DISCLAIMER: EIICHIRO ODA OWNS ONE PIECE, I OWN THIS STORY

"Found you, mutt,"

Shanks' eyes widened and he cursed under his breath, "Hawk-eyes, listen to me! What is going on?!"

"Silence human," Mihawk hissed, "You harbored that… mutt. You are not worth my time,"

Shanks winced at the feeling of diamond-hard nails digging into his shoulder before snarling out, "Yeah, I did, Mihawk," he spat, "What are you going to do about it?"

Mihawk stared at him impassively with one blood-red eye, "I don't need to dignify your answer with a response, now do I, you worthless blood-bag?" he questioned, before letting go of Shanks' shoulder.

"Although, out of respect for you," he drawled out, unsheathing Yoru, "I'll give you a warrior's death,"

Then, with a snarl and a flash of white fangs, Mihawk attacked. Shanks fumbled to parry the blow, and winced when his right arm started throbbing like hell.

Sometimes I hate the fact that the only arm I have left is my non-dominant one, he cursed.

Jumping backwards, he settled into a fighting stance mid-air, and not a moment too soon. Mihawk met him in the air and they had a clash of blades. After around ten minutes, Shanks could see that Mihawk was getting frustrated.

I could always stop you in your tracks and kill you now, but that would be an insult to our friendship, Hawky, Shanks thought grimly, I might as well hold you here till they're done.

MEANWHILE—

Ace, Sabo, Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp were trudging through the dark ruins of Kuraigana, when all of a sudden, Luffy stopped in his tracks.

"Lu?" Sabo hesitated, "Is there something wrong?"

Luffy nodded stiffly and pointed to the cave embedded into a cliff in the far distance. Once, maybe a long time ago, there might've been a beautiful waterfall covering the cave from sight, but that was not now.

Now, there was nothing but the air of death and despair around it.

Sabo gulped, "Well then, I guess that's where we're going first." His hand trembled minutely before he steeled himself and began moving forward.

For a few moments, Luffy stayed rooted to his spot, before jerking and robotically moving forward. It looked like it took all of his being, every ounce of who he was to not turn around and walk away.

I don't like this, Luffy grimaced, But if Sabo has to go there, then I will be there too.

He wasn't about to lose another brother because of his careless mistakes this time. But… he thought as he looked around and subtly crouched down into a barely-there fighting stance, It wouldn't hurt to be on guard.

Zoro peeked at Luffy through the corner of his eye and frowned, before settling into a similar fighting stance, and resting his hand on the hilt of Wado. If you looked closely, you could see the haze of a shadow on the ground next to Zoro with six arms and three heads.

The trek up the waterfall mountain took only 25 minutes, but it felt like 3 hours. The entire way, Luffy kept tensing and jumping around at every little thing, Zoro actually drew his swords, (not just one or two, all three of them), and Usopp couldn't take the assault on his instincts, and offered to scout up in the air.

(Everyone knew he just wanted to get away from the broken waterfall).

Once they reached the cave, Zoro's grip on his katana was so tight that his hands were white, Luffy was snarling like a rabid dog, and Ace was literally on fire.

"Sabo," he said, much too calmly, for someone who had a nearly homicidal look on his face, "You get your business done fast, and then we leave and never come back,"

Sabo gulped, "Agreed,"

Then, Zoro hacked away at the overgrown vines obscuring their vision of the cave. Once the last vine fell, Usopp seemed to get the message, and against every fiber and piece of his being, he landed next to them.

"So, Usopp," Zoro drawled, "What did you see?"

Usopp gulped and ran a finger through his feathers, plucking out any bad ones and breaking them in between his fingers, "Most of it was dark," he confessed, "But I saw something… It was big, slightly grayish-blue and cube-shaped. Also, it had these weird symbols on it." He added.

"A poneglyph," Sabo breathed.

"Ne, what's a poneglyph, Sabo?" Luffy asked, half looking at Sabo, half looking at everything else around him.

