One Piece – Halfway Broken

Summary: Sometimes, it's a sibling's job to tell you when you're being a dumbass...

Chapter 40: Knocking Sense into the Dense

Luffy had possessed himself of all the patience he was capable of by following the monkey men back to Ace. He'd itched to simply use Ace's Vivre Card and rush to him. But doing that would have had a number of downsides and little upside. He was virtually certain he knew what was wrong with Ace from the description of what had happened, and his brother's life shouldn't be in danger from it. Which meant that staying polite with the two salvager captains was potentially important. Only they and Mont Blanc Cricket could tell him and his crew when and where the next Knock Up Stream would happen, and Luffy was very determined to get to Skypiea. He badly wanted access to dials, even if he wasn't precisely looking forward to a showdown with Enel.

Thankfully, the two captains had been willing to leave their crews behind and were both strong enough to move with at least half decent speed across Jaya. As a result, despite Jaya being decently large, they reached their destination fairly quickly. To Luffy's surprise, that location wasn't a simple shack like it had been in the now-foggy memories of a show, but a significantly larger building set up next to a dry-dock.

Noting that both ships belonging to the Saruyama alliance were anchored nearby, with some crew still aboard them, Luffy quickly realized what was going on. This wasn't Cricket's place, but instead the HQ of the Saruyama salvaging operations. Even if he hadn't realized they had such a base, it did make sense. There was no way they stored everything they salvaged on their ships. Nor did it make sense for them to make repairs to ships they refloated anywhere but at a drydock. There was, in fact, actually a ship in the drydock at the moment, which looked recently damaged. Likely one from the destruction of Mock Town that hadn't even fully sunk before they got to it, and thus been a prime target for them to recover.

It also made sense that they'd bring Ace here, as there was a lot more room that Cricket's shack would have had. A thought that proved accurate as they were led quickly to a small building, hiding behind the main warehouse/repair facility. On stepping inside, the smaller building proved to be an outright medical facility. A relatively crude one, clearly not set up for use by a proper doctor, but with a fair few bits of salvaged medical equipment, along with a solid stock of laymen's medical supplies. Much of which was also likely salvaged, possibly quite recently from Mock Town. Bandages, painkillers, basic surgery tools. The sort of stuff you might see stocked by any sane crew that could lay hands on them, even if they had limited ability to use them.

The small medical center also wasn't empty.

There were, in fact, a dozen obvious civilians in various states of harm. Seeing them caused Chopper and Kaya, the only two of his crew he'd brought with him, to instantly snap into triage mode and move toward them. The monkey men looked startled at that, opening their mouths to say…something. But Luffy quickly interrupted them with a raised hand.

"Both of my doctors take healing the injured seriously. They'll look after the civilians here, while I take care of my brother. If I'm right about what's wrong with him, I should be able to fix it without needing their greater expertise. And I can call them to me if they are needed. Now, where is Ace?"

Open mouths shut quickly, though Marisa's quickly opened again with an answer. His hand raised as he spoke, a finger pointed to the end of the room where fold-out partitions were in place.

"There. Given that he was one of the main fighters that caused all the damage, we figured separating him from the injured townsfolk that we took in was for the best."

Luffy nodded at that, accepting that they were almost certainly right about that. No point in giving an angry man or woman that had lost their livelihood the temptation of strangling your VIP in his sleep. With long strides he ate up the distance to the partitions, moving around them…and taking in the sight of his brother. He looked pale and very still, but more weak than injured. There was a bandage on his bare torso, but it wasn't showing any blood. Hating the sight, but almost certain it confirmed his thoughts, he quickly moved forward to lay a hand on his brother's abs, just to one side of the wound.

A quick delve with his spiritual energy showed him exactly what he was expecting. His eyes looked around the room, quickly noting a tray of basic implements, though it looked like only the needle and thread from a basic Marine Field Aid Kit had been used. Grabbing up a pair of forceps, he grimaced as he pulled the Ace's bandage away and saw the stitches.

"I was right. For future reference, if you see someone in a condition like this and know they have a Devil Fruit? It means they are somehow in contact with seastone. In this case, a seastone bullet fired by that sniper you mentioned. Also, if you're squeamish, you should look away. I'll have to reopen the wound to get the bullet out."

Both of the monkey men, who had followed after him, grimaced. Neither of them looked away when given the chance, however, and Luffy nodded. They'd likely seen worse, living and operating so close to a pirate free port. If they were smart, they might even be paying attention to see how he went about this. Quickly using some spiritual energy to sterilize the blade and forceps from the Field Kit, Luffy grimly cut the stitches and opened as small of an incision as he felt he could get away with.

Luffy wasn't Chopper, or even Kaya. But he had studied medicine both on Dawn and afterward, including continuing to occasionally talk shop with both of his doctors, for whom healing was their dream. He'd risen his own Medicine skill firmly into the mid-60s, which technically left him in the range of an 'expert.' In truth, he didn't consider himself such, since he'd gotten far less practical experience with his knowledge than he believed was needed to deserve that title. But he was more than competent enough to remove a bullet that, thankfully, hadn't hit anything critical.

