Revolutionary: The Other Side of the Beli Coin
A/N: This is the first chapter of Part 1 which is split into 3 chapters.
Standard copyright disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.
Part 1 Chapter 1: Revolutionary
The greatest secret of the Revolutionaries was that, at the beginning, it was never about the ideals, it was about revenge, pure and simple revenge.
Alekyne Rexford panicked for the first time in a long while as he saw the latest news bite pass through his desk. Portgas D Ace had been captured by the World Government. This was news. Sending an urgent mental summons to his Uncle he relayed the information.
The reply was immediate from his Uncle. "Come at once; the Five will meet me at Baltigo within one day. Other agents will be summoned within three days after we come up with a plan. Priority immediate."
I know. He is my cousin after all. Alekyne stretched his mind out towards his younger brother Carlos, and Leon and Mikel, his two older martial brothers. We are required right away. Baltigo. Carlos, we will all go via down under. Five minutes to prepare. He then picked up a white den den mushi to call his youngest brother Edvard, passing on the same message. Alekyne threw on his overcoat, and exited his office. Walking down the stairs he passed by the staff, "I'm going out, won't be back for a while, keep a watch for me," he said to his ever trustworthy second-in-charge, after all the Spymaster knew every thought of everyone close to him. Every Special Forces operative was personally vetted by him and the power of his Devil Fruit. And none had ever betrayed the Revolutionaries. The government had tried to infiltrate a few spies, but they had been rejected and sent back, without any pertinent information about the Revolution. That was the fearsome power of the Devil Fruit that he had consumed when he was sixteen.
He walked out the back door into his own private garden. He saw a head emerge from the ground, first, then a torso and then legs finally coming out. He greeted his brother, "so the Hellraiser has arrived." Carlos laughed, punching his brother's arm in jest.
"C'mon then," he replied. "We have to pick up the others as well. With that Alekyne took Carlos's hand, and through the power of the Terra Terra Fruit they disappeared into the ground.
The two of them travelled through the ground using the power of the Terra Terra Fruit, from Le Grande to the location of their two older martial brothers, Mikel and Leon before all five would meet at Baltigo. Their youngest brother, Edvard Rexford would meet them there, he would fly in using the power of the Dragon Dragon Model: West, a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit. Emerging in the private garden on Baltigo, the four travellers saw the youngest member of the Five land, just as they were ready to go into the main building of the base. Edvard morphed from dragon to man as he landed a transformation that still surprised Alekyne every time it happened. The Five found that Dragon was already waiting for them. Following him into the private room, Dragon invited his three nephews, and Leon and Mikel, to sit down around the table.
"You know why you were called," he said.
"We do," Edvard answered, for them. "Ace, your adopted son, our cousin, is in trouble, isn't he?"
"So let's get down to it," Leon interjected, "we're going to bust him out aren't we?" He was basically a strict military man in nature and always to the point.
"Actually," Dragon answered, "we're intercepting the transport as they head to the execution site. Most likely they will be transporting from Impel Down to a holding cell at Marineford, their headquarters. They are going to want to do the execution in the full view of the public to raise morale, like when they executed Gold Roger, so they'll be conducting the execution in the open. Thus, they will be transporting from Impel Down to the execution site as well. And that gives us a few possible openings to execute our mission."
"So we just need to get the route then," Mikel said, calmly. He was bastard-born and had been given at a young age to a temple in a country near the Red Line until Dragon had found him, six years ago and taken him into the world of the Revolutionaries. The locals had called him holy and blessed because of his ability to heal and lift 'curses'. Dragon had recognised that it was a Devil Fruit power. Since then, he had become one of the top special Forces agents of the Revolution, a team that only reported solely to Dragon.
