The revolutionary headquarters at Baltigo was usually a very quiet place to work. Due to the nature of their jobs and its emphasis on secrecy it was highly unusual for the volume to rise above that of a normal conversation level.

However, as an organisation that primarily dealt in information it also meant that the revolutionaries were almost always privy to any prominent rumours being spread round. Which is probably why instead of the usual silence, the rumours about Akainu had opened an extensive betting competition.

Koala stared in amusement as several members of the feared revolutionary army proudly declared the most ridiculous rumours they had found about Akainu, in an attempt to win the promised prize of extra dessert.

Ignoring the gossiping revolutionaries Koala made her way over to where her partner in (literal) crime was standing. Upon her approach Sabo looked up and gave her a quick smile "It's amazing how far some of these rumours have already spread."

Koala gave a small nod of agreement "Everyone loves a scandal so stuff like this always travels fast, what I'm struggling to figure out is how there's already so many new rumours. I know the Spade pirates laid the groundwork when they stopped by Runag Island, but I'm struggling to find out how new rumours are still being formed."

Sabo chuckled, "I may be able to answer that one. After defeating the pirates on Runag Island we think the Spades may have come into contact with Red Haired Shanks who was also in the area. Shanks seems to be helping spread some of the rumours going round, he also made some purposeful comments in a few bars about what an interesting woman Lady Spade is and how it was great to see her again after all this time."

Koala's eyes widened "Does Shanks have a motive in spreading the rumours or is he just doing it on a whim?" Sabo gave a small shrug "No motive that we can see, personally I think he's just taken a liking to the Spades, and wants to help spread the chaos."

The former sun pirate gave a small hum of acknowledgment "That's a fair enough assumption to make when it comes to the Red Emperor. Have we determined if 'Lady Spade' is definitely a fake or not?"

Sabo gave a small nod "We did, and we're pretty sure she's a fake. It was unexpectedly harder to prove than we'd initially thought though. From what we can tell the actual Spade pirates are being led by someone else entirely, and they've been using a false persona to stay under the radar."

"And that's worked till now?" Sabo let out a snort "That's the most interesting part, as far as we can tell, Spade's been destroying random records in every marine base they've hit so far, we just didn't realise it till now because of the more obvious information they've been releasing."

"But the destroyed information is supposedly being used to obscure Lady Spade's real identity which is why the Marines still believe they're dealing with a real person. Albeit one they now have no information on."

Sabo paused for a moment a small smile gracing his face "Though I'm not sure how long that will last. According to one of our spies several of the spades have managed to acquire bounties which should be released in tomorrow's paper, which will bump up the priority of researching Spade."

Koala let out another thoughtful hum before smiling "I'm surprised we've not asked them to join our information network yet." Sabo grinned "Dragon's considering it. He said he'll probably send one of us as a representative in a month's time to assess if they're suitable of joining or not."

Both revolutionaries smiled, "If nothing else I want to thank them for the entertainment." Sabo smirked in agreement but before they could say anything else a large shout rang throughout the island "Stop gambling and get back to work, you lazy slackers!" deciding not to test their boss's patience the two revolutionaries went back to work.

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Ace could practically taste the tension in the air as the twelve Spades sat down in the plotting room, each one of them shooting glares at the others. "So," all attention snapped to Ace "If all went according to plan, today's the day our bounties should be released. As promised whoever has the highest bounty aside from myself gets a day off training."

The tension in the room rocketed and the Spades glaring intensified. A whole day off training was worth any act of sabotage.

Ignoring the apprehension on his crews faces Ace withdrew the first bounty from the pile "First of all with a very respectable starting bounty of twenty five million Beris we have Masked Deuce."

Deuce smirked as the surrounding Spades groaned, twenty five million was probably one of the highest starting bounties to come out of East blue in years.

It was actually far too high for a second mate who had only been in one visible fight, but Ace was relatively certain that their bounties may have been somewhat inflated due to their recent humiliations of the Marines.

Deciding it didn't matter the Captain moved on to the next bounty in the pile, only to break into helpless giggles "Next at thirty million beri," Deuce's smirk died "We have Alice."

"What?!" Alice burst into laughter before pointing a triumphant finger at Deuce "Take that you shitty sniper! In your fucking face!" The entire table stared at their normally mild mannered shipwright in amazement.

Realising what she'd just said Alice lowered her hand back to her sides, her cheeks flushing. bright red "Um... what I meant to say was..."

The spades burst into laughter and Ace clapped her on the shoulder "Good job Alice." Deuce groaned knowing he'd already lost the competition for the free day. Alice smiled before crossing her fingers "Please let no one else have a higher bounty, please let no one else have a higher bounty, please let no one else have a higher bounty."

Grinning Ace reached for the next poster before letting out a low whistle "Sorry Alice no free day for you either, with a bounty of thirty seven million we have Cowboy Dusty."

"How? I thought the only one of the yellow vipers with a bounty that high was their Captain and Ace was the one to deal with him?" Ace nodded "True but the first mate Dusty dealt with was worth thirty million, add that to the fact that the marines have probably figured out we're the same spades who released all that information and well.."

Ace shrugged "all our bounties are probably gonna be above expected even if we've only been in one visible fight. On a brighter note we should get more bounty hunters coming after us soon!"

Doc stared at his Captain, comprehension dawning in his eyes "Don't tell me you want to use them for training?" Ace nodded seriously, "Of course! Bounty hunters will make awesome training targets!" The whole crew groaned "Why did I choose to follow this lunatic?!"

