Chapter 1

The smoke, haze, and utter debris of the battlefield were so thick, that it was a miracle in her opinion that anyone could still breathe.

Lily watched the chaos and destruction from her perch on what had once been a nearby building. Her white, starched Marine uniform hung limply and stained with sweat from off her shoulders as she tried her best to lay low.

She wished she could just take the darn thing off and burn it to a cinder.

And yet, it stayed on for the same reason that she stayed in this godforsaken place, even though it was probably the least safe place for her to be right now.

Well to be fair, it was never safe for an undercover operative when they were on the job. The constant threat of being found out always loomed overhead, ready to crash upon you at any moment. But if Lily had been afraid of something as simple as that, she probably would have never survived for this long. And that was something no one could ever deny her. Lily was a survivor.

And yet, even she might have to question that fact today. What the heck was she thinking?! A year in deep cover, simply to be killed in a senseless war? And not even one of their own making!

Though the world government stooges had bent over backward to pull them in.

She watched with her fists clenched as Akainu continue to fight to get to Straw Hat Luffy and the ex-Warlord Jinbe. To execute them, simply as a message to the world that if you challenged the all-powerful World Government, if you didn't stay within your lanes–not only would you face the consequences and be snuffed out, but every innocent bloodline connected to you would pay as well, even to the 3rd and 4th generation. They wouldn't just erase you, they would erase your legacy. They would make sure you were forgotten.

She had seen it so many times since she had joined the Revolutionary Army. So many had been destroyed simply because they had the wrong family name, or because they had the wrong blood flowing in their veins.

This entire farce today had only proven that again all too clearly. But this time...this time it was so much more public and much closer to home….

Battle cries, collapsing stones, and raging explosions all melded together to become a cacophony of destruction and mayhem. Lily pulled her cap further down on her auburn hair and slunk forward through the rubble. She avoided the heavy fighting areas, staying unseen on the outskirts of the major action. Any opponent that for some reason came at her was easily dealt with. (a nerve pinch to an unknowing pirate was enough to take them down. She'd rather not hurt them too much if she could) She continued on her path unimpeded, tracking the mad dog admiral and the Fishman warlord with her eyes.

But even more than that, the small burden that the knight of the sea held close in his arms…

It hadn't been long since she was assigned to Marine HQ that she suspected a connection between the famous vice-admiral Garp "The Fist" and her boss. StrawHat Luffy shared the same family name as her boss, and even more than that, one look at that wide grin erased any doubts she might have had as to who the boy's sire was, even if it hadn't been already broadcast to the entire world. (seriously, what was with the government and their lack of understanding about privacy?)

The entire battlefield became utter chaos very quickly. Whitebeard and his forces had stepped it up, but even as they fought, the warlord Blackbeard also showed up and began to show his true colors. Lily didn't know much about the man, but even what she had found out during her time undercover had made her wonder exactly how desperate and hypocritical the government had to be to continue to keep employing these psychos.

And they had the gall to call them monsters and harbingers of chaos?

BOOM!

A large explosion shook the air and she could hear the booming voice of Newgate rise over the battleground. The great emperor of the sea was making his last stand and Lily could only watch with a heavy heart as the man died as he lived: standing in protection of his greatest treasure.

The shadows at her feet began to flicker and she nodded in response.

Her partner was right, she didn't have time to mourn. She had made a promise and she intended to keep it.

Even as Blackbeard made his move, Lily was pushing towards her target. Quick moves and nimble limbs allowed her to avoid the chaos. She had to make sure StrawHat made his way out of here in one piece.

Before the battle had even started, Lily had made her report of the situation to HQ, knowing that her cover could possibly be compromised if she stayed for too much longer. Her CO had been unable to make contact with her, but to her surprise, it was the big boss himself that had returned her call.

Reports had already made it through about the assault on Impel Down, and Dragon had confirmed the events and that if the war between the Marines and the Whitebeard pirates became too antsy, to move out of Marineford and to an extraction point. They could always reinfiltrate the Marines HQ again, if it came to it, keeping this particular post wasn't worth sacrificing lives.

Right when she was about to hang up, almost as if an afterthought, Dragon mentioned quietly that one Monkey D. Luffy was going to be making his way to the battlefield.

She had already gathered this, but was surprised when the man asked her in a subdued fashion simply to watch out for the boy if at all possible. She had accepted the strange request, but it wasn't until they had revealed the boy's damning parentage that she realized why. She knew the two were related, but his son?! And so even if he hadn't asked it of her, just as Iva and his cohorts felt compelled to do, she couldn't simply let them kill, or worse, capture Dragon's son. The poor boy had already been traumatized enough.

Lily took her eyes off of StrawHat for a moment to look back at the bloodied body the child had left behind.

