153 Thatch Awakens. (2/2)

”What about Jagged Dagger and his crew?” he asked, and here Marco could hear a trace of pleading.

”Alive the lot of them, the two that we discovered at the scene stabilized a day ago. In fact one of them even woke up close to an hour back, they're resting.” Marco said, patiently explaining the entire situation as he pointed over to the other two rooms at the different corners.

A sigh of relief instantly flopped through Thatch's mouth as he finally allowed himself to fall back onto his bed, a genuine smile stretching across his face.

Marco glanced at him as he sat down at his bedside, ”You ok there? What brought this on? Is it the kid?” he asked as he remembered his friend's violent reaction to the prone form of a certain brat.

Thatch looked at him as pure undiluted joy began to appear on his face, ”Remember back when I'd returned to the crew a few months back, close to a year now that I think about it.,” he asked.

Marco nodded with a quizzical look. ”Yup I remember, you came back sort of out of it, demanding for a personal meeting with pops in fact. When you got out, pops was kinda pissed. The crew've been thinking that had something to do with the whole embargo over this part of the line and on Sabaody. I heard that he'd ordered the lads to be more antagonistic to the dragon bastards then usual too.”

”Yup, that was something he did after he heard my story. After all, how pissed is a grandfather going to be when he hears that his daughter-in-law was shot dead, and the man that did it also might have caused the death of his grandson.” and here Marco felt his face pale as he shot a look to the room on the right.

*******

With a dull thud, Shanks leapt onto the shore. He could see, pieces of shrapnel dug into the ground with huge gashes that went quite deep into the soft sands of the beach.

A whole massive crater of glass glinted in the sunlight, black residue all over the side of the gaping hole as a thick smell of burnt wood met his nose.

His face soured slightly as he made his way forward, a massive chunk of the familiar forest having been burned to their stumps, glared back at him, evidence to the battle that the place had sustained.

Yasopp glanced over as worry coloured his face; he did not want to lose a friend even before they met. With a small stare, he walked forward, landing to Beckman's side. His face scrunching up at the horrid smell.

”Let's go, if there was an actual issue to the town or the Whitebeards then the old man would be up in arms... Moreover, seeing, as those lads seemed to have landed here, they should be relatively safe too. ”

The Red Hair pirates all disembarked silently as they began to weave into the deforested copse. Their ship bobbing silently on the shore as the sound of the News Coos sounded behind them.