Greetings All, I'm back with other project, this concept has been sitting in the forge for a while now. Then the brain ticked over and hey lets get this one piece story rolling.
Well sit, back, relax and enjoy. Quake

Prologue: A Life, Full Of Troubles

"What is a pirate?….. What does it mean to be one?"

There was a time, where people would freely travel the globe and be happy to be labelled as a pirate. The Great Age of Pirates which was started by a single man, Gol D Rogers the Pirate King. Upon his death, his final words caused every pirate to set sail into search of Rogers' treasure, the 'One Piece'.

Records state that this age started to reshape the world to point where the World Government was forced to act. Some believe the events that followed from the Great Age of Pirates were on the same scale of what occurred during a hole in history known as the Void Century. From whatever scraps of information that have survived about this age, all had something in common. A single name…. The Strawhats.

From what was written about these Strawhat Pirates, every piece of text would describe them as an unstoppable force of change. Their captain, one Monkey D Luffy managed to become the next Pirate King and created a legend that rivaled the previous king. Some history books would label this as some of the darkest times in history.

Both the World Government & Marines were on the verge of collapsing until a single event occurred that shook the entire world to its core. After a few years, the Pirate King Luffy was murdered, how he died is still unclear. But some sources claim that the Marines managed to sneak an operative into the Strawhats ranks. However all sources state that Monkey D Luffy was killed by someone he personally called a friend.

The World Government took advantage of this confusion and shut down the age of pirates. They swept through the grand line eradicating any pirate and anyone involved with pirates. Thus creating a massive cage around the world. Any surviving pirates were forced to scatter across the globe to escape the fate of their comrades as well as to keep the Will of Pirate King alive.

From that point onwards, the World Government kept a strict eye on any devil fruit or any family with a genetic ability that would shake up world. That was around 300 years ago, these days being labelled a pirate is a death sentence. And anyone who breaks the rules will be labelled a pirate and suffer severe consequences. That's how tight the World Government's grip on the world is.

Devil Fruits use to be a sort after commodity however after the pirate age ended, specialised facilities started appearing. They had two distinct objectives one, to train hunters in the ways of fighting and capturing people with devil fruit abilities and two, experimenting on those captured people in order to recreate those devil fruit abilities for the World Government to use in their mechanical soldiers known as Pacifista.

With these specialised facilities and another major military bases. The Marines who serve as the front line for the World Government have created a large domain in the world which covers the majority of the grand line and surrounding islands in all 4 of the seas.

Constantly expanding their domain, more and more nations are being pressured to join the World Government and receive their so called protection. They get pushed beyond their breaking point sure constant lack of supply from their blockades or overwhelming presence. Any nation who decides to push back without having a bargaining chip will disappear.

There are some nations who have managed to evade the crushing grip of the World Government. Either the World Government has deemed the island uninhabitable or the island is governed by a trade prince who actually own the rights to major trade routes in the sector.

Such places like Amazon Lily and East Goldshire where due to the nature of the island's themselves, the Marines are unable to gain control of the place.

East Goldshire is where this story starts and where my life unexpectedly takes a turn down an unknown path. I have lived here for the majority of my life under the care of a family friend, a blacksmith named Francis Nicopoliski. However there was time where I lived with my parents, we would move from island to island. I can't even remember the place where I was born.

We moved around a lot because my father, he was a legendary hero of the Marines, One Matthew James Murdoch. Because of this I have seen the world's true colours many times, the worst I saw was at a place called Anchoridge located in the Anchor Archipelagos.

That was one of the dark stains in the Marines history, a major resistance developed in the populous to fight the controlling government and the Marines. The order was given to cull the resistance and any supporters they might have. Within one night a population of 5 million was cut down to a fifth of its original size.

The remaining survivors were branded with a six digit number on their left forearm. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Marine soldiers didn't know that I was the son of the hero or it could been the fact that they just didn't care.

Soon after that the Anchor Archipelagos were locked down, my dad managed to use his power within the military to get us out of there. Before I could tell, that event was only the start of my troubles. While travelling away from the Anchor Archipelagos, my eyesight started becoming sharper and I started noticing the smallest details in the world.

