Banaro Island, Paradise, Grand Line
The air crackled, split by two opposing forces. On one side the raging inferno of Portgas D. Ace. On the other side Blackbeard Aka Marshall D. Teach. Blackbeard's insane laughter still echoed off the buildings a chilling fanfare for the battle to come.
"So you think that darkness makes you invincible Teach?" Ace's voice was a low growl the flames around him intensifying. "Let's see how well it is..."
Fire coalesced around his right hand swirling and compressing until it was no longer just a flame, but a fist. He drew his arm back, the heat warping the very air around him.
"This is for Thatch" he bellowed. "FIRE FIST"
fire erupted from his fist a roaring tsunami of destruction aimed directly at Blackbeard's chest. melting ground's stone and vaporizing debris in its path. It was an attack that had leveled fleets of ships,like an unstoppable force of nature.
But Blackbeard did not move. He did not flinch. He simply spread his arm wide.
at that time he roared "BLACK VORTEX"
The darkness around him surged forward from his hand. It did not meet the fire as an opposing force but it opened like a fist. drawn towards the swirling vortex. The roaring sound was snuffed out, replaced by a ghastly, sucking silence. The light, the heat, the very essence of the fire was pulled into the pinpoint of darkness in Teach's palm until it was gone.
The town square was plunged into an eerie quiet.
Ace froze his arm still outstretched by the attack he launched. His eyes were wide with disbelief. It was impossible. His flames had never been stopped. They could be dodged or endured by the toughest of foes but never simply... erased. It defied the very laws of his Devil Fruit.
"Zehahahahaha...I told you Ace" Blackbeard said with a smile on his face"My darkness swallows everything! Your Logia powers are useless! In the face of my Yami Yami no Mi, you're just a man! And now..."
Ace snapped out of his shock. Years of combat experience screamed at him. He was a Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. he can't be paralyzed by a single trick. He sidestepped the clumsy grab, the heat from his body causing the air to shimmer.
'So you can nullify my power on contact' Ace analyzed his mind racing. 'And you have to physically take the hit. You are not invincible... you are just arrogant'
His expression hardened. Ace's hands flashed his index and middle fingers snapping forward like twin pistols.
"FIRE GUN"
From his fingertips, a rapid-fire barrage of small, concentrated bullets of flame shot across the square. They flew too fast and too wide for Blackbeard to create a single, perfect vortex. He brought his arms up, darkness swirling to protect him, but his movements were a fraction too slow, his large frame too big a target.
Pfft! Pfft! Sssss! Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!Pfft! Pfft! Sssss!
While most of the fire bullets were swallowed by the darkness, several slammed into his face, chest and his leg. A sickening sizzle filled the air as the flames burned directly into his flesh.
"AAAAAAAHHHH!"
Blackbeard's arrogant laughter died in his throat replaced by a high-pitched agony. He collapsed to the ground clutching his smoldering wounds and rolling in the dirt like a child who had touched a hot stove with his bare hands.
"AHHHH! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH?!" he wailed, his voice completely devoid of its earlier menace. The sight was pathetic a complete contrast to the terrifying power he had just displayed.
Ace stared momentarily taken aback by the sheer weakness of his opponent's reaction before his eyes narrowed again. This was his chance. He rocketed forward, his leg igniting for a decisive kick.
But as he closed the distance, the whimpering stopped. Blackbeard looked up from the ground, his face a mask of pain but his eyes... his eyes were alight with a malevolent cunning.
"Caught you" he wheezed.
He slammed his hands onto the ground. "DARK WATER"
It wasn't an attack that shot forward. it was a darkness that spread like a river. From beneath him, the darkness bled out across the town square not as smoke but as a thick viscous liquid. It moved like an water, a black tide that consumed the light and clung to the ground spreading in every direction with unnatural speed. Anything it touched broken crates, loose stones was silently pulled under its surface.
Ace's instincts screamed. He knew without a doubt, that if that dark water touched him, he would be pulled down and his flames will disappear. he will have little advantage at that moment.
He aborted his attack instantly.
With a powerful blast from the soles of his feet, he Jumped into the air soaring over the expanding sea of darkness. He twisted mid air landing gracefully and silently on the tiled roof of a nearby house looking down at the man who was now the center of a black lake of pure despair.