#authenticaussie

For all that Luffy likes a good surprise, he thinks—and in all honesty, it takes him a few seconds to come to this conclusion—that he doesn’t like hurtling through the sky without any sign of how he got up so high. He’s pretty sure that the white stuff below him is just clouds and not weirdly-colored ocean, but that doesn’t answer the question of what’s below the white carpet. Or how he ended up like this.

Nami would know, but she isn’t around to ask. His whole crew is gone. He twists in the air, wind stretching and pulling his skin, but he can’t see any sign of his ship. Still falling and now blinded by the sun, he brings a hand up to his chin and tries to remember the last thing he did. Were they in a fight? No, he had dinner, Sanji kicked him out, and then he went to sleep in his hammock. And woke up in the sky.

He groans, spreading out his limbs in frustration. He finally stops spinning just in time to hit the tallest cloud. The cold, annoying before, is now biting as water soaks his skin, hair, and clothes. With little choice but to keep falling, Luffy shields his eyes. A rumble he can feel in his bones shakes the air, followed by a teeth-rattling boom. Bright blue light flickers around Luffy in constant flashes. The cheery sunlight of before dies under a suffocating blanket of gray.

He’s falling through a thunderstorm. But the weather was clear when he went to sleep—Nami even talked about it, saying that Usopp would be able to fish for a while before anything hit.

Maybe this is a dream. That would make the most sense, right? Even though he’s never had a dream like this before…

He breaks through the lowest layer of clouds and the water vapor becomes torrential rain. Lightning strobes the sky and thunder roars. Luffy claps his hands over his ears as one thunderclap goes off way too close—only that makes him spin again, so it’s either painfully loud noises or throwing up in freefall. Luffy chooses the former. He’s getting far enough from the clouds now that it shouldn’t be deafening anymore.

Maneuvering himself with plenty of trial and error, Luffy finally gets a look at the ground below, blinking almost continuously against the wind. It’s an island, the only one Luffy can see, not that visibility is all that great. Even in the downpour, fires rage all over. The closer Luffy gets, the more details he can make out. There’s a fight going on between white-clad people and…one person?

He’s going to crash down right in the middle of the plaza in the thickest tangle of it all. Water gets into Luffy’s eyes and he wipes it away. He orients himself one last time and braces for a hard landing.

Something slams into the ground a foot to Ace’s left. It isn’t a cannonball or a bullet, no—the force of the impact knocks Ace off his feet. Several marines try to take advantage of the opening, but Ace catches himself on his hands and spins with his feet in the air, releasing a cyclone of flames that burns them all twice over: first with the fire and then again with the steam.

Flipping back onto his feet, Ace eyes the impact crater. It’s too deep to see to the bottom from his angle, and he’s not getting any closer in case the marines are trying another one of those surprise explosives.

A hand shoots out and scrabbles on the upturned brick of the plaza before finding a grip right on the edge of the hole. A second hand joins it, and then any body parts are just a blur of motion. Ace rolls out of the way of the human missile and comes up swinging, knowing that whoever it was would’ve stopped against the wall just behind him. He catches sight of wide eyes and a panicked expression before the stranger bends impossibly far backwards to avoid the hit, nearly slamming his own face into the wall. A stream of fire easily twenty feet high explodes out from Ace’s fist, leveling the entire block behind the house and roasting all the marines too slow to get out of the way.

The attack sputters and dies when the stranger’s feet hit Ace’s shins and knock his legs out from under him. His jaw cracks against the ground and bloodied rainwater splashes all over. Ace snarls into the shattered brick at his own amateurish mistake. The rainwater isn’t enough to stop him, but there’s just enough ocean in it to stop his full-fire transformation. He slams a fist against the ground and releases an omnidirectional explosion that clears the ground for thirty feet in every direction. Ace gets to his feet, wiping his freshly-sopping hair out of his face, and finds the kid who knocked him flat.