"Don't worry, I look forward to play against Vice Admiral Tsuru again, but I reckon one of the Gorousei will know," Alekyne said. "If they leave the seastone clad buildings then I should be able to pick it up long range." Thin layers of seastone in the building's exterior walls was enough to block any long range psychic scanning without necessarily affecting those inside the building. And that was almost sure to be standard in Marineford. That was why he had conventional spies infiltrated within the World Government offices as well.
"We need to come up with a couple of plans depending on route, size of escort and time," Leon interjected, ever the military-man of the group. "Just work a few scenarios to see what we would likely need."
The others all agreed, but Dragon hushed them. "One more thing," he said. "Alekyne, there is to be a death mark put on all members of Blackbeard's crew. I want to know where they are at all times. The six of us will take them ourselves. I want a dossier on them straight after this mission is over."
The death mark was reserved for their greatest enemies. Not those of the World Government, as they were the enemies of the people and of the truth, but personal enemies, those who had hurt anyone in the Revolutionaries personally and this attack on Dragon's family…a death mark basically meant kill on sight by any means necessary, collateral damage, except for members of Black Operations or Special Forces Teams, did not matter.
"Of course," Alekyne replied, "It will be done as soon as possible after this mission." A dossier would involve a few things, a picture, information about any abilities and any other special information. He would personally oversee this dossier and do most of the information gathering by himself using the Zen Zen Fruit. "But we need to get back onto the mission at hand."
"There most likely will be at least one Admiral escorting the target. We will have to work out scenarios against all three," Edvard said. "One based on Kizaru, one based on Akainu and the last based on Aokiji." For a top level prisoner, one of the three Admirals would be the escort. Each of the Admiral's had consumed a Logia Devil Fruit, one light, the second, magma, the third, ice. And each had its own weaknesses.
The others agreed, "Each scenario will take into account the Devil Fruit powers that could be used. We know Akainu is said to be their most powerful, so I would think that there's a good chance it would be him, but I'll have to confirm that, if possible." Alekyne replied.
"Let's begin the analysis then," Mikel interjected. The six that were present began to labour over the analysis of what was needed and what was to be expected. A standard Marine formation most likely Dragon thought; but with the added unpredictability of an Admiral into the mix was what was probably going to be used. A couple of plans were bandied around and analysis and scenarios had to be run and tested depending on which high-ranking Marines were going to be in the escort party.
The Five were all definitely going, and Dragon would be watching, a hidden trump card just in case. The Marines would not expect the Revolutionaries to attack. They would not count of the Revolutionaries's Special Forces Squad to hit the escort. Besides the Five, they would have to take some more men, other lower levelled operatives in the Special Forces Squad. No doubt the Five would be in the thick of the fighting but they were all Devil Fruit users and so they needed cover against seastone and also they needed other jobs done like lookouts and someone to get the ship ready for the escape. They would need a full squad in hostile territory. Although rescuing a pirate from Marine custody generally was a 'black' operation, this one could not afford to be. They needed more than just the black operations team on this. Publicly, they would need to spin this as an action against the tyranny of the World Government, a matter of embarrassing them, in rescuing who was probably the highest profile prisoner in years. Many of the countries that the Revolutionaries were working to liberate were scared of pirates and had been hurt by them so Carlos and his public communications team would need to work to manage that fallout.
The planning continued into the afternoon as they changed some of the other variables, just in case Alekyne couldn't pick up the exact route and composition with the power of the Zen Zen Fruit or get the information from his spies in time.
Carlos and Alekyne had to return back to their respective missions at the end of the day, but Edvard stayed at Baltigo with Leon and Dragon. Mikel flashed out, using the power of his Devil Fruit, the Holy Holy Fruit, to go back to Chiyo where one of the others in the Twelve Stars was currently in charge of liberating that country from the World Government's tyranny.
