(Beginning A/N)
Buh... Franky's hair... after time skip... Sanji's left eye... visible... Brook... is now Elvis? (or is that a possible reference to Soul Music, a Discworld book...?)
I've been trying to reply to most of the reviews, but I'm not entirely sure if it always works; out of the 3-4 replies I sent, I only got one in return, so... I dunno. I have been trying to reply, though.
Those who know not of One Piece: The World Government is a... uh... y'know what? Go to the One Piece Wiki and find out. As Robin will say, it's complicated.
Those who know not of Overlord: Everything about the ancient Overlord is a break from the canon. Just want to make sure that's clear.
Imagine the Records were written in a style of medieval-ish English (thee, thy, whilst, thou, art, etc). I would have done it myself, but it would have been a major pain in the arse to make it sound consistent.
(End Beg. A/N)
Once he got the hang of the lettering, Steve began dictating the writing to Robin, starting with the first entry.
Third Sun in the New Realm
Before I get carried away, I shall explain the predicament. Two suns ago, while searching a previously forgotten ruin, a group of Mins brought me a Mystic artifact. It was put in the high priority pile, and not given thought until we had returned to the Black Fortress.
When we returned, my senior adviser, an elderly Min named Scrag, spotted the artifact nearly immediately. Scrag was a brilliant Min- he could determine what Mystic item we may have found within mere moments. Unfailing in this ability, he brought before me what he believed to be the Mystic Shifter, an item mentioned but never detailed in the known Ancient Legend.
Immediately, he prompted and convinced me to use this artifact. It was not a difficult thing; all it took to activate was a relatively small amount of juju.
What happened after it was activated is an entirely different story. Once the artifact had begun operating, flashes of light spun from it; the air itself cracked, and all that could be heard were the roars of the Earth and the thunder of the stone the Black Fortress was built from cracking in the excitement.
It all stopped after a short moment, to be replaced by lights and a strong spinning; footing was useless, as Min and I alike were thrown about like pebbles in a wind. That chaos also soon ended, to be replaced by the Black Fortress shuddering strongly, and a feeling of falling before all were thrown to the floor with a thunderous crash.
Once reoriented, I went to a window and had quite a start. Surrounding the Fortress was not the dead forest, nor the dry plains- but a vast expanse of water. I stood there in shock for a short time, before turning to find Scrag.
Alas, the elderly Min had long been getting weak; in all the tumbling, he had suffered injuries and could not survive to the end of the ordeal. The rest of the living Mins and I gave him a burial, before venturing outside the Fortress.
It appeared that the entire Fortress and a portion of its surrounding land had also been affected by the change in surroundings; for a short distance outward from the Black Wall, the land I recognize continued to the edge of the water.
After two days of staring at the new sea, I decided I should occupy myself to try and ensure that my mind was secure; I began writing this. With any hope, it will allow me, the Leader of the Mins, to make sense of this one day. The Mystic Shifter, the item I accuse of being the source of all these problems, has been locked in a casket until further notice.
Without fully realizing, Steve had begun pacing soon after he had started reading the journal.
"The 'Mystic Shifter' that is mentioned..."
"Its effect bears a remarkable similarity to the Gem of Inter-reality Transportation. The item I got here with."
"Yours broke; the 'Mystic Shifter' does not sound like it was damaged. Would it be here," Robin pointed at the pile of items laying at the foot of the Leader's corpse, "Or in the remains of the 'Black Fortress'?"
"Either location is likely." Skimming to the larger and seemingly more notable entries, Steve continued to read it aloud.
Twenty-fourth Sun in the New Realm
Late in the evening of yestersun, after I had finished the entry for that time, a vessel arrived. On board were people- this was a good sign, to me. It meant that we weren't in some cursed land, that there was life elsewhere.
They identified themselves as explorers, and were on their way further into the 'Great Sea'. They said that where our Black Fortress sat, there had previously been nothing, and wanted to know why there was a giant castle in the middle of the ocean, where nothing had been before.
