Before we get started, a few warnings:

Warning #1: Chapter 2 will not be posted soon. I posted the first chapter for you guys to get a feel for the story but I'm going to wait to update until I have chapter 7 written out. I have 3 1/2 chapters completed and normally it wouldn't take me long to get to chapter 7 and update but, as many of my veteran readers will note, I hurt my hand and it slows down my typing immensely. That being said, I'll try my best to get it done at as decent pace. So please don't ask for fast updates. The reason I'm waiting is because I have 5 other stories going, along with bonus chapters and oneshots that I'm working on. That's A LOT of writing. So if I suddenly add this to the list it'll get overwhelming. By waiting until I have 7 chapters written I'll assure that you guys will have more to read even if I can't work on the story for a while and stopping here prevents you from getting too involved in the story before having a long break. You may wonder why I didn't wait until later to upload this story. Well, I wanted to gage how many people are interesting and give all of my old and new readers a glimps into what the story is going to be like. Plus I felt bad for only updating one story since I hurt my hand.

Warning #2: This story is FILLED with foreshadowing, hints and things being more than they appear. I'll post a hint counter so that you can try to search for them if you feel like it, because you'll want to catch them early in order to follow the story completely. Some are VERY subtle, though. This chapter doesn't have too many but as the plot deepens there will be a lot more.

Hints: 7

Disclaimer: Don't own One Piece. If I did... Oh the things I would do.

The room was dimly lit, illuminated only by a lamp. Everything was bathed in a golden light. At the wooden desk was an old, worn-out book. It was opened. In it words were being written neatly in black ink by a large, unmarked hand. It hurriedly ran across the page, speeding up as what it wrote grew in intensity. And then it stopped, allowing the ink to pool where pen met paper.

The writer sighed and leaned back in his chair, tangling his hand in his pale blonde locks. He was starting to feel a smidge of regret. Sure it was only a character in his novel, but he had a nasty habit of growing attached to the fictional beings. It took a lot of time and effort to design them, come up with their mannerisms and build their personalities. After all of that they seemed to come to life on the page. And, in essence, they were each a part of him. That's what made the latest section of the story so difficult to write.

He found himself absently reaching for a second book. He opened it and flipped through the pages, momentarily looking at each of his drawings. The sketchbook contained designs for each and every character mentioned in the book. He had a habit of going to ridiculous lengths forming the individuals in his stories, going so far as to describe the way they laughed and moved—how they carried themselves. He gave them hopes and aspirations as well as fears and could understand the inner workings of their minds much like he did his own, even if they were villains. Truly he couldn't hate any of them because of how much he knew. Maybe that was part of being a novelist.

His absent flipping stopped when he reached the sketch of the character that was troubling him—Portgas D. Ace. When he designed that character he went into more detail than he usually did, which meant a lot seeing as he always went overboard to begin with. He didn't mean to—the character was made for a specific purpose and was not to become one of the main characters of the story—but couldn't stop. The information just spilled out onto the page as though it was natural. And again he grew attached.

Now he was facing off in an internal battle with himself. That character was made to die. The whole point of his existence was to be used as a catalyst that would send the main character on the path to becoming stronger. He based everything around that fact and now he was having regrets. Though he hadn't yet implemented it into the story, he had written out all of the aspects of his childhood and upbringing. He'd given him a hard life and a dark disposition—a result of what was said about his father. And finally, when he was truly happy for the first time, his life would end. He would sacrifice himself for his brother.

The blonde was left feeling guilty. Never before had he done something so cruel to one of his characters and his mind was wrought with sorrow. Even if the character was just a result of words on paper—a slice of his imagination—it felt wrong.

Come on, Sabo, you're overreacting.

He closed the sketchbook and sighed a second time before readying his pen. Again his neat handwriting continued and he began the arduous task of writing out the most tragic scene in the story thus far. He had Ace stop when he heard one of the Admirals insult his captain. He visibly cringed at the mental image, knowing what would lie ahead. He found himself ridiculous; he was mentally yelling at Ace to take Luffy and run despite being the one who was writing the scene out—a testament to just how much he liked the character. And then the fighting began. Luffy dropped the vivre card. Ace took a blow for him and fell into his arms.

