Warnings: Violence, horror, ghosts, fluff

Important Note: This chapter is basically a huge flashback around 110 years ago when the sun was frozen. It takes place during the first 10 years of being stuck in that realm. Shanks and his crew appear 15-18 years old; Rouge, Rayleigh and Roger in their 30s; Usopp 5.

Disclaimer: Eiichiro Oda owns One Piece. I own the plot and words.

Under the Frozen Sun

It made no sense, but it was reality.

They were walking on water.

It had scared the crap out of Shanks at first – he was acting very odd, he thought to himself, but apparently he also appeared younger than he looked and it didn't help that Roger was being so calm and collected despite the fact that the once red sky was now green and they were walking on water. Rouge didn't seem to mind all too much, but Shanks could tell even she was slightly perturbed.

Shanks shivered slightly as his breath puffed in front of his face. It was absolutely freezing which made no sense, considering that the sun was high in the sky and not a cloud was in sight. He had never felt this cold before in his life.

"The temperature will be like this for a very long time. Some areas will be unbearably hot like a desert, others as freezing as the farthest reaches of the north. Extreme humidity, extreme dry heat, blizzards, horrendous storms – all will last for hours, days, weeks, months, even years."

"Why?"

"With the sun stuck in the sky, little will ever change except for the weather. Even the aging process will be greatly slowed."

Shanks sighed at the thought, mentally groaning at the thought of being seventeen forever. He shivered again, from the cold and something he thought he saw under the water, when a weight suddenly pushed down on his shoulders. He grabbed at it and blinked, startled, when he realized that it was Roger's Red captains jacket. Roger smiled at him before continuing across the water, his arm around Rouge's waist.

Shanks blinked, smiled, and ran to catch up to his long time idol, feeling, for some reason, much better about the whole situation.

"Yasopp? Ben? Roo? Usopp?" Shanks eyes were bulging as he stared before him at the friends he saw die and the son he thought was killed.

"Captain!"

"Shanks! You're back too?"

"Hey, Shanks."

The four teens clapped their hands together before Shanks ruffled the hair of the five year old Usopp. "Usopp! Last I saw you, weren't you fifteen?"

Usopp pouted. "Don't remind me!" The five year old mumbled, only causing Shanks to laugh at his misery. Then, Shanks blinked as a thought burst in his head and turned around to Roger and Rouge.

"Captain! This is my crew!"

"Yo! I'm Yasopp! This is my son, Usopp."

"I'm Lucky Roo, but you can just call me Roo."

"It's nice to meet you."

Roger laughed.

The sky was acid yellow. The air was unbelievably thick. Crickets and beetles music was loud, making it hard to hear one's own thoughts. Far above, strange bird creatures and tree dwellers screeched and made other indecipherable noises. The muddy swamp would occasionally pop bubbles which made the air smell putrid. The trees, despite having their trunks and roots submerged in water and their leaves under the sunlight, were quickly dying. Every once in a while, one would just wither, it's leaves falling down into nothingness as they disintegrated. It didn't help that the sun was shining so brightly above, as hot as a fire right in front of one's face.

"Shanks! It's hot!"

"I know kid, I know."

Shanks was panting, holding Usopp on his back as he trudged through mud that was waist deep. The humidity made their clothes stick uncomfortably to their bodies and their skin stuck together, but they had no other choice than to stay like this. If Usopp tried to walk in this muck, he would likely drown. It wasn't good that Shanks had to carry him though because the extra weight combined with the awful environment made him light headed, something he did not want to be in such a dangerous situation.

Shanks grabbed onto a branch, trying to pull them forward, but it snapped, sending him forward. He panicked for a moment and Usopp yelped before the red head reached out and gripped tightly to another branch. He sighed heavily in relief.

He pulled himself up again and began to trudge once more, trying to take large steps without losing his balance.

"Shanks! Is that it!" A small hand appeared in front of his face, pointing at a small island. Shanks grinned, relief clearly shown in his eyes.

"That's it, Usopp. We can get the medicine there."

Usopp gave a small cheer as Shanks continued to move, faster now, more determined and motivated than before.

Neither of them noticed the formless creatures approaching from under the murky, muddy water. They had glowing acid green eyes, watching their every move with sick fascination as the two reached the island and got on their hands and knees, back to the water as they plucked small plants from the ground.

Usopp felt something was off first. He stiffened, ceased his movements; he had his hand grasping onto some of the plants they needed while the other was stopped in the middle of stuffing some into a bag he had brought. He felt a small bead of sweat roll down his forehead as his eyes were wide in fear.

What was touching his leg.

