AN: HI! Please read this quick before going on!

This story is wildly, utterly AU. No, really. The geography and characteristics of this world are different, the character roles are changed, the logistics and technicalities are unrecognisable. So please don't read on thinking that this is set in the One Piece world. It absolutely isn't.

You will learn more about this world as you go on. Devil fruits? Their alternative in this world is explained in this chapter, and in more detail later on. The geography? Yep, I'll explain that. Nobels? Explained in this chapter. Etc, etc.

This story will be quite long, and split into three parts: Ace's, then Luffy's, then Sabo's. This chapter, as well as those following it for quite a while, are in Ace's segment.

I hope you enjoy! Please tell me if you found anything confusing.


Summary: 'Change is coming,' the bitter north wind howls as a freckle-faced, star-skinned child is born. 'And it's coming now.' - Ace and his brothers made a promise to always protect each other and, when Luffy went missing a year later, he and Sabo vowed to give everything to find him again. Four years later, Ace is a war-hardened revolutionary setting out to save his brothers. AU.

Warnings: Violence, swearing. No explicit scenes.

Disclaimer: I don't own it.

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THANKS FAM


Chapter 1 – Tell Me Your Lies


My name is Portgas D. Ace.

My name is Portgas D. Ace, and I'm eighteen years old. I'm a revolutionary. I have - or, had, two brothers.

And I'm broken.

(I don't mean that in a poetic sense, either. The doctors call it 'mental instability', phrase it as a myriad of disorders and traumas but I know better. Something's lost. I can't find it, and I don't know where to start looking.)

And I'm only writing in this thrice-damned book because old man Herr says it might help. I know it probably won't – the only thing I can imagine helping now is being with the Whitebeards again, or seeing my little brother, or going back in time and making it so that I never even met Outlook D. Sabo. After all, he's the one that caused this emptiness. (God, I miss him.)

Well, I guess I should start from the beginning. I'll burn this book the second I can use my fire again - not that that's very likely now - but writing out what happened might help to, I don't know, soften the ache? Don't ask me; I'm no goddamned psychologist, cousin.

I digress.

So, I'll start at the very beginning. Eighteen years ago, I was born in the harsh, chaos-reigned East.


Darkened streets, laced with wet flagstone that glints in the rain, are slashed by lightening. Somewhere, a clock is striking three. The sun has yet to lighten the horizon, and the storm rages on. Lining the streets, shops are boarded up tightly and the windows of houses are dark. This is the twilight hour – and no soul in the city is awake to watch the grimy streams of water that rush through the gutters as the streets slowly begin to flood.

Quickly, imperceptibly, the wind changes.

A harsh gust of wind from the north sends raindrops like bullets powering into windows. Once-colourful posters that line the street corners are now mottled and dog-eared, ink dripping down concrete to meet the earth. Apart from the war drums of thunder, the symphony of the pouring rain, the city is silent.

The people of this city, though they don't know it, would do well to be wary of this new north wind.

This north storm, cold and harsh and from lands far away, is wild and untamed. Along with it comes a shadow, dipping through alleyways, sodden with rain as its feet slap through marbled puddles of water and oil. In its ears ring a promise, and its heart is aflame. This shadow, this silent shape in the weeping night, knows that change is coming.

It's coming now.

The shadow stumbles through overturned carts and market stalls, and around them the rain is silver in the light of the waxing moon. They walk unevenly and their breaths come in huffs, tight with pain. They clutch a bundle to their chest, and they shiver as the cold seeps through their distinctive leather-collared jacket. Still, they carry on moving. The bitter wind is close on their heels.

The shadow reaches a building near the outskirts of Edge Town and raps hard on the door; once, twice, before the door opens onto darkness and a hand reaches from within to pull them in. The door snaps closed, and there is silence once more, broken only by the rain and the wild, contented growl of the north wind. The residents will wake tomorrow to a watery sun, rebuild their homes after a harsh storm - and they'll carry on, unknowing of just what the wind has brought them.

Change is coming, the wind howls, slipping back to lands far away. And it's coming now.


My mother, I'm told, was a kind woman. She died the day after she gave birth to me, only staying alive long enough to drop me with some bandits that her father, my granddad (who I've never met), was on good terms with. So I spent my first two or three years with the bandits. I never learnt how to read and write – Sabo was the one who taught me that, years and years later – and my speech was really behind, because they were goddamn bandits, not babysitters.

