"Come on Elma, you've got this!"

"Brice, don't let this little girl best you!"

The Ivory and it's two escort ships had now made it out through the worst of the storm. Those on the top decks of the ships could even make out stars creeping through the thinning black clouds above.

It was this night that the crew had decided to throw a party to officially welcome the Jackie Pirates into the alliance.

As Borris had explained, "We hadn't been able to really throw a proper welcoming event for you because of the weather and our stop at Tierra Dorada. It's about time you had some fun."

So now the entire crew aboard the Ivory, along with a few guests from Cotton and Caine's ships, had gathered to celebrate.

The smell of roasted meat, rum, and the sound of laughter and yelling wafted through the night as the party went on well after midnight.

Although neither of the two Captains were present, their vice-captains were (almost forcibly) sent in their place.

"Well I had to come, since Captain Cotton doesn't feel like it today." The girl was vice-captain Dorothy Perkins, a sixteen year old kid in an old fashioned dress with frills and a white apron.

Her hair was blond and tied in pigtails, and the blue dress went quite well with her cobalt eyes.

Beside her stood a boy in a white dress shirt with brown hair and brown eyes. He wore large, round glasses and appeared to have a bad smoking habit, considering the lit cigar in his mouth and two more in his shirt pocket.

The boy was seventeen year old Allen, the vice-captain of the Caine Pirates.

"Captain Caine is...well, you know how he is by now." He muttered, shaking Jackie's hand.

Sitting in a wooden deck chair with a patched up gray shirt on, Jackie couldn't help but notice the two kids seemed rather close.

He grinned. "So I take it you two are, you know..." He put his index fingers together, a mischievous smile plastered on his face.

The two immediately blushed, but neither denied it. "W-Well ah, um...you wouldn't necessarily be wrong." The boy murmured, adjusting his glasses and looking everywhere but at Dorothy.

The girl, on the other hand, seemed thrilled in a bashful sort of way.

"We've, um, been together for about half a year now!" She said, sounding quite proud.

Jackie laughed. The two were as adorable as Eddie had said they were.

Eddie...

"By the way, where's my doctor? What did your captain do to him?" He suddenly asked Allen.

Remembering the thin, nervous man he had welcomed into Caine's lab, Allen shrugged. "I don't know. They were talking about failed experiments last time I saw them."

It sounded like Eddie alright. "So he hit it off well with Caine, huh?" Jackie asked.

Allen only shrugged in response.

"Look, Captain Caine is quite...eccentric, to say the least. I can't fathom what they'd have in common." He muttered.

As the three continued their chat, the action continued at the center of the deck. A long table had been prepared, with several barrels from the galley brought upstairs for more seating room.

At the long table, Elma and Brice were battling it out in an eating contest.

"That's the fifteenth plate to fourteen, Brice WINS!" The judge yelled, scratching a fifteenth mark on the tabletop with a dagger.

The entire crowd watching roared, and Brice threw himself across the table to hug the judge, a middle aged navigator called Jules.

"Ye see, Jules? I told ya I got this!" He cried, ignoring the fact that he was almost crushing the short man underneath him.

Exhausted and nearly full, Elma collapsed from the chair and onto the ground. Even her eating fits were no match for the sheer girth that Brice boasted.

Unsurprised but still somewhat disappointed, Rosa dragged Elma back to her feet with the help of Boudicca.

"If you need to throw up, here's a bucket of water." She said, offering Elma a large wooden bucket.

Rosa let out a sigh of relief. It really was a great help to have Boudicca around to do some of the work.

The two women watched as Elma stumbled over to the railing of the ship, armed with that bucket.

"She's a real handful isn't she?" Boudicca said, hands resting on her hips.

"Yeah, but I don't think we'd take her any other way." Rosa murmured, a slight grin appearing on her face.

Despite the happy and celebratory mood of everyone aboard, Whitebeard still maintained a close watch on the ship's wheel, with Jules at his side. He sat at the edge of the poop deck, watching the chaos below.

