#divorce!ace

hi i drew erm... u ! -kish

FJSJJDSJDJDH HOLY SHIT THANK YOU??? OH MY GOD YOU DREW ME SO PRETTY I LOVE THIS AHHHHHHHH

I want to be loved.

To have someone, anyone by my side

Oh god, what am I doing?

That was the first thought that ran through Ace’s mind as soon as she read the reply to her message, followed by a whirlwind of other thoughts, sending her spiralling.

Why did I just challenge Evi to a fight oh my god.

It was just a few hours after she got a panicked message from Betty that brought her running back to spawn, only to discover that Evi had killed Betty and betrayed their alliance. Honestly, Ace almost wouldn’t have thought anything of Evi killing her, it wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence for Betty to die to Evi playing around with a mace. Usually though, Betty was able to laugh it off, or she had asked for it in the first place and so didn’t mind. This time though, this time she had messaged Ace about it, sounding so unsure and anxious that it broke Ace’s heart, and that was enough to bring her running.

When Ace had arrived, she found herself standing a short distance away, alongside Cog, Seri, and Pollocks, as Betty and Evi argued. Ace’s heart just broke even more as she listened, Betty’s voice sounding more broken than she had ever heard her before, her voice rising and cracking as she sobbed, meanwhile Evi was speaking too quietly to be heard by the spectators. Ace had wanted nothing more than to run forward and hug Betty, but she had been asked not to get involved, so she wouldn’t. 

When Betty finally left, spamming rockets as she flew away with tears in her eyes, Ace finally stalked toward Evi, followed by the others who were with her. They all tried to question them, ask them why they had betrayed like that, but Evi had refused to give a good answer aside from “I’ve been saying that I would betray for months now,” as if that was actually a valid excuse for breaking Betty’s heart like that. How could he do that to someone he had claimed to love? And how could he betray their team like that so easily? They had trusted him, Ace had trusted him, and he just, what? Threw it all away? She had literally just given him a heart earlier that day. And he had accepted it so easily, despite knowing that he was going to betray just an hour later. 

Ace left quickly after that, she had nothing to say to Evi aside from, “I’m disappointed in you.”

As soon as she left, Ace ran straight to her ship. It was newly constructed, so it lacked any sort of decorations or furniture inside, but that was just as well. That just meant she had more space to pace. 

She really couldn’t have anything nice on this server, could she?

Here she was, pacing back and forth, on the pirate ship where she had just been married, as her entire world collapsed around her. 

First she had woken up that morning to learn that the 1000 Suns’ plan to run away to the end had been completely ruined by Pathogen destroying the final end portal that they had been planning to leave through, to which Sin had responded by completely chunkbanning Atlanta. The end plan had been Sin’s in the first place, and honestly Ace hadn’t been entirely on board with it, but it had been a plan. It had been something, some goal to work towards, some place to go to that supposedly promised safety for Ace and the ones she cared for, and now that was gone. 

And now, before they could even consider having a team meeting to discuss next steps, Evi betrayed them, fragmenting the already tense alliance even further. 

It felt like everything was falling apart around her, and there was nothing she could do about it. 

And there Evi was, their messages pinging at her communicator as they made cheerful conversation on the other side of the server, acting like nothing had happened. LIke they hadn’t just ruined Betty’s life, and thrown Ace’s own life into further disarray. It made her blood boil.

Maybe that was why she sent the message. 

You whisper to evi4: “i’d like that heart back.”

Evi didn’t deserve the heart that Ace had given him. That heart had been a gift, a symbol of Ace’s trust in him, trust that they would use it for good, to protect themself. Instead, they just used it to betray Betty, betray their team, betray her.

Evi’s next message made Ace freeze, and the reality of what was going to happen set it.

evi4 whispers to you: I’d prefer if you killed me for it

She needed to kill Evi in order to get the heart back? Was she strong enough for that? She hadn’t done any kind of fighting with anyone other than her brothers before, she didn’t even know if she was remotely good, and Evi was one of the stronger fighters on the server. 

Ace didn’t stand a chance, how was she supposed to beat someone like that?

She frantically sent another message, hoping to see a reply that told her something other than what she desperately didn't want to hear.

You whisper to evi4: do i have to?

evi4 whispers to you: yeah

Ace took a deep breath at that. She wasn’t getting out of this. She had to do it. 

Fuck. Did she really want the heart that badly? It wasn’t that big of a deal was it? Maybe she could just forget about it, forget about Evi, and move on with her life. 

…Ace couldn’t do that.

She was so tired of just ignoring everything bad that happened. Just moving on when things hurt her, because she isn’t strong enough to do anything about it. 

She always was a coward.

Now though? She was tired of these things happening, sick of being nothing more than a spineless coward who never followed through on anything.

So what if she wasn’t strong enough? Ace was going to try anyway. Who knows, maybe her training arc will have paid off.

You whisper to evi4: fine then

It isn’t until later, as Ace is preparing for the fight, that the determination starts to wane and the anxiety sets in again. 

She had spent the rest of the afternoon after challenging Evi practicing with her brothers, talking strategies and ideas for how to survive as long as possible. Both of them had full faith in her, she knew that, but what if she lost? What if she let them down?

What if she let her team down? They didn’t know Ace was doing this. She hadn’t told them, she knew that they would try to talk her out of it and she couldn’t have that. But what if she failed and lost them another heart? Ace was actually on a decent heartcount for once, 11 hearts, so she stood a small chance, but she had no idea how many Evi had and she couldn’t just craft a new one when she was this high. 

Ace spent the time before the fight attempting to distract herself. Searching through her fishing chests looking for sharpness books because why did she only have sharp IV on her sword oh god she was going to die and putting away anything valuable. 

Before long, Evi arrived and suddenly her time to prepare was up and as hard as she tried to keep her voice even and her head clear, she couldn’t keep the slight wobble out of her voice and there was still a nagging voice in her mind telling her you’re going to quickdrop and it’s going to be so embarrassing, you aren’t strong enough, but she did her best to push those thoughts away. 

Even if Ace lost, she was going to go down fighting. She just had to try her best. 

It was funny. Ace wasn’t actually that scared for herself. Sure, dying would hurt, and she would much prefer to win and get the heart back from Evi, but in the end, it did feel nice to be doing something like this, as much as it hurt that it was Evi she was fighting. 

It felt good to be selfish for once. To do something that was entirely self-serving, something that benefitted no one but her and in fact posed more risk to her than anything she stood to gain. Even if she won here, she had completely lost all trust she had in Evi. Nothing that happened today would bring them back together, make things normal again. And there was realistically no world in which she won, which just meant that she was going to lose another heart. 

Ace didn’t care. She was doing this for herself, so that she could feel strong, so she could feel brave. No one was forcing her, no one was asking her to do this. But no one could stop her either.

Ace was terrified, but still she looked forward, chin held high as Evi’s eyes met hers, and raised her sword in challenge.

I think I have a theme...