I couldn't answer very well, as I am not sure myself, but these strangers nevertheless welcomed the Mins and I to their oceans, eager to make new allies. Seeing no harm in this, I also did my best to befriend them; if nothing else, it would allow me to learn more of the new area in which the Black Fortress now sat.
In just a short while of talk, they showed me a map of all they knew- and I dove deeper into surprise. I asked questions, but all were answered the same: they had explored nearly the entire 'globe', and had no knowledge of the lands I described as home.
Once they alerted their superiors about me and my Mins, they were tasked with remaining in the Black Fortress, and assisting in any way they could- repairing the supports, gathering food, making sure the Mins didn't slack off as much as they would unsupervised, and so forth.
The ship they arrived on is called the Ocean Kangaroo, and its captain Horace. Hopefully, I will not have to worry about an attack while I still know nothing about this... 'globe'.
Scrag's assistant, Knot, is still trying to persuade me to experiment with the Mystic Shifter; however, until details can be discovered in the Black Library's copies of the Ancient Legends, I'm not touching that thing with a forty foot pole.
Twenty-ninth Sun in the New Realm
Horace has convinced me to go and meet with his superiors; I will not take these records with me, however. I shall always leave them in the Black Fortress to ensure no harm comes to this book. I will write another entry upon my return.
Sixty-third Sun
When we originally departed from the Black Fortress, Horace insisted the trip would only take a week or two. Lo and behold, we got put on a slight detour by a storm, and... to put it shortly: I now have two cracked ribs, an aching shoulder, stains in the grooves of my armor [mostly my own blood], decreased vision in one eye, a bent handle on one of my weapons, six maiden servants and knowledge on what kinds of monsters lurk in these oceans and terrorize villages. Villages that, when you save them from imminent destruction, insist on marrying their finest young woman to their savior.
Through bargaining, I convinced them to loan me their maidens on a one-year servant plan [with no marriage]. It took an aggravatingly extensive amount of negotiating with each village chief, and every time, Horace was nearby trying not to laugh.
When I actually got to speak with Horace's superiors, we agreed that trying to harm one another would not be a good idea, and decided that until further notice the Black Fortress would remain neutral. Each of the leaders seemed exhausted; when I inquired, they said that a foe was getting close to bringing their reign down, and that they wished not to risk negotiations with me at the present, in case I too declared war.
This works very well in my favor; it allows me to not risk Mins in combat since the Breeding Depths are still wrecked and I would have no replacements, and I can concentrate more on figuring out how I am to return to where I belong.
Knot discovered a volume, old even by the Black Library's standards, that has information on the Mystic Shifter. The more intelligent Mins have been working on translating for two weeks, but... Mins are not known for their intellect. It will likely take a while for them to convert its language.
Horace has departed, to continue on his original expedition.
Eighty-first Sun
Knot has presented a translated version of the information for the Mystic Shifter. I shall quote what seems to be important.
"Karabbis the Vanisher's Light Brown Rock
The 'Mystic Shifter'; 'Worldly Teleporter'; 'Changer of Scenery'; 'Excellent Paperweight'
As a Mystic Experimenter, Karabbis made many creations- however, he is best remembered and titled for his especially peculiar make, the Mystic Shifter. It allows movement between lands- but not the lands we know. It moves its user, and if enough energy is channeled through it, a portion of the surrounding land to an entirely new region, unknown to any map and not known to connect to the regions prior to the shift.
Karabbis stated that it was extremely difficult to specify which land the user wished to travel to: "While a user can try and go to a specific land, you cannot do so the first time. It requires knowledge of what the land itself felt like- I have found that concentrating on a sense you experienced in the target realm drastically increases the chance of getting there from 3% to anything between 6% to 20% for each sense, depending on how well one can remember and concentrate on each particular feeling."
Although famous, the Shifter itself became lost when Karabbis perished from when he tried to juggle three models of a later invention, the Blades With Rotating Parts That Are Excellent For Felling Trees."