"It's a big rock, and inscribed on it is ancient history, but it's written in another language that no one can read. As far as I know, the only one who can read it is Nico Robin of Ohara." Sabo replied, still staring into space with a far off look on his face.

Ace groaned, "Are we going there or not?" he demanded, "Because you need to decide fast, Sabo, I don't know how much longer I can hold myself together."

Sabo nodded, "Yeah, we're going there,"

"Good," Ace replied, then grabbed Zoro's arm and began walking towards the waterfall.

"Hey, what are you doing?! I can walk myself!"

"Uh huh, sure you can," Ace replied in an utterly bored tone.

After all of five minutes of bickering, they made it to the poneglyph.

"So, this is it," Sabo said, moving towards the poneglyph. He raised his hand to touch the stone, but flinched a few inches shy of touching it. He then pulled back his hand and looked at it as if it had just talked to him.

"Sabo? Could you hurry up?" Usopp shivered, "I want to get away from here."

Sabo grimaced and nodded, "Yeah," he pressed his palm against the cold stone of the poneglyph, "I'll do that."

For a few moments, nothing happened, then a shock passed from the stone and Sabo. It was tiny, just barely noticeable. Sabo raised an eyebrow at it, "I wonder what that was," he commented, and removed his hand from the poneglyph.

The second his hand left the poneglyph, thunder boomed across the sky and lightning struck the ground in front of him.

"What?" Sabo took a step back and hit the poneglyph.

Luffy's face contorted in rage and worry, "SABO!"

Sabo looked around at the horror and fear mounting on his brothers' and friends' faces, and then felt the poneglyph move behind him.

Sabo whipped around, and unstrapped his pipe from his back, only to drop it in fear of the golem he was facing.

"What… are you?" he whispered in (almost) misguided awe.

"I… am… Goliath." the golem slurred, before snapping his head towards Sabo with frightening speed, "And I… will kill… the vampire… in you."

"Ah…" Sabo nodded in complete understanding, "I see, just one question though,"

The golem tilted its head to the side.

"Is it going to hurt?"

The golem smiled with way too many teeth, and the runes inscribed on it glowed an eerie green, "Yes."

Sabo winced and muttered in resignment, "Of course, what did I expect?" he threw his arms open and sighed, "Well, let's just get this over with,"

The golem pulled back a stone arm, and the runes on it went from glowing green to a blood-red, and it groaned something unintelligible, before grabbing Sabo's body with the same frightening speed it showed earlier.

In the few seconds that the purification process began, Sabo felt that he extremely underestimated the pain that would have been given to him. Then he blacked out.

"SABO!" Luffy punched away a miniature stone golem, and tried to run towards his unconscious brother, before he stopped, "Sabo?" he asked tentatively, watching as his brother's limp form rose up into the air like a puppet.

Then, Sabo turned into the same form that he took when he went berserk so long ago, and let loose a blood-curdling howl. That howl, scream, thing was so vicious, that Luffy had to take a step back and fall into a defensive position.

"…What's up with him?" Zoro asked, now fully in Asura form and fighting off baby golems.

"We can only guess." Ace replied grimly, scorching 12 baby golems in front of him.

BACK TO SHANKS AND MIHAWK—

"Why won't you just die?!" Mihawk shrieked, swiping Yoru in an arc towards Shanks' right arm side.

Shanks grimaced, but didn't falter, "I'm too stubborn to die, Hawky," he quipped instead.

"Stop… calling me… HAWKY!" Mihawk seethed, before lunging towards him and thrusting Yoru forward.

Shanks laughed and dodged out of the way, "Make me, Hawky," he teased.

Mihawk shrieked once more before going silent. He didn't move, he didn't speak, and the only tell of how angry he was, was the white-knuckled grip he had on the hilt of Yoru. Despite his seemingly calm, and now-docile demeanor, Shanks was not fooled.