I guess I'm sorta lucky, in that way, that I met Shanks. He was from the north and was only staying in the east for a few months to recuperate after a 'rough few months at home', as well as to visit some chick somewhere in the town that I didn't meet until he was gone. Shanks came to visit a few times afterwards and honestly, he was probably the closest thing I ever had to a father. He taught me how to speak and act like I wasn't a rabid animal, at least. He took me under his wing.


Ace's earliest memory is from when he was around three or four, if he was to guess. A man with a familiar smell and scarlet hair that Ace clutches with small, chubby fingers picks him up and situates him on his hip, grinning fondly as Ace babbles happily in the few words that he knows. The sea air fills his young nose, sharp and sweet, and the wind gusts lazily through the crowds.

Today's the day of some kind of special celebration in the city. The people of the city are gathered around, thronging and heaving forward, flooding the streets with loud cheering and flag-waving. Something about it makes Ace feel sort of… off. If a toddler can feel that way at all. Mothers and fathers hold their children back, and everybody's looking down to the floor, slightly hunched, shadows in their eyes.

The parade is different, too. Ace has seen a few parades in his short life- the annual Autumn March and the winter display, to name a few. But there are no bright colours and music now. Five, maybe ten men strain at ropes at the front of the single parade float – if it can even be called that. Weighed down by a gold chair and the stick-thin, curled-lipped man on top of it, the float moves at a snail's pace through the city. As it passes, the people bow their heads. A tremble, a whimper rushes through the crowds.

(this is how the world ends; not with a bang, but with a whimper)

One of the men pulling the float steps forward on one trembling leg, and then hits the floor with a crack that resounds through the air. Shanks flinches. When Ace turns to him, young eyes wide, he sees that he's trembling – not out of fear, but out of rage. His usually bright eyes are shadowed, and he holds Ace tighter.

"Guilty."

When the thin man on the float speaks, some sort of device on his shoulder amplifies his voice and turns it into a distorted monstrosity, a grotesque imitation of speech. Ace hides his face in Shanks' shoulder, and the older man covers his eyes as the float rolls over the man's still body. Ace can't see it but he knows; the fallen man has just been crushed. He's dead, all because he fell while tugging along some stupid old man. Ace wants to yell out at how disgusting it all is, at how his young mind can't seem to wrap around the malformed body and the blood streaming into the gutter, but the second the float has passed them Shanks whisks him away.

Hours later, Ace perches on a crate on Shanks' boat, opposite Benn. Benn's nice enough. He sort of reminds Ace of a kind, low-voiced uncle, if Shanks is his father. The man on the float and all of the men who once pulled him; they're all gone. Shanks is nowhere to be found.

Benn sighs, looking beyond his years for a moment. "That man, who was being pulled by the slaves, is something called a Hyumangoddo. They're not nice people. I doubt that that was the last time you'll ever see one, either. But listen to me, Ace. Whenever you see one – no matter what you're doing and who you're with – you run. Run as hard and as fast as you can. Those men don't care about you, or anyone, really. All they care about is that mark on the back of your neck."

"Mark?" Ace parrots. He reaches up to the back of his neck and taps the pale skin there, so often covered up.

"Yes." Benn looks grim. "That mark means that you're free – and more importantly, that you're powerful – and those are the two things that the Hyumangoddo think only they deserve to be. That mark means that you were born with an ability, one that will show itself in a few years, I'll bet. You'll be strong. One in a few thousand are born with those marks on their necks, and nobody has the same one."

It's all so confusing to Ace, with his young mind and the innocence that doesn't last much longer. "Shanks?" he asks. Shanks'll know what to do, surely.

Benn's face goes from grim to sorrowful. "The captain doesn't much like the goddos. They took somebody he cared about, a long time ago."

Ace doesn't understand very much. Is Shanks okay, or not? How can he make it better? He can't figure out, for the life of him, what's wrong.

Three months later, the small band of sailors set course for rough northern seas, and Benn warns him one last time; keep your mark hidden, never tell anybody your full name – and if you see any of the Hyumangoddo, run. Ace replays the words over in his head as Shanks scoops him into a fatherly hug, ruffling his wayward hair, and then they're gone and they've left behind a fear in Ace that he's immensely unused to. As he grows, he becomes more wary, sticking to back alleys and dark, narrow streets as he navigates the city.

Benn's last warning rings in his head whenever he hears news of the world nobles, and from then on, he stays out of sight when the yearly parade rolls by, with its silence and coldness and fear.