The Twelve Stars were commanders of the Revolutionary special forces. They were special agents, part of the Special Forces team; they would command more simple special operations such as assassinations of tyrants, sabotage missions and other actions against the World Government resources. They would also oversee liberation movements, where necessary, liaising with the local commanders who were usually natives from the country itself as well as looking after the regulars of the Revolutionary Army sometimes. The Five, they were black operations, things that were off records and never talked about outside of Dragon, the Five, and 'R', the head of the financial arm of the Revolutionaries. Not even the other Revolutionaries knew about the black operations team or the fact that there were sanctioned black operations missions. Not even the Chief of Staff who was Dragon's second in command.
Alekyne returned to his garden on Le Grande. He bid farewell to his younger brother who then melted back into the earth, headed somewhere else in the world. Walking inside he received the latest status updates, before deciding to go down to Le Gourmand for dinner that night with his guest of sorts, Lady Isabelle, who he was waiting for a convenient time to return her to her country and her father who was one of their local supporters.
Carlos re-emerged from the ground in RRR Industries grounds, and began drafting public press releases for the company before returning home for the night for dinner with his father Ricard. He updated his father on what was happening with an important mission coming up. His father nodded as they ate their dinner in relative silence. Ricard worried for his sons, and for Leon and Mikel who were like sons to him. It would be dangerous going against a Marine Admiral, but it had to be done, everything for the family. The government had driven the one person who was his soul-mate, closer to him than anyone else, to death and there was no way he was ever going to forgive them for that.
Ricard went to bed that night, after working on some legitimate business matters. He knew this was a ramp up in the danger, but he didn't really have that much power to veto a mission, not that he would. He was the financing behind the Revolution, and a fair bit of the materiel used. But no one knew. Financial wizardry and fake identities made sure that nothing could be traced behind the walls of two berry shelf companies and secret trusts in multiple countries across the four blues, and two lines. It was one of the benefits of having a son who had power over the earth, travelling on secret missions was easy.
Edvard, Leon and Dragon trained in the late evening, some physical training for the mission would require strength and speed, and some martial, special techniques to be used against whichever high-ranking officer of the Marines was present. As the main attacking minded members of the Five, the others relied more on them to deal massive damage. As the moon rose over the island of Baltigo, the three of them went to supper, and then to more planning. They were awaiting Alekyne's intelligence report, to be done as soon as possible. The planning went late into the night, and then the three turned in to get some rest, knowing there would be just as much work on the next day.
Alekyne awoke the next morning and went to gather the daily intelligence report from his agents. He flicked through the pages. So, Whitebeard is considering an attack to rescue Ace, he mused, not that that wasn't obvious. That should make our job easier, diverting World Government resources. The chance of just one Admiral has increased or even perhaps none, since they would obviously be anticipating a naval attack and with Whitebeard's huge fleet on the move, they will be pouring most of their resources to that end, to prepare for that battle. Dragon had briefly considered trying to hit them at the execution platform but they had not the manpower or resources to do so without seriously damaging their capability to nurture the rebellions against the World Government. So it was decided that the intervention would need to come on the escort route where there would be less high ranking Marines and thus a lesser need for resources.
He continued to go through the papers for the day. The report from the Sabaody Archipelago came in. There were some certain acquisitions that could be made there, through the complex series of intermediaries that RRR Industries had. He worked through the other papers from his agents there. So the Eleven Supernovas. He laughed. The World Government came up with a new moniker for pirates. How original. Still, I think Uncle D would love to hear this.
He knew with operational security the assignment would only be handed out just before the escort began. There were a few other things to organise but those at Baltigo would be doing it. They would be travelling by ship, submarine to be exact, rather than through the earth, too many for Carlos to handle at once after a long battle, without running the risk of having someone stuck in the crust of the earth.
Carlos Rexford was standing on the beach in the island nation of Leyran which was the location of a secret Revolutionary base. He was currently finishing training some of the Special Forces troops. They were trained in combat, infiltration, assassination, whatever was required to further the cause of the Revolutionaries. Members of the Special Forces group were trained to sabotage and destroy Marine bases and positions if possible, and also to execute the more delicate missions in liberating countries from the tyranny of World Government rule. They provided expertise where it was needed, but most of the work would be done by locals who were discontent with the rule. It made the Revolution much harder to crack. Local Commanders and cells only knew a few members of the travelling troupe of Special Forces and Revolutionaries who hopped from country to country. And in any case, the Revolution was not an occupying power.
