chapter 20- a costly mistake

(narrator POV)

"Hey, have you heard about that new pirate?", on marineford a marine soldier asked his friend. "Yea, apparently he killed 31 celestial dragons, I heard vice-admiral Garp and admiral Aokiji are going after him right now", "poor bastard, he is so screwed". Just as the two marines were talking a shadow was seen in the distance, and that shadow was in the shape of a ship and was getting closer at an alarming speed. "Hey, that looks like a ship, doesn't it?", "yea", "and it's coming right toward us isn't it?", "yea", "we should probably run shouldn't we?", "yea", "...EVERYBODY RUN A SHIP IS FLYING TOWARDS US!".

When the rest of the marines heard the warning they immediately looked at the ship and started running, but the ship moved so fast that they couldn't even run one hundred meters before it was right on top of them. Fortunately for them, ice suddenly extended from the ship and made pillars that blocked its fall.

The next second Aokiji walked out of the ship with a really swollen throat and a dark expression, after him Garp also walked out with a bandage on his right wrist but unlike Aokiji he had a somewhat proud expression. Sengoku was just working in his office when the door was kicked in and Aokiji and Garp walked in, Sengoku didn't know why Aokiji had a dark expression as he was usually really laid back but the lack of a certain someone made it clear. "Aokiji what happened?" Sengoku asked with a serious face, "we were completely outmatched".

Aokiji then proceeded to tell Sengoku about his "fight", if you can even call it that, with Luffy and the more he heard the more Sengoku paled. "He must be lying, from what you told me his combat abilities are superb, but he has no way to know what happened during the void century". "Well..." Garp scratched his head as Sengoku felt a headache coming, "when he and his brothers were little, apparently Dragon came to visit them from time to time". "WHAT?! Garp, you knew where Dragon was and you didn't tell us?" Sengoku freaked out.

"Well no, I never saw him and only when Ace left to start his pirating career he mentioned it to annoy me, which worked, I never beat him and Luffy so hard in my life, hahahaha" Garp laughed as he remembered the torture he inflicted upon Luffy and Ace. "Garp, are you sure that you aren't a sadist? anyway if what you say is true we better send bounty hunters instead of a government organization, we can't risk the public knowing about the void century. other then that if devil fruits don't work on him this is going to be a problem, I will go personally to try and negotiate with straw hat Luffy". "Sengoku, whatever you do, you can't fight him. He said that if we send a marine force to fight him he will completely obliterate them and we can't lose you", Aokiji warned Sengoku. "fine, but first, call the rest of the admirals and the five elders. we need to have a talk concerning fire fist Ace".

"WHAT?! you can't let him go Sengoku!", Akainu shouted, "we risked enough with that deal with Blackbeard to catch him. If the public knew what we did there will be outrage. Yet you want to let all those efforts go to waste because of some kid?". "Akainu you haven't fought him, that kid is more dangerous than his father in terms of strength and knowledge" Aokiji tried to convince Akainu but he refused to listen, "since when did the marines bow down to some brat who hasn't even been a pirate a month? I will not let fire fist Ace be released".

"We agree", the five elders said, "as Akainu said, if we were to bow down to every pirate with a little strength we would have ceased to exist. Straw hat Luffy may be strong in head-on combat but he is vulnerable to assassinations and his crew is very weak as of now. He knows that so he threatened to annihilate fifty percent of the marines stationed around the planet, but it's just an empty threat. no one can do such a thing. If someone could he would be unstoppable and would have surely done something like this in the past to spread his name, after all the only thing pirates want is fame. publicly announce fire fist Ace's execution to be two weeks from now, we will use it as bate to kill both Whitebeard and straw hat Luffy".

"You are making a mistake!" Aokiji said withe his tone getting louder by the second, "unfortunately, it isn't your nor Sangoku's place to decide" the five elder replied. "Well then, I guess I won't need to go and negotiate with straw hat Luffy... But we will need to prepare to take the equivalent of two yonko, call in all of the admirals, only three won't be enough", Sengoku commanded. And so the marine made their decision, a decision that would single-handedly cause their downfall.