"You should be enjoying yourself more, Captain." Jules said, shaking his balding head. He was short, not all that strong and had only his amazing skill at navigation as a strength, but he was a kind and honest man who had been on the ship for quite a few years now.

Whitebeard respected him.

Despite wanting to party a bit, he shook his head. He turned his head to glance at the Jackie Pirates below, having the time of their lives.

"Let them have fun. It's not my celebration tonight."

THUD.

Borris practically threw the unconscious Leonardo on the floor next to Whitebeard. "I told him not to drink, but he just wouldn't listen." He muttered with exasperation.

Whitebeard laughed. "Gahahahaha! How many glasses did he get through?"

"Glasses? He managed maybe one bottle before getting knocked out. He's unbelievably weak." With that, he leaped off the elevated deck and returned to the party.

Whitebeard watched as he weaved past person after person, gradually approaching Elma.

Heh. He's picked up a girl, huh?

With a groan, he raised himself to his feet. He had a harder time with his back and knees now than he used to. Age was rapidly catching up with him.

For now, that was of no concern.

As the party continued upstairs, one individual in particular lurked in the nearly empty tenth deck, with a black cloak wrapped around his thin frame.

He walked through the empty hallways, occasionally peering around corners and listening closely to make sure he was alone.

His breathing was laboured, and his sense of balance had been thrown off completely. Whether or not he was alone wouldn't matter anymore.

Chances were, he was already-

"How interesting."

He looked up, and saw a figure in a similar cloak standing in front of him. He would have thought it was a mirror if it weren't for the eyes that peered through the hood.

Old Man Jack.

The heavy silence that followed felt as though it could force him to his knees. Jack's Ley was overpowering in itself, but it was his sheer presence that towered above all.

"I thought we had told you to return to Caine's ship." Jack's voice pierced through Holdings like a thin knife.

"Yes."

The pressure of death hovered over Holdings like a crow, a pitch black crow that stood before him. Eyeing him like a leftover carcass in the sand.

Eyeballs...feel like they're gonna pop out. Lungs burning. Can't...feel my...legs.

Through the maddening pain, he tightened his grip around the hilt of the dagger he held underneath the cloak.

He didn't want to fight. There was no need to. But he wasn't going down helplessly if it came to a fight either.

Jack peered at the skinny man with the short, wiry black hair, feeling quite disappointed in himself.

"Then why do I still see you standing here in front of me? You certainly weren't spying on the Jackie Pirates after your job was done. So what was your business aboard the Ivory?" He asked.

Holdings grit his teeth. Jack's words were civil, but his tone was...fearsome. "I think it's pretty damn obvious why I'm here, Jack." He replied, raising the dagger from under his cloak.

At this, Jack couldn't help but smile. Regardless, he had more important things to address than a petty act of defiance.

"Who sent you? The English? Kidd? Or Blackbeard?" He asked bluntly, not expecting a proper response.

And as expected, he received no answer.

He reached for his cane, but stopped when he saw Holdings suddenly stumble backwards.

Breathing hard, he kept the dagger raised high in his trembling hand.

Jack stared at his hand in disbelief. This lunatic...has only gone and poisoned himself!

Holdings laughed, wheezing out air from his lungs as he struggled to inhale.

"You'll...never...kill me. Or take...any information. It's already..." He spit out blood and collapsed backwards with a loud thud, finally breaking the everlasting silence.

"...too late."

Jack stood there, now all by himself. Holdings was dead.

He knew the man was close with Caine. He also knew full well that Caine had nothing to do with this. Holdings appeared to have acted alone.

"What do you think he managed to send to his employers?" Whitebeard asked, taking a seat on the dead man's chest.

Jack did not flinch. He was used to Whitebeard's speed.

"I'm not sure. There's nothing he has that could reveal anything apart from some droplets of ink on his hammock." He replied.

For a week now he had been suspecting and investigating, but there was absolutely no proof of Holdings' betrayal.

Until he snuck back here, that is.

With a sigh, Whitebeard stood up and wrapped his arm around Holdings' waist.

"He's the first traitor we've had in three years. Goddamn it all." He walked away, presumably to throw the body overboard.

