Chapter Text
Double Jeopardy
Marco x Ace
It must be the effect of some Devil Fruit.
Portgas D. Ace had wracked his brain until he was at his wit's end, yet he still couldn't fathom what this absurd situation was. His "Fire Fist" epithet was earned purely through combat prowess; it didn't come with any talent for situational analysis.
God, he hoped one of his brothers on the Moby Dick would show up to lead the way.
Even the First Division Commander would be enough. No—perhaps that was wishing for too much.
The young man’s freckled face tightened in thought for a moment before he stood up, having reached a firm decision. He was leaving this room. Regardless of who was behind this, staying cooped up like a caged bird was definitely not the style of "Fire Fist." Ace ripped off the white coat covering his proud back, his right palm erupting into the flames of the Mera Mera no Mi.
"Higan! (Fire Pillar)"
The concentrated heat blasted the door off its hinges, sending it flying. The chaotic noise outside surged as the footsteps of nearly a dozen people rushed toward him. Ace frowned, looking around the room that had been incinerated to cinders. Soon, it would be nothing but dust.
The white coat embroidered with the word "Justice."
The dozens of Marines crowding the hallway, shouting his name.
Ace stood with his arms crossed, surveying the scene. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find his trademark hat. His brow arched slightly when he realized these Marines looked familiar—they seemed to belong to that old man's unit.
"Commander Ace! Stop right there!"
It was a rank preceding his name that felt utterly alien and unpleasant to the ear. Ace stood agape for a moment before crouching down to calmly gather small embers in his hand. He didn't want to unleash a full-scale Fire Fist, fearing he wouldn't be able to control the radius of the damage.
"Huh? Who are you calling?"
"Commander Portgas D. Ace!"
"……"
Ace froze, unsure how to process that title. Not a pirate. Not Fire Fist. Not the Second Division Commander. Not a member of Whitebeard's crew.
"Don't you dare..." Ace squeezed out a low voice that sounded almost like a growl. "...lump me in with Marines like you guys."
To hell with this.
"What Commander? What Marine?"
The Whitebeard mark on his back felt as though it were burning from the sheer insult.
"STOP JOKING AROUND!!!"
BOOM!
Suddenly, the gathered embers erupted into a massive explosion. Ace was the sole survivor amidst the terrifying, raging inferno. He snatched a Log Pose from the nearest table and tried to make sense of his current location, but its erratic, directionless spinning only confused him further.
Was this some island in the middle of the turbulent New World seas?
Ace clutched his temples, completely failing to grasp the situation. He should be on the Moby Dick. He should be yelling at everyone trying to stop him. He should be shaking himself free from the embrace that held him back from acting rashly.
Marco.
He should be seeing the pained and sorrowful face of the First Division Commander.
'This time is an exception. There will be no pursuit,' Whitebeard had said in a firm voice. 'I have a bad feeling about this.'
Then, the image of Marco looking as if he’d rather die in place of his fallen comrades flashed through his mind. Ace stopped walking, his expression darkening as he pressed his lips together to stifle the emotions surging within him—feelings harder to control than anger, more powerful than resentment.
Regret.
'Ace, don't go.'
Brrr-uup, brrr-uup.
Ace turned toward the sound. A transponder snail in the ship's mast. His eyes widened as he realized the corridor he had just exited led to the deck of a massive ship. The Marine symbol was sprawled across the sails, large and small, fluttering in the wind. A sudden sense of breathlessness hit him.
How did he end up on this ship?
Click.
Ace picked up and held the receiver to his ear. Silence hung for a moment, making him think the other party had dialed the wrong number and hung up. But then, a familiar laugh rang out, making his eyes widen even further.
"Bwahaha! Bwahaha! For heaven's sake, you ungrateful grandson. You've gone and done something reckless again."
Monkey D. Garp.
The Hero of the Marines.
"Old man..."