Kid. The realization makes him pause, the pouring rain drowning out all the thoughts in his head for a second before he can bring it all back. The stranger can’t be older than twenty, with short black hair and a scar under one eye. That scar rings uncomfortable bells in Ace’s memory, and fire flickers to life on his shoulders.

“Ah, wait!”

Staring in disbelief, Ace watches as the kid jumps up into the air, fingers grasping at something floating down from above. It moves erratically, battered by the same rain still doing its damndest to drown everyone out in the open, but the kid eventually snatches it and jams it onto his head.

And now, Ace thinks, the universe has to be playing a trick on him, because he knows that hat. He buried that hat. How the fuck does this random asshole have it?

Ace is so caught up in memories he wants no part of that he doesn’t realize for several seconds that the rain has stopped. Water runs in rivulets down his face and bare chest, collecting between his shoulder blades before sliding in freezing lines down his spine. Without a curtain of rain in the way, Ace can finally get a clear look at the kid, more than just random details, and it stops him cold.

It doesn’t matter that Ace’s memories are more than ten years old. It doesn’t matter that this kid is almost three times the age of the Luffy he knew. None of it matters, because this kid—this kid—

He looks like Luffy. He looks like how Luffy should’ve looked if the world let him live, right down to the round features that Ace had always figured he’d grow out of and the straw hat Luffy refused to let out of his sight. He looks so much like the Luffy Ace wanted to grow up with that it makes his chest clench, and he balls his hands into fists on reflex. How long has it been since he thought about Luffy? A year? Two?

He blinks, time restarts, and a bullet chips the ground an inch from his left foot. Ace leaps back, a retaliatory barrage of fireballs consuming the sniper’s chosen roof a second later. As the marine screams and falls to the street below as an inferno himself, Ace goes to work on the stragglers who weren’t cowardly enough to run when they had the chance.

Watching him, Luffy can’t bring himself to move, to speak, to do anything but witness as Ace, alive again, murders scores of marines with uncaring brutality. He isn’t concerned about ending life quickly, only incapacitating until the next attacker is down, so the groans of the dying quickly fill the air until Ace goes back and kills them too.

It’s all too much like Marineford, and that snaps Luffy out of his trance. He acts without thinking and joins his brother against the marines. They’re all retreating now—when Luffy propels himself onto a nearby roof that avoided Ace’s flames, he can see ships pulling away from the harbor—but they’ve left a few dozen to cover their escape. Ace and Luffy make short work of them, and while Luffy could catapult himself after the fleeing ships, he doesn’t want to take his eyes off Ace.

Because it is Ace. It has to be, even if he’s not…right. He’s missing his tattoos and his hat and and he’s got more scars than the old Ace ever had, plus there’s something wrong behind his eyes that makes Luffy shiver. Despite all that, he’s still Ace.

Right?

As they stand there on the beach, watching the disappearing ships, Luffy tries to keep himself together. His own grieving words echo in his head and he sneaks glances at Ace, trying to reconcile what he knows with what he sees. He can’t do it.

Ace catches Luffy’s look and turns fully to face him. There’s none of the warmth that Luffy is used to seeing in his expression and his voice is dangerously bland. “Just who the hell are you, anyway?”

Ace expects hostility, or fear, or at the very least trepidation from the kid in front of him. Even Luffy knew when to be afraid. He gets none of it; the boy just stares at him, gears stagnated and mental trains stalled at the station. Scowling, Ace waves a hand in front of his face. “Hey. I asked who you are.”

“You’re Ace, right?”

Irritation showing in the tongues of flame licking at his hair, Ace crosses his arms. He’s not surprised the kid knows who he is. Every single flat surface has his wanted poster tacked up on it these days. “Yeah, I am. Now, for the last time, who the hell are you?”

The kid gets a furrow between his eyes like Ace just asked him how far away the sun is. The gears slowly begin to turn. “You…you don’t remember me?”

More fire. Steam wafts up from Ace’s skin in deceptively gentle wisps. A rumble of thunder from the retreating storm shakes water from the shoreline trees. “I think I’d remember someone like you. Spit it out. Last warning.”