"Sorry about this," Sabo murmured as his pen paused once more. He took a deep breath and wrote out one of the hardest things he ever had.

"Thank you for loving me."

As he finished the last sentence of that chapter he felt a warm liquid stream down one of his cheeks. Damn he was emotional. He felt like he just murdered one of his best friends. It wasn't right. After that he couldn't bring himself to continue. Gently the blonde closed the worn cover and placed it in the top drawer of his desk.

Sabo picked himself up and walked across the room before he collapsed on the bed, eyes tired and heavy. He felt a massive headache coming along and didn't want to move from that spot. The pounding started to get so bad that he couldn't move without writhing in pain.

In the midst of his turmoil he heard a bang come from the other room. He ignored the seething agony within his skull to push himself off the bed and grab a knife that was always kept on his nightstand before cautiously filing out into hallway. When he reached the other end he peeked around the corner to the living room. It didn't look like there was anything out of the ordinary—that is, until he looked down.

After a few minutes of blank stares he rubbed his head and turned around to head back into the bedroom. Clearly I'm hallucinating. Must be the headache. However, he was stopped when he heard groans coming from behind him. He froze in place. Never before did he have an audio-visual hallucination. He really must have been tired—or mentally ill.

"Ah, damn it!" a voice chocked out.

Slowly Sabo spun around with wide eyes. On his floor lay a shirtless, black-haired man covered in wounds. He was battered and bruised with his faced scrunched up in a look of pain. The man rubbed his head gently as the writer tried to process what he was seeing. He looked every bit like how he imagined Portgas D. Ace.

The man opened his eyes and sent a cold look his way. Sabo flinched; though he had written about that horrible glare he never thought he would bear witness to it. Then the freckled man gazed around the room, confusion ever-present on his face.

"Where the hell is this?" he asked, not expecting much of a reply.

Sabo swallowed heavily and prepared to speak. "My place." Again those icy eyes met his, sending shivers up his spine. "Who are you?"

The man shuffled until he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, arms resting on his thighs. He gave the area another glace before he scrutinized the boy in front of him, judging his appearance.

"Portgas D. Ace." Sabo felt his body grow numb. "Now tell me who you are."

The blonde raised a shaky hand to his forehead, eyes wide and disbelieving. He stumbled until his back was flush with the wall and he used it to keep himself steady as he tried to process what he was seeing. The knife slipped from his palm and clanked into the wood floor. Somehow a character from his latest novel had appeared in his living room just as he imagined him. No amount of rational thinking was going to fix that. He never had as lucid a hallucination as that before.

"Oi, you okay?" the man asked. When he received no answer he picked himself off the floor and headed over to the blonde, placing a worried hand on his shoulder.

Sabo jumped at the touch and it was clear by his confused expression that Ace noticed. That couldn't be real. He could feel the hallucination? Was that even possible? "This can't be happening," he mumbled in a daze. Was he going insane?

He felt the hand shake him a bit, bringing his attention back to reality—if it could be called that.

"Oi, you don't look so good. Maybe you should sit down."

Sabo looked at the man, shocked to see how real he appeared up close. "Y-yeah." He made his way over to the couch with Ace's help and sat on its plush surface, leaning into its back as he entered a more comfortable position. "Thanks." He just thanked a hallucination—by then he was too far gone.

"What's wrong?" Ace asked, showing just a bit of concern for the stranger.

"I-it's just… This is…" Sabo inhaled deeply in an attempt to calm himself. It worked, for the most part. "This shouldn't be possible."

Ace raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Sabo exhaled and began rubbing his temple to sooth his raging headache. "You're not real."

This time the freckled man's face contorted into a disbelieving look. "I'm plenty real. I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yes, that's what I don't get. You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't even exist."

Ace's eyebrow twitched at that last part. "Got a problem with me?"

Sabo sighed—that was exactly how he would expect his character to react to those words. He hated how accurate he was; he even got the tone right. "That's not what I'm saying. It's just… Portgas D. Ace is a character, not a real person."

"…What are you talking about?"

Feeling calm enough to stand, the blonde wrapped his hand around Ace's wrist and dragged him out of the room, down the hall and into his bedroom. He stopped at his desk and grabbed the sketchbook off its surface, flipping until he reached the character design of Gold Roger's son. He scanned the page and shivered at the similarities it held to the man behind him, and then handed it off to the latter.

