I do not own One Piece
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Beta read by the wonderful and terrifying Karukyuu and the equally wonderful rose7anne101, who have both written much more in depth and thought-out versions of this sort of story.
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Given some of the responses to a certain…incident in chapter 7 of Rise from the Ashes, and out of fear of my Beta, I present to you all this brand new series! Been excellent for my own therapy writing all of this down :-)
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Ace Lives
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Knowing what was about to happen, Ace moved his body to fulfil his duty as the older brother: protect Luffy from harm at all cost, even if his own body must become a human shield.
But instead of the expected pain, his senses were instead barraged by the sound of a massive impact, as rock met steel.
Seizing the chance, Ace quickly pulled Luffy away before they turned to behold the sight of Akainu visibly straining with his fist of magma against a sword held by an elderly man, wet and slightly winded from his long and frantically fast swim.
"Rayleigh!" Luffy cried.
"Silvers Rayleigh," Akainu growled in affirmation.
"You!" Ace snarled. "What do you think you're doing coming here!?"
The Dark King was silent for a moment before answering. "I didn't know it was you. Who you were. Until Sengoku announced it to the world."
Ace just blinked in confusion.
"I didn't realize you were that Portgas. I've met like nine others with that name, and they never seemed related to each other. Six with the name Monkey at that. And you were born too young, but I should've known that Rouge would pull off one more miracle."
Again the silence stretched over the battlefield as all turned to watch.
"I loved Rouge, your mother. When you're a captain's First Mate, a real one, you become like one half of their soul. Rouge…she was pretty much my sister. Whitebeard's your Father," and now a dangerous aura seemed to radiate off the old man, "but I'm here for the sake of your Mother."
Well, truthfully Rayleigh was here just as much for Roger's sake, but given the kid's loud declaration about his parenthood on the broadcast before Rayleigh started swimming, he decided to omit that detail.
"Big words from an old drunkard," Akainu spat as he leapt backwards to get some space for his magma.
"Actually, there's two old drunkards," Rayleigh smirked.
Faster than anyone that size had any right to be, Whitebeard was behind Akainu with one of his patented earthquake fists, smashing it right into the admiral's spine.
Though blinded by pain for only the barest fraction of a second, it was all Rayleigh needed to cut true before Akainu could rally his thoughts to focus his own haki.
Unmoving, the fanatic fell to the ground in a spray of blood.
Without a word, Rayleigh turned to walk away, one hand pulling out his flask for a drink, while the other dragged Ace by the arm. The young man was too distracted to realize what was happening, trying to come to grips with the alien idea of someone caring about Ace for his Mother's sake, as opposed to Roger.
Recognizing his brother was having an existential crisis, and instinctively aware of how emotionally insecure Ace really was, Luffy stayed quiet. Stopping only to exchange a firm nod of understanding with Whitebeard, before tagging along after them.
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With a scream the traitorous Teach plunged downwards into the chasm to drown like a rat.
Smirking, Whitebeard turned to those who had allied with 'Blackbeard.' "Well," he growled, "who's next!?"
Not having to fight Akainu alone had done wondrous things for his health, what with how his braincase was still fully intact and all.
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"Rayleigh, why was Ace left with Gramps then? Why not you?"
The old man was silent for a moment at Luffy's question, while Ace stopped his own drinking as he and his crew mourned for their Father. Finally, "While you're on your voyage to become Pirate King, you'll discover and see many things along the way. Some of which you prefer to have never know. Roger learned even more than me, and in a way it changed him. Perhaps he learnt something in particular that made him think that Garp was the best one to care for Ace. But truthfully? We'll never know. That is left for the dead."
Luffy nodded in understanding before turning his attention back to his dinner, before a thought struck him and he wrapped himself all over Ace. "If Ace hadn't been sent to Gramps, then we'd have never met!" he gasped, voice tight with emotion.
Straining to breath, Ace got out with all his heart. "And I might never have ended up with my Pops and crew! Then I'd've really been in hell!" he said.
"AAAAAAACE!" Luffy happily sobbed, rubbing his teary face into the side of Ace's head while the manly Whitebeard Pirates fought to hold in their own tears.
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Author Notes:
To anyone who is unhappy with my explanation at the end, please, please give me a better reason for Roger to not hide his son with his powerful and trusted best friend. Or others he knew for that matter… Yes, there are some decent ones, but none that really 'click.'
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Please Review, and I will get back to you!