My father worried this would happen, he was born with a genetic ability called Acute Micro Visual Awareness, it has many names in different cultures, the most common one being Emperor's Sight. Basically it means the brain is naturally overclocked and is able to see those smallest details like microexpressions and act upon them.

My father was able to use this to his advantage during combat, by closely watching the opponent and seeing the smallest changes in their body to be determine where they would strike from. The World Government has deemed this ability too dangerous to be out of the World Government's Control. Therefore to protect myself no one must be able to learn my last name.

During the time traveling with my family, there was a certain island that could never recall the name of. All I remember was playing in a massive junkyard to the point where i couldn't find my way out. I remember being so hungry I even thought about trying to capture the rats within the junkyard to survive.

Until I stumbled across a strange box which looked like a small treasure chest. Inside it was the strangest looking fruit I have had ever seen. It was purple in colour with weird archway patterns, but at the time I was so hungry I didn't care what it looked like, to me it was food.

It was the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted. After that doors started opening up for me. I remember my parents freaking out about what happened. That's where my father decided it would be safer for me to live with a family friend in a neutral island. Hidden away from the eyes of the world government.

My life started to calm down once I started living in East Goldshire, the people there were very nice and friendly. As long as I kept my left forearm covered, I wouldn't be asked any questions about that branding. Life was great, living with my guardian Francis at his house which happened to be the place he worked. The city's blacksmith "Pyrite's Hammer", the most renowned smith in all of East Goldshire.

Living there never made life dull, every day was different and being able to help Francis with his work was unbelievable. I even started to think all my troubles have finally ended, due to the Trade Princes rule the World Government and their Marines could never reach me. To think my troubles were finally over…. Such naive thinking….

After living with Francis for a couple of years, I started to notice a small phase etched into the rafters. Even tho it looked just cracks in the rafters themselves, but the more I looked, the more it started to look like an ancient language.

I even managed to find an old device that had similar marking on it in the attic of Francis' house. It was a complete wreck but after while I managed to restore it to a semi working order. Through a lot of trial and error I have a verge idea of the thing I was repairing. It was a translator of some sorts, the majority of the internal mechanisms were fine, there was a of bent push rods that needed replacing.

I managed to get a rough translation of that small phase, "To obtain true freedom, Live with no regrets". Such simple words had a pretty strong effect on me, I can clearly remember the horrified face Francis had when I told him about my discovery. Another trouble came knocking I managed to stumble on a massive secret that the Trade Prince didn't even know about his own land.

East Goldshire had an hidden forge, built by the people living in that Void Century. If such a secret got out, the entire island would be destroyed. I learnt that Francis was actually a descendant of a Strawhat Pirate named Nico Robin and his family have been safeguarding this secret when Nico Robin herself came to this Island after the tragedy that befell her captain.

That small phase was like a form of initiation to find someone worthy to safeguard the secret of the Void Forge. After that Francis started to teach me the arts of the being a blacksmith. From Francis' teachings I learned the basic form of Armament Haki. After the learning that secret, the years seemed to pass rather quickly.

Before I knew, it was the year of my 18th birthday and it was year that everything started to spiral out of control. I managed to construct an sword using the Void Forge, by combining rare materials that Francis had collected over his life, which he gave me on my 17th birthday.

That weapon that I slaved over, was the final nail in the coffin, no weaponsmith in the world could successfully make a weapon that I did. I was told to keep the blade itself hidden at all times and make sure that I kept that either on me or in the vault at home. If the World Government found out that I made such a weapon, no one would be able to hide me from their wrath.

Forging that weapon was just the start, the point where my life truly crashed and burned was when I met a strange girl. She was clearly older than me, if I had to guess at her age I would say around Francis's age, so early 40's if not younger. But what made her so strange was that the fact, in this day in age she was one of those rare few who didn't fear the World Government.

She was a pirate, in fact she was the captain of her own pirate crew…. Captain Sophia 'Twin Fang' Campbell of the Twin Fang Pirates.