thought lasted until he got a good look at his brother’s condition.
The chains aren’t even seastone, but Luffy is like a rag doll in his arms. Didn’t even respond to his rescue beyond a weak “hey” before leaning his head against Ace’s shoulder and closing the eye not already swollen shut.
Bruises. Ace pounded his brother for seven years and never so much as left a mark. He threw him off a cliff once and Luffy had bounced. Now Luffy is black and blue from head to toe.
Ace races his skiff for an hour, and the universe either hates Luffy or loves him because the next ship he encounters is a Marine battleship. Their grandfather’s.
The first person to hail him isn’t a Marine, though. He should be surprised to see Luffy’s red-headed nakama on Gramps’ ship, probably. He can’t muster the energy to bother.
Gramps makes short work of the chains binding Luffy’s hands and feet. And then Luffy is surrounded by members of his crew.
Shhh, it’s okay, Robin’s arm was just broken, Chopper fixed it up easily.
Zoro’s fine, really, it was just one bullet and it wasn’t even close to his heart.
Ace slips away before anyone thinks to pay any attention to him.
He owes his old "friend" twice over now, and he intends to pay him back with interest.
~~
Sequel to naye's Stars
Usopp is half-asleep, and probably a little drunk.
…or a lot drunk.
His nakama have gone all the way to “fully-asleep”, right there on Sunny’s lawn and he thinks he should join them. But that would mean leaving their guest and excuse for this latest party without company.
Luffy fell asleep with his head pillowed in his brother’s lap, and now he’s nothing more than a dark shape to Usopp’s (slightly) inebriated sight. He can just make out Ace, sitting upright against the foremast, and the vague movement that might be him running a hand through his brother’s hair.
It must be the darkness that makes him look so alone there, head tilted back and staring at the star-strewn sky.
And maybe it’s the drink, or the silence, or the way his brain is trying to float out of his body from lack of sleep, or the direction of Ace’s gaze… or that strange and almost nostalgic sense of isolation, but Usopp starts to talk.
“My mom… when I was little, she used to tell me stories about the stars. About the wanderer and his lantern, and the shining light of the home he left behind….”
He rambles, barely even aware of what he’s saying; mind lost in memories that hurt as much as they comfort.
Ace doesn’t take his eyes off the sky as Usopp identifies the stars from his mother’s story, and drunkenly connects the lines between them with his too-heavy fingers.
He doesn’t remember when he finally stops talking, and slips into sleep, but he wakes up next to Luffy, a blanket carefully tucked around them both, and wonders if he maybe shared his mother’s stars with the wrong brother. Luffy would have enjoyed the story.
But he has an inexplicable and ill-defined feeling that Ace understood it.
~~
Whitebeard reacting to the news of Ace's capture
Captured.
Fire Fist Ace, Commander of the Second Division of the Whitebeard Pirates, has been captured and taken to the great prison Impel Down.
He’s… almost relieved.
Teach’s betrayal was a bitter pill to swallow; that Satch lost his life as a result of Whitebeard’s poor judgment grieved him almost as much as the death itself.
Ace’s anguish-fuelled rage, while not unexpected, was no easier to deal with.
Ace would not be deterred; he would not change his mind. And he was right, in his own dangerously reckless way.
So Whitebeard gave his leave, and Ace left, and for one bleak moment he wondered if he would ever see his son alive again.
…will be executed at Marinford at 3 pm…
He’s alive though.
Whitebeard might yet lose his most reckless son, but Ace is still alive, for the moment.
He lost and Teach did not kill him.
Whitebeard knows that a deal between Teach and the World Government can only bode ill. Know what Sengoku intends to accomplish here. Recognizes the execution for the challenge it is.
He knows that that brat Shanks’ assessment of the changing era may be more accurate than even Red-Hair realized.
But Whitebeard cannot let the challenge pass unanswered. None attack him or his with impunity. That is his law.
It is the law that so many depend on for protection.
And he has a responsibility. He didn’t order Ace after that traitorous rat, but he didn’t stop him either.
Bear with it a little longer Ace.
~~
Captain Usopp and his Devil Fruit Power
The whole thing starts with rotten fruit.
Or so he thinks at the time.
Usopp throws the rancid fruit away and doesn't spare it a second thought.
Until he dives in after Chopper a week later and discovers to his horror that he. Can’t. Swim.
