Chapter Text
Sabo is having another nightmare.
Ace can see it, hear it, but he’s chained up on the opposite side of their cell, too far away to do anything, with a stupid muzzle clamped over his face after the fourth time he bit the marines knocking them around-
With a final whimper that twists into a frantic cry, Sabo jerks awake, only to immediately spasm with pain. One of the bastards who recognized Ace’s brother thought it would be funny to toss a splash of burning oil at his face, his eye, which is now swollen closed and shiny from the burn- which Sabo just laughed off, at first, claiming it doesn’t hurt as bad as his old injury, but every time a nightmare wakes him up he forgets, tries to open both eyes, and this is all Ace’s fault.
Across the small cell, Sabo rolls upright, hissing as he blearily looks around. They’re both too small for standard issue cuffs, so the marines who brought them down just wrapped chains around their arms and chests, and locked those to opposite walls. One in particular made a point of double-checking the limited slack, smirking when he confirmed there wasn’t enough give for the boys to get anywhere close enough to so much as press their feet together.
Ace hasn’t been paying attention to the days. No one’s given them any food, just some water splashed against their faces to drip down into the tight confines of the muzzles. He doesn’t know how long it’s been - doesn’t know how long it’s going to be, only that every day they’re still stuck here, in a ship docked at what’s left of Foosha Village, is a day the marines haven’t found Luffy yet.
Get him out of here, Ace told Makino, when the warship first appeared. He’d known, without a doubt, why the marines had come. Go hide in the jungle, with Dadan- or better yet our treehouse, away from the trails.
He’d felt tempted to get Sabo to guide her, but one look at his brother confirmed what Ace suspected: Sabo wasn’t going to leave without him. Not even for Luffy.
So.
They let themselves be spotted at the edge of town, as if sneaking off into the fields. Led the squads that first chased after them on a huge chase, along the coastline, away from the mountains. But ten year old bodies wore out faster than grown-ups, and even with all their skills and tricks, eventually, a couple marines got ahead of them, and then it was all over but the actual fighting.
Kicking, punching, clawing, biting, Ace did everything physically possible to make the fuckers regret ever coming to Dawn, and there were definitely several who came out the other side badly hurt - but that just pissed off the rest who showed up, and eventually, there were just too many.
But worse than that. There were some who also remembered. Who called him ‘Firefist’, and Sabo ‘Revolutionary’, and those guys got extra vicious. Case in point, the burning oil thrown in Sabo’s face, plus Ace’s very numb and probably dislocated shoulder, to say nothing of the rest of their surface level injuries.
Easy, men, an officer said when he joined the fight. Damaged is fine, but we want them alive.
Those words only made Ace and Sabo lash out harder, to the point it took half a dozen marines each to finally pin them down in the end, and more to chain them up for the long hike back. East Blue guys, all of ‘em - even in his ten year old self’s body, Ace could tell if someone had spent time on the Grand Line or not. It rankled, being taken out by the kind of East Blue nobodies he’d easily beaten up in his first few months as a pirate; one serious blast of fire with his Devil Fruit probably could have blown them all away.
But of course, that wasn’t an option in the moment, and probably won’t ever be again.
Ace knows how this is gonna go: whether the marines find Luffy or not to round out their trio, eventually, he and Sabo will be shipped off to Impel Down, and either be quietly executed as they are now, or forced to sit around long enough to look like proper adults for another public spectacle, except this time there won’t be any Luffy or Pops coming to the rescue-
Sabo makes a muffled noise.
Ace frowns.
Maybe two seconds later, something goes THOOM, and the entire ship rocks sharply to one side.
What the hell-?
Distant shouts. The cell doesn’t have a window, and the door is solid steel rather than barred, which keeps whatever’s happening outside solidly at a distance. Still- Ace’s heart skips a beat when he catches a single clear word, PIRATES, and the smallest ember of hope starts to flare in his heart.
Marines who know them means that magic storm thing didn’t just affect Sabo and by extension Ace - there’s a chance, maybe, that someone else has shown up to help them out. No way it’s anyone from the Whitebeard fleet, even Marco couldn’t cross the sheer distance to Dawn Island so soon, but- there’s someone else Ace knows who must still be in the area.
Luffy didn’t have his hat yet, after all.
And sure enough, a minute later, a wave of warm-burning-furious haki sweeps over him, just as a band of blazing red light cuts through the walls. Both Ace and Sabo instinctively duck, their ears filled with awful screeching as metal strains- protests- snaps-
The warship tips even further to the side, until the entire top half slides away, and the remaining hull lurches back upright in the water. Their cell is abruptly lacking a ceiling, letting both boys look up at a sky filled with the brilliant colors of a sunset. Then that shining red is back, not as a beam but as a shape, a huge gryphon that fills the air, and another rattling BOOM reverberates all around them.
Elsewhere, people are screaming.
Ace really hopes the extra vicious marines are having a bad time.
After the gryphon vanishes, and the sounds of battle start to die down, a figure leaps into view, and lands softly on the floor of the cell. A figure Ace definitely knows, even if he’s got an extra limb and a hat that belongs on someone else’s head.
