Chapter Text
In one life a boy died in the arms of his little brother. This caused the third of the brothers to remember his family, but at that point it was too late, the boy was dead and the three couldn’t all reunite.
In another life a girl got visions about what would be happening. She went to the third brother and he remembered in time to save the boy. The brothers could all reunite, but there were still lives lost because the girl wasn’t allowed to tell everyone what she knew. She wasn’t allowed to change everything because it wasn’t her story.
But what if she could’ve made it her story? What if she could’ve told everyone what she knew? Well, people tend to not react too well if they hear about a future they don’t like and sometimes you can be your own worst enemy. And if you’re going up against a murderous backstabbing traitor, that says a lot…
Am I really this lucky? Tessia thought.
There had to be a mistake. She wasn’t ever lucky at anything. On the contrary, life seemed determined to make everything as hard as possible for her. But that blond pirate over there was clearly Marco the Phoenix.
A few weeks ago Tessia had woken up screaming from a nightmare where she’d seen Fire Fist Ace get killed in front of his little brother Luffy. That had been absolutely horrible to see, but it was even worse because Tessia had come to realize she’d most likely seen the future.
She’d almost had a heart attack when she’d seen Ace’s bounty poster and had realized that he actually existed. Over the last weeks more and more information had appeared inside Tessia’s head and she’d double and triple checked the facts she could, but unfortunately they had all been correct. There was also the small fact that Tessia couldn’t swim anymore since that first nightmare. She was a Devil Fruit user now despite never eating one.
As much as that was inconvenient and unwanted and just so terrifying, Tessia now apparently had a Devil Fruit that allowed her to see glimpses of past, present and future. Well, allowed was a strong word, more like dumped information on her without her having any kind of control. It wasn’t like Tessia had ever had any kind of control over her life, but this was a new level of low even for her.
Tessia wanted very badly to save Ace, especially with everything she’d learned about him and his brothers. To think that Sabo didn’t have his memory right now and would only regain it when Ace died, was just heart-wrenching to think about. And don’t get started on Luffy’s suffering throughout all of this… No way could she let that happen. Tessia might be a failure, but this was something she couldn’t fail at no matter what.
The plan had been to get to Sabo and tell him what would be happening so he could go and fix this after remembering. Maybe she could even get the revolutionaries’ help for herself afterwards. It wasn’t like Tessia was too keen on meddling with some of the strongest pirates and marines who were currently alive, no thank you, she would be dead in a second.
However, with Marco here this would be so much easier. Not that Tessia would just straight up explain everything. Ace wasn’t in the New World yet and it wasn’t like she could tell the first mate of the Whitebeard Pirates that a rookie who hadn’t even joined them at this point would die. Too complicated and way too much necessary explaining. Luckily, she didn’t have to. Tessia knew pretty well what would lead to Ace dying in Marineford. And while the events were somewhat complicated, there was someone who could be blamed for all of it.
Marshall D. Teach. Blackbeard.
If not for him, Ace would never have been captured and handed to the Marines. If not for him, Ace would never have left his crew in the first place to hunt the traitor down. Blackbeard was going to kill his crewmate Thatch for a Devil Fruit that was way too powerful to be owned by someone like him.
And that was something Tessia could tell Marco. She would tell him what Blackbeard would be doing and how he could stop it. Then there would be no reason for Ace to storm off to avenge the murder of a crewmate and family member. He wouldn’t end up dead in front of Luffy. Tessia had wanted to save Thatch anyway. This might’ve started out with Ace, but she didn’t want Thatch to die any more than she wanted Ace to die. They both deserved to live and their families didn’t deserve the pain their deaths would bring. And Tessia knew a little too much about the pain of losing a sibling.
“Hey, Commander Marco!” Tessia called and hurried over to him.
Just tell Marco and things would be fine. Tessia wouldn’t need to get involved in a battle way above her league. She could concentrate on her own family problem.
So easy.
Looking back, that should’ve been her clue that she should’ve overthought that plan. Easy didn’t exist in her world. However, right now Tessia was just too excited to solve the problem so fast and to actually manage to do something right for once that she didn’t overthink it.
Marco was having a really bad day. It had been supposed to be a small trip to one of their territories to deliver a message from Pops. But no, there just had to be a rookie pirate crew who thought they could make trouble. They sure as hell hadn’t been a match for Marco, but they’d decided to not have the decency to fight him directly. Meaning, they took quite a few hostages and hid them in different places. Marco had spent the last five days tracking them down, beating the shit out of them and making sure the hostages weren’t hurt.
