The Elementalist Lucia [One Piece x OC fanfiction]

XII - Breaking the lock

Then it was all over.

Incredulously, she saw the executioners being thrown backwards, blood seeping through their torsos from a large wound. She looked down to see Crocodile standing before them, his ever-present cigar in his teeth, who had undoubtedly saved their lives. The fighting then resumed with equal fervour in front of the scaffold. The Admirals gave no quarter, the soldiers fired blindly. Then Whitebeard made a last stand by raising a new boat from the sea bed to retrieve all his men who were swimming in the water inside the wall. With a last ditch effort by Little Oars Junior, the boat entered the interior of Marineford, right in front of the pedestal where the condemned siblings were standing. Lucia was speechless - again. The old man... She was truly impressed by the resources and strategies of the pirate. She realised that she really wanted to believe that they would win, that she would make it out alive with Ace. That none of them would die today. After all, who could really defeat Whitebeard?

She believed it all the more when Marco flew up and dominated the whole battlefield to get to the scaffold. But at the last moment, Garp leapt up and knocked the phoenix to the ground without saying a word, before standing in front of the three admirals' seats as a last line of defence. Anyone who wanted to approach Ace or Lucia would have to fight him.

Ace was desperate, counting on his own death to end the violence. He turned in on himself in despair. His gesture, which had not escaped Lucia's notice either, made Sengoku wonder.

"Is there something wrong with you, Fire Fists?"

"Ace?" Lucia asked softly, looking concerned.

"I'm... really out of sorts," he began.

His voice was weak, but it managed to break through the din of screams, bangs and shouts that continued to proliferate from the square. There was also cheering.

"How can I think that at a time like this? My father, my little brother, my companions... they're being slaughtered..."

Lucia's throat tightened, her eyes moistened.

"I'm so happy," Ace continued, tears rolling down his cheeks, "I can't stop crying... After all I've been through... I'm so angry... TO LIVE!"

These words pierced Lucia's heart and she also began to cry silently, clenching her jaw, lowering her eyes. A blast made her raise her head and she was forced to watch as Whitebeard fell to the ground after taking a fiery punch from Admiral Akainu. Then Luffy screamed with all his might. Galvanized by her brother's words and Luffy's energy, she stood up and began to pull on her handcuffs and their seastone chains again. Her clothes stuck to her skin, still wet from the water splash the last time, her feet slipped on the wood of the scaffold and her hair kept falling in front of her eyes. Sengoku let her, thinking it was only the energy of desperation that still gave her any desire to fight. He knew that new guards were preparing to finally execute the prisoners, it was only a matter of time.

Lucia's foot skidded across the floor and she fell heavily to the ground, her chin hitting the floor with a thud. More blood trickled from the corner of her mouth but she paid no attention to it. Everything around her was gone. She could no longer hear the screams and explosions, she could no longer see the corpses and the blood. There was only her body, heavy and weak, and those damn seastone handcuffs. And there was the water. She got up again and again, without stopping.

"Lucia, stop..." Ace begged her.

"It's the last straw..." she muttered... "to be covered in water... AND NOT BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING!"

She also had this rage in her, this rage to live, to fight. It had been there since the beginning of the fight, since she had arrived at Impel Down itself. She had never stopped having that spark in her, that tiny light that was turning into a fire right now. Come on Luce... come on girl... move... move! No more powerlessness, no more having to endure and watch, it was all over! Her wrists kept banging against the seastone inside the sheaths, her fingers scraping against the walls, her palms sweaty from twisting and clenching in all directions, hoping to get out of their prison. His breath was ragged, his lungs burned, his vision blurred.