Ace looked at the drawing. It showed him in his casual outfit wearing his orange hat and beaded necklace. There was a close-up of his dagger with lines trailing across it to areas of writing that elaborated on it. That went for the other items as well. On the other side of the page was very fine print. After reading some of it he noticed that it detailed his mannerisms, habits, physical features and even his narcolepsy. His brows knitted together in contemplation. "…What is this?"

"It's you, essentially." At that Ace turned and gave him a confused look before his focus returned to the book, scrutinizing it further. "Portgas D. Ace is a character in my novel."

Ace's eyes widened at that and he ran his hand across his image. That was him? He was just something drawn on a piece of paper? "…But I have memories. You're being ridiculous."

Sabo let out a shuddering breath as he opened the top drawer of desk and grabbed hold of the worn notebook with yellowed pages. He held it firmly in front of his face, flaunting it in an effort to make sure the man understood. If he really was the Ace he wrote about then he was stubborn as hell and the only way he would believe it was if he was showed undeniable proof. "If you really are Ace then all of your memories come from this."

Ace took the bound pages in his hand, skimming them to get the basics of what was written. The beginning detailed his capture and detainment in Impel Down but mainly focused on Luffy's attempt at rescuing him. Further in the setting changed to Marineford and explained the battle from the various perspectives of the people involved in the war, including his own. What scared him the most was that every thought of his mentioned was something he really did remember thinking at the time. Every feeling was correct. Every event was just as he remembered.

As he reached the last filled pages Sabo grabbed it from his hands, assuming he got the point. He felt a bit worried when he saw how pale the man got. The look on his face was completely blank, like he didn't even know how he was supposed to feel. Maybe explaining that to him wasn't the best idea.

"So you're saying I'm not real?"

Noting the shock in the man's posture, Sabo led him over to the bed and had him sit down. He hesitantly placed his hand on each of Ace's shoulders. After having such an extensive conversation he was starting to doubt that the man was a hallucination, especially with how solid he felt. Or maybe he was schizophrenic. Either way, Ace appeared too real to just ignore. "You weren't. But you're here now so you must be."

Or I've finally reached the end of my mental stability.

Ace looked at the blonde hopefully. He was just told that his entire life was false—someone's imaginings—and he wanted something to confide in that said he was more than that. He didn't want his existence to be a lie.

"I don't really get what's going on but what matters is that you exist now."

"Yeah, that's great and all, but nothing I know is real." At some point Ace resigned himself to what the blonde said, though internally he was fighting with himself, ridiculing his claims. He could at least play along, though.

"Forget about that—I'll figure something out. Just trust me okay? I created you, after all."

Ace snickered at that. "You did a horrible job."

"I can't believe one of my own characters just insulted me."

"Deal with it."

Sabo sighed. "Look: since you obviously don't have a place to go I'll let you stay here. Just…try not to damage anything; I know how you can be."

Ace rolled his eyes but was starting to calm down. "Fine. And…thanks."

The blonde smiled as he went to put his notebook away. "What kind of person would I be if I kicked my own creation out?"

There was a pause before Ace spoke up. "What's your name?"

The writer turned to face him once more. After that first wave of shock had passed he was starting to feel pretty excited about the turn of events. After all, that man was the character he'd grown fond of during his latest work. He felt bad for that last scene written in his notebook and felt helping the real, live version of him would wash away the guilt. "Sabo."

A/N: Can you believe I managed to only use one scene in this? Isn't that awesome? I like never do an entire chapter in one scene! So not much happened since this is a 'test' chapter. Keep in mind that I said this won't be updated for a while. Please understand. You have all of my other fics to read in the meantime, as well as the rest of the site. At least I'm stopping hear and not in chapter 3 which I just wrote before I hurt my hand (there's a cliffy there).

Please review and give be any feedback, predictions, insights, ideas ect you may have. They'll motivate me to write faster (though I still have other stories so...)!

...I feel like I need to write more. Oh well. Still it always feels so wrong when I start a story and don't have anyone to reply to...

Adieu~

-Angelle