Laid out on the ground, abandoned, was the body of the man who had been unfairly placed at the center of all this. Hated merely for the blood he carried, Portgas D. Ace had at least died a free man protecting someone that he loved most dearly. Lily had wished that she could have done more for the man but her mission wouldn't have allowed it. She was already stretching her cover as it was in trying to make sure-

She stopped in her tracks and stared.

Raising her eyebrow, she squinted and looked closer. Nothing appeared different about Portgas' corpse, and yet… something had caught her attention. But what was it? Perhaps, it was something her "other" sight had picked up?

She began to activate her devil fruit ability to get a better loo—

CRRRACK! KAHBOOM!

Shockwaves and explosions shook the ground and she suddenly lost her balance as the entirety of Marineford seemed to shake itself to pieces!

Falling to the ground she tried to grab onto any of the surrounding rubble to climb away from the fissures that were spreading throughout the battleground. The shadows at her feet came up and caught her before she could fall any further.

She reached up and grabbed the suddenly corporeal shadow and hauled herself back to her feet, being more careful to keep her legs beneath her. Two bright violet eyes shone from out of the shadows' dark depths for a moment and met her own, before merging with her own naturally cast shadow once again.

She looked around quickly making sure no one had noticed before whispering, "Thanks, Schaden."

Her partner didn't answer, but the slight flickering of the darkness was enough of a response for her.

HISSS! BOONG!

She turned at the sound of the loud horn and the emergence of a submarine of all things! Frowning, she got closer to get a better look. She was alarmed to see that in only those few seconds of distraction, the situation had become even direr.

Somehow in the space of only a few moments, Akainu had overtaken Jinbe and Luffy and heavily injured them both! The two were rescued clumsily by that big-nosed clown pirate, but he looked like he was way past panicked. She hurried forward to see what she could do. She could not let StrawHat die!

Approaching from over the substantial and growing piles of rubble, Lily turned to look at the newcomer's vessel.

She watched as a young man, a little older than she, arose from out of the underwater ship. Walking tall with wiry muscles moving under tanned skin that was covered in scrawling, tribal-like tattoos. Dark mercury eyes pierced out from under a hat made of spotted fur, and even despite the dark shadows beneath them that made him look far wearier than one should be at such a young age, an intelligence sparkled within them that was also far beyond his years. A large sword perched unassumingly onto his shoulder. The Jolly Roger painted on his skin and ship, declared proudly who he was.

Lily knew his reputation and his epitaph, a young "supernova" pirate who had risen quickly to prominence, known as the enigmatic "Surgeon of Death". She was drawing a blank on his real name, but currently, that didn't matter. Right now, if she had guessed his sudden appearance and intentions correctly, he was the best chance her boss' son had.

Confirmation came as she listened to the man call out for them to give Strawhat and Jinbe over to him and that he could help them as a doctor. Something about that voice resonated with her. How or why she didn't know but it was curious all the same. There was something about it…

It was almost as if…

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Gunshots rang out nearby causing her to jerk back and take cover. Staying hidden, she waited a few moments for the combatants to move on before looking back out to the submarine.

Sadly, by that time, her concentration was broken and whatever thoughts were trying to make themselves known to her, had slipped away.

Why? Why were those eyes so familiar?

The feel of Shaden's inquiring gaze on her brought her back from out of her mind's eye.

She shook her head. Reflect on that another time, right now she had to maneuver through this chaos and give Straw Hat a fighting chance.

"Schaden, continue to stay hidden and back me up."

The male shadowy being rolled his eyes as if to say that that was a given, and went back into her shadow. But this time the shadow filtered up onto her back and arms forming a void on the entire posterior and sides of her body.

The darkness was Schaden's domain and he was a tyrant. The darkness was his to command and he manipulated it with practiced ease. Any attack that came at her, accidentally or on purpose, was either absorbed by his darkness or sent hurtling back. Lily didn't even bother to react to any of them. She was intent on her objective, and she trusted her partner with her life.

Reaching out with her devil fruit, she closed her eyes and stalwartly ignored the anarchy around her and instead concentrated on the ocean beneath the submarine. As her power activated, her eyes flashed open, overflowing with a white glow.

She no longer saw bodies surrounding her, no longer individual sentient organisms, but instead, her entire vision was filled with billions upon billions of twinkling lights. It would have looked like glittering chaos to a novice without an understanding of the power she wielded, but to her, each light had meaning and purpose. She understood each and every flicker and how her power interacted and affected them, and she was able to wield that power to precision for her purpose.

Concentrating on a large group of lights within the ocean right under the submarine. She reached out to command the creatures. For within her "sight" every squirming light was a microscopic cell. Trillions of unicellular and multicellular organisms in the ocean swam and gleamed within the depths of the water. Reaching forward with her hand, Lily grabbed hold of the collective of organisms with her ability and sent them in a large wave against the submarine's hull.