As a result, it took him less than five minutes of deft work to get the bullet out, then a few more to restitch and bandage the wound. He could have used a bit of Spirit Energy to heal it completely, even remove the scarring. He didn't, however, as his dumbass of a brother needed a reminder that he wasn't unkillable, as far as Luffy was concerned. Thankfully, the moment the bullet had been removed, Ace had started to slowly gain color. Once he washed it with a bit of alcohol, it was obvious that said bullet really was seatone, and Luffy very carefully put in in his 'bag' without touching it. It could hide away in his inventory for now. Perhaps he'd reshape it into a bullet for one of his own guns and carve Black Beard's name into it.

"There, he should be fine in an hour or two. If not for how long he was in contact with the seastone, he'd probably be awake already."

Marisa and Shoujou both let out relieved sighs, looking surprisingly guilty for not having realized what was wrong. He was quick to dismiss that idea.

"Don't sweat not knowing to look for the seastone. Bullets made of the stuff are incredibly rare, and reserved pretty much purely as a hole card against Devil Fruit Users. I knew about it because I am a one of those Devil Fruit users, as well as a decently trained medic, and specifically sought to know my own potential weaknesses."

That statement caused the pair to relax more, with Shoujou being the one to clap his hands and speak with at least some measure of cheer.

"Well then! This calls for a bit of a celebration when he wakes up! We have plenty of food that we recovered from the town, after we set the remaining pirates out with a bit of it and the easiest to repair ship!"

Huh. That explained where any surviving pirates had gone. Luffy had wandered. Presumably, the Saruyama's had likely done the same with any civilians not in critical condition, hanging on only to those that were too injured or sick to travel safely.

"Well then, why don't you get started organizing a party? I'll call my crew to move our ship around. We'll chip in some of our good alcohol, and we'll take Ace off your hands after we've finished celebrating! Ah, though I do want to talk to the two of you about something else, as well. There was a reason why I knew your names, as I hear you two and some fellow named Cricket are the ones to talk to if you want to know about the Knock Up Stream?"

The two monkey men blinked in surprise at that, even as they all headed back past the partitions to check on how Kaya and Chopper were doing…

... ...

Luffy hadn't been at all surprised when they'd returned to the main medical area to discover all of the civilians up on their feet. He'd known perfectly well that Kaya wouldn't allow half measures. With Chopper to help her get them 'most of the way' to restored by removing foreign objects, sealing wounds more neatly and other such basics, Kaya didn't need to invest much in each individual patient. She couldn't yet do anything wild, like restoring lost limbs, so she'd mostly just needed to accelerate completely natural healing. Which, as it happens, was literally the easiest thing to do with Spirit Healing.

Knowing that, Luffy hadn't been surprised. But Marisa and Shoujou certainly had been. Their mild enthusiasm from seeing Ace improving spiked much higher at seeing the civilians all up and well, and the two had immediately rushed out to start making party preparations. Luffy had joined them until the Discovery had arrived after he called the crew, even getting into a brief-but-enthusiastic derail as the monkey men saw the ship's unique design and found out he'd built it himself. That had…legitimately distracted him longer than he'd planned. But it had been a fun distraction, and he'd still managed to get back to Ace's side just as his older brother started to stir.

Ace tried to snap upright, only for Luffy to bonk him on the head.

"Nope, bro! You're still healing the seastone bullet wound. Even as a Logia, you'll need another few hours to heal that up. Say still and let me yell at you for being a moron for now. Then you can get up for the party."

Ace had started to light up with his powers at the head bonk, but Luffy's voice had frozen him long enough to process his situation and reconcile it with his last memories. Then, with a groan, he flopped back on the medical bed and held one hand to his bandaged side.

"What the fuck happened?"

Luffy snorted, then sighed.

"You're a dumbass that decided to take on an entire crew alone rather than bring backup with you. That's what happened. If you'd had literally even one of your crew to cover your back, Blackbeard would probably be dead. As it is, you got one of his arms…but his sniper put a seastone bullet in you. You're damn lucky whatever remains of his crew were too busy keeping Blackbeard alive and sailing that bizzarro raft-galleon of theirs to finish you off. And even more lucky that a pair of local salvagers decided to patch you up, despite what you did to the town."

Ace winced at the acid bite in Luffy's tone. Luffy very rarely lit into something like that, but when he did? You knew you'd fucked up by the numbers. Worse, Ace…knew he was right. When he'd originally set out after Blackbeard, it was with the idea of using his personal Devil Fruit powered ship to catch up to Teach before he left the New World. Somehow, the bastard had evaded him…and Ace had followed him into Paradise. He had stopped to leave a message at Fishman Island, but he hadn't waited there long enough for anyone to catch up with him.

He'd still thought he could catch up to Teach before the bastard formed a proper crew.