"Well? Taking my subordinates and stealing Akainu's ship to go to Impel Down by yourself? Are you starting to regret it now that he's right on your tail?"
"....."
"Akainu won't let you off easy this time."
"....."
"A year or two of brutal training probably isn't the kind of torture he’ll choose for you, Ace."
The young man stood frozen, looking up at the sky that remained perpetually overcast as if a storm were brewing, yet never breaking. The weather of the Grand Line was behaving even more erratically than usual. Judging by Garp’s casual tone, Ace realized they sounded like people who hadn't gone three years without speaking—which was how long it had been since he set sail to become a pirate.
"Akainu?"
And then there was that name—unfamiliar and viscerally irritating.
"What's wrong?" Garp's voice grew more serious. "Who are you?"
"Ace... Portgas D. Ace."
The young man wasn't sure who he was supposed to be right now. The "Commander" he was called earlier? Garp’s grandson? Or the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates?
"You didn't go and crack your head on a rock somewhere, did you?"
"Are you crazy?"
"You seem much calmer."
Garp’s voice softened, but the irritating suspicion remained in his question. "Does the fact that Luffy is about to storm Impel Down no longer make you hot-headed, Ace?"
What?
Fire Fist wanted to scream the question, but the shock was too great to allow any sound to escape. He felt like a mermaid princess whose voice had been stolen.
"You've come this far; there's no turning back now."
Ace didn't understand.
"If you're going to save Luffy, your only chance is before he breaks into Impel Down. The route you took through the whirlpools should get you there around the same time as that brat. You have to drag Luffy out of this before he gets entangled in Whitebeard's war at Marineford."
War? Whitebeard? Luffy? Impel Down?
If someone told him he had died once and been reborn into a new story, he’d believe it. Would someone like "Pops" really declare war? Ace wanted to laugh out loud. There was no way Pops would gamble everyone's lives on something as foolish and deadly as a war.
"Akainu still thinks you're just hot-blooded and wanted to challenge that death-row prisoner to a duel. That's why you did something this stupid."
Or was Ace just lying to himself?
"Marco the Phoenix is scheduled for execution at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon."
His breath seemed to stop right then and there.
"Do whatever it takes to get Luffy out of this in time."
Ace calmly reordered his memories from the beginning. His hands were ice-cold with a gripping fear. Once he confirmed the ship’s direction was following the frantically spinning Log Pose, he focused and spoke to himself once more.
He had joined the Whitebeard Pirates and become the Second Division Commander nearly three years after setting sail from his hometown. The proof was the massive tattoo on his back that was impossible to miss. Ace breathed a sigh of relief; it wasn't all a dream.
He was "Fire Fist," the user of the Logia-type Mera Mera no Mi. His powers worked perfectly, without flaw.
His strength was real.
But the events following this were what truly baffled him. After Garp hung up, he pieced together the situation: the Navy had held Marco in the world’s most secure prison, Impel Down, for over a month. They decided to execute him after failing to lure Whitebeard out in exchange for his head. Executing the strongest pirate after the Captain was their chosen method to terrorize all outlaws.
Ace unconsciously dug his nails into his palms.
What did I miss?
Why was the fact that Marco had been imprisoned for a month completely missing from his head? He couldn't find a single shard of memory from that past month. He bit his lip, thinking. Was I unconscious? Did Marco go on a mission and get captured while I was out?
And how did Ace end up on a Navy ship?
A Devil Fruit user's doing? It was all a mystery with too many holes to judge.
Then there was Luffy. Ace remembered his brother had only just received his first bounty from the East Blue and was entering the Grand Line. But now, Luffy had already reached Sabaody? And he was brave enough to storm the world's most secure prison without fear?
Ace didn't understand who his brother was trying to save—someone so important that Luffy would risk his life like this.
Regardless, Ace’s goal was to reach Impel Down as fast as possible and break Marco out. First, he had to get Luffy out of there. No matter the cost, Ace would never let his idiot brother face the six levels of hell in Impel Down.