The second-in-command of the base, Troy Lazat was the Revolutionaries's expert in unarmed combat. Hailing from the kingdom of Jianghu, he was a master of Haki and unarmed combat. The famous Eight Trigrams style, of which he was one of many masters, harnessed all the aspects of spirit energy and was deadly in unarmed combat. It was hard to get any sort of a lock on him when sparring. And that was the way he taught the special Forces group, to never get hit. A master of defence was one that was never where the enemy's attack was aimed at. He was also a master of the Five Elements Fist, the sole one outside of the country Jianghu, whose inhabitants rarely, if at all, ever left their country. They also rarely let any outsiders in.
Carlos saw that Troy had the special Forces troops sparring against one another. He took his position opposite Troy to spar.
The circular stepping pattern of the Eight Trigrams style was employed by Troy as he faced Carlos. Carlos dropped into a standard unarmed combat stance. He threw the first punch, closing the distance in between them. Troy blocked with his open palm, and then countered with an array of blows, forcing Carlos back. Carlos took a few blows, but shunted away the pain. He had one of the thin seastone bracelets on, enough to make sure he didn't cheat, by using Devil Fruit powers, but not enough to make him nauseous. He scored two hits, glancing blows, but impressive enough for someone of even his good skill. However, Troy suddenly put on a burst of power, and scored one, two, three successive critical hits, sending Carlos to the ground hard. Troy quickly capitalised, and had Carlos pinned to the ground under his knee.
"I yield," Carlos said, as Troy lifted the pressure. Troy extended his hand and pulled Carlos up. "Thanks," he continued, as Troy watched the others spar. He went over and corrected some of the mistakes that his charges were making.
After the practice session was over, Carlos and Troy sat together in the commander's quarters. "There's a priority zero mission coming up," he said. A priority zero mission was one that was basically a mission where the chance of survival was low, and the risk was the highest.
"You want me to come," Troy said.
"No," Carlos replied, "you may have to take over if I don't come back." Troy's ability to train made him a valuable resource, and not one that they would want to risk on the priority zero mission.
Troy nodded, "I understand."
"Then I will take my leave," Carlos said, as he phased out, melting into the ground using the powers of the Terra Terra Fruit.
Mikel was in the country of Chiyo in South Blue, using the power of his Devil Fruit for quick travel where he was overseeing the attack on the key Marine base close by with two of the other top special forces agents of the Revolutionaries, two of his 'charity' cases, people he had rescued from death along his journeys.
When he arrived, he found that the other two agents had already helped clear up the Marine base. Landing in the middle of the now destroyed Marine Base, Mikel turned to one of the other commanders present, Bellamy. "There's a priority zero mission going to Impel Down," he said.
"I'm coming, for sure," Bellamy said, determined to go and prove his worth. He was a relative newcomer to Revolutionary Special Forces, having only passed Leon and Mikel's special training a couple of weeks ago. But because of his now well developed Devil Fruit powers, he had been thrown into the deep end as the last of the Twelve Stars, special agents of the special forces.
Mikel smiled, "I was actually going to ask you to come. You do know that it could easily result in death. Priority Zero means chance of death is high."
Bellamy nodded. "I do." Mikel knew that Bellamy was eager to prove himself as a capable agent, a strong fighter. And having been personally trained by Mikel and Leon, Mikel knew that Bellamy was more than capable.