During this entire fight, he knew he had been poking the sleeping dragon, and now it was awake, and now, it was mad.

"Forget giving you a warrior's death," Mihawk said quietly, before snapping his head up and baring his fangs, "I'm going to turn you into a piece of empty flesh,"

No explanation to find out what that entailed.

Shanks grimaced, and switched his grip on his cutlass. Things were just starting to get serious. Mihawk sped towards him with even higher, more inhuman speeds and let loose a volley of air strikes.

Shanks cut through all of them with ease, but was too preoccupied with them, that he failed to notice Mihawk using his distraction to sink his teeth into his neck.

Thankfully, he managed to block it just at the last second, and push Mihawk away from him. Mihawk only took one step backwards before righting himself and lunging towards Shanks with a vengeance.

In the face of this imminent threat, Shanks did the stupidest thing that came to his mind, because, he had sailed with the Roger Pirates, so why the hell not?!

"You mad, bro?"

Mihawk snarled, and swiped Yoru into a downwards arc and when that failed to hit Shanks, he twisted around and slashed him from the right.

Shanks parried the blow just in time, and kicked Mihawk's shin in a counterattack. What? He was backed into a corner, and he could literally find nothing else to do.

Mihawk jumped backwards and hissed in pain before shooting a glare at Shanks, "What the hell was that for, human?!"

Shanks frowned, "First off, my name is Shanks," he watched with open amusement as Mihawk's face contorted into indignant rage, before he continued, "Secondly, I am not a swordsman, I am a pirate. We never fight fair."

Mihawk frowned in contemplation and nodded, "Yeah, I'll give you that."

Shanks failed to hide a smile, "Thanks Hawky!"

And then the fight began again, but this time, it was less life-threatening and more like the spar that Shanks had come for.

"STOP CALLING ME HAWKY!"

BACK TO ASLZU—

Luffy punched 5 more mini-golems out of the way, and rested his hands on his knees, "How many more of these things are there?" he whined, "I'm getting hungry."

Ace grimaced, "I don't know, and they don't seem to be stopping." He let loose a wave of fire and melted 7 more.

Usopp sniped three more from the sky, and yelled down, "Is Sabo done yet?!"

Zoro cut one of the baby stone golems in half and looked at Sabo's limp form which was still excreting this red aura, but in a much less abundance than before, "I think he's almost done, we just got to wait a little longer." He grunted.

Luffy hummed in affirmation and geared up to go semi-demon style. He gave a bloodthirsty smile and cackled, "Let's do this."

Then, everything descended in a red and black haze for him. It wasn't enough for him to lose control, but it was more than enough for his strength to mutate enough to cause mass-genocide.

He let out a distorted snarl, and pounded the ground. Within seconds, two spiked vines jutted out of the ground, and curled around his ankles.

Wordlessly, Luffy pointed a clawed finger towards the horde of mini-golems surging towards them, and uttered two words.

"Destroy them."

Almost as if a dam had been broken, the two vines grew longer, bigger, stronger, and sped towards the golems, curling around them like boa constrictors, and crushing them.

Zoro cut two of the mini-golems in half and shifted out of his Asura form. He took a look at the battlefield before discarding it, trusting the vines to do their work, and instead limped over to Luffy.

"So, now what to do, Captain?" Zoro asked.

Luffy spared him a small glance before going back to focusing on his vines, "Regain your strength. My vines won't last forever, and once they're gone, I'll be deadweight, but at least most of the baby stone things will be gone too. Once my vines are gone, finish them off." Luffy replied.

Zoro nodded without hesitation, and wiped the hilt of Wado on his shirt, "Aye Captain."

For around three more minutes, the vines did their job, but then the toll of the backlash was seen on Luffy. His arm was shaking, and his breaths became faster and shallower. Then, he collapsed and his vines wilted before disintegrating into nothing.