Therefore, Marco was done with the world now. He, of course, wasn’t hurt, but that didn’t mean the last five days had been any kind of fun. At least this was their territory, otherwise it would have taken even longer because he didn’t know the area. However, he just wanted to go to sleep now.
“Hey, Commander Marco!” someone called.
Or not. Sleep was overrated anyway, who needed to sleep? Certainly not him.
Marco turned to see a civilian girl, probably around eighteen, maybe even younger. She was somewhat averaged sized and rather lean. A part of her brown hair had been tied into a knot on the left side, the rest fell open over her shoulders. The girl wore a white blouse with a black leather vest over it and a knee-length dark blue skirt over black pants. A blue ribbon was tied around her waist and her feet were in black leather boots. A small bag hung on her side.
Marco tried to reign in his annoyance and exhaustion. “Do you need something, kid? I’m in a bit of hurry, yoi.”
“I need to tell you something really important,” the girl said seriously. “And it’s really sensitive information.”
Marco raised an eyebrow. The girl seemed somewhat tense, but from what he could tell it wasn’t because she was afraid of him. Whatever she wanted to say, it was most likely something quite urgent or at least she thought it was. It couldn’t hurt to listen to her.
Marco led her to a corner between two houses where they could talk a little more privately. One of the houses was a shop with a glass window, but there was no one there right now, so it wasn’t a problem.
“What is your name, kid?” Marco asked.
“My name is Tessia,” the girl answered. “You can call me Tess if you want.”
“Okay, Tessia, what do you want to tell me, yoi?”
Tessia took a deep breath and gave Marco a serious look. “Marshall D. Teach is going to kill Thatch for a Devil Fruit.”
Marco froze.
What the hell?
“This isn’t funny, kid,” Marco finally hissed after a moment.
The only reason he wasn’t attacking the girl right here and now was her age. If she were older, he would be ripping her to shreds. That kind of joke went way too far!
The girl narrowed her eyes. “Of course this isn’t funny! Do you honestly think I would joke about something like this while knowing that the crew of the Whitebeard Pirates are family? I would never make a joke about siblings killing each other! And besides, there are lives at stake here! What kind of person would joke about that?”
Tessia was serious about her statement. She wasn’t joking. Marco calmed down a little and used his Haki to examine her intentions. The girl seemed to just genuinely want to help. Marco calmed down further, but he was even more exhausted now.
“Listen, kid, I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but there must have been some misunderstanding. Teach is our brother, he would never hurt Thatch. I don’t know where or why you would get that idea, but you must have gotten something wrong.”
The girl shook her head almost desperately. “No, I’m certain! This will…”
“I’m leaving, yoi,” Marco interrupted and turned to do just that.
He did not have time for this. Even if the girl just wanted to help, Marco definitely didn’t want to hear so despicable accusations about his brother. Misunderstanding or not, that was not something pleasant.
“No, wait, my Devil Fruit…”
The girl took his wrist and five days of fighting and barely sleeping made Marco react on instinct. He immediately freed himself and pushed his attacker back before his thoughts could catch up to what he was doing. When they did catch up, it was already too late. He’d used way too much force with that push and Tessia crashed so hard into the glass window that it shattered.
Oh shit.
He absolutely hadn’t wanted to hurt her.
Marco jumped through the broken window. His heart missed a beat when he saw Tessia slowly push herself up in a mess of glass shards. She seemed really disorientated and Marco saw a lot of cuts that weren’t there a minute ago. Tessia shakily raised a hand to her head and it came back bloody. Over her left eye was a particularly nasty looking cut that bled heavily. Marco knew enough to know it would leave quite the scar.
Dammit, what the hell was wrong with him? Sleep or not, that was no excuse for hurting a barely eighteen-year-old child so bad she would now have a lifelong scar on her face! A child who only wanted to help. Marco felt horrible guilty and he didn’t even know if she had any other severe injuries.
“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said grimacing while he knelt down next to Tessia.
She didn’t react to it and Marco wasn’t sure if she even heard him. Not a good sign. Shit, he really messed up this time. He really wished his flames could heal other people, too.
“Hey, can you hear me?” Marco tried again softly and put a hand on Tessia’s left shoulder.
However, the moment he touched her she immediately scrambled away. Tessia pressed herself to the wall of the room they were now in. Her eyes were wide and full of a panic so desperate and overwhelming, it made Marco sick to see. This was entirely his fault and he knew it.
“I’m not going to hurt again, I just want to help you,” Marco tried to calm her, but the moment he showed any signs of coming near her, her whole body flinched hard.
It hurt to see.
