Portgas D. Ace

"Could you tell everyone else what i'm about to say when i'm done? Pops, my family, and you Luffy. Thank you for caring about someone like me who is good for nothing, that this world never wanted, who has such bad blood in his veins. Thank you for loving me."

- Ace's last words to Luffy

Portgas D. Ace, born as Gol D. Ace and nicknamed "Fire Fist Ace", was the adopted older brother of Luffy and Sabo, and son of the late Pirate King, Gol D. Roger and his lover, Portgas D. Rouge. He was adopted by Monkey D. Garp as wished by Roger to him before his birth. Ace was the 2nd division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates and one-time captain of the Spade Pirates.

Personality
Ace was much more intelligent, polite, and generally more bearable than Luffy, which prompted the Straw Hat Pirates to question whether he was truly related to their captain. While several people who knew Gol D. Roger noted Luffy is quite similar to the late Pirate King, Whitebeard himself claimed that Ace's personality was not at all like his father's. It seems that among the very few things the brothers shared was their recklessness as pirates (and their near-bottomless stomachs). In addition, Ace liked to party as much as his brother does. When he boarded Buggy's ship, he was drawn by the smell of food and decided to enjoy himself while he was there. Ace could be a bit vulgar though as he once used a woman's skirt to wipe his face while he was dining at Spice Bean in Alabasta.

There were two running gags about Ace. The first was his rather extreme narcolepsy. He tended to randomly fall asleep while eating and conversing, leaving strangers around him wondering if he had died. This was first seen in Alabasta when they thought he died in the middle of eating. The second was that he did a "dine and dash" routine wherever he went. This went back to his younger days with Sabo and Luffy, when they would often dine and dash in the city of Goa.

His "politeness" is due to Makino's teaching after Ace asked her how to introduce himself to Shanks (being his brother's savior). Before that, Ace was rather cold and rude to anyone he was not familiar with.

As the son of Roger, he lived in his shadow and is to date the first [http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Will_of_D. D.] depicted to truly question his own right to exist, while displaying the fewest commonly seen D. related traits. Ace seemed to have lifelong problems dealing with his parentage, even after denouncing Gol D. Roger and accepting Whitebeard as his only father. This was in direct contrast to Luffy, who accepted his father's identity immediately upon learning it and did not seem to care when he was told how dangerous of a man he was. However, Luffy did not grow up with knowledge or identity (or even existence) of his father. Ace believed that it was natural if he were to really die as nobody in the world wanted the son of the devil (Roger) to live. Ace commented upon his own death that he had never sought fame or fortune - all he had wanted was the answer to his lifelong question of whether or not he should have been born, as this was the only thing preventing him from dying with no regrets as he and Luffy had vowed to do so and the fact he had a younger brother to look out for. Ace's only regret was that he would not live to see Luffy achieve his dream, which he believed Luffy undoubtedly would accomplish as he was his little brother.

Ace had a tendency to never back down from a fight, saying that he would never run once facing an enemy. Because of this, some people believed that Ace had a death wish, but in truth he wanted to prevent people he cared for from getting hurt. Dadan stated that he inherited this tendency from his father, Gol D. Roger, despite loathing him. While Ace emerged victorious over enemies he refused to run from, such as Porchemy and Bluejam, his stubbornness hurt him on a number of occasions, particularly when he refused to back down against Blackbeard or Admiral Akainu.

Ace was also easily provoked by and became violent towards anyone who insulted or harmed people close to him. In one of Garp's conversations with Curly Dadan, this was revealed to be a trait of Roger as well. During his childhood, Ace had a tendency to severely injure anyone who insulted Roger, though he himself disliked his biological father. After hearing about Sabo's presumed death at the hands of a World Noble, Ace quickly became bent on killing the Noble and Dadan had to pin Ace down and tie him to a tree to stop him.

Ace's temper got the better of him, especially in cases when Whitebeard, proclaimed by Ace to be his only father, was insulted. Believing that this was the case when Blackbeard broke the iron rule of the Whitebeard Pirates and fled after murdering a crew mate, Ace pursued his traitorous subordinate despite his crew mates' efforts and even Whitebeard's orders to stop him. Ace later came to see that his stubbornness had gotten him into the ordeal of being scheduled for execution. Even though he managed to escape death on the scaffold thanks to the pirates' and Luffy's efforts at Marineford and was well on his way to freedom, Admiral Akainu got to him by insulting Whitebeard. Ace quickly turned back to face him, ignoring his crew mates' warnings to not become angered over Akainu's provocations. Unwilling to let him get away of speaking ill of Whitebeard, Ace attacked him out of fury only to have his arm burned by Akainu's Devil Fruit powers. Akainu then took the opportunity to attack Luffy on the sideline, leading Ace to jump in, sacrificing his life to shield Luffy from the attack. While saying his last words, Ace sadly admitted to Luffy that he (Ace) wasted away all of his efforts to rescue him.

Abilities and Powers
As commander of the 2nd division of the Whitebeard Pirates, Ace had authority over the lower-ranking subordinates. In addition, as one of the top commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates, he was one of the strongest and most highly-regarded pirates on board under Whitebeard himself. At one point, while being captain of the Spade Pirates, he was even asked to join the Shichibukai but refused.

Luffy comments on how he never defeated Ace in a single fight, despite Luffy already having the power of the Gomu Gomu no Mi (Ace did not consume the Mera Mera no Mi until after he left: Luffy was surprised by Ace's new power when Ace stopped Smoker from capturing him in Nanohana). Ace was trained by Garp, who had hoped to turn him into a fine Marine, and possibly Dadan, the two of whom were responsible for training Luffy to the level of power he held before becoming a pirate.

Ace also held a fearsome reputation. It was revealed that Ace received an invitation to join the Shichibukai while he was still captain of the Spade Pirates, though he refused the offer. After he joined the Whitebeard Pirates, a civilian was seen commenting on how Ace's strength was supposedly "outta this world". The World Government granted Blackbeard the position of Shichibukai after he successfully defeated and captured Ace. His overall reputation and abilities had earned him a bounty of 550,000,000 prior to his capture and death.

He was also a capable navigator, as he was seen wearing a Log Pose on his left wrist, while travelling island to island in search for Luffy and Blackbeard on a simple raft.

Physical Abilities
Ace demonstrated his strength during his battle with Blackbeard: he was able to take Blackbeard's punches, which were so powerful that the first made Ace cough up blood and the second nearly broke his neck, and retaliate. Van Augur noted that, as expected of the Whitebeard Pirates 2nd division commander, Ace's basic combat skills were quite formidable even without his Devil Fruit powers.Aside from the powers granted by the Devil Fruit he consumed, Ace possessed immense physical strength. Signs of his great physical potential were already evident at his early childhood, where he was able to beat some local thugs who spoke ill of his father "half to death", and was also shown sitting on top of a huge animal (possibly a bull) he killed with his staff, during his first meeting with Luffy. Also later on the same day he was shown to easily break a giant tree with ease. Ace was already very strong when he left his hometown, three years before Luffy did the same.

He fought equally with Jinbe in the past; they nearly killed each other in a fight that lasted for five days. Ace then survived a battle with Whitebeard that took place immediately after, showing immense stamina and durability. He was one of the few people to be able to take a "baptizing" in boiling water in Impel Down without flinching, which is considered an impressive feat.