Shanks looked up, quickly registering the unnatural silence, and his eyes widened in terror.

"Usopp!"

A slimy limb wrapped around the boy's ankle, yanking him back. Usopp fell on his face and yelped as he was being dragged back. His fingers clutched at the ground desperately as he was pulled back harshly and he was thinking I'm going to die here, aren't I?
He was pulled out of his thoughts when he felt a hand grab his wrist. He looked up and saw Shanks, holding his arm tight. The red haired teen was glaring as he pulled out his dagger and raised it, stabbing at the limb holding onto the long nosed boy. An inhuman screech sounded and the dark water bubbled as the limb retracted in a slithering motion. Shanks pulled the boy up and held him before quickly grabbing the bags of plants they had and quickly began to wade his was across the other side of the swamp.

Usopp watched over the teens shoulder as the water bubbled. His eyes were wide with fear, slightly wet, when he saw long, fat blobs of slime and muck begin to surface, their terrifying green eyes boring into Shanks back.

"Shanks! They're coming!" Usopp yelled. Shanks made an irritated, annoyed, slightly scared sound as he tried to sprint through the slowly thickening liquid. With his free hand, he continuously grabbed onto branches, pulling himself forward. However, the trees were covered in a thick, viscous, liquid, making it hard to get a grip. He kept splashing around in it and, he realized with growing horror, that it was drying on him, making it hard to move.

Shanks began to move more desperately while Usopp finally managed to wrestle his sling shot out of his many hidden pockets and was shooting futilely at the approaching monsters.

"Shanks! They're gaining! I don't wanna die!" Usopp cried.

"We can't die, idiot! They can still hurt us though!" Shanks yelled back as he continued to trudge through the mud. He also realized he was sinking.

Could this get any worse?!

Suddenly a large monster emerged out of the ground in front of him. Shanks jaw dropped open in shock while Usopp screeched.

IDIOT!

The creature's mouth was open wide, a strange, acidic goo dripping from it's mouth and burning away the mud. Shanks eyebrow twitched.

That's gonna hurt.

He brought up his sword, glaring with all his might at the monster, ready to attack, when it suddenly screeched in pain. Shanks' eyes widened in shock when it suddenly exploded into a mess of slime, splattering everywhere. Huge globs of it landed on Shanks and Usopp as even more landed on trees, slowly dripping down. The creatures once behind the two squealed in terror and retreated back into the murky depths. Shanks looked up to see what – or who – had saved them and the corners of his mouth instantly pulled up into a wide smile.

"Rayleigh!"

Hours later, the three were sitting around a small campfire. Roger and the others were off to the side, resting as the medicine did it's work to fight off the illness that plagued them. Rayleight was cooking some meat while Usopp tore into the only ready teeth with a greedy mouth and starving stomach. Shanks was quiet as he sat next to the elder man, who actually looked older than when he died.

"It's how this revival spell works," Rayleigh told Shanks when he asked. "You are brought back at a random age and slowly age from that point for the next one hundred years until we are ghosts once more, whether through are own deaths or not."

"How long does it take to age?" Shanks asked, ears open and brain processing everything he was hearing.

"For everyone it is different, but for most, it takes around ten years to age one year."

Shanks looked down at that, contemplative, as he bit into the meat he had just been handed. So he may only age ten years during this whole ordeal? If he did, then he would be younger than when he first died come the time to turn back into a ghost.

He didn't really know how he felt about that.

"Rayleigh," The silver haired man looked to the red haired teen. "What do you think about this whole All Soul business?"

"The All Soul, huh," Rayleigh said, biting into some of his meat. "It will change the world once again."

"Again?"

"Yeah, again."

"Roger said that this happened before too."

"It did, many years ago, long before you were born."

"What happened to the All Soul then? Did he live, or did he die?"

"No, he lived a long, fulfilling life. He regretted nothing."

"Who was it?"

Rayleigh looked at him with a knowing smile. "He's your captain."

Shanks eyes widened in shock and he stared, his mouth paused mid chew. Usopp was startled out of his eating when Shanks spluttered loudly.

"Captain was the All Soul?!"

"Yes, Roger was the All Soul."

"But – But I've seen him bleed before! We all have! His blood was clearly red!"

"That's the fate of an All Soul."

Shanks blinked and calmed himself at the solemn look on Rayleigh's face.

"You'll understand soon enough."

Rain.

It was raining large amounts of water, drowning them, decreasing visibility to below zero. The humidity was awful; sweat drenched their clothes and their skin along with the rain and the pure thickness of the air made it difficult to breath. What made it worse was that, even though there were rain clouds and everything, the sun still shone brightly above them, illuminating them, heating them to their very cores, blinding them even further.