Ace smirked "Too late to back out now Paddy!" the teen's head drooped "That's what I was afraid of." Snickering at his crew's despair Ace withdrew the last two bounty posters from his pile "Ok next poster's mine, Ace of Spades worth fithty million."

Dusty gave a small chuckle "Good job Captain." Ace smirked, it was a small bounty for someone who had once been a new world pirate but it was definitely an accomplished first bounty "Thank you, and last, but certainly not least we have our illustrious leader Lady Spade weighing in at sixty five million beri."

There was a moment of silence before the entire Spade crew burst out into laughter "How have they not caught on already?!" Ace opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Deuce howling on the floor "Those poor dumb bastards." Ace rolled his eyes but couldn't help his own smirk.

"Shanks has been helping spread some of the rumours and because he's acknowledged her, it's increased her credibility tenfold. It also means the Marines believe Shanks met her before she 'faked her death' which is why he supposedly met up with her."

"So because of the increased threat level, the marines hope by raising Lady Spade's bounty, it'll increase her infamy so there will be more people on the lookout for her. The marines also couldn't leave her bounty as lower than mine seeing as she's our supposed Captain, whereas I'm apparently the first mate now."

Dusty sniffed in mock offence "How could you replace me like this Captain?!" Ace laughed "Oh can it. You're the lucky one, they don't think I'm the Captain of my own crew!"

Twelves heads turned to face him in unison "Yeah but that's your own fault Captain. I mean if you hadn't spread the rumours, or destroyed those records, the Marines would have realised Lady Spade was a fake by now." Ace grinned.

"Completely true. But can anyone here honestly say they've not had fun creating the rumours?" The room was silent and Ace nodded smugly "Thought as much, plus I kind of want to see how far we can take this. I already know you guys have a betting pool going on."

Deuce grinned shamelessly "Completely true Captain, but you're not allowed to see the bets in case you deliberately influence it for a laugh." Ace opened his mouth to deny it, but closed it upon realising it was probably something he would do.

"Meh, fair enough. Anyway as promised Dusty gets tomorrow off from training." The cowboy gave a cool smile, but the small fist bump he was trying to hide was telling enough of his relief. Giving a small snort Ace turned to the rest of the crew insane smile firmly in place.

"As for the rest of you, training resumes tomorrow, and seeing as Doc, Gray, Paddy, Small, Quartz, Green, Kalin, Dret and liam didn't get bounties this time round, you guys get extra training."

The aforementioned Spades despaired at their fates "I knew I should have tried to find a higher ranking officer. I just knew it." Ace clapped Paddy on the shoulder "Too late for regrets now!" Ignoring the groans of his crew Ace gave a resounding clap.

"Don't worry there'll be more fights soon and the same rewards apply, the highest bounty excluding Dusty or myself, gets the day off, the lowest gets extra training sessions unless you can provide a specific reason from Doc, as to why you can't train. This only applies for the next few months though, because after that bounties tend to stabilise unless you do something truly outrageous."

Ace paused letting the information sink in "Any objections?" despite their moaning not a single person in the crew objected.

Dret, the treasurer of the ship, stood up before deliberately clearing his throat and turning to the rest of the crew "I'll set up the betting pool over bounties tonight. Buy in's two thousand beri, feel free to participate in this one Captain!"

Smiling to himself as the tense atmosphere dissolved into petty squabbles over bets, Ace couldn't help but laugh. He wondered how his family back in East Blue would react to his new bounty, Luffy would be overjoyed of course, Makino would smile, Dadan would probably be proud, Garp would...

Ace paled "Shit." Last time round Ace's bounty had risen rapidly after getting into several high profile fights, but his starting bounty had certainly not been this high. Ace groaned, looks like he'd need more training if he wanted to avoid the shitty geezer.

Last time he'd seen him...

"I don't have any sympathy for criminals, but for family I do." Tears streaming down the old mans face. A molten fist. A blank look, Garp tackled to the floor by Sengoku to stop him killing Akainu.

"Thank you for loving me."

Ace froze as the memories rushed over him. Thatch. Teach. Akainu.

It was several seconds before Dusty's yelling at Deuce snapped Ace out of his thoughts.

Ace was currently a lot stronger than he had been in the original timeline, due to having a decent grip on Haki as well as a much better mastery of his devil fruit. The problem was, he still wasn't up to the level he had been at the end of his last life.

Ace simply didn't have the resources or skilled enough sparring partners to reach that level at present. And so if Ace was going to get stronger, he had two options.

Option one, he picked fights with crews his own wouldn't stand a chance against, and increased his bodies skill level from brutal do or die experience. The issue with this method is that though Ace would probably survive and prosper from such encounters, it was an almost certainty that most of his crew would die.

Which was not an option.

So that left option two, Ace needed an advantage he could train with his current skill set and resources. One he hadn't bothered to learn last time.

Conquerors haki.

Ace knew he could use it. Bluejam had proved that much. But due to its association with Rodger Ace had never bothered to fully unlock it, and that arrogance may have been one of the many small decisions that cost him his life.

So this time Ace would train it. There would be a lot of guesswork involved but Ace figured he could call up Shanks in a couple of days if he got stuck.

"He was willing to become the Devil himself to protect them."

The emperor's words echoed loudly in Ace's ears. Looks like there was something else he had in common with his biological father after all.

Author's note

Hey guys sorry for the pause between updates I hope you enjoyed the chapter so far! I finally managed to add in the revolutionary army! next chapter should be up next week and I promise more madness as well as a quick check in with the Whitebeard pirates! Thank you so much for all the favourites follows and reviews!