Zoro unsheathed his swords and lunged forwards to the golems without giving them a chance to regain their strength, and began hacking away at them like a buzzsaw, Ace lit himself on fire and went on a path of destruction, while Usopp kept sniping from the air.

Then, everything stopped. The mini golems broke into pieces and became part of the ruins once more, while the big golem shifted and contorted into the poneglyph again.

"It's done." Zoro voiced the unspoken thought in between them. Luffy nodded and stepped forward, "Sabo?" he asked tentatively, tapping his brother's furry shoulder, "Are you okay?"

For a moment, all was silent before Sabo groaned and got up, "Is it done?"

"I don't know, you tell me," Usopp exclaimed, landing next to Luffy. He stumbled forward a bit before righting himself and putting on an inquisitive expression on his face.

Sabo put one clawed hand to his head and sighed, "I feel a lot less… bloodthirsty now?" he ventured hesitantly, "I mean, well, what do you think?" he casually diverted the topic to them.

Zoro gave him a once-over and shrugged, "You look fine to me."

Usopp groaned and slapped his forehead, "Your definition of 'fine' is questionable at best, Zoro."

"Shishishishi!"

Ace groaned, "Yeah, yeah, can we go now, I'm starting to feel nauseous from prolonged exposure to this island."

Sabo smiled, "Seconded,"

Then, another kid, around the age of Ace, slightly younger, maybe, stepped into view from behind one of the ruins.

He wore a white suit with a black top hat, and strangely enough, he had a pigeon on his shoulder as well.

He gave the group a long, hard look and then sighed, "Gold Ace, you are under arrest by order of the World Government for crimes of Arson, theft, and Murder. You are to either cooperate with me and come with me of your own will, or I will be forced to detain you and take you by force. So, what will it be?" The kid looked at him through half-lidded eyes.

Ace rubbed his chest a little, where a very prominent circle-shaped scar was.

o-o

The facility was dark. He had recently been fed his devil fruit, and they were trying to make him awaken it.

"Hm, I wonder if I should just not do that if only to spite them." Ace hummed to himself.

The first small signs of insanity were beginning to show on him, and Ace could see it. But even then, he couldn't stop it.

As of that moment, he was chained to the wall, and shackled with kairoseki. He hated it. Whenever it touched him, he would feel sluggish and weak.

He heard the clack of footsteps against the wet stone, and the scurrying of rats above him. He grimaced, "I can only imagine how much disease there is here." He muttered.

He was never a clean freak before this. Not even when he saw people die of infection, with pus leaking out of their wounds in the Gray Terminal. But maybe that was because he believed himself to be too strong for that to be possible.

Infection… was never something he wanted to experience. Ever. He shuddered at the thought of it.

The person opened his cell door and grabbed him by the arm, slapping kairoseki cuffs on him, and undoing his other ones.

In either an extremely intelligent or idiotic state, he chose to remark, "Wow, I feel so loved. All this Kairoseki? For Me? Ah, thank you."

The only warning he had was the flashing of his 'benefactor's' eye goggles, before he was on the floor clutching a bruised cheek.

"You'd do well to not comment on this, you know," the scientist berated him.

Ah, so this is one of the more careful ones, Ace thought, Seems to be one of the nicer ones too.

"Hey kid," the scientist murmured after a few moments of silence, "You might want to brace yourself for this next experiment. I don't think it'll be a fun one." Then he was silent.

I was right. He is nice, Ace hid a smile, "Chill man!" he said coolly, "I'll be fine!"

The scientist's goggles flashed again, but he said nothing.

Then came the time for the experiment. The other scientists set him on a table and chained his feet down. Ace quietly watched everything happen. He didn't react, nor did he fight back. It just wasn't worth it, and besides. The scientists figured out his connection with his brothers.

They couldn't lose Luffy, he was too valuable and that made Ace want to laugh. Just what suffering is he going through? I don't want him to… Then there was Sabo. He… In the scientists' eyes, he was expendable.