"PUSH"

The yellow vessel shot forward and the captain of the ship, even while hurridly receiving his guests, looked around perplexed. His eyes scanned the water for the cause but could find nothing. What was that? As another attack hit the starboard side of his ship, he didn't have time to think about it as he hurriedly received his impromptu guests and so instead filed the event to the back of his head for later musing.

Meanwhile, back onshore, Lily gathered more organisms to replace the ones that had inevitably been killed in the original onslaught and pressed further, sending the ship further out into the ocean, away from the attack range of enemies onshore as well as the flotsam and ice of the sea and shore.

One more shot should do it. If she could just—

A high-pitched whine hit her ear and she automatically attuned her ears in order to hear what her partner was telling her. Not having the same vocal cords as normal humans, Schaden communicated in a variety of sounds and pitches and at times, sign language. Lily had learned to decipher them all years ago, even though she couldn't respond to him in the same way.

'Lil, watchout! The admiral!'

The warning came too little too late as a sizzling point of light arched through the sky and hit the submarine broadside!

Lily followed the origin to observe Admiral Kizaru about to take another more permanent shot. "No, no, no…"

She grimaced in annoyance at what she had to do, but her CO had always told her to go with her gut. Activating her power once again, she flipped targets, quickly raised her hand, and grabbed control of the admiral's cells all at once with her ability.

"FREEZE"

A shocked look broke through Borsalino's face for a moment, and he almost instantly zeroed in on her. But even despite him knowing something was wrong, she was quicker and increased hr hold, promptly freezing him in place.

Lily knew she couldn't hold someone this strong for more than mere seconds, but seconds were precious, and if the submarine would be ever so kind as to dive and get out of here…!

Raw power straining against her hold increased. Beads of sweat fell from her brow as she pressed back. Just a little more!

'You can let go, Lily. Help has arrived.'

In the peripheral of her vision, she watched another huge mass of twinkling lights approach the admiral and she felt Schaden pick her up and move her away out of range.

If the war hadn't become so out of hand, the sight of a plain, brown-haired young "captain" moving in the arms of a black wispy, ephemeral shadow, might have turned more than a few heads. But then again, Gecko Moria was here, so maybe not.

She released her hold the moment the Red-Haired Pirates made their presence known, allowing Kizaru to become someone else's problem.

They had accomplished their goal, she could tell the submarine had made it a safe distance away and would be fine if the captain was worth his salt. Now it was time for her and her partner to get out of here while the chaos of the battle still reigned. She knew she had been made. There was no way Kizaru hadn't seen her and knew she wasn't one of their own. It was time to make themselves scarce.

She relaxed in her partner's hold and began the process of releasing her ability's "sight" when suddenly something flashed across her senses!

Something she had seen before and yet hadn't understood without her fruit being properly activated.

Something impossible...

Jumping down out of Schaden's hold and not even paying attention to anything else happening about her, Lily scrambled forward running through the battlefield, her eyes only for the mass of twinkling light ahead of her, a look of horrific astonishment finding its way upon her face. It couldn't be…could it? But how?

Lights that shouldn't be flickering any longer, and yet—were still stubbornly doing so. How could it be? How could she not have seen this before?

A questioning whine came to her ear from her partner who had followed her erratic course.

'Lily, we've gotta get out of here. What are you doing? The man is dead.'

Collapsing to the ground beside the mass of barely flickering lights, she carefully caressed the cells with her mind, examining them in wonder. Her whited-out eyes continued to scan the supposed corpse, narrowing in concentration as she tried to make sense of what was right in front of her, something only she had the ability to see.

"No."

'No? What do you mean "no"? Lil, we don't have time for this. We–'

"Scha."

Finally deactivating her ability after assuring herself that what she saw was in fact real. She turned to her companion with a look of wonder and yet thoughtful determination as she considered her next inevitable actions.

"This man….Commander Portgas D. Ace is not dead. Or…at least…not yet ."

The shadow opened up to reveal Schaden's purple eyes once again, as they went from her to the cooling body of the young man who had been at the center of all this. His lithe frame was covered in blood, burns, and a myriad of other wounds, the huge gaping hole through his torso being the most obvious among them. The poor kid now lay forgotten and deserted on this blood-soaked battlefield, in the midst of this travesty of war.

Schaden had seen many things in his lifetime, and he had long ago learned to trust the word of the woman who had been his best friend and partner, long before they had become Revolutionaries. And yet he couldn't help but look back at her incredulously.

'Are you kidding me?!'


Note: This is my first One Piece fic, so we'll see how it goes. Let me know what you think!

I'll be changing a few character tags as things are revealed. I love the ASL siblings so much, that I knew I had to do a story about them eventually! Though they won't be the only reuniting family members in the story! We'll see how this goes.

I will be trying to update this on a regular basis if at all possible.

All comments and appreciated! ❤