It takes them to longest time to discover what his power is; Usopp doesn’t remember what the fruit looked like - which is a moot point as they don’t even have the reference book to begin with, and there’s no obvious physical change.
It’s a fluke when he finally understands the nature of his curse, although he has probably been using his powers without any of them realizing it from the moment he first ate the fruit. They’ve landed on an island with a significant Marine base, and Usopp doesn’t know who blows their cover, but he finds himself cornered by several huge and angry-looking Marines
“Stop! You don’t want to hurt me! I’ll-”
“We don’t?” The Marines stop, look confused.
“O-of course not! I’m the great Captain Usopp! If you lay even one hand on me m-my giant man-eating bird with swoop down and carry you off!” Usopp points dramatically behind them - “Look! It’s coming for me!” - and bolts, hoping he gets even a thirty-second head-start.
When the anticipated yells of “get back here you dirty liar” don’t happen, replaced instead by screams of terror, Usopp halts his mad dash long enough to look back. The Marines aren’t chasing him any more, choosing instead to dive for cover, with cries of “look out for the giant bird!”
For a heart-stopping second Usopp thinks there really is a giant bird attacking the town- But no, the skies are clear. What the…?
Later, a little experimentation with his volunteering nakama confirms what he has begun to suspect: Usopp can now make people believe his lies.
It takes some adjusting.
He can certainly hold his own in a fight now, can protect himself and his nakama (not that most of them need it) as he could never have before. Enemies flee from the threat of his eight thousand followers; he can make himself invisible in the minds of pursuers, and convinced a crew of attacking pirates that they were harmless ducks not three days ago.
But when Chopper clings to every words of an absurd story (lie) he spins, it isn’t because Usopp is a great storyteller - the greatest of the five seas!
Chopper has no choice but to believe him
When his reflexive “it’s wasn’t my fault!” stops Nami mid-rage after he accidentally knocked ink onto one of her half-finished maps, Usopp wants to curl up in a corner and never speak again.
He doesn’t dare use the Usopp Spell anymore.
Usopp has long depended on misdirection and untruths to fight and protect himself, to entertain his nakama and make them laugh, but now that he can compel people to believe whatever he says… he feels, somehow, less than he was.
Until Robin smiles at him, late one evening when they are all languidly roasting the last of the marshmallows Sanji found on this deserted island, and says: “Tell me a story that is true.”
~~
The one still standing
He was always a rash one, Captain said, rushing in first and thinking later.
It earns him a broken arm and a concussion not five minutes after they board the Oro Jackson.
Not dead though, which is what he should be for jumping Roger “like the dumbass amateur rookie fool you are” First Mate Eric informs him as he drags him back to their ship.
He would argue - not with the words, those are true - against leaving: he still wants to fight, even if looking at the way his arm is twisted the wrong way makes him want to throw up. But his head is spinning in a thousand directions and he can’t find the words.
Eric lays him down on the galley table and heads back to the fight. “Don’t move idiot,” he orders, “we’ll set your arm once we’ve seen to these punks, eh? …Try not to fall asleep, okay kid?”
He realizes he failed even that when he wakes up, still where Eric left him, to a completely silent ship.
He lies there for a day. Maybe longer. At some point hunger pangs and thirst join the pain in his arm and his agonizing headache. He passes in and out of consciousness until he can’t tell the difference between the two.
At first he thinks the giant is a dream, a strange but beautiful dream, where someone finally tends to his arm and the giant carefully tips water into his mouth. It’s so good, the water, cool and wet and he doesn’t want to wake up, not to more silence please.
It’s at this point that he realizes he is awake and the water is not a dream and the giant is talking to him:
“Boy, this is no place for you to die. Take my hand and sail the seas as my son.”
The giant’s hand is warm and heavy and enfolds his completely. Squard blinks back tears and grasps his future.
~~
Luffy; chains
Ace finally catches up to Teach on a tiny island half a day from Water 7.
“Commander Ace! How’ve you been?”
He’s seconds away from retorting scathingly, when a familiar but horribly out-of-place voice snarls. “You bastard! What did you do to my nakama?!!”
Without looking, Teach casually kicks the chained bundle on the ground behind him, and instead of absorbing the blow like he should, Luffy - Luffy - folds in half with a gasp.
“We were just on our way to Marinford,” Teach continues cheerfully, “I’m gonna trade Strawhat in for the position of Shichibukai! Ace, you gotta join me!”