"Then we'll head in ten," Mikel replied. "Dragon wants us there as soon as possible." Bellamy nodded going off to take what he needed for the mission. He would leave the last agent, Heath, Agent Aquarius to oversee the last stage of the mission to displace Marine Bases from South Blue. As Carlos emerged from the rubble of the Marine Base, Mikel and Bellamy were ready for transport back to Baltigo having apprised Agent Aquarius of their need to leave for a Priority Zero mission. Heath wished them good luck as Carlos, along with Mikel and Bellamy melted back into the earth. The power of the Terra Terra Fruit always unnerved first time travellers.
Alekyne was the last to arrive from Le Grande to Baltigo. Dragon turned to him, "report," he said. Alekyne gave all the information that he had gathered from his sources. "I do have some important information though" he said. "Apparently, Whitebeard is planning an assault to rescue Ace from imprisonment. The Shichibukai have been sent to stop him. That is those that are still active. I heard that Kaido and Shanks are fighting whilst Whitebeard is distracted. And I have heard that Kizaru was just injured on the Sabaody Archipelago by Roger's old first mate, Silvers Rayleigh. Apparently Kizaru ran into the Eleven Supernovas," Alekyne continued to say, "the eleven best rookie pirates, but they were still unable to beat Kizaru yet, and so Rayleigh stepped in." he explained as the others turned to look at him.
Dragon interjected, "my son amongst them, these Eleven Supernovas?" Alekyne confirmed that he was.
"We have to beat the Whitebeard Pirates to it then," Flint said. Flint was one of the Twelve Stars, and he like the others that were currently in Dragon's chamber in Baltigo was going on the mission. He was an expert gun-slinger, pistols were his speciality. Adding to that those seastone bullets that RRR Industries R&D had secretly developed, he made a deadly fighter, even against Devil Fruit wielders, if the bullets managed to pierce the skin.
"Aye," Cormac said, chuckling, "we do." Cormac MacCreadie was another of the Twelve Stars, a fearsome man with red hair and green eyes, who wielded two awesome double guan dao's as weapons, which required almost inhuman strength. Some said he had the blood of a berserker or a giant in him.
"And we will," Nikolaj stated with conviction, his voice cold. Nikolaj Petrovich was the group's sniper and rifle expert. He was lethal between the half and two kilometre range. The last two members of the rescue party would be Cristan Kane, a staff wielder from East Blue. His blonde hair was cropped short. The other, would be Tomas Bradden, who normally wielded dual steel whips as his weapon of choice. With Dragon himself overseeing the whole mission from the skies that would bring the party to twelve, though he would not directly intervene unless it was absolutely necessary.
The Revolutionaries planned their mission to rescue Ace from Marine imprisonment. It was still going to be a very dangerous mission though, especially since the expected some sort of seastone to be utilised by the Marines, somewhere, somehow. So they had to come up with ways to counter the Marine's use of seastone. However, what was missing was the route that would be taken by the Marine escort. Alekyne had never been able to pick up anything about the real route. He had managed to pick up a couple of different routes and times, but he didn't know which one was real. Even when he used his Devil Fruit powers to try to discern if there was any subterfuge by the people he was picking up his intelligence from proved to be unrewarding. And none of the agents they had in the World Government, or their sympathisers had been able to provide them with anything. Apparently, even the Admirals did not know the full plan, at least not that the messages went through their secretaries or quartermasters which Alekyne was quite well appraised of.
It was being kept in the utmost secret, he surmised, probably until the last possible moment. Revolutionary Intelligence knew something big was coming, but details were important and that was what was still currently missing.
The Liberator sailed into the sea near the back end of Marineford Town. Or rather, it emerged from under the sea where it had been sailing, unnoticed by those at Marine Headquarters. Carlos had deliberately sailed the ship through an opening in the side of a cliff on Marineford using the power of the Terra Terra Fruit. The earthen door closed behind him, as they docked and walked up the hidden paths to the safe house.
Intelligence had finally been able to get something more concrete, something from conventional means which was verified by multiple sources, indicating that Ace would be moved today from Impel Down to Marineford for the execution, one of their plants in the Marines had managed to pass a discrete message along without compromising his identity, enough people must have known about the movement. An Admiral was setting out with an escort towards Marineford from Impel Down or so his multiple sources had indicated.