Eighty-fifth Sun
Somewhere along the line, Knot managed to talk me into experimenting with the Mystic Shifter; given the descriptions in the old volume, it sounds like I'll be taking trips through many different lands. With any luck, however, I will find some items in these other 'worlds' that may prove beneficial.
Eighty-seventh Sun
The different lands were certainly a change of scenery, I have to say. From great giant gray rectangular buildings and loud metal machines to a wasteland of nothing but dust, there were strange items everywhere. Very few seemed to be enchanted, but the levels of machinery I stumbled across might as well be supernatural, if not godsent- there were flying machines! FLYING. MACHINES. That went into the skies themselves and to the stars... truly, these lands are unimaginable.
A definite common trait most of these new lands share is that they aren't terribly accustomed to my appearance. I attracted much attention to myself in several of the populated realms, and was even pursued in one for carrying my two flails. Apparently, public possession of dangerous items is prohibited for some foolish reason, to do with protecting the people or something along those lines.
After running got boring, I just killed the two men following me. That didn't go over as planned, and a bunch more began following.
On the bright side, I got some exercise and a good idea of what to expect.
Eighty-ninth Sun
Now that I have become more accustomed to the feeling the Shifter gives when it is being used, I was able to control my destination in a much more stable manner. I re-visited the realm of gray buildings and flying machines, and began searching for items that had mystical properties.
Much like before, men in matching uniforms began trying to subdue me- this time, instead of narrow clubs, they used some sort of... the best I can describe these items would be "boom-sticks", and also small handheld box devices that have a sort of energy charge- not juju energy, something amazingly similar to elemental energy. Needless to say, I put a few boom-sticks and lightning boxes into the sack I brought along just for these mysterious items.
Seeing that even more locals were after me, I used the Shifter to travel once more and found myself on the outskirts of an extremely large village with an extremely tall wall and extremely large wooden doors with strange red symbols splathered across them. Once I tried to enter through the open doors, however, two men in vests intercepted me and began asking questions, such as "what village are you from?", "would you please surrender your weapons?", "why did you just kill my partner?", but they ceased very quickly after that last one.
Much to my irritation, however, more of their military presence arrived. They were extremely troublesome to combat; they had a tendency to turn into logs or clouds of smoke whenever I landed a hit. After a while, I got bored and hit all of them with a storm of burning rocks- that got 'em to quit flying around and using their tricks. Also set a majority of the village and the nearby forest on fire, but there didn't seem to be anything of interest there, so I Shifted to the next place.
While I'm a big fan of chaos, I prefer to be the one who started it. The next Shift brought me to the middle of a battlefield where a bunch of people in red were fighting a bunch of people in blue.
What really got my attention, though, is that the weapons they were fighting with bore amazing similarities to the boom-sticks- one even had a rotating cylinder that spewed massive amounts of damage to whoever it was pointed at. There was also a sort of stationary machine that automatically shot at whatever got in range- I stuffed the weapons and the machine into the sack after I obliterated their owners, and got back to the Fortress in three attempts.
Ninetieth Sun
Having rested and gotten the gore off my armor, the Mins and I began looking at the items I found- it turns out, the boom-sticks fire a sort of small, fast pointed metal projectile when you pull a small lever. Although durable, these small projectiles couldn't even scratch my armor; as far as I can tell, they just knock me around a lot.
Much to the disappointment of the Mins, these boom-sticks run out of the projectiles fairly quick; the machine only fired for a few moments before it too ran out of the projectiles. Not to say that it didn't slaughter almost every Min present, however.
I think I will wait a while before Shifting again; there are storm clouds gathering, and I may be needed at the Fortress.
Ninety-fourth Sun
The storm altered direction away from the Fortress, however Horace returned, half-dead in his ship that was shattered beyond repair with a crew in worse shape than he, frantically warning Knot and I of an impending attack by the group of ships that destroyed his own. Before passing out, he managed to at least tell me that the ships were from the group that was trying to take over the world, enslave humanity, let little kids eat sugar at any time of the day, and so forth.