Just how much stronger has he gotten?
As for Whitebeard’s war—Ace would be the one to stop it. If Pops was going to declare war to get Marco back, Ace would reach Marco first. Before Whitebeard. Before Luffy. Before the Marines. Before that "Akainu" guy. The 3:00 PM execution would not happen.
Even if it cost Ace his life.
"Ace!"
Well, he hadn't expected his reunion with Luffy to look like this.
The state of Vice Admiral Momonga (or something), whom Ace had just pummeled into a sorry state before Boa Hancock turned him to stone; the state of Luffy, covered in bandages but dragging his body all the way to Impel Down; and the state of Jinbe, who was taking a defensive stance to prevent Ace from attacking further.
"Luffy-kun! Get back!! That’s a Marine! Commander Portgas D. Ace, the grandson of the Hero, Monkey D. Garp!!"
Ace never thought he’d hear his name recited with such a long title and attached to someone else's legacy. Pirates were free; everyone was a child of the sea. At the very least, Whitebeard had never checked his background that thoroughly before welcoming him aboard.
"Jinbe," Ace called out.
"Ace is my brother!" Luffy shouted.
This sudden announcement of another relationship in Ace's life made the only woman there gasp, covering her mouth in shock. Ace didn't understand why she was so surprised, especially seeing Jinbe’s wide-eyed stare.
"Come on, Jinbe. Luffy is the brother I’ve told you about so often," Ace tried to be friendly, though the Fishman’s gaze remained untrusting. "Jinbe, you're here..."
"I do not understand what you are talking about."
Ace frowned at the distant tone. He was bewildered—how could Jinbe act as if he had never known him, as if Ace's existence were entirely new? He and Jinbe were...
"But we cannot waste any more time on a single Marine."
...fellow pirates.
My God.
Ace’s eyes widened as the most unsettling realization hit him. "Commander." The title preceding his name. Instead of Second Division Commander or "Fire Fist," it was Commander. The Marines on the ship hadn't been joking. It was the truth.
The truth was that Portgas D. Ace did not exist on the Moby Dick as he understood it.
"Ace!" Luffy yelled, looking worried. "Are you going to help me or get in my way?"
It was a question Ace didn't even have to think about.
He looked at his brother—grown up, yet still feeling like the family they had always been. He looked at Jinbe, who didn't know him like the Jinbe he knew. Ace closed his eyes and made his decision.
"If what you're doing is saving Marco from this prison..."
A wicked pirate’s smirk appeared on his face.
"...then we are allies."
Boa Hancock acted as their decoy at the entrance of Impel Down, and they rushed into the hell that those inside wanted to leave and those outside never wanted to enter. Only three madmen like them would charge in so fearlessly.
Jinbe wanted to stop the war to preserve the peace of Fishman Island.
Luffy wanted to help Jinbe so the latter would be free of his obligations and become his comrade.
As for Ace, he wanted nothing more than to hear that Marco would be alive tomorrow.
To be alive. To be free. To fly.
Just as his Phoenix form always did.
"Luffy!" Ace shouted. "When we hit Level 3, we split up. You go stir up the prisoners and start a riot. I’m going down to the level where Marco is held."
If he guessed correctly, with the Vice Warden currently in charge, Magellan would surely be waiting on the lower levels. Garp already knew Luffy would invade, not to mention Jinbe, one of the Seven Warlords, discarding his title. Ace didn't think for a second the Navy wouldn't know, even if Impel Down was the Warden's jurisdiction. There would be Marines waiting outside.
Especially Akainu, who was trailing him.
Wait, if I remember correctly, isn't that name one of the Admirals?!
"Ace!! You’re a Marine, aren’t you?"
It was Jinbe who protested. He grabbed Ace's arm as he tried to drop down the large elevator shaft. Ace frowned but didn't use his fire to resist. The former Warlord looked at him with wary eyes.