It’s like someone flipped a switch. The kid slides out of Ace’s reach with unexpected speed and offers up a laughably unconvincing smile. “I gotta get back to my crew, they’re probably looking for me—”

“Hold it.” Ace’s hand fastens around the kid’s wrist like a vice. He yanks him close. “Name.”

Luffy swallows. He’s never seen Ace like this before, not since those first few weeks at Dadan’s hideout. Ace’s eyes are hard, his expression promising retribution if Luffy doesn’t listen. There’s something so…so feral about it, and Luffy can’t get the memories of that haunted young boy out of his head. It’s unlike him, but none of this is right and he just wants a little bit of time to think, but Ace isn’t giving it to him, he isn’t acting right, he doesn’t even know Luffy—

Tugging ineffectually on his arm, Luffy tries to hide the pain from his voice. “You’re burning me.”

Ace’s grip tightens. “I know.”

Every ounce of experience in Luffy’s bones is telling him to run, but he can’t. It’s Ace. “I’m Luffy, okay? Luffy. Let go.” Ace’s fingers go slack in surprise and Luffy yanks his hand away. He stays several yards away from Ace, prodding his burned wrist. The skin is raw and pink.

Ace had burned him and hadn’t cared that it hurt. They’d hurt each other plenty of times growing up, that came with their home and with training, but it was never like this.

“Luffy?” Ace’s quiet voice makes Luffy back up another several steps. Ace is glowing with heat, the air distorting around him. “Is this some kind of joke?” He raises his head and his eyes are alight with rage. “Who sent you? How the fuck did they find out about my brother?”

“Ace—”

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Ace continues, heedless of Luffy’s interruption. “You’ll either tell me or you’ll die. I mean, you’ll die either way, but you can at least give me the pleasure of putting up a fight.”

Fear—honest, unfamiliar fear—hooks its fingers in Luffy’s head and instinct takes over. Straightening and losing the confused edge to his expression, Luffy meets Ace glare for glare. “You’re not Ace, I am Luffy, and I really don’t like what you’re doing with my brother’s face.”

His sheer certainty throws Ace out of his reflexive rage. He takes a closer look at the kid. He’d thought that he was some kind of government spy, but really, there’s no way CP9 or any of those assholes know about Luffy. Ace has never talked about him. Plus, too many details are the same for this to be coincidence: the hat, the scar, even just his overall appearance. Hell, Ace is pretty sure that this kid has the same devil fruit powers, too.

The more dots he connects, the farther from the present moment he gets. Adrift in memories, he hardly notices Luffy edging away again—hardly, but he does.

“You can’t be,” he whispers. “I—you died.” The phantom blood spray arcs through the air as Luffy’s tiny body smacks into a tree and crumples to the ground. “You died.” The bear’s roar is a declaration, a challenge, and Ace can’t match it. Luffy is unconscious or dead and Ace—

It’s his greatest shame, a burden he will never be rid of, and his right hand curls into a fist.

He runs. Over and over again he runs. Night after night, year after year, he turns on his heel and he runs. Like a weakling. A coward. A selfish, worthless monster.

“Luffy.” The boy freezes, microexpressions flickering like strobes under a cracked mask of confidence. “You really are him. How—” Ace stops. “No, that doesn’t matter. You’re here now. We can be together again. Brothers. Family. Like we used to.”

“You’re not Ace,” Luffy repeats.

“What are you talking about?” Ace takes a step forward. Luffy takes a step back. “C’mon. It’s me.”

Shaking his head, Luffy maintains the distance between them. “You’re not Ace.” His voice hardens. “Ace wouldn’t do what you do. He cared about—about things. About himself. You don’t care about anything.”

A strong ocean wind washes over the island, picking up and spreading the nauseating odor of burning flesh. Ace’s rampage had spared no one, not a single soldier and not a single civilian. It was cruelty of the highest, most callous order. Luffy’s right foot slides back and he sinks into a ready stance.

“You’re not my Ace. I’m not your family. Leave me alone!”