Tessia made a squeaking sound and pressed herself into the wall even harder so that Marco had no choice but to stop his attempt. Her eyes were stuck on him as if he were a predator just readying himself for an attack. And Marco couldn’t blame her for it.
He pushed away the sick feeling in his stomach and knelt down again so he wouldn’t be looming over her. “Hey, I just want to make sure you’re okay, yoi.” Urgh, wrong choice of words. Tessia was obviously not okay. “You’re bleeding heavily and that should be looked at. At least let me take you to the hospital in this town.”
Tessia still didn’t say a word and just kept staring at him like he wanted to murder her. Marco was at a loss what to do. Was his attack so terrifying or was there more to it?
“Listen Tessia, it’s okay,” Macro kept trying. “You’ll just need to be more careful what you say next time. Some people might react very badly to stuff like that, but I’m not going to do anything now, alright? I promise.”
Tessia’s eyes widened even further and she somehow seemed even more terrified of him now. Her whole body was trembling violently and she looked close to tears. Did he say something wrong?
“What the hell is going on here?” One of the inhabitants of the house burst into the room. “I’m warning you, this…” The man stopped when he saw the scene in front of him.
Marco was still kneeling in bloody glass shards and Tessia was still pressing herself into a wall while bleeding heavily and looking like her world was ending. No wonder the owner paled.
“Co- Commander Marco? What’s going on here?” he asked with a shaky voice.
Marco turned and offered an apologetic smile. “I’m really sorry about this, but could…”
Marco couldn’t finish because Tessia took the opportunity of him being distracted to bolt out of the window.
“Hey, wait!” Marco shouted after her, but she was already gone out of sight.
He contemplated following her with his Haki, but if she could still run like that, she most likely wasn’t too hurt besides the bleeding. And Marco obviously scared the hell out of her right now, maybe it was best to just let her go the hospital on her own. Marco sighed and got up to explain this situation to the owner of the house. Well, not all of it. He was way too ashamed to admit that he was the one who hurt the child now running away.
Marco promised the owner to take care of the damage and started to head back to the Moby Dick afterwards. However, the farther he went, the worse he felt. It didn’t take long for him to sigh and walk to the hospital. He should at least make sure that Tessia was taken care of.
When he got to the hospital and gave them Tessia’s description, he was somewhat agitated to learn they hadn’t seen her. That was not a good sign. She’d had quite the head start because he’d been headed back to the Moby Dick first. If Tessia would’ve gone to the hospital, she should’ve made it here by now.
Shit.
Marco went outside and turned his arms into wings. So what if he was tired, this was definitely more important. The trail of her blood just ended at one point with marks that looked like Tessia had fallen again. Marco tried even harder to find her after that. He asked the locals, but they didn’t know her and worse, hadn’t seen her. It was like she never existed. Marco flew over the whole island in search of Tessia multiple times, but he couldn’t find her, not even with his Haki.
Marco didn’t know what to do. He kept searching the whole day and the next, but there was no trace of her. He couldn’t do any more than ask the locals to look out for her and inform him if they found her. When he finally went back to the Moby Dick, he felt worse than he had in a really long time.
“What took you so long?” Thatch greeted teasingly. “You look horrible.”
“I got held up, yoi,” Marco answered quietly.
Thatch grew serious. “What’s wrong?”
Marco sighed and forced himself to smile. “I can’t change it now, so don’t worry about it.”
Thatch gave him a considering look, but in the end he shrugged and didn’t pry any further.
Marco didn’t want to tell anyone about this, not even Pops. The damage was done and there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t need anyone else feeling bad about this. He could only hope he would run into Tessia again so he could be sure she was okay. Or maybe one of the locals would find her. However, Marco wasn’t too optimistic about his chances to fix this mistake. It felt like he screwed up even worse than he could know.
A few islands over there was a girl hiding on a pirate ship. The tears on her bloody face felt like they were burning her skin, but she couldn’t stop crying because she had realized that no one would ever believe her anything about the future, so there was no point in trying. Sabo would react the same as Marco and she most likely wouldn’t survive another powerful fighter lashing out at her.
If she wanted to change something, she would need to do it herself. Terrifying prospects. She was a failure and couldn’t get anything right as the last event clearly proved. She’d just made everything that much more difficult. Her head had been hurting like crazy and she had been quite disorientated, but Marco’s words had been clear enough.
You’ll need to be more careful what you say. Next time, some people might react very badly to stuff like that…
Crystal clear, especially with what had happened on the way to the hospital. The hospital Marco had wanted to take her to.
If he saw her again, Marco would kill her. He’d promised her that.
So how the hell was Tessia supposed to stop Teach from killing Thatch like that?
Like she said, a complete and utter failure.