“Hello, boys,” Red-Haired Shanks smiles. “Need a hand? Seems I’ve got one to spare again!”
And in spite of all the awful shit leading up to this moment, Ace can’t help but laugh.
It takes maybe three minutes for Shanks to get them out of the chains and muzzles, tutting over Sabo’s burn, Ace’s shoulder. There’s not much to do in the moment, though, so he carefully gets each of them settled on a hip, and then bounds back into the sky, up and off and away from the rapidly sinking wreckage of the warship’s pieces.
Ace doesn’t bother to count all the bodies wearing white uniforms floating in the water.
A handful of pirates are waiting for them on the Red Force, including another kid, who it honestly takes Ace a while to recognize even as he’s rambling in a distinctly familiar way: “Oh my gosh, do you two have any idea how much panic you’ve caused?! My whole crew has GOT to be freaking out, and I don’t even want to THINK what the Whitebeards must be planning, where is Luffy, he’s okay right? I mean he must be, you don’t look murderous, and it’s not like I’m worried or anything but he’s gotta be so small right now AND he doesn’t have his Devil Fruit-!”
“Usopp?” Sabo croaks.
“Yes!”
“Calm down.”
Luffy’s sniper puffs out his cheeks, but does, thankfully, stop blasting Ace’s ears with more words than he can handle right now.
“Kid does have one good point, though,” Shanks says as he helps Ace and his brother down, guiding them both to sit on the deck and lean against each other. “Where’s Luffy?”
“Don’t know,” Ace rasps, practically snatching the jug of water that’s offered. After several deep gulps, he lowers it back down to add, “Makino took him and ran. We played distraction.”
Shanks snorts, leaning over to ruffle Ace’s hair even as one of the other pirates kneels down with a serious first aid kit. “Of course you did - I’m surprised Anchor didn’t insist on all of you going, though, or staying with you two...”
“He couldn’t,” Sabo speaks up, accepting a gauze pad coated into something that smells sweet and gingerly pressing it to the burn over his eye. “He hasn’t woken up since we came back in time.”
The sound that Usopp makes is equal parts confusion and panic. “He what?”
“Hasn’t, woken, up,” Ace repeats. The words come out a little harsher than he’d like, pushed out through gritted teeth, but the Red-Hair doctor is prodding at his shoulder, feeling out where the arm bone’s been pulled out of its socket, and it is distinctly not comfortable.
Shanks is still smiling, but it’s a grim expression, shadowed by darkness in his eyes. “One of these days, I swear I’m going to stop being surprised when that kid does his own thing.”
“Luck,” Sabo mumbles, and Ace adds his own snerk to the sentiment.
Throughout the night, more of the pirate crew return to their ship, acting laidback like usual but definitely with an undercurrent of stress running through their ranks. A few scavenged supplies turn up - taken from the remnants of the marine ship, rather than Foosha. If any villagers survived the initial marine attack and following occupation, they’re clearly staying away for their own good.
Probably a good thing the night is so dark. Ace can’t see the destruction on shore.
After a while, Shanks gives the order for his men to take shifts, getting some rest, so they can go searching further afield in the daylight. Usopp sticks close to Ace and Sabo until one pirate in particular wanders over to sit with them, at which point the younger boy hems and haws but winds up in the guy’s lap. In his dad’s lap, apparently.
“Threw me for a big loop when we found out this kid wound up joining Luffy’s crew,” Yasopp chuckles, idly plucking and twirling strands of hair peeking out from Usopp’s bandana. “But I wouldn’t want him to be with any other captain, honestly, you Straw Hats have been amazing.”
Usopp puffs up with pride at that, and relaxes a little more against the man’s chest.
Sabo hums, watching them through one half-lidded eye. “Speaking of. Where is the rest of your crew?”
“Well, some of the others are here in the East - Zoro and Nami should still be in their home villages, and I think Sanji is with his old man by now, but I don’t know if their restaurant is open or not.” A grimace takes up residence on his face. “Uh, no clue where Robin or Jinbei are, Franky’s still on Water Seven, Brook, um, probably drifting in the Florian Triangle, I don’t think he’s hit Thriller Bark yet - oh, uh, and Chopper I think is still a regular reindeer, on Drum Island. I have no idea when he ate his Devil Fruit.”
Ace takes a moment to blink, and run that all back through his head. “Wait- Jinbei?”
“Yeah! He’s our helmsman! He agreed when Luffy asked him at Fishman Island, but he needed to formally leave Big Mom’s crew first, and then there was the whole mess with Sanji almost getting married but he met back up with us before the Pirate-Ninja-Samurai-Mink Alliance started our, attack against Kaido...” Usopp trails off, staring, and whatever face Ace is making it gets Sabo to start sniggering the moment he looks over.
The arm that isn’t in a sling, Ace raises, to dramatically splay his hand over his face. “Okay. Start at the beginning, please.”
“Yeah! I can do that! So, I was on the beach outside Syrup Village with my Usopp Pirates when we first met Luffy-”
“Not that beginning!”