Remember that chick I mentioned? Well, a few months after Shanks and the other sailors set off again, I met her. Her name was Makino, and apparently she was from the South (yep, I know). She wasn't all that bad, though. I only knew her for a few days before she gave birth to Shanks' kid, and she died pretty soon afterwards. Growing up as I did, it wasn't the first time I'd seen death, but I was a damn four-year old alone in an alley, with a baby and a dead body. I knew that if I brought the kid back to the bandits they'd probably, I don't know, eat it or something.


Ace's hands shake as he grasps Makino's wrist, trying to offer some kind of comfort as tears run down her soft, smiling face. Her eyes are growing rapidly more distant with every passing seconds, and the hand that isn't cradling her new-born son is half-submerged in the puddle they sit in. The wind howls mournfully, tousling Ace's grimy hair. Against his will, he feels tears fill his own eyes.

"Thank you, Ace-kun…" Her sweet voice is shaking, even as she tries her hardest to keep it steady. Her body is giving out. "Tell Shanks…Tell him-"

She gasps in pain, a whine tearing from her throat as the wind picks up around them, and Ace forces himself to try and smile. This is all so confusing, and the rain is too loud for him to be able to think properly. "It's okay," he tries, the words heavy on his tongue. That's what Shanks always used to say to him, after all. "It's okay, it's okay, it's-"

Her eyes roll back and, abruptly, they no longer see.

"-Okay." Ace stares for a long second before a sob rises unbridled in his throat, and he covers his mouth with his hand. The new-born baby cries loudly as if he knows that something awful has happened, skin paling as the rain patters down on his cold skin, and Ace tries to pull him towards him as he reins back another choked gasp. "It's okay, it's okay. Take care of you. It's okay. It's okay."

Eventually, tiny hands fisted in Ace's ratty tank top, the child stills and goes silent. For a heart stopping moment Ace thinks that he's dead, too.

That's not the case, though, and warm breath tickles his chest as he cradles the tiny, fragile bundle to him. Outside, the city screams with the rising monsoon and Ace starts to wonder just what on earth he can even start to do now.


So I tried to raise Luffy on my own. There were some street artists on the other side of the city who took us in and, without them, we probably would've frozen to death within a few days. They were a bit rough around the edges ('a bit' is a gross understatement) but they helped me with the baby for a few years, until I was seven or so and I was old enough to scavenge my own food for me and the kid.

Luffy didn't actually have a name until he was two or three, and I took it upon myself to give him a half-decent one. Just calling him 'little cousin' probably wouldn't work out in the long run. I mean, one of the bandits used to call him 'fluffy' because of his hair, and I guess six-year old me just rolled with it.


The kid's third birthday comes without much fuss. Ace knows that it's today because the tiny, black-haired child, all wide eyes and thin limbs, was born on children's day. He could never forget this day.

Ace wakes him with a gentle prod to the side as the morning sun starts to filter through the rotten boards of the walls and ceiling. This old house is close to collapse, and he and his unofficial little brother will have to move on soon, but for now this is shelter enough. The street artists are already out, setting up their meagre wares in the light of the morning sun, and Ace can hear them talking merrily. Across the city, the yearly children's day festival is already starting to stir.

The kid wakes without complaint, bright smile already in place, and Ace is already in a better mood just from looking at it. Maybe they can take a day off today, head over to the festival, and he can nick the boy something worthwhile for his birthday. Yeah, they can do that.

The pair slip out into the sunlight and across the street a few minutes later, waving to the artists that they call family on the street corner as their feet scuff the dry, dusty rubbish that lines the gutters. If it was later in the year, this island would be awash with monsoons and flooding, but right now they'll just have to deal with sweltering, stinging heat. As a result of growing up here in this intense seasonal heat, Ace's skin is washed in a subtle tan, and Luffy is very brown. With similar shocks of messy, black hair and small, skinny bodies, they look just like brothers.

The streets ring with jovial voices and music threads through the air. The black-haired child, clinging to Ace's side, sniffs eagerly as the sweet smell of carnival food drifts on the breeze, mixing with the warm scent of fresh bread from a nearby bakery. He tries to toddle away towards the appetising smells but Ace pulls him back at the last minute, keeping the tiny boy tucked closely against him.

This town seems like heaven, but the people watch the world with shadowed eyes and they speak to nobody as they go about their work in forced silence. Ace hates this place, even though he's so young. Deep down, there's something jarringly wrong here. Beneath the bright colours of festivities and feasts, people are scared; and Ace knows all too well that being scared turns people rotten. He might be young, but if he was stupid he would be dead.