People said the only safe way was to go through the Gates of Justice but they did not know the Revolutionaries had other ways of reaching where they wanted to at any time. Alekyne had established the safe house in Marineford Town earlier, years ago, as an observation post. Obviously, it would likely to have to be given up but he could always establish another one close by to pick up the thoughts of Marines who passed by with his Devil Fruit. One of the benefits of having eaten the Zen Zen Fruit and having multiple fake identities. It was a town that was always ripe with World Government gossip. Carlos would 'raise hell' or rather use the power of the Terra Terra fruit to raise earth out of the sea, rock Impel Down on its foundations, as a distraction. He would be accompanied, or rather guarded by Nikolaj, Cormac and Cristan while he raised earth out of the sea. That would also hopefully disrupt their so-called Gates of Justice.
The Revolutionaries scattered to their positions, ready to get started. In the safe house, Carlos sat on the floor, in the room where he would work the power of the Terra Terra Fruit. His hands were touching the ground, Cristan and Cormac stood guard close by, whereas Nikolaj took position on top of an opposite roof, under an awning so that he couldn't be seen from overhead with seastone bullets at the ready. He was to look and cover the safehouse. Bellamy was watching the overall situation from his scouts position on top of the rooftops, blending in with the wall.
That left Alekyne, Flint, Edvard, Leon, Mikel and Tomas to actually take on the Marine escort. The Admiral or whoever else would be leading the escort would be the most trouble for them…but they were confident that they could at least create enough mayhem to achieve their goal, to steal the captive from the escort, especially with the seismic activity going on throwing the Marines into disarray, hopefully. There were of course, other Marines that were good fighters that were in the escort party, and they had to be accounted for.
Alekyne picked up the mental signature of an Admiral, and also an area where his psychic waves couldn't penetrate, the feeling indicating the presence of seastone, and more specifically, probably something like a seastone cage. People who were wearing seastone touching themselves always felt like a void to him. He prepared his mental message to send to the team to begin the mission. He readied himself, and sent the message to Carlos.
The mission was a go. Inside the room, Carlos concentrated and bought his awesome Terra Terra Fruit powers to bear. Sending his consciousness sneaking through the earth, he began to feel all the cracks and pressure points within the earth. He grabbed the earth beneath, sitting now under the sea, and he began to push, upwards. He felt the soil and the earth strain pushing up through the sea. He felt the earth, the upheavals and seismic shocks reverberating around the world. He strained onwards as the building start to come out of the sea. Cristan passed on that message to him from Bellamy. He knew that was the first part was finished, that should throw the Marine escort into disarray and shock, making them vulnerable to surprise. He wondered what the others were doing.
Alekyne got the message that the escort was approaching. He felt Carlos begin to activate his power, he signalled for his team to get ready for action. Go, he sent via his psychic powers. He felt one of the team members activate a den den mushi jammer. He attacked throwing a psycho-telekinetic attack at the incoming shocked Marines as he descended from the balcony where he had been standing. He saw Flint shoot his pistols; one, two, three Marines fell down, out of the fight. Disabled or killed in quick succession.
Two metal snakes took out another four, with two audible cracks. Then Alekyne noticed Leon join the fight, the signature Shuurai Tekken style backed with the power of the Force Force Fruit, sending the incoming Marines flying away, literally. And then the Admiral attacked. Ice began to quickly expand throughout the streets as the Admiral Aokiji bought his Devil Fruit to bear. "Eddy," he said, "Fire, now.". His younger brother transformed into a half-dragon man and began to breathe fire to meet the ice, but still it was not enough to stop the encroaching ice.