That made Ace want to retch.

For a moment, nothing happened. Ace looked up in curiosity. What's going on? He looked around, then the sound of guns being clicked and loaded, sounded out behind him.

Ace's eyes widened, and he twisted around, but not before the gun went off and tore through his chest—!

Everything muted around him. He could feel himself fall backwards and cough up more blood. What a lousy way to go. He closed his eyes. Ace could feel the fire simmer underneath his skin, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never mend his skin together. He was really done.

Then he felt the shackles come off, and his skin mend together almost instantly, and the first thought he felt and thought when that happened? Was Freedom.

o-o

"Ace, are you okay? You're being really quiet, and you're doing that nervous tic thing you always do, you know, when you rub that bullet scar on your collar," Sabo remarked quietly.

Ace jerked, then smiled, "Ah, Sabo, I'm fine," then he turned to the Cipher Pol kid, "You know, did you learn nothing from that broadcast we did the other day?" at the Cipher Pol kid's quizzical look, Ace felt his insanity take over, and he gave a bloodthirsty smile, "Your World Government can kiss my—"

"Goldilocks!" Luffy blurted out, and everyone looked at him oddly.

Luffy kept a finger to his lips and winked conspiratorially, "Got to keep it for the kids, you know?".

Ace shook his head in fond exasperation, "Okay, discarding that, you know what I mean, don't you?"

The kid grimaced, "Yeah, I do, and really I, too, kind of want that to happen, but unfortunately, I'm tied to the WG whether I like it or not, so by extension, you're coming with me whether you like it or not," he got into a fighting stance, and tacked on, "My name is Lucci, by the way."

"Cool!" Ace replied, getting into a similar fighting stance, "My name is Portgas D. Ace,"

The now named Lucci raised an eyebrow to the change in name, but said nothing. Tension mounted on the battlefield and it was almost stifling. Both parties were gearing up to start the fight, and their presences, small as though they were, compared to the others of the era, filled the battlefield.

Then it all broke.

"Hey! Join my crew!"

WITH SHANKS AND MIHAWK—

At the end of the spar, the two were giggling like little schoolgirls on the ground, and sweating as if they had just ran up to the sun and back within an hour.

"You, you seriously, did that?" Mihawk wheezed, unbridled amusement twinkling in his now golden eyes.

Shanks made a weird cross between a happy and a sad expression on his face, but nodded nonetheless.

"Ha! I thought Emperors of the Sea were supposed to be smarter!" he said dryly.

Shanks smiled weakly, "You set your hopes too high, Hawky," he paused, "You mind telling me what all that earlier was about?"

Mihawk looked at him through the corner of his eye and scoffed, "That was terrible grammar, but sure, what do you want to know?"

Shanks looked at the World's Greatest Swordsman with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, "What did you turn into?"

Mihawk stared at him for a moment before wincing, "Yeah, I suppose you'd want to know about this. Well," he sighed, "Let's start with this. This island was never named 'Gloom Island,'. It was Kuraigana."

Chills went down Shanks' spine at the name.

"And?" he prompted.

Mihawk shot an irritated look at the Red-haired Emperor of the Seas,

"This is the island of the former Count Dracula."

AN: Ahahaha! In my defense, I kind of needed a break from writing a little. I've wanted to get this chapter out for quite a bit, but strangely enough, I've never found the motivation for it. To be honest, I'm still jumping fandoms, because I've read so many One Piece fanfictions, I think I have to wait a couple years for a few more cool ones to come into play so I can read some more. I've kind of jumped into Attack on Titan now, again. I kind of have fallen in love with Titan! Eren Fanfictions, but honestly, I don't think I'll stay on that fandom really long. Chances are, I'll probably jump to My Little Pony next. So, as you can see, I'm getting kind of desperate. I'll try to update more often! Thanks for waiting for this chapter, too.

~~Oracle Norzi