Ace is breathless. He has never wanted to kill Teach more badly than he does right now but his quest for revenge has just been upgraded to a rescue mission and if he makes one wrong move his little brother could be hurt.
Hurt worse that he already is.
“Shichibukai? You never struck me as the Marine type.” He says inanely, stalling for time. Think think think!
“Oh, that’s just the start.” The back-stabbing, flea-bitten, bilge rat says with a wink. “I’ve got plans, Ace! Whitebeard’s time is over, I’m gonna be the Pirate King, you’ll see. And between the two of us the world is ours for the taking!”
“Yeah but… a rookie, Teach?” He shoots a sceptical look in Luffy’s direction; judges the distance, how fast he’d need to run- “I think the World Government is pretty particular about its pet pirates… I suppose if you took out a bunch of rookie pirates crews they might consider you, but I don’t think one kid is going to cut it-”
He realizes his bluff isn’t going to work the second Teach starts that booming laugh that had once meant camaraderie but now freezes Ace to his core. Luffy did something big then, to garner this attention, and it must have been recently or Ace would be in the know. Shit!
“A-ace?”
Teach blinks, surprised for the first time since Ace arrived. “Eh? You know each other?”
He doesn’t bother answering.
Teach and his crew are all standing, easy targets. Easy to burn without risking harm to Luffy.
Someone shoots him - pointless exercise - but then the gunman is occupied beating the flames off him. Teach is howling in pain, and later Ace will draw grim satisfaction from that.
Ace throws his brother over his shoulder and bolts for his skiff.
He has no idea what direction he’s headed in. Has no thoughts beyond getting as far from Teach as fast as he can.
If he were alone, numbers be damned, he could take Teach and his crew without a problem. He had still considered a fight if he could get those chains off Luffy.
The thought lasted until he got a good look at his brother’s condition.
The chains aren’t even seastone, but Luffy is like a rag doll in his arms. Didn’t even respond to his rescue beyond a weak “hey” before leaning his head against Ace’s shoulder and closing the eye not already swollen shut.
Bruises. Ace pounded his brother for seven years and never so much as left a mark. He threw him off a cliff once and Luffy had bounced. Now Luffy is black and blue from head to toe.
Ace races his skiff for an hour, and the universe either hates Luffy or loves him because the next ship he encounters is a Marine battleship. Their grandfather’s.
The first person to hail him isn’t a Marine, though. He should be surprised to see Luffy’s red-headed nakama on Gramps’ ship, probably. He can’t muster the energy to bother.
Gramps makes short work of the chains binding Luffy’s hands and feet. And then Luffy is surrounded by members of his crew.
Shhh, it’s okay, Robin’s arm was just broken, Chopper fixed it up easily.
Zoro’s fine, really, it was just one bullet and it wasn’t even close to his heart.
Ace slips away before anyone thinks to pay any attention to him.
He owes his old "friend" twice over now, and he intends to pay him back with interest.
~~
Sequel to naye's Stars
Usopp is half-asleep, and probably a little drunk.
…or a lot drunk.
His nakama have gone all the way to “fully-asleep”, right there on Sunny’s lawn and he thinks he should join them. But that would mean leaving their guest and excuse for this latest party without company.
Luffy fell asleep with his head pillowed in his brother’s lap, and now he’s nothing more than a dark shape to Usopp’s (slightly) inebriated sight. He can just make out Ace, sitting upright against the foremast, and the vague movement that might be him running a hand through his brother’s hair.
It must be the darkness that makes him look so alone there, head tilted back and staring at the star-strewn sky.
And maybe it’s the drink, or the silence, or the way his brain is trying to float out of his body from lack of sleep, or the direction of Ace’s gaze… or that strange and almost nostalgic sense of isolation, but Usopp starts to talk.
“My mom… when I was little, she used to tell me stories about the stars. About the wanderer and his lantern, and the shining light of the home he left behind….”
He rambles, barely even aware of what he’s saying; mind lost in memories that hurt as much as they comfort.
Ace doesn’t take his eyes off the sky as Usopp identifies the stars from his mother’s story, and drunkenly connects the lines between them with his too-heavy fingers.
He doesn’t remember when he finally stops talking, and slips into sleep, but he wakes up next to Luffy, a blanket carefully tucked around them both, and wonders if he maybe shared his mother’s stars with the wrong brother. Luffy would have enjoyed the story.
But he has an inexplicable and ill-defined feeling that Ace understood it.
~~