"Mikel, a little help," Edvard asked. The other Revolutionary obliged. A second stream of energy was sent at the ice stopping it, and beginning to push it back, as mist rose into the air. Alekyne stretched with his powers, seeing the mental signatures even as the mist made things unclear to the eyes, and attacked with his customised diamond-tipped cane whacking one Marine in the head, spinning and then hitting another.
They were getting closer to the goal. Alekyne spotted the cage, where Ace was being held in. He signalled to Tomas, get the carriage. The snake-like whips that were wielded by the golden-brown haired Tomas started to clear the men between him and the carriage. It was enclosed and Alekyne could not see who was inside, either with his mental powers, nor with his eyes. He could feel the seastone blocking him from scanning for thought patterns inside. He recognised the emptiness when he tried to scan someone who was touching seastone to know that there was a person inside the carriage but he could not confirm it was the target. He knew that Mikel and Edvard had their hands full with Admiral Aokiji. This was his part of the mission to ensure that they were able to get away with the prisoner.
He heard; no more mentally heard Tomas swear as he destroyed the carriage door. A shot rang out and Tomas threw himself to the ground, warned, just in the nick of time by Observation Haki. "It's a fake," he heard Tomas shout. Alekyne relayed the message back to the rest of his team as he grabbed Tomas with his psychic powers, pulling him away from danger. The Marine who had been hiding inside had been chained on one bare leg with seastone, but had had his hands free to fire a bullet which had grazed Tomas's cheek as he dodged.
As Tomas flew back towards Alekyne, courtesy of his psychic pull, a metal whip snapped out, destroying the pistol that was wielded by the Marine. Once Tomas landed safely, they began to retreat from the carriage, turning back towards the other members of his team. He called for a retreat.
He saw three Marine Captains in front of him, "Leon, Flint with me." he said. He charged towards the three Marine captains, getting a read on their powers. He saw the first one split his body into solid spheres. So this must be Captain Berry Good. He aimed his walking stick like a billiard cue, and pushed it with his power, impacting the first sphere sending it into others creating a chain reaction which he would hope would hit the main head.
He saw someone grab his cane and it began to turn a sickly brown. Captain Shuu. He dropped his stick and kicked out hitting Shuu with a well aimed kick in the arm. Shuu dropped back. He saw Leon smack the other Captain about with his Force Force Fruit, even though the wheels hitting against the faint blue sheen of his Backboard technique. Leon used his Bulls Eye attack shooting a hole through the wheel. Leon followed up with a Drop Shot attack, and then blocked the incoming counter-attack with Backspin which stopped the attack right in its tracks. Alekyne found another opponent, as he went made his way towards the rest of his team, as they retreated. He found a third Sharingu, a marine who used a Devil Fruit of wheels. Alekyne dropping into the Azure Dragon attack stance taught by Troy, as he faced the wheels of Sharingu jumped over the incoming attack.
Sweat beaded down Alekyne's sleeves as he engaged in a hand to hand fight with Captain Sharingu. The wheel grated against his sleeve as he blocked the incoming hit, applying a liberal amount of Armament Haki to lessen the impact. He hit out with his left fist, in a move reminiscent of the air-based stance, striking, his black sleeve backed by the power of his arm, hitting the head of his opponent. He flipped over using his hand as a pivot point on Sharingu's shoulder.
Alekyne psychically threw away the Marines as he continued to move away from the fake escort carriage. Withdraw, he sent mentally, to those not directly in the battle, the mission is a bust. Decoy. He got the mental nods from those he had communicated with in his mind amidst all the other thoughts and actions he had running in his mind and turned back to face his enemies.
Edvard and Mikel were combining seamlessly against Admiral Aokiji, holy energy and fire burning away any ice that was formed by the Navy Admiral. Flint covered all the other Marines that tried to distract them with a spray of gunfire. An intense look of concentration passed between Edvard and Mikel, an unbidden thought sent to Alekyne by Mikel, hurry up, it's hard to hold the Admiral at bay. Done. Alekyne sent, as Tomas began to cover their retreat.