Still, they were all holding hands. They couldn't get lost in this, not when they could easily fall over into the raging, flooded river full of rapids to their left or to a painful death by sharp rocks to their right.

Shanks really had to wonder how they kept getting in situations like these.

Roger had said that they had to travel to the other side of the world. It would be pretty easy considering they could walk on salt water (Shanks would never get used to the feeling and would always wonder why they couldn't walk on fresh water) in theory. It was actually ten million times harder considering the random, unexplainable weather changes and the creatures that kept popping up out of nowhere and just wanted to chew their heads off like dogs destroying chew toys or shoes.

It made Shanks want to pull his hair out.

Actually, it made all of them except for Roger feel even remotely irritated. Roger just laughed their complaints off, completely indifferent to their shared suffering as he stood there, hands on his hips, eyes alight with mirth.

Still, that was what made captain captain, and in the back of his mind Shanks knew he wouldn't have it any other way. Roger always seemed to know what he was doing. Everything always ended up okay. So no matter what, he would follow him to the ends of the Earth to learn why this was all happening and to find any possible way to stop it.

The dangers of nature didn't seem so scary when he thought of it like that.

It was his first time seeing it.

The sky was a pale purple, a few shades darker than the eerie tower of light that never disappeared from view, no matter where you were. Snow fell softly, elegantly over the landscape, touching the ground with it's pure white bathed in a soft violet glow due to the coloring of the sky. The houses surrounding them were frozen over with ice and it seemed abandoned since there was no sign of life. Anything made of metal was covered in a thick layer of ice, anything of cloth was cold and stiff, and the wooden homes were rotting from water damage. It was quiet and empty and could easily be overlooked.

If it wasn't for the vampire turned stone standing there, in the middle of the pathway, stuck in mid step.

There were a few other creatures too; some walking in or out of houses, some laughing or fighting, some stuck in poses as if meant to feed or hunt. But all were immobile, stone, and snow-covered.

It was beautiful and terrifying all at once. Shanks approached with the intention to touch it, but it seemed as though an invisible barrier prevented his hand from touching it's surface by bare millimeters.

"You won't be able to touch it. It's part of the spell. They remain untouchable until the end is near and only then can they be touched," Rayleigh said, walking up next to Shanks. Everyone was staring at the creatures, walking slowly and cautiously as if one move could wake them and they would immediately be ready to kill them. They knew it was impossible, but it still did not stop their nerves from running and fraying.

"This happened to every creature of the night?"

"Including angels…only ghosts remain unharmed."

"Usopp…" Nami trailed off as she stared at the boy being held in Yasopp's arms as he carried the child around. He seemed very afraid, something Nami didn't like. "It's been so long since I've seen him…"

"It's been around 740 – no, 840 years since we've seen him alive," Sanji said, lighting his cigarette and staring at the boy he only remembered as a teen. Zoro just stared, not really believing what he was seeing but at the same time wholeheartedly accepting it for what it was.

"My Dad and Mum too…and Rayleigh…but Shanks, what does this have to do with Luffy?" Ace said after the darkness left his eyes, turning to the red haired man who was watching the scene with a painful nostalgia shining in his eyes. But Ace and Whitebeard and Marco and all of the crew wanted answers despite the sadness Shanks exuded.

"A lot more than you think they do."

AN: Sorry if this is a little late for your liking. But, since I'm running out of finished chapters to publish, from now on, this story is to be updated on Monday's.

Genesis: I'm glad you like it so much :) I hope this chapter makes sense. More is to come, though.

Bluebird42: hahahaha, I'm happy you enjoyed it :)

shadowmarialove: In trouble for reading? I hope your tou-san didn't find you! Basically what happens is that we learn Teach gains power from eating hearts which hold dreams. Shanks took away that power and in turn had to kill himself. He also saved Ace from Teach. The All Soul - the holder of all dreams and the most powerful dream - is what Teach wants. To do this, he killed Boa's sisters, controlled her, and cast a spell that froze all creatures of the night, caused mass destruction, and resurrected ghosts which are the key part to the All Soul. Ace realizes Luffy is the All Soul and Shanks shows them what happened during the hundred years they were frozen in stone.

luffylova: Ah, sorry. Shanks' death was around 835 years ago, if my math is right. The scenes after are around 110 years ago. hahaha, thanks :) I hope you're okay with the Monday update plan

So, I don't have much to say aside from thank you for reading! Please leave a review! (If you see any mistakes, tell me and I'll fix it.)