Ace came to on a thin mattress that smelled of salt and herbs. The ceiling rocked—timber beams breathing with the sea—and a cheerful voice cut in.
"Oh, you're awake!"
Ace propped himself on an elbow. Two men crowded the doorway of a cramped sickbay. One had a black ponytail and sleeves rolled high; the other wore a tool belt heavy enough to sink him.
"Hi," Ace said, wary but polite. "Where am I?"
"On our pirate ship," said the one with the ponytail. "I'm Colin, the ship's doctor. Anything still hurting?"
"Tell him everything," the belt-man added with a grin. "I'm Damon, shipwright."
They both looked sincere. Have I been this lucky? Ace rested a hand over his sternum, hesitated, then forced the words out. "My chest. It's been aching. Might be from… a wound I had."
"When we hauled you aboard you had no external injuries," Colin said, frowning. "And I treated the internal ones. Any battle trauma should be gone. What hit you?"
"A man with magma," Ace said, swallowing the name. "It went through me."
Colin blinked. Damon's grin faltered. Silence held for a breath before Ace's stomach betrayed him with a growl.
"Hahaha! You've been out for days," Damon said. "Come on. Food."
Ace slid his legs off the cot. He felt heat where there was always heat—embers housed in muscle and bone—his Devil Fruit waiting and watchful. That steadied him. He followed them into a long corridor. Doors lined both sides, each framed by a wanted poster or a candid photograph. Laughing faces; arm over shoulder.
"If you want to stare, stare after lunch," Colin called. "My heroic face is right by the infirmary door."
"Our bounties hang outside our rooms," Damon said. "When the price on our heads goes up, we swap the poster. The rest are crew shots."
"It's a great idea," Ace said before he could stop himself. The place felt absurdly… human.
He jogged to catch up. "I'm Ace, by the way."
"Ace? Good name," Colin said. "Nice to meet you."
"Same. And thanks for saving me." Ace rubbed the back of his neck. "Where exactly did you find me?" If Marco pulled me out at Marineford, I should be with them. Why am I here?
"You don't remember?" Damon scratched his temple. "We sank three pirate ships. Our lookout, Abel, spotted you clinging to a plank. We fish up a lot of weird things. This time it was you."
They shouldered through swinging doors into a galley that smelled like fried rice and rum. A stocky cook chopped with rhythm-sure wrists. At the far table, a black-haired captain sat with a cup of rum and a lazy, satisfied smile.
Ace bowed. "Hello. I'm Ace. Thank you for the help."
For a second the three men froze. Then the captain popped to his feet, bowed back with amused gravity, and the cook mirrored him.
"No need for all that," the captain said, laughter riding his words. "Come eat. Your stomach is already complaining."
Ace hesitated. The cook—Andrew—lifted a brow. "A good cook doesn't weaponize his dishes. Sit."
"Thank you," Ace said, and fell on the bowl set before him. When he looked up, the captain—Gray—pushed his own untouched bowl across the table. "Don't rush. You'll only scare the rice."
Ace finished two plates and a mug of rum. Then his old life bulldozed back. "Captain Gray," he said carefully, "have you heard of the Whitebeard Pirates?"
Gray squinted at the cook. Andrew shrugged. "New crew?"
"Never heard of them," Andrew said.
"Pelly will know," Gray decided. He clapped once. "Assemble, three seconds!"
Boots clattered. Men and women converged so fast Ace thought they'd been waiting outside. Someone tilted a newspaper down. "What is it?"
Gray balanced on an upright keg. "Pelly, ever hear of the Whitebeard Pirates?" He jerked his chin toward Ace.
The vice-captain, a lean man with a cigarette and the energy of a long-suffering older brother, glanced at Ace, then shook his head. "Nope."
"Even you?" a fishman gunner blurted.
"I'm not an encyclopedia," Pelly said dryly. "I only track crews worth tracking."
"We are worth tracking," Ace said before he could soften it. "Whitebeard—Edward Newgate—he's one of the Four Emperors of the New World."
The air went still. The crew watched him as if he'd announced that gravity was optional.
At last Gray said, chin cupped in one hand, "Sounds impressive. But this is the New World. And there's no 'Whitebeard Pirates' here."
A tall dancer in a lacy dress and a man's baritone folded delicate hands. "Also, darling, what's a 'Four Emperors'?"
Ace looked from face to face. Jokes, curiosity, not a spark of recognition. His heart thumped in his ears.
"Relax," Gray said, gentle for the first time. "Meet the crew. Names stick better with food."
Introductions tumbled out between bites. Abel, the lookout, could swallow attacks into a black hole that lived in his palms—"up to a limit," he insisted—stood beside his brother, Alder, the helmsman, who could spit those swallowed attacks back out. Teuton, a whale-shark fishman, loaded the cannons and did all the wet saving when Devil Fruit fools fell overboard. "Don't fall," he told Ace with bone-deep weariness. "I beg you."