He should have called off his solo hunt after Drum, when he discovered that the bastard had somehow gathered a small-but-decent crew and found himself an obviously custom galleon. But Ace had been so close behind him at that point, finally closing in, that he'd refused to break off. And now he was in the uncomfortable position that only the kindness of random strangers had apparently kept him alive. Pops was going to smack him around the deck for this, if there was even enough left of him after Luffy was done.

"That Devil Fruit powered ship of yours is toast, by the by. Which means you can't really keep up the chase anyway. I can whip you up something…or there's enough time to use the Discovery to get you to a nearby island if you know of one where you can link up with Whitebeard's network. I've got to be back on Jaya in about 10 days, though, since I'm intending to use the Knock Up Stream to visit a Sky Island nearby."

Ace blinked at the offer, not having expected it after the lecture. Luffy seemed to recognize that and snorted.

"I'm disappointed you almost got yourself killed by refusing to slow down and include your crew. You're supposed to be a leader, not a meathead. But I certainly don't blame you for wanting the traitor dead, and you're also still my brother. I'll help out as much as I can, without fucking up my own plans totally, at least."

Ace swallowed thickly, refusing to show how much both the disappointment and the understanding meant. He cleared his throat.

"Won't you being seen helping me cause you problems?"

Luffy outright grinned at that…and tossed a rolled up bounty poster at Ace. Blinking, Ace unrolled it, then stared for a moment, before laughing.

"100 million as a first bounty, bro? What the fuck did you even do?"

Luffy's grin widened, starting up the tale, though he chose to leave the backlash that was still playing out from the World Government's little stunt unvoiced for now…

... ...

The party thrown by the Saruyama Alliance was exactly the sort of chaotic revelry that pirates were best at. Entirely too much alcohol was consumed, a number of people would wake up in situations they were horrified by, and a significant amount of property damage would need fixing. Of course, the fact that Sanji had gotten involved with the food prep had taken the entire thing up a level, having the entire Alliance singing the chef's praises. And the two Alliance Captains weren't at all upset with any of the damage, given that Ace had doubled down on Luffy's own acknowledgement to the brothers. Luffy, a relative unknown, owing them a favor was nice. A high-ranking Whitebeard Captain explicitly extending a favor on behalf of one of the Yonko? Something which Ace, as a division commander, absolutely did have the authority to do? That had made both the risks they'd taken and the minor damages from the party a price well worth paying.

As for Ace himself, he had made use of the long-range communication snail on the Discovery to contact the Whitebeard Fleet. Such communications were subject to interception, which meant he'd had to be careful what he'd said. But that hadn't kept him from getting chewed out by Marco, who had apparently taken a hunter group to Fishman Island and had just been waiting for Ace to report in on Blackbeard's movements. Jaya was only on a single route down the Grand Line, which meant that Marco and the group he'd brought could quietly begin reversing down that route to pin Blackbeard between them and Ace.

Ace had turned down Luffy's offer to take him as far as they could before needing to double back for the Knock Up Stream, which turned out to actually be just over 11 days out by Mont Blanc Cricket's best estimates. Close to Luffy's guess, but not quite spot on, leaving him glad the old man had been willing to talk to them about it. As a result of Ace's choice not to risk screwing up Luffy's plans, the salvagers and Luffy worked together to build Ace an improved version of his personal craft instead. The original Striker had actually predated Ace's entry into the Grand Line, and while it had been updated somewhat, it had honestly been less than ideal for handling the seas of even Paradise. Luffy had drawn up a quick redesign, a small Trimaran that combined aspects of the Striker's original design with a far superior build quality and better materials.

Honestly, the thing was different enough that Luffy actually saw his Carpentry(Ships) skill rise for the first time in a long while. The bump from 91 to 92 was quite satisfying, given how hard moving skills that were approaching true mastery was. Though Luffy had to admit he was a little jealous that the Striker was undoubtably now the fastest ship on the seas. With Ace powering the screw-style turbines he'd replaced the original Striker's more primitive paddlewheel with, the tiny monster could hit 22 knots under sail power…and 39 knots with the Mera Mera no Mi fueling its steam turbines. Even with the head start, Blackbeard might well be caught by Ace again before Macro's group reached them…though Luffy had half-violently extracted a promise that Ace wouldn't jump the gun again if that happened.

Through the three-day process of building the Striker II, Ace had gotten a chance to get to know Luffy's crew a bit better and vice versa. He'd had quiet-but-pointed words with both Robin and Hina, though thankfully had come away with a mostly positive impression of both of them. He'd gotten an even better impression of Nami…and had flirted shamelessly with Nojiko, leading to at least two fights with Sanji. Luffy was willfully ignoring that mess, since Nojiko seemed to enjoy egging them both on.

Not his problem. Thank you very much.

... ... ... ... ...

A/N: So, I'm absolutely not the only fanfic author who has wanted to smack Ace upside the head. I've read a couple of other fics that pointed out that a freaking Whitebeard Division Commander should not have been running around Paradise solo. He's supposed to be a Commander, not a dense hothead that runs off on solo away missions for months because he got his rage on. Thatch wasn't even part of his Division! Thankfully, I got the satisfaction of having Luffy make him feel stupid, so at least there is that.