Jack called out to him. "Don't forget to tell Caine!" In response, Whitebeard raised his hand and gave a thumbs up.

As he opened the nearest set of windows and threw out the body, Whitebeard felt a sense of regret.

He could hear the muffled sound of flesh hitting water, as though he was listening through a sheet of glass.

He was a spy, but still a man who had joined his fleet. And a good friend of Caine's.

Perhaps if he had been just a little bit more attentive, this could've been avoided.

He stood there, peering at the dark sea below. It glowed faintly by the light of tiny plankton and other creatures under the waves.

"Edison."

Jack's voice cooled his head. It always did when he had too much on his mind.

The old man stepped up beside him, and asked a question.

His unexpected words startled Whitebeard.

And it made him laugh.

"Ah...what a question to ask. Does my answer really matter that much?" He asked, and looked down at Jack.

For the first time in a while, Jack had removed the hood covering his head, revealing that old cross-shaped scar scrawled across his forehead.

He's serious. Whitebeard thought to himself.

He gave his answer, and walked back in the direction of the staircase. Jack stood there, alone, trying to absorb what his captain had just said.

He spent the rest of the night at that window, blankly staring through the window with his eyes fixed on the horizon.

As for Whitebeard...

"Jackie!"

He turned around to find Whitebeard finally step out from the lower deck. "Whitebeard! What were you doing all this time?" He asked, waving a glass filled with rum at him.

With a big grin plastered over his face, Whitebeard grabbed Jackie by the neck and threw him across the deck, right into the table where Elma had passed out on.

"Stubborn kid...just won't call me Captain, will you?" He asked, yelling over the laughter of his crewmates.

With a groan, Jackie pushed Elma off his back. The woman didn't even flinch.

Is she dead? He wondered, before shrugging it off. It was Elma. The bitch wouldn't die if she got speared through the guts.

And that was from experience.

He picked himself up, wiping the water and rum running down his face. "I'm not calling anybody my Captain!" He yelled back, prompting more laughter.

"He's your match, Captain!" Borris said teasingly, arm over Whitebeard's shoulder. He offered a mug of beer to him with his other hand, which Whitebeard happily took.

He chugged half the mug in a matter of seconds, and waved it in front of Jackie.

Jackie understood, and raised his empty glass for a toast.

CLINK!

"Congratulations on joining the alliance, Captain Jackie." Whitebeard said, taking another swig from the mug.

Before Jackie could say anything, he cut him off. "And remember. Allies help each other out. I don't leave my people to die. Not if I can help it. I'm not just some damn pirate with the title of Ascendant, I'm a Captain before anything else. And so are you."

He reached over and messed up Jackie's already untidy hair. "Got that?"

Jackie nodded, and Whitebeard smiled.

"You've grown stronger in just a month. Now make sure you get strong enough to protect them." He said, pointing his thumb at the knocked out Elma.

At this, Jackie laughed. "I don't think I need to protect her by any-"

"Wrong." Whitebeard rasped, suddenly lowering his face to meet Jackie's. Startled, he took a step backwards.

The sudden ferocity in his eyes took Jackie completely aback. Did he say something that bad?

"You're wrong, because everyone must be protected. You know why I said that?"

Jackie shook his head.

"I said that because nobody can save everyone. Absolutely. Nobody. Pirates live to die, kid. You know that as well as I do." He said, looking right into Jackie's eyes.

The scar on his left eye stood out more than any other feature as he glared at the novice pirate.

He wasn't done just yet, either. "If you're not complacent about your crew's strengths, one will die. If you're complacent about the strength of one crewmate, two will die. You understand?" He said every syllable slowly, piercing each word through Jackie's skull.

And he understood very well. When he nodded, Whitebeard could tell he had gotten to him.

"Good. Always have fun. But never be offhand about the lives of your friends." He said, before walking away. His black hair waved back and forth in the gentle ocean breeze as he stepped back up onto the poop deck.

He's such a weird one. He chuckled at the thought. Whitebeard somehow reminded him of Morgan.

And so without any major incidents, the party continued long into the night as it lit up the Ivory in the black sea below.