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Light flickers through the decrepit cell of a docked ship, swaying in the waves lapping the shore. A man, bloodied and bruised, remains tied up, his head hanging against his chest. The ropes are tight around his chest and wrists, light reflecting off the sea prism cuff around his ankle. His eyes flutter open, the sunlight fracturing his blurred vision. Blood is crusted against his forehead and in his hair, dried from an earlier wound to the head.
Ace shifts only to be constricted by the ropes around him. He tries to take a deep breath, but the ropes dig into the bare skin of his freckled chest. Light floods into the room from an opened hatch somewhere above and Ace reflexively winces at the stabbing pains shooting through his head. If it weren’t for the gash on his head, he’d assume he’d been drinking.
Maybe he had. He can barely remember the night prior and he feels off. His fingers tingle as he wriggles them, trying to loosen the ropes.
“It’s no use.” A gravelly voice echoes from the hatch, grunting as they make their way down a ladder.
“That’s what I was thinking.” Ace mutters, his eyes landing on the sea prism cuff around his ankle. This is going to be more difficult than he first thought. He looks up at the man now standing before him, his outline illuminated by the light behind him, obscuring his face, “What now? You gonna hand me into the Marines?”
A rough sound gurgles from deep within the man before him that might pass as laughter as he shakes his head.
“The Marines? No.” The man cackles, “I think your crew would pay a much higher price for their golden boy.”
A smirk spreads across Ace’s face. This guy must be an idiot. Challenging Pops like he can’t squash him like a bug. It’s astronomical how much confidence this guy has which makes Ace think for a moment that maybe he’s strong or really powerful. However, the thought passes relatively quickly when he tries to think of someone stronger than Whitebeard.
Pain radiates through Ace’s jaw and a metallic taste coats his tongue as something hard collides with his face. He spits the blood mixing with his saliva onto the dusty wooden planks between the feet of the man before him. He instinctively tries to move his hand to wipe the remaining blood leaking from his busted lip but is stopped by the restricting ropes.
He flinches as a blinding light illuminates the room and the man chuckles, putting his transponder snail back in his pocket. “Aw, can’t you give a nice smile for your captain?” He teases in a patronising tone.
Ace grits his teeth, anger bubbling in his blood and sparking through his system. He wants to strangle the guy in front of him. If he had more strength he could probably break free from these ropes. He could burn through them easily. The only problem is that pesky sea prism cuff on his ankle.
Someone else walks in, they’re a lot shorter than the first man and from how they are cowering they’ve either been captured too or the other man is the captain. Captain Custo. That seems to be the man’s name. The timid one steps cautiously around Ace, behind him and starts fiddling with the ropes constraining him. This might be his way out.
Instead, a hook is inserted into the ropes and attached to a pulley system, the metal pressing cold against the bare skin of his back. A whirring noise starts and the ropes tighten as the cowering one cranks a lever. The captain merely watches with a grin, his gold tooth glinting in the sparse light as Ace I lifted to his feet.
Now that he’s on his feet, he’s tempted to try and kick this guy as hard as he can. Exhaustion weighs down on his muscles, draining him and dissuading him from trying anything but he’s stubborn to a fault. His anger pushes him forward and his leg shoots out, just missing his captor who laughs hard enough to bend himself over.
Custo signals to the meek man to keep cranking the lever and Ace tries to keep his footing as they raise him higher, the ropes imprinting into his skin, constricting his breathing. They lift him higher until he’s hovering above the ground.
His chest starts to burn and it becomes harder to take full breaths, each one causing the ropes to rub against his reddening skin, burning. Captain Custo starts pulling something heavy from the other end of the room, the sound of water sloshing hitting Ace’s ears. A barrel of water is placed below him and they lower him into it.
At first, it isn’t so bad, sitting cross legged in a barrel of water. He’d done that many times to take a bath. However, this water is cold. The type of cold that sinks it’s teeth into skin and gnaws on muscles and bones. It saps away his strength more than the sea prism cuff. It must be sea water.
His vision starts to swim and sway, his eyelids drooping. Ace considers taking a nap. It couldn’t hurt. However, as his head lulls forwards, it dips into the water and his head snaps back up. He inhales sharply through gritted teeth, wounds he previously hadn’t noticed starting to sting.
The longer he sits in the sea water, the worse he start’s to feel. His head starts throbbing and he can feel his heart pounding. His body trembles, shivering in the cold water. He isn’t used to this. Being cold is somewhat foreign after eating his devil fruit. He’s starting to feel nauseous too. It’s awful.
He blinks slowly, the man before him shifting and morphing. The dark room turning to creaking wooden floorboards bathed in warm hues from the setting sun. Dadan dumps another bucket of cold water on him as he sits in the bath in his clothes.
“It’s for your own good.” She grumbles, reaching over and putting a her hand to his forehead, “I’m trying to bring your fever down.”
He doesn’t respond, merely rolls his eyes.
Ace’s head snaps back upright, coughing up seawater. The ropes around him start to tighten and pull once more as he’s lifted out of the barrel. Leaving him hanging in the air, shivering violently.
“Are you scared? You’re shaking?” Captain Custo’s voice grates against Ace’s ears.
“No. I’m cold.” Ace snaps back.
“You should be.”
Something about the glimmer in Custo’s eyes simmers the unsettled feeling in his gut to a boil. Something metallic and sharp glints in the sunlight spilling in through the gaps the wooden floorboards above them.
