Chapter Text
Then
The attack comes in the middle of the night.
Dragon startles awake, Observation screaming, a split second before the roar of cannons and the crash of impact. A book of children’s bedtime stories falls from his chest; Luffy, tucked into the crook of his arm, is instinctively clutched closer. “Ah- Dad?!”
Wide brown eyes stare up at him. Tiny fingers curl into his shirt. Dragon, leader of the Revolutionary for nearly twenty years now and the Freedom Fighters before that, panics.
He leaps out of the chair that has sat by Luffy’s bed since the boy grew big enough to leave his crib behind. Braces in the doorway as a second volley rattles the whole building. The door across the hall is yanked open, by arms disconnected from their owner as she comes racing out, shaking, also panicked. “Robin,” Dragon calls, seizing the teen’s attention before she can bolt out of sight. “Take Luffy, get to the primary evacuation point.”
Baltigo has been a safe haven for years.
But there’s always been the possibility of this very scenario, should the government ever find them.
Nico Robin visibly gulps. And yet, the assignment of a task helps steady her, even in the face of a reenactment of her worst nightmares. She reaches out, ready to hug Luffy close as she has daily ever since the little boy squirmed his way into her heart, ready to run and escape and keep the Revolution going no matter what should happen to Dragon or the rest of his officers.
Luffy, though, struggles. “Dad! What’s going on? Where are you going!”
Dragon cannot take the time to answer. Can’t soothe his son’s fear, besides a brief kiss to Luffy’s forehead, followed by another placed upon Robin’s. “I love you. Go.”
She runs.
Luffy cries.
And Dragon?
Dragon prepares to fight.
It is not victory.
Only survival.
And only for some of them.
Exhausted, drained of strength and willpower both, Dragon staggers through the rubble that was the Revolution’s headquarters, only able to focus on one thing at a time: the crack of a table leg as it breaks beneath his foot. The distant wail of Ginny, collapsed atop Iva’s body. The growing, overwhelming stink of burned flesh and spilled blood.
But he needs- he needs- to keep moving. To find a living snail, to check the evacuation points. To find out how many of his missing comrades have escaped or are truly lost.
To know if his children are safe.
He’s numb, and badly in need of rest, and yet he keeps dragging himself onward, towards the narrow inlet that would have led to the underground docks where Robin should have taken Luffy. Small watercraft, fully enclosed and painted to better hide against the waves, powered by small silent motors, they should have been able to slip out past the Buster Call undetected, away to the nearest rendezvous point. They should have-
...they didn’t.
Dragon falls to his knees, staring down at the rubble-choked inlet, the broken and ruined vessels heaped against the obstruction. The bodies floating in what water remains.
He- breathe. He needs to breathe.
Time passes. He gets back to his feet.
The secondary location. Secondary and tertiary, they’ve always known better than to rely on only one route of escape. He can look- he can check- he can still find a snail, surely one survived, he can call and Robin will answer and Luffy will demand to know if he’s alright-
A faint sound.
Dragon freezes.
“D-dad?”
He moves.
Doesn’t think to use Armament, barely pays more than the bare minimum attention to his Observation, Dragon seizes the pile of rubble and tears it apart, frantic no no please no pounding in his ears. He digs, quick but careful, not letting so much as a speck of debris fall back into the exposed pocket of air, the tiny cave that became a shelter-
No
-that became. A trap.
Dragon’s heartbeat stops racing. His heart stops completely. His hands hover, terrified to touch, to make the damage worse.
Hazy brown eyes stare up at him. Tiny fingers curl into the ash. “...dad? Don’t- I don’t- feel s’good...” A cough. Blood spatters on dust-covered skin.
Shuddering, Dragon bends down. Close as he can get. Oh so gently touching his forehead to Luffy’s. He should say something. Comfort his son. Reassure him everything will be alright.
Luffy dies before a single word can slip free.
He finds Robin a mere ten steps away. Body broken and blackened, a single hand outstretched towards Luffy’s hiding place. The signs of a vicious fight surround her, testament to how hard Dragon’s protege fought to protect his son.
Seven and eighteen. A baby and a child.
His cloak is badly tattered from the fight. Even so, there’s enough intact material for Dragon to lay it upon the ground, to oh so gingerly shift both Luffy and Robin onto it. He tucks them in close together, then wraps the cloak around his children, as if he were draping a blanket over the pair where they’d fallen asleep after a bedtime story.
Not until they are both hidden from sight and clutched in his arms does Dragon break.
If he had the strength left to do it, his sobbing would bring down fresh sheets of rain. His mourning cries would send lightning crashing across the sky, seeking any foe left standing, any marine who could be held to blame for two tiny bodies. His grief would summon a swirling maelstrom of wind to seize every marine ship in a hundred miles and hurl them from the sea-
...maelstrom.
Maelstrom.