We probably wouldn't have gotten along any way, but they could have at least given a bit of warning before they decided to fire on the Black Fortress. By the time I figured out what the hell all the noise was coming from, enough of the Black Wall had fallen to allow them into the courtyard, where the Black Courtyard Defenders were quickly being brought down, their Black Armor doing little to protect them and their Black Weapons not doing the Black Death they normally should. [Maybe we should stop putting 'Black' before everything...]
Once I blasted the foes with fire, it didn't take a lot to get them out of the courtyard. In fact, they didn't seem to be able to do much to me at all; this armor is quite hardy. Once I pushed them back to the beach, I set about destroying their ships- roughly six to begin with, but the last one managed to get a final volley shot at the Fortress before it fled.
Unfortunately, that volley hit parts of the Fortress that were still weakened or damaged from the Shift. One corner of the Wall collapsed, along with two of its turrets; the Central Black Tower, which lies in the middle of the Fortress and holds many of its key areas, got severely damaged fortifications and almost risked falling.
Ninety-sixth Sun
Horace has finally awoken, and I will be accompanying him when he returns to his superiors- the men that damaged the Fortress have quite irritated me. I shall seek an alliance with Horace's people, and try to crush these buggers that decided to fire upon the Black Fortress.
One hundred seventeenth Sun
They have agreed to an alliance, and there are plans in motion to send ships to the Fortress so I can mobilize the Black Battalions. While they gather a small fleet, I am to continue searching the places accessible through the Shifter, looking for items that may help. My next trip will be tomorrow morning.
One hundred eighteenth Sun
The trip went much faster than before, mostly because I was on a more delicate time schedule. I am not sure how many different locations I went to, but I have located several items of good potential- I must prepare for the next trip, however, so I cannot describe them as of now.
One hundred twentieth Sun
Once again, many possibly useful items have been gathered. The first two ships, both build for high speed, have arrived; it should not be long before I can slaughter those who damaged my Fortress.
One hundred thirty fourth Sun
The last of the ships have arrived, and a majority of the items have been spread amongst them. They are crewed by Mins as the military presence [several thousand total, I believe], and a small number of humans to operate the ships. We will depart tomorrow, and it sounds like I will be gone for quite some time, leaving the Fortress in the hands of Knot.
Four hundred fifteenth Sun
According to what the humans said, my force alone both shattered the "Twenty Kingdom's" outer islands and sank a portion of its armada. I had to cease my advance, however- my small fleet was not invincible, and I was forced to return here, to the Fortress, with two ships and about one hundred Mins remaining. In my absence, Knot has returned it to its full glory; if it weren't for the rapidly receding beach and the ocean, I would not have known a difference from when it was back in its original location.
While the Mins recuperate and repopulate, I am going to continue my trips with the Shifter. The items I brought along were mostly used until their energy was nearly fully depleted, and I shall need a new set if I am to raid once again; they will need many years to regain their power, and any use before then will likely be damaging.
There is another notable difference in the Fortress- Knot asked the humans if they would send a scribe, so that their alliance could be written into stone. The once bland walls of the Fortress now have carvings, in mixed Min and the human language, describing our first encounters and the allegiance itself, as well as restored old instructions that are spread throughout the Fortress.
Steve removed his gaze from the book, his thunderous voice now sore. Robin had, somewhere along the line, taken a seat on what seemed to have once been a bed frame, but was now a short and broken platform of stone.
Looking at nothing in particular, the archaeologist spoke quietly: "This is quite a find, historically speaking..."
He would have responded, but the Overlord had just finished speaking what had seemed to be important sections of Sources.
"From what you read out of that last passage, about the receding beach and carvings on the wall? I think it would be a safe conclusion that this island is, in fact, the 'Black Fortress'."
The armored individual grunted in agreement; he had also arrived at that possibility.
"But if this 'Leader' was such a powerful force against the Twenty Kingdoms, what happened to him? Are there more entries?"
Steve flipped to the next page. Unlike every entry before it, this one was not written in old Common- it was written in Ancient Minion. Curious, he flipped to the next few pages- each 'Sun' had its own entry, except for when the ancient Leader was away from the Fortress; however, the one in Ancient Minion seemed to be the last in the journal. Holding the Sources in one hand and balancing the Ancient Minion translation book on the same arm, he set about converting the language.
