Author's Note: Awright, this fanfic is being fixed. There've been a couple of major plot holes and discrepancies. And as Sonic the Hedgehog would say, THAT'S NO GOOD. With this will come some plot changes, so sorry 'bout that. The good thing is I'll bring out two new characters earlier than I would've.

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Chapter One: The Mariejois Incident

In the deep underground catacombs and chambers of the holy city of Mariejois, sentries patrolled a darkened chamber suspended over a seemingly endless pit. Although they did not know what they were guarding, an ominous air hung around the room and always, always the sentries would keep their watch, never to fall asleep or stop for a brief game of cards- it was obvious what they were guarding was important.

In the shadows, a man dressed in a hooded cloak of dark indigo wound his way across the room. He wore shoes that concealed his every step, and every piece of exposed flesh was liberally coated with a substance akin to war paint. To any of the human senses, this man was invisible. With utmost care, he disarmed the ineffectual traps surrounding the enigmatic object, and slowly took out a vial of extremely potent acid. As the lock dissolved on the case, he muffled the hissing by covering the immediate vicinity with a thick cloth. He placed the cloth back into his bag and began the strenuous task of removing the seastone walls of the container.

…hehe… They didn't expect a non-Devil-Fruit user to perform this heist; apparently… that gives me an edge. As he finished removing the walls, a sight of a solid block made of what apparently seemed to be obsidian greeted his eyes. …can't believe they went through all that trouble to conceal this thing… well, I'll find out what it is when I get out. As he carefully lifted the object from the pedestal, an alarm sounded and every gun in the room began firing en masse at the pedestal's area. Mysteriously unaffected by the bullets, he ran as quickly as possible out into the open. He flung the object into the general direction in which the backup provided to him by his employers was, which was just as well, due to the fact that he was quickly surrounded by Marines. They shot at them, but were stunned that their artillery had no effect whatsoever on the man. The captain of the Marines ran out of the group surrounding him and put him into a half nelson. The thief was dragged onto a Marine ship and was placed into a high security holding cell. For the next five hours of careful monitoring, nothing of interest occurred until a guard noticed movement. The man in the cell was detaching his left arm! With some deft manipulation of the arm, he attached it onto the hinges of the door and proceeded to huddle in a corner under his jacket. The cell door blew off its hinges with an almighty explosion, and a great fireball surrounded the high-security cabin of the Marine ship.

The mysterious prisoner was still alive after the blast, and he bolted out of the newly created opening while stealing the recently deceased Marine's military sabre. Although charred and blackened in the explosion, it was still usable and was therefore salvaged for later use. Seeing as this was a hopeless situation, he hacked a large plank out of the deck of the ship and as a last-ditch effort, flung himself into the ocean.

Corporal Zack Riley, who was dragged onto this crew merely by a lack of things to do, gave a smile. Recent events had transpired much to his advantage. He quickly drew his gun and fired a blast at the escapee's back. The unfortunate fugitive gave a yelp and began bleeding.

"Sir, he's not dead yet!" shouted Riley to his commanding officer. Said his officer, "Let him suffer. That bullet's going to do its job sooner or later. And even if he survives the wound or the infection, he'll soon go mad of thirst… water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink… I've seen it before, lad, and it's not a pretty sight. Tell the helmsman to turn this ship around- we're going back to HQ for repairs."

The escapee gently bobbed on his recently stolen plank. Ignoring the badly stinging pain in his right shoulder, he set to work quickly. Using the sabre, he hacked out a cryptic message on the piece of wood in a language known to a select few people in the world, a select few who are hunted down mercilessly by the World Government. Having done that, he waited to die a painful death. In a twenty minutes that seemed like days, his will deserted him and he drew his last breath.

A few hours later, a corpse was seen by a passing merchant ship in the area. Some birds were pecking at it, trying to extract all nutritional value from the cadaver. The ship sailed away, eager to quickly escape the grisly scene. Nobody noticed the piece of wood clutched in a dead man's grasp.

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The recently damaged Marine ship slowly made its way back to its headquarters. Still confused at the day's recent events, Corporal Zack Riley walked back to the barracks, deep in thought. As he passed the Captain's cabin, he heard the captain making his report for the day.

"Sir, the thief escaped. He blew the door of his cell and killed the guard by removing a prosthetic arm we didn't know he had and fixing it to the door. How he survived the blast I don't know. He took the dead guard's saber, hacked a plank out of the deck, and jumped into the sea. Corporal Riley managed to shoot him above the right shoulder."