Feeling abruptly skittish, Ace situates his younger companion in an alleyway with strict instructions not to move until he gets back. The child in question starts to play contentedly with a malformed, rusted tin on the ground, and Ace turns away with a small smile; he reckons that he'll be occupied for at least a few minutes while the older searches for something for his birthday.

A few minutes later, when Ace returns with a lightly steaming bun clutched in warming hands, the kid is gone.

Ace lets the warm treat slip from his small fingers, hitting the ground and rolling through the fine sand. A second later he's running further into the alley, the word 'kid!' slipping from frenzied lips over and over as he almost trips over the abandoned tin can. He catches himself and continues on, unsteady on young legs. Damnitt. He should never have left him.

"Ace!" A young voice rings out distantly, muffled and distorted as he stumbles over the word, and Ace runs harder into the depths of the alley, weaving through the dark. "Help m-"

His voice silences suddenly, and panic thrums under Ace's skin like a war drum. Kicking up dust that hovers on the air behind him, the child follows the voice until he stumbles around a corner and into the sunlight.

"Ace!"

Ace almost sags in relief when his eyes land on his charge, running over to assess the damage. The kid is trapped under a fallen wagon and the sidestreet they're in is deserted, no adults around to help. Even if there was anybody here, though, Ace heavily doubts that they would do much.

Tears fill his kid's eyes, and Ace scans him for any injury. The heavy wheelbarrow that has apparently landed on him is digging into his small back, tearing his ratty old shirt, and Ace can see blood pooling there. He needs to get him out of there, and fast.

"Cousin?" Ace puts his hands on Luffy's shoulders, trying desperately to calm him down. "Kid, listen, you need to calm down. Kid!" The object of his concern is inconsolable, face screwed up in pain, crying out as his skin tears. Tears of frustration well up in Ace's own eyes, and he scrambles to his feet, moving around to try and lift the wheelbarrow with shaking hands. Pulling at it feverishly, it takes Ace a few seconds to pull the heavy weight up, and in the blink of an eye, Luffy's out.

Adrenaline that he's never felt soaring through him, Ace crashes down to the ground and pulls the closest thing he has to family close to him. The two children clutch at each other in the street, dust sticking to tear tracks on both of their faces, and they don't move for a while.

"Kid!" The younger, still snivelling, doesn't look up. "…Fluffy?" Ace tries, feeling slightly ridiculous. That's what a few of the street artists usually call him, and he tends to respond to it.

The name works, surprisingly, and watery brown eyes meet his own silver ones. "'Loofy?"

Ace gives a breathy laugh, clutching Luffy tighter as the panic finally wears off. "Loofy… Luffy. Luffy." A grin spreads across his face, and Luffy picks up on it, beaming back widely as the tears start to slow. "Happy birthday, Luffy. I guess I gave you a name this year."


When I was nine, the artisans moved on. Of course, they wished us the best and left a little money, but things got a lot tougher. Luckily Luffy didn't have a Gift (I still kept the back of my neck covered all the time) but life was still tough. Things only got worse when he took over.


The siege takes three days altogether. For a week or so before, terrified whispers swept through the city like wildfire. Parents locked their children indoors, the markets and squares were silent, and thunder brewed in the sky as the southward storm clouds rolled in. For those few days, Ace kept Luffy inside, trying to keep his surrogate brother warm even as the nights grew colder with each day. The city they knew so well seemed like it had been sucked into a vacuum, motionless and terrified. Rumours flew, and Ace was utterly unnerved by the terror in the people's voices as they uttered the unfamiliar name of 'Blackbeard'.

When the siege finally begins, it's with a whimper and not a bang. The people of the port district on the south side of the dusty eastern city watch with baited breath as one, two, three, five, ten ships roll in silently. Black water licks at the broad sides of the logboats, and as the last light of day fades from the sky, their leader steps onto the docks. Ace presses Luffy closer to him, hiding his face in his side.

The man is tall and imposing, overweight in every sense of the word and missing more teeth than Ace cares to count. He wears a captain's jacket, and his fingers are stained yellow from what he can assume is years of smoking and drinking – that's how the regulars in the bars look, anyway. When he laughs, it sounds vaguely like a polyester-covered man taking a stroll through a forest- grating and, honestly, making Ace want to cringe. He can almost smell he damn breath from here.