Ace’s eyes widen and he grits his teeth as a blade presses into his torso. He refuses to give this man the satisfaction of screaming. The blade digs deeper, blood dripping down the silver blade, staining it. Slowly, the blade moves deeper, searing pain radiating from the wound as his heart thuds in his ears.
“I can’t go too far. We need you alive for bargaining.” Custo smirks, pulling the blade out.
Blood leaks from the wound, down his torso, staining Ace’s pants. The meek man returns with some string and a bent sewing needle, glistening as if it might have been sterilised with something – or at least that’s what Ace assumes. Ace braces himself and takes as deep of a breath he can with the ropes holding him above the wood allow. Stinging pains shoot through his torso each time the needle enters and exits his skin. He holds his breath, refusing to make a sound. He’s pretty sure he’s imagining it but he could’ve sworn that the man murmured some sort of apology.
“Nost, you can leave now.” Custo’s voice lowers.
Ace feels his strength start to leave him once more, his vision blurring and darkening around the edges. His chin falls to his chest and his body starts tingling as he fights to keep his eyes open. All he can see is his bottom half and the wooden floorboards just out of reach of his toes. His breaths start to slow and Custo’s words swim around dizzyingly within his skull, muffled like he’s underwater.
He feels hands on his bare skin, his eyes closing. He manages to force them open seeing blurry hands fiddle with his belt buckle. Fear ignites beneath his skin and he tries to thrash around but his movements are slow and his bones are too heavy to move. Then his eyes shut and all he can feel are hands until he loses consciousness.
…
Ace blinks his eyes open, his body still tingling and vision spinning nauseously despite the solid floorboards beneath his legs. He feels like he’s about to be sick but a cup of water is pressed to his lips. He doesn’t think before gulping it down.
“Custo’s sedative is still wearing off. Try not to move too much.” A quiet voice comes from beside Ace. He hums groggily in response and leans back against the wall behind him. He finds that his hands are still tied but now in front of him rather than behind.
Before Ace can ask anything Nost answers.
“I’ve cleaned up enough sick from these floorboards.” He grumbles, scratching the back of his neck. He winces as he pushes himself back to his feet. Only now does Ace realise that one of Nost’s legs are slightly longer than the other. No. It’s a wooden pegleg, from just below Nost’s knee.
“Captain Custo doesn’t look upon helping those he captures fondly.” Nost explains, a solemn tinge to his words.
Ace tries to formulate a sentence in his mind but his thoughts are still foggy and hazy. He just looks up at Nost with glazed over eyes.
“Don’t think about what happened.” Nost turns away, “It’s easier that way.”
Ace feels his stomach turn once more, recollecting what happened before he passed out. A chill runs down his spine and he stares through Nost. He opens his mouth but no words come out he just stammers and then closes his mouth. He shakes his head, his shoulders sinking and exhales a shaky breath.
“There’s nothing to think about. Nothing happened.” Ace murmrus, his words running into each other.
Nost walks away and pauses as if he’s about to say something but decides against it and quietly climbs back up the ladder, leaving Ace alone.
…
Ace wakes up to cannon fire and the boat swaying as he slams into the wall behind him. His head collides with the wall, the light filtering through the floorboards above him stabbing into his brain in fractals and colours that shouldn’t be there. He can smell something familiar. Burning wood. A figure jumps down the hatch and he is pulls to his feet, stumbling along. The voice beside him is familiar but his expression remains vacant.
He blinks and he’s soaring above the bloodstained deck. Bodies line the burning boat, Custo laying motionless on the floor. Among the other bodies, one stands out. A man with scars and a peg leg. His eyes open and glazed over. Vacant. He ascends, the boat looking small amongst the expanse of the sea and he squints looking up at flames of yellow and blue in the shape of a phoenix, gentle claws holding him up by his arms. He’s slowly lowered onto warm floorboards. A loud clang makes him wince but his strength slowly seeps into him as the Whitebeard Pirates break open his sea prism cuff. Red marks line his chest and wrists where the ropes chafed at his skin.
There’s more cannon fire that blares in Ace’s ears as he’s guided inside. Something warm and soft is wrapped around him and he sits down. Marco stands before him, his brain barely registering the man.
“You ok?” Marco asks, putting on some gloves.
“Nothing happened.” Ace mumbles, but his voice cracks as he speaks.
He flinches as Marco’s warm hands asses the wound on his torso, poorly stitched up, and the rope burn across his skin. His hands then move to carefully part Ace’s hair and look over the shallow gash on his scalp. Warm water is dabbed against his wounds and he closes his eyes, letting Marco clean away the blood.
“This might sting a little.” Marco warns, his voice soft and gentle.
Ace nods and grits his teeth, trying to ignore the stinging pains shooting though his wounds as Marco disinfects them. He uses his devil fruit over the wounds, the pain slowly fading. Despite the fact that Ace is no longer bound by sea prism, he can’t help but still feel drained. Hollowed out as if something has been scooped out from behind his ribs. All he wants to do now is have something to eat and then sleep and forget. He’s done it before. He’s sure he can do it again.
Marco remains silent and focussed on patching up Ace’s wounds but there’s this look in his eyes that makes Ace’s throat tighten. Tears brim in his eyes but his expression remains the same. He doesn’t feel sad just a hollow emptiness. No relief. Tears start to roll down his cheeks silently and Marco pauses, just… looking at him. Ace meets his gaze and looks away, brushing away his tears with the back of his hand. Marco opens his mouth but Ace shakes his head, looking out the window.
Smoke rises on the horizon, a burning ship fading into the distance as the setting sun engulfs it.