A Black Heart Does Not Always Stay Black

Finding Marco and His Charges

I'm so excited about this story. I hope people like it! Things move quickly in this chapter. Enjoy~

"God damnit!" Thatch raged when they had searched the entire island and found no Marco. Even with the entire crew searching, Marco was gone. Without a trace was some weird marks in the forest. They didn't look like any sort of footprints, so they weren't helpful one bit. "Who the hell could have taken him?!"

"I don't know, Thatch," Izo said in a bland voice, trying to hide his concern and immense worry over the safety and freedom of his brother. "We'll find him. We'll have everyone search, call our allied crews. I don't see any marines being able to take him so quickly. He left for a minute, shouted, and then was gone."

Pops was pacing, something he never did. Even when other crew members were in a bind, he usually stayed calm. But not for Marco. Even though he claimed he had no favorites, Marco was clearly his favorite. It made sense, since he was Whitebeard's first crew member. He was invited when he was only sixteen, and had been on the crew for a good thirty years, faithful and caring to all of his brothers.

Only the commanders knew how Marco had met Pops, and it was a sad story that no one liked to think about. So, they all knew Pops was freaking out, though it didn't show on his face, just his tense body language and pacing.

"It was probably a devil fruit user," Whitebeard said, finally. He had barely spoken since they hadn't found any trace of Marco. "Maybe one like that CP9 member, the one with the door-door. Which could be bad, but we'll find him, no matter what. We'll tear the world apart to find him. Don't worry, my sons. And whoever has taken him will pay with their lives. Call everyone now. We need to get searching as soon as possible."

"Aye!"

-x-

One week later, Marco was hungry and bored. So bored, with nothing to do and nobody to talk to. Even arguing with the stupid guard would be better than the boring silence that stretched on for forever. He didn't really have any hope that he'd be found anytime soon. He didn't know how long he'd been trapped in Luffy or however he was brought to this place. It could have been hours, or days or even weeks. He had no way to tell time since there were no windows in here. So, he assumed it was underground.

Nobody had still told him why he was there, what the end goal was. Marco assumed he was being used as leverage, since he was sure his captors were not marines. Even marines wouldn't steep so low as this, he thought. And they would never feed a devil fruit like this to a child, who clearly wouldn't have total control over his emotions.

Before the guard had been told to shut the hell up, the man had told Marco stories about Luffy and his actions, trying to scare Marco, but only making him sadder. And more worried about possibly saving him, and unleashing him on the world if he really did have a temper like the guard said.

One of the stories he told was of someone calling his brother a brat at first, and Luffy tore him to pieces after shifting into demon form. Marco could imagine that beast form tearing into someone, and was grateful it hadn't happened to him, though he would be able to heal if he wasn't in sea stone cuffs.

Marco had been told at another time that Luffy was immune to sea stone. It made Marco surprised, but then not so much since it wasn't a normal devil fruit. If it technically even counted as one if it was manmade. The guard has said only holy water hurt him. It was kind of ridiculous to think about. Holy water. He'd never thought that was real, it was just clean water.

The stories were made to scare him, but they didn't do much other than irritate him. He was just a little kid. Even if he had that other side, Marco didn't like the way the guard was talking about the boy. The boy they kept in a single room and pretended that he lived in a nice place. His room was full of toys and coloring books. Stuffed to the brim with things a kid would like. To bribe him into working for them.