From where Ace and Luffy stand a way off, they can see more figures immerge from the boats, many of them weighed down with various weapons as they grin menacingly. It feels almost surreal, watching these people step out into the dust of their homeland. A deep-seated twinge of fear tickles Ace's heart, and he swallows.

"Luffy?" He keeps his voice a low, soothing whisper, and Luffy looks up at him with terrified eyes. He knows that something is terribly wrong here. Around them, the crowds are silent. "I'm going to count to three, and then we're going to run, okay?"

This seems to put Luffy even more on-edge. "Ace, who are they? What do they want with us?" His voice is a childish whine to anybody else, but to Ace it's a terrified plea, and his heart breaks.

"Shh, Luffy, it's okay. We're okay. This is- this is okay." Ace swallows again, clasping his hand around Luffy's. "Don't be scared. They're just some visitors." He hesitates.

Ace has heard rumours about this 'Blackbeard' man; many of them. For one, he's an anarchist. Everybody knows about anarchists. They sort of remind Ace of the pirates in the plays they put on in the town square – they travel from island to island, taking over whatever and wherever they damn please. They're the stuff of nightmares, the bumps in the night that the adults are afraid of, too.

This anarchist, though, is stronger than most average thugs. They call themselves the 'Blackbeard Pirates', even though the era of pirating is long gone. Blackbeard and his crew apparently took over Cocoyashi and Syrup Village in only a few hours, killing the men and kidnapping and attacking the women and children, and amassed their forces on Loguetown, a nearby city, with a vengeance. Even the strength of that naval powerhouse wasn't enough to hold them off.

Now that they're here, Ace knows perfectly well what fate awaits this island. Awaits him and Luffy.

"We'll be okay as long as we run, okay?" Benn's warning flashes through Ace's mind, and he suddenly wishes to feel Shanks' hand ruffling his hair, or hear the warm laughter of the artisans as they work, or watch the men at the bar crack up laughing as he beats one of them at cards. He doesn't have a home, but he's wishing for one more than ever right now.

Ace realises with a jolt that he's scared.

"On three, okay?" Luffy squeezes his hand harder and nods tearfully in response. On the docks, a thin man with some kind of long sniper rifle at his side fixes his smirk on the pair, and Ace shudders violently. They need to get out of here right now. "One…"

The hand on the rifle twitches.

"Two…!"

Ace has to time this perfectly. Just before three, as he feels Luffy tense beside him to run, he swipes his leg outwards and feels it catch a man standing to their side on the ankle. He's always been strong and this is no exception- the man yells out and hits the floor, dragging the woman clinging to his arm down with him. People stop and stare, and the commotion is enough for Ace to hiss, "Three!"

They dive into a sea of legs, feet slapping on the wet cobblestone, and the rifle goes off with a sharp crack. Another man falls, and a bullet grazes the ground beside Luffy, causing him to yell out in panic. As Ace feels the open air on the back of his neck he realises it with a jolt; he's not wearing his scarf. With the frantic scramble to get to the port district when the alarm went up, he forgot to cover up his mark. And now, with the scope on that rifle, surely it's been seen.

Ace runs harder, panting with exertion as he tugs Luffy along with him. Above, thunder cracks at the same time as another gunshot sounds. White-hot pain lances through Ace's left elbow, and he grits his teeth against the urge to scream out. They may have been island-stealing sons of bitches, but they had a damn good sniper.

"C'mon, cousin," he grits out as soothingly as he can as Luffy stumbles. He hasn't called Luffy that term of endearment for years. "Just a little further!"

Three more shots, loud enough to make Ace's ears ring, rip through the air. Luffy screams and starts to fall, and faster than he's ever moved, Ace tugs the younger sloppily onto his back and continues on. Wetness hits his shoulder as Luffy sobs helplessly, and something hot and sticky starts to soak Ace's side.

Right now, he doesn't care about some thrice-damned 'abilities' that come with the mark on his neck. All he cares about is that his little cousin, practically his brother, is bleeding, and it's all because he was born with some stupid tattoo.


Luffy nearly died that day and we had to go into hiding for good. And, even though things had been fucked to hell before then, that was the point when everything got ten times worse.


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(As you might have guessed, Ace's segment explains his backstory leading up to and inclusive of his time with the Whitebeard Pirates. Yes, it does get more interesting and detailed! Right now, Ace's young memories are vague as shit, so it's all a little fast-paced.)