Preparing a devastating mental attack he threw a bolt of concentrated psychic energy, his patented Zen Blaster attack, straight at the enemy Admiral Aokiji. The direct hit caused the wave of ice to stop expanding for the moment, giving time for Mikel and Edvard to disengage and begin the retreat towards the ship.
In the safe-house, Carlos, Nikolaj, Cristan and Cormac were all busy packing up from their positions ready to go. Carlos waited, one hand on the earth even though exhausted from the massive seismic movement that he had caused. Even he didn't really know the full extent of damage he had caused by manipulating the surface of the earth in that way. The aftershocks and consequences might take years to play out in the environment but it was worth it to make Impel Down a bit less impregnable but mostly it was worth it to rescue his cousin. He knew the other three would be getting the ship ready for take-off.
Mikel had flashed out somewhere else as they retreated through the streets, though Alekyne knew where, Bellamy was in trouble, he could feel it. He trusted Mikel enough to know that he would handle it and expected them to return. He, Leon and Edvard continued to hold off the Marines as they looped their way towards the safe house and their passage down to the Liberator.
Knowing that the Marines would call in their navy ships, to try to stop any ships from going past, but the Liberator would effortlessly submerge and glide under them. Even if they raised the walls in the bay, the Liberator would be able to bust through it, after all, RRR Industries had mined the material they used. They didn't seem to have any sort of submersible in the Navy, besides using coating from Sabaody, at least none that Intelligence had picked up, either through the Zen Zen Fruit or through more conventional means.
He sent another psychic blast at the Marine Admiral as they found their way towards the safehouse. He felt the Revolutionaries Special Forces aboard the Liberator prepare for sail. "Get on board quickly," he sent as they retreated from the incoming Admiral. Suddenly, a tremendous explosion came towards them, a burst of Haki that tried to knock them out. He mentally heard Leon throw up a shield as he did himself to block, enclosing their group. The wave of Haki came towards their shield, battering away at their defences even as they retreated into the safehouse. The door proved to be a choke point, where Leon had set up a Backboard, blocking any attacks trying to get through the door with the Force Force Fruit until one of them decided to try to destroy the whole house.
He felt them all board, until it was just him, Mikel and Leon left in the safe house. Mikel fired another bolt of holy energy. As the shield breached, the three of them threw themselves to the side. A bolt of lightning shot down from the sky as it rapidly darkened, splitting and negating the energy, saving the three of them. Mikel, Leon and Alekyne ran down the secret passage as Carlos closed the earth above them. A barrier of lightning bolts hit the ground where the house had been preventing anyone from getting close and from seeing the passageway. The outline of a dragon appeared, ethereal against the dark sky before it faded.
"Dragon," Aokiji said, as he looked up at the dark sky. "I'll get you, one day."
The Liberator stated to sail away from where it had been docked, under the sea, exiting the secret entrance in the side of the cliff before Carlos collapsed the entryway. The sky cleared as quickly as it darkened signalling Dragon's withdrawal. The ship prepared to submerge under water as it dropped under the sea surface.
An explosion rocked the earth beneath the Marines. Aokiji peered over the cliff as he saw the Liberator, preparing to submerge. "They're submerging," a panicked Marine said, "we can't see them." The water around where the Liberator had been became calm again as the ship disappeared into the waters.
"Leave them to lick their wounds," Aokiji ordered, "they didn't get Portgas. That's the important thing." Aokiji could have ordered the raising of the sea-wall around Marineford, but he suspected that the Revolutionaries had been prepared for the sea wall as well, after all, it wasn't a secret, and if there was one thing that Aokiji had learned about the Revolutionaries Special Forces, they were always well prepared with information. However, at least this proved they hadn't had the Marines thoroughly penetrated that the Marines couldn't mount a major operation without the Revolutionaries knowing everything about it like the most paranoid had suspected.
A/N: That's it for Chapter 1 of Part 1 - stay tuned for Chapter 2.