"The son of Whitebeard... I will be the one to save him. Even if I must protect him with my life."
Fire Fist smiled at the unwavering loyalty. Even Impel Down couldn't bring fear to the heart of a true pirate.
"I know, I know," Ace said, acting more casual than usual.
Jinbe raised an eyebrow. Ace let his body go limp against gravity; if the Fishman hadn't been holding him, he would have fallen. His face was shadowed in the darkness of the prison as he spoke.
"I’m not going to protect Marco with my life..." Jinbe gritted his teeth. "...I’m going to protect the person who is my life."
As the pirate’s eyes widened in shock, Ace whispered the words "Fire Ball." An explosion of flames acted as a thruster, breaking him free from Jinbe’s grip and sending him plummeting downward as he intended.
"ACEEEEE!!!" Luffy’s scream followed him.
Amidst the smoke and flames, fire gathered on his back, spreading out like wings. They created a mass of heat that countered the sweltering hell of Impel Down. Ace didn't soar like a bird, but he didn't fall as fast as he should have. Before disappearing from sight, he yelled back to his brother:
"Release the prisoners on Level 2 and 3, then meet at the front gate!!"
This time, Jinbe didn't object to the reckless plan. The battle with the Vice Warden wouldn't give Luffy time to worry about his "changed" brother.
Since when did a Marine dive into prison to save a pirate?
Dark stone walls, no sunlight. Even if one looked up, there was no comfort in this deep sea floor. Marco knew this well. Being in the lowest level of hell for over a month hadn't given him much hope, other than the pride of still being alive.
Without the power of the Phoenix, he had done well to make it this far.
The wounds on his chest from torture wouldn't heal themselves like they used to because of the Sea Prism Stone shackles. If he could get out of here... if he waited just a bit longer, would there be a chance to return to the Moby Dick? Marco didn't dare to hope.
Thirty long years by Whitebeard's side. Maybe the sea was telling him he’d had enough.
"A Commander? What... Garp's grandson?"
Warden Magellan raised an eyebrow, asking the voice on the other end of the line for confirmation. He received the same answer. His face grew grimmer, making Marco curious as to what business the Hero of the Navy's grandson had in Impel Down.
"Portgas D. Ace. Do any of you have a grudge or a debt with that name?"
Marco remained still. His expression made it clear he knew nothing of the name. Magellan folded his arms and walked toward the day's high-priority prisoner. The next show the World Government and the Navy wanted was the execution of the First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.
"If he isn't stupid, he’s insane to barge in here."
The intruder was a Marine. Garp’s grandson.
"I hope this isn't some trick by Whitebeard before I hand you over to the Navy," Magellan said coldly. "Because the moment that green boy touches you, I’ll send him to death’s door, regardless of whose blood runs in his veins."
"...."
"Let's see who wins between my poison and the flames of a brat who hasn't lived half as long as I have."
A thunderous explosion echoed down the single elevator shaft Magellan had used. Marco’s eyes widened as he turned toward the source of the heat. A well-built young man with an unfamiliar face appeared. Black wavy hair swept back, a charming freckled face—he stared straight at them.
This is him? Portgas D. Ace?
The moment Magellan rushed to intercept him, the entire prison shook with the impact. Marco held his breath, hoping the boy would survive and not fall to the Warden of Hell.
"Commander Ace! I demand an explanation for your behavior!!"
Magellan shouted amidst the dust and silence. Marco saw sparks of fire igniting along Ace’s body and fingers. The young man in a Marine uniform—sans coat—walked out from behind Magellan toward his cage. It looked as though he were only a few steps away from releasing the prisoner, but with Magellan there, it wouldn't be that easy.
"Marine this, Commander that," the deep voice said. "There is no explanation! A pirate is a pirate!"
Those pitch-black eyes burned with a rage that seemed ready to roar alongside the flames in his palms.
"Don't you dare ask a pirate for a reason to save his own crew!"
And Marco didn't understand a single word the other man was saying.