Chapter Text
Ace didn’t know what to do. Sabo was trying to get him out of a funk, but he just couldn’t. To be fair, Sabo was also at a loss. If anything, Sabo felt even worse because of the circumstances, but he had to be strong for Ace. It had already been two years since the circumstances had brought them to this. Two years since Luffy had been taken.
*flashback
Ace and Luffy had heard from Bluejam about the reason Grey Terminal was burning, and so wanted to see for themselves what was so special about who was coming. Ships had come and gone before from Goa Kingdom, but never had such a fuss been made before. They had been there with Dogra when they saw Sabo’s boat set out. He couldn’t hear them shouting for him, but had been happy to set sail and gaze upon the other large vessel when it suddenly fired at him.
“SABO!” Ace and Luffy shouted. Dogra just stood there in shock. Sabo was trying to put out the flames with his jacket.
“Why would they fire at me?”
Meanwhile, the Celestial Dragon had been preparing to fire another shot.
“Sabo!” Luffy shouted, all his desperation going into this moment. He stretched out towards the ship and grabbed onto the mast. He still couldn’t control his powers well and so when he grabbed on, he immediately zipped towards the small fishing boat. Ace tried to grab onto him to stop him, but was too late by the time he noticed what was going on.
Luffy flew across the bay towards the boat, eventually hitting Sabo off of the boat.
“Luffy!” he shouted in disbelief as he flew off the boat.
He was too late to do anything else as the boat erupted in an explosion.
On the shore, Dogra still couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“LUFFY!” Ace shouted. He started to run towards the edge of the water, before Dogra stopped him.
“Let go! Luffy can’t swim!
“You can’t go out there. You saw what happened to Sabo! Sabo might be able to save him!”
But, before Sabo could do anything, someone from the huge vessel had picked Luffy up from the ocean.
Saint Jalmack was quite pleased with himself. We don’t even have to waste a fruit on him, a slave that comes with an ability. What a lucky day! I’m even willing to ignore the disgrace I suffered from that boat obstructing my path earlier for such luck.”
“Saint Jalmack, we’ve retrieved the boy.”
“Good, put a collar on him. We’ll be leaving this dump of a kingdom soon anyway.”
At the end of the day, all that Ace could do was stare at the strawhat that was left behind by Luffy.
Sabo had later woken up on the shore, having been knocked out by all the waves and Luffy’s hit. He had found Ace, and Ace had been in a rage, seeming to want to kill Dogra for stopping him. Dogra had had binoculars and saw Luffy being taken away. When
Ace had seen Sabo was alright, it was a moment of respite for Ace, but the opposite for Sabo.
Upon learning that Luffy had been taken, Sabo had blamed himself. If he only hadn’t been so impatient as to leave that day, Luffy might have still been there. Luffy saved him, and in doing so got caught.
Ace had been quick to beat Sabo up for that, but he stopped midway.
“I tried to stop him, b-but I was too late!”
“It’s okay Ace, we’ll find him. We’ll search around.”
But no matter what, anyone they asked about the subject seemed very reluctant to even say who the people on the boat were.
Garp had been called soon after. Makino had started crying and Woop Slap took it upon himself to call Garp.
Ace and Sabo had been afraid of what might happen, but even Garp was reluctant to say anything. And Garp always made his opinion known.
Garp was worried. When he got the Den Den Mushi call, he assumed it was a bad prank. But, upon hearing what happened, he got very worried. Two weeks ago… that’s when one of the World Nobles was supposed to come here. There’s no way…. right?
He couldn’t let Ace and Sabo know anything, or else they might be rash. The only thing he told they boys was that they “were better off not knowing.” After spending some time with the two, who didn’t seem to want to do anything, he left back to Marine HQ to try to get some information if he could.
‘Honestly though, if what I think is true, there’s not much that even I could do.’
*end flashback
Ace was just wandering around the forest when he heard a rustle in the bushes. He was instantly on guard for any animals that might be deciding that he might make a good dinner. He and Sabo had done a pretty good job dissuading most of the animals of that notion, after all, animals make great target practice. But, some of the ‘kings’ of the forest still gave decided to go against them sometimes.
It never ended well for those animals.
Ace was on high alert when he heard the rustle again.
“Who’s there?”
After a couple of seconds, the last person he expected stepped out.
“Ace?”
Ace stopped breathing.
It was Luffy.
But it wasn’t.
Luffy never had a haunted look around his eyes. He cried, sure, and sometimes he kicked up a shit and he couldn’t lie for shit and his eyes gave that away.
But that wasn’t Luffy.
Luffy was skinny, sure, but he never looked starved.
And Luffy never looked scared.
That wasn’t quite true. He was sometimes scared, but like not this. Not like he was expecting someone to hit him at any moment.
“Luffy!”
“Ace… Thank goodness.”
With that Luffy feel forward, losing what little strength he had left.
“LUFFY!”