Zack grinned. This might mean a pay raise for him. He continued to eavesdrop on his captain's report.

A new voice coming out of the Den Den Mushi started to speak, but Zack did not recognize it. "How did he manage to survive an explosion strong enough to break the hinges off a door, yet be killed by a bullet shot from a regular pistol?" Zack wasn't really sure about this one. "Also, do you think he knew what the object he stole was for? If he didn't, why would he go through all the trouble of stealing it?"

"I doubt he knows what it's for, since very few people in the world know. Unless there was a Marine that leaked that information, nobody outside the World Government would know about the Three Keystones." Zack listened more intently, since neither did he. "Either he steals for the sheer unadulterated hell of it, or someone with information leaked from the Marines commissioned him to do the job. I'd like to find his body, though, just to find some peace of mind. We didn't find the Keystone on him, but who knows if he's stashed it some other prosthetic we don't know about?"

"Sure. We'll have five recon ships out within a ten mile radius of where your ship was in about four hours. Thanks for all your help, and I'll see you at base in a while."

The Den Den Mushi began to emit a loud, single tone, and the captain hung up. He began to leave his cabin, so Zack bolted to the barracks and pulled the sheets over his head, and the world turned toward night.

The next morning, Zack woke to find the ship fully repaired and docked at the Marine's base. He and his fellow Marines went onto the deck and reported for duty. As they had been sent out on an emergency run the previous day, they earned a day off. The crew quickly dispersed and went off on their own business. As Zack turned to leave, however, his captain grabbed him.

"Corporal- good job yesterday. We'd like to see you, though, there're some mysteries we'd like to clear up. Follow me, if you will."

Zack trailed closely behind the captain and found himself in a room containing, surprise of surprise, the corpse of the escapee. A sabre with traces of blood on it lay next to him, and he had a massive stab would in his face.

"Doctor, if you will, please brief us," said the captain.

"Gladly. As you can see, there is a severe stab wound in the escapee's face. This, and the sabre found embedded in it when we found him, leads me to believe that he committed suicide in order to escape the slow death of thirst," explained the doctor.

"We have a question we'd like to clear up, Doctor. This man managed to survive a high powered blast with no apparent protection, yet was killed by a bullet from a Marine-issue pistol. Can you explain this?"

"Uhm... no, not really..." muttered Zack.

"Well, we know that he was not a devil fruit user; otherwise he would have been unable to remove the seastone walls of the containment chamber without being detected," said the doctor. " This leads me to believe that this-" the doctor held up a jacket so dark it seemed to absorb light "- has been combined with a devil fruit. We've tested it, and it seems to have been combined with the Shubi Shubi no Mi. Anything that you do to it will have no effect whatsoever, unless the weapon you're using happens to be seastone, or, as it so fortuitously occurred in this situation, he was in the ocean.

"And then there's the matter of this," said the doctor, while holding up a piece of wood with odd symbols carved into it. The captain gaped at the carving.

"This guy knows the language of the Poneglyphs too?" demanded the captain.

"Apparently so…"

"What're Poneglyphs?" asked Zack.

"Nothing you need to worry about," said the captain. "You're free to go now, Corporal."

"Actually, sir, I'd like to ask something of you. Would it be all right if I kept that jacket?" asked Zack. "I'm pretty sure it could help me with something I've recently been testing." He grinned.

"Doctor, is there any reason why Zack can't have the jacket? Does it need to be further tested?"

"Er, no, I guess not…," mumbled the doctor.

"Then it's yours! I'm sure it'll come in handy for you someday. As that seems to be all, you can go now."

Zack gave a smile of manic happiness, grabbed the jacket, and bounded off to his bunk.

"Crazy kid…"

The captain walked off to the general vicinity where Zack had headed, shaking his head and smiling.

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Zack returned to his bunk, trying on the jacket. It fit better than it could have, so he was happy with that. He put it on, produced a large blunt instrument from the depths under his bunk, and gave himself a good thumping. It did no damage whatsoever, and Zack was pleased with his result. Still uncertain of the powers of his new jacket, he flung himself out of his five-story-high window and hit the ground with nary a scratch. The novelty of guiltlessly jumping off cliffs wore off rather quickly, though, and he began to set his plan into motion.

It was almost unthinkably lucky he got his hands on this jacket...

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Author's Note: I hope you liked this chapter better than my old one! There's not much difference but soon there will be. Also, interesting fact: This fanfic stemmed from me randomly shouting "I'm a veteran suicide bomber!" at school. In any case, the new chapter with new characters and other cool things like that should be up in three days. I've got a busy summer...