"This next one seems to be the last one in the book."
Four hundred and twenty-first Sun
Due to injuries I have sustained, I am unable to write this entry myself; I am instead dictating to Knot, who is doing the writing.
The first trip after my raid was disastrous. I gathered several items, but after only a short while I arrived at a place of destruction: a field, covered in bodies and dirt turned to mud by blood, strewn with shattered machines of war.
I was almost immediately seen as a foe by both sides of the war. This normally would have been a standard occurrence, however these armies had extremely formidable weapons. From exploding spheres to large projectiles fired from boom-sticks, I found myself taking much more damage than I have in a long, long time. My armor cracked and dented heavily in the onslaught of metal rain; my bones shattered quickly under the force of these great weapons, and I am sure that several of my internal organs have taken damage.
This was all before a great behemoth challenged me. Badly injured, I managed to find a place less in the open, although I was followed. The behemoth was great, and terrible- it was the size of a house, built completely of steel, and had great cannons on the front.
I tried to evade it, but no terrain stopped the titan. I at last found myself at a dead end, staring a mechanical demon in the face; as powerful as my magic was, there was no melting its armor, no freezing its wheels.
Once it fired its great cannons, I knew I could not fight. Of the four that fired, only one connected- and that was enough. It crushed my armor with such a horrifying power; I felt my ribs cave, and crack as the armor bent into my torso, as I was flung backwards through stone. As if that wasn't painful enough, the machine then ran over my leg, crushing both armor and flesh.
Having had enough, I used the Shifter to flee once I could move. Unfortunately, the Shifter was not undamaged- in all the chaos, it had gotten hit and had a crack; chunks occasionally flew off, and when it finally stopped Shifting, it broke nearly in half.
Still not at the Fortress, I continued to try and Shift. Each time, the pieces broke smaller and smaller, leaving a small chunk in each land until finally, with the rock nearly gone, I found myself in the Fortress. And then passed out.
Once I awoke, I was informed that the damage to my armor was too severe to have it removed; and since the armor repelled mystic energies, the items commonly used for healing had their effects nullified. So, seeing my end, I asked Knot to write as I spoke- and here we are.
I wonder if my raids bought Horace's people enough time to better fend off these "Twenty Kingdoms"; but, they will be alone in their endeavors. The Mins cannot repopulate quick enough to help, and the Fortress' descent into the ocean has been gradually increasing with each day. Knot predicts that the entire island will be submerged within a matter of weeks.
"And that is the end."
"His death would certainly prevent him from destroying the Kingdoms." The archaeologist went back to the sarcophagus, and gazed at the devastated armor of the ancient Leader.
"What are these 'Kingdoms' mentioned?"
"I think it is a previous name of the World Government..."
"... which is...?"
"It... is kind of complicated."
"Never mind, then." Now able to half-use his burned hand, Steve withdrew the key from the pouch and opened his thigh compartment, stashing the Ancient Minion translation book and Sources within before joining Robin at the sarcophagus.
"Roooobin! Where are you?"
(Begin end A/N)
You know, I always worry that my stories sometimes move too quickly. Now, I can look at this one and say, "Damn, this story moves kind of slow". Sorry about that, by the way.
I was intentionally vague on history pertaining to the Ancient Kingdom ("Horace's people/superiors") and the Ancient Alliance/Twenty Kingdoms (better known as the World Government), because their history is a bit vague in One Piece canon. Needless to say, there probably wasn't a big evil guy that went off and obliterated a chunk of the Government's military.
The ancient Overlord visited: a generic semi-modern city, Naruto, Team Fortress 2, and a semi-futuristic battlefield where he got royally buttkicked by a heavy tank. In the next chapter, I think that the items in the sarcophagus will be rifled through, so there's going to be more references to other shows/games/etc. [Man, archaeologists and Overlords looking for Mystic Shifters have no respect for the dead.]
(End end A/N)