Defect or Defend

Chapter Four

Marco had a deep sense of foreboding. Thatch was captured, and Pops had some news on Ace, who had set off to fight Blackbeard several weeks ago, while being all hush-hush with Thatch about something, right before the swordsman. Pops never called a meeting of the commanders for anything other than bad news.

As he walked into the unofficial meeting room, he heard the sound of the Moby Dick's officially Den-Den Mushi ring over the intercom. As suggested by one of Pops' friends—he wouldn't tell them who, and instead just grinned secretively, returning to his sake—it was automatically hooked up to the also-newly-installed intercom so if Pops didn't want to answer it, was drunk, or was sleeping, someone would answer. There was a click! as Pops answered the Transponder Snail and the intercom shut off again.

He opened the doors to the room, his shoes clacking against the floor. Only three other division commanders were present so far, but a few others had followed Marco inside. They created a semicircle around Pops, who just smirked mischievously at them, raising the Snail's speaker up to his mouth. "Hello?"

The Snaill's appearance changed to show that the person on the other end had dark brown eyes, a wide grin that looked like it hurt, and a curved scar under its eye. Marco and the rest of the commanders didn't recognize the face, if the confused faces from around him were anything to go by.

"Hey!" the person on the other end cheered childishly. "Is the meeting still happening?"

"Um," the famous Yonkō paused, "Not the time..."

"What meeting?" Marco asked, his usual lazy tone taking on an edge of steel.

The snail blinked. "Wait, do you mean—" The person who they labeled as male was cut off as a bang! sounded from the other line, and the snail shifted again so that the person had an annoyed glare, looking to its right, and no scar. The eyes then softened softly, looking straight ahead once more.

"Sorry about that," a decidedly-female voice apologized, and the commanders grew even more bewildered and restless, whispering amongst themselves. Marco's eyes rested on his adoptive father, who had started to adopt a guilty expression, and, under further inspection, sweated slightly, though if Marco didn't know him so well he wouldn't've been able to tell.

The large man raised the receiver, before saying a rushed "You don't need to sneak onto the ship" and hung up. "Well..." he said, clearing his throat, "We have a problem." No duh, Marco thought, but remained silent. "Ace is being brought to Marineford in about a week's time to be executed publicly. Video Den-Dens will broadcast it to the world."

There was a series of mutterings, and Shirohige held up his hand. "We need to gather everyone in our alliance, and one of my friends will be coming to aid us in the war?"

"Your friend?" Izou spoke up, voicing what they were all thinking. Whitebeard Newgate didn't have many friends, if any. Sure, maybe a friendly rivalry with Akagami and a few others, but that was pretty much it. And he had many fans, but he wasn't close with everyone.

"Yes..." he paused, before obviously resisting the urge to smirk as he continued with, "Mugiwara, the gaki. And a small girl named Luffy."

A chorus of shouts erupted fro the commanders, and Marco's own eyes widened considerably. "The Mugiwara pirates?" he questioned incredulously, ignoring the last part of the sentence. Pops nodded. "When did this happen?"

The white-haired man winced slightly. "You know all those times when I left the ship to take care of business...?" Marco pieced it together, and gaped slightly. He prepared to speak, but Sabo beat him to the chase.

"You've known Luffy for that long?" He realized what he said and instinctively raised his hand to his mouth. Pops looked at Sabo confusedly, a foreign emotion in his eyes.