"Why would you beg me?" Ace said.
"Because everyone else acts like I'm a taxi," Teuton answered.
Bard tuned a violin he promised never to play with his Noise Fruit active. Latin, queen of skirts and rouge, could make roses bloom from a person's chest with a touch—"Except lipstick," Latin warned. "Bring me lipstick, we're enemies." Donne, the scholar, wore a blindfold because his Mind-Read Fruit worked through eye contact; his leash dragged while his guide dog, Tang-Tang, snored on the lawn.
Gary, a scientist, could steal abilities he'd seen—"weaker versions, and only two at once," he said. Damon puffed up and confessed that the ship's fruits and vegetables grew faster because of his ability. "I just nudge things along."
Andrew waved a ladle. "Cloud Fruit. I can make clouds. I can also steer clouds. No, I can't move the island up there."
"And Pelly?" Ace asked.
Pelly tapped ash into a dish. "I keep the captain from getting himself killed before lunch." He snapped a pair of chopsticks over Gray's knuckles as Gray reached for a bone-in cut. "Wash your hands before you touch my table."
"Ow," Gray said, unrepentant.
Ace tried to count. Thirteen people. Twelve Devil Fruit users. A ridiculous fraction. He should have been scared. He wasn't.
Gray waited until the noise split into pockets. Then he nudged Ace toward the open hatch and the strip of blue beyond. "Walk with me."
They stepped onto the deck. Smashed ships smoldered a polite distance off the starboard side—charred to ash by black fire. Gray leaned on the rail with the lazy balance of a man born to a moving floor.
"You know Devil Fruits can awaken," Gray said.
Ace nodded. "I've heard of it."
"Your fire? It's weak." Gray didn't sand the edges off. "Range, sure. Looks pretty. But your heat is low. Someone like me? Even if you landed a hit, you wouldn't pierce me. My temperature outruns yours."
The words stung. He's right. Magma smothered me. It wasn't close.
"Don't widen your flame. Sharpen it," Gray said, tapping the rail. "Train for heat. The sea is cruel. Pretty gets you killed."
"Okay," Ace said. He meant it. "I'll train."
A shout rose from the galley: "Lunch!"
"Lunch," Gray echoed, already pivoting. Then he paused, studying Ace as if the sea had coughed up a coin that didn't belong to any known kingdom. "One question. Where—when—do you think you came from?"
Ace opened his mouth. Closed it. "If you've never heard of Whitebeard or the Four Emperors… I don't know anymore."
"Good," Gray said. He pulled a battered logbook from his coat and flipped it open. Between the paragraphs, sharp black brackets boxed private lines like a second voice.
He tapped an entry. "Here."
Inside the brackets: Today we picked up a man who survived my fire. Rare. The doctor's useless while he sleeps. Says he's from the future.
Ace stared. "You—log your thoughts?"
"I get bored," Gray said. "Fate gets less boring when you write it down."
Ace dragged the pad of his thumb along the scar that wasn't there. No hole. Colin had fixed everything except the ache. He looked from the horizon to the logbook to Gray's eyes, dark as banked coals.
"If there's no Whitebeard," Ace said, "what year is this?"
Gray's mouth tilted. "Too early for your emperor. Late for the last one I cared about." He tucked the book away. "You don't need the number. You need a plan. Eat, then train. When we make landfall, we'll test your heat."
"And if I fail?"
Gray grinned, all teeth—the grin of a cat who trusted gravity. "Then you'll try again. Or you'll fall in. Teuton hates that."
Ace let out a breath that almost counted as a laugh. "He told me to beg him in advance."
"Smart man." Gray rapped the rail. "Come on."
They returned to the galley. Gray lunged for a slab of meat; Pelly's chopsticks cracked across his knuckles again.
"Wash."
Gray sighed like a penitent and detoured to the basin. Ace watched the small ritual—the slap, the pause, the mock compliance—and realized the shape under the rough edges. This crew ran on a simple code. Save people only when the captain said so. Eat together. Don't poison the cook's faith in his craft. Don't let the captain's hands ruin a meal.
He sat. Andrew slid him another bowl. "Fuel," the cook said. "Training feeds on it."
Ace lifted his chopsticks. He caught Gray's eye over the steam. "One more thing," he said, softer. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For not tying me to a mast."
Gray chuckled. "You'd burn the ropes." He didn't say if you can. The challenge lived in the air like heat above a road.
Ace ate. He ate like a man who'd decided the only way back to his time—if there even was a back—was forward. Conversations flipped around him like cards: Abel arguing with Alder, Latin accusing Bard of theft, Donne's dog dreaming aloud.
Gray leaned back on two legs of his chair and looked at Ace as if he were both problem and answer. "Welcome aboard," the captain said, voice light, eyes unreadable. "You're fifty-two years early."
The chair's two legs kissed the floor.