Chapter 2 - Decisions

The Cyto-Cyto Fruit.

It allowed its wielder to have the ability to not only observe every individual cell that made up the living world and beings around them, but also to be able to manipulate and command those cells to the extent of their knowledge and ability. Though of course there was the interesting caveat that the power could work on anyone but the wielder themselves.

Needless to say that when Lily had first "acquired" the power as a child, it had nearly driven her mad. So many cells…so many lights shining around her…and not having any idea of how to control her sight or how her control over these building blocks of life itself worked, had been overwhelming, to say the least. It had taken her years to simply become used to her new "sight". And years more to train herself to make use of her abilities.

Intense study of biology, cytology, zoology, physiology, and anatomy; skills she'd have never realized she would need and yet surprisingly found herself enjoying. Reading scientific journals and medical texts had given her a slight feeling of comfortable nostalgia for some unknown reason. She didn't know why or how, but she chalked it up to perhaps a missing part of her past that she was rediscovering.

The libraries of Revolutionary Army HQ ended up becoming her second home and she had painstakingly, through experimentation and trial and error honed her craft. Becoming a scientist and a doctor had been a byproduct of her trying to make the best use of her powers. And during the many darker and dirtier parts of her job, she enjoyed being able to make use of those aspects of herself to heal and give life to a world that did its best to take it.

Once she had honed her craft, she found that she could use her power to command cells to obey her every order as long as she could express her explicit instructions within her mental intentions. Cells didn't have conscious thought, after all, they couldn't understand vague implied thought. But they were built for complex instruction and her power took advantage of that. With her devil fruit, Lily could heal nearly every kind of wound brought before her, sickness and cancer meant nothing if she could tell the cells where to go and push them to protect the body at all costs, or tell the cells to stop their onslaught in their track, or even to die if need be.

She could also use her power in offensive and defensive ways, using her power to control entire organs, systems, or even organisms in unrefined ways. Her only limit so far had been her own stamina and the limit on raw materials on hand that the cells would need to keep going before breaking down.

She was an invaluable weapon in the R.A.'s arsenal, but Lily didn't want to just stay cooped up and hidden away in Baltigo forever. It had taken a lot of convincing to allow the higher-ups to eventually give her a field assignment. She had her CO to thank for persuading them to allow her to go undercover as an intelligence agent. It came with an express order that she is not to show off too much, only using her powers in the case of an emergency. She would be a prize beyond price if the World Government were to get its hands on her.

Lily sighed, Well too late for that now.

Schaden looked from her to the body on the ground and waited for her decision. His quiet moaning whistle asked, 'So, what's the plan, Lil?'

She looked down at the young man, wavy black hair framing a young face, barely 20 if she remembered correctly…much too young to have died so violently. A weird thought, considering she was probably about the same age, and also risking her life for what she believed in. A dusting of freckles graced ashen cheeks on a smiling and oddly peaceful face.

She should leave him. Many people died on the battlefield. It was war after all. She was responsible for herself and Schaden and her assignment. That was it. She had done a favor for her boss and now it was time to make their exit, she didn't have time to—

"If you can save the life that's right in front of you, you have a responsibility to do so. We save lives, it's in our blood!"

A stern male voice reverberated within her head, and she closed her eyes and huffed before turning away. It was annoying to be chastened by a voice she didn't recognize and yet one that her mind felt hardwired to not ignore.

She didn't know whose voice it was that played through her head at these most inopportune moments. The voice was vaguely familiar and nostalgic, but never more than that. Something that was probably locked up with the rest of the many things that she couldn't remember from the time "before".

And yet the voice persisted, and this time she didn't even know if she wanted to ignore it. Her heart already knew what she wished to do, it was the logical side of her brain that was making the argument.

She had a job to do.

If she was caught, the world government would never let her go if they knew of her abilities. Not that they would do so anyway since she was also a revolutionary, which meant that capture means torture.

Not just her, but Schaden too. She couldn't risk—

And of course, her oh-so-helpful brain decides to interrupt her thoughts once again.

"So what if you don't remember? Our memories aren't the only things that make us who we are."

Now that was a voice she recognized.

A year before on the island of Baltigo: Revolutionary Army HQ

Lily flipped around on her leg, kicking the wooden target and splintering it into pieces. The shards fell to the rocks below joining many others already consumed by the raging waters.

Wiping the sweat from her face, she plopped down on the ground of the cliff face and pushed the few rebellious locks of white hair that escaped their binding back onto her head. Working to catch her breath, she looked out on the rolling waves of the ocean, feeling the salty spray against her, the winds blowing cool against the perspiration glittering on her skin.

"So, what is it this time? Nerves or nightmares?"

Turning, she saw her commanding officer strolling casually up the moonlit path to sit down beside her on the cliffside. She smiled, not surprised to see him out and about in the middle of the night.

She sighed before looking back at the dark waters of the sea, "A little bit of both I guess…"

The man nodded in acknowledgment before continuing the comfortable silence, letting her gather her thoughts.

She picked up a shard of wood in her hand and played with it between her fingers. "I had dreams of the facility again, even a little bit before that. I can even hear voices from time to time but I can't recognize any of them. It's all right there, and yet right out of my grasp! Sometimes I wonder if I even want to remember…"

Her frustration caused the wood to snap within her grasp. She turned to him pleadingly, "Does it ever get better?"

The man sighed and ran his hand over the scars on his skin before pulling a knee up and leaning against it. "I wish I could say it does, but that feeling of something missing never truly goes away. The best we can do is to continue living and be true to who we are now. A puzzle with missing pieces can still give an accurate picture of the whole."

She copied him and brought her legs up against her chest. Her heart was a bit heavy as she admitted her fear to him. "It was probably the Marineford mission that triggered it. It's my first big assignment, Chief. I know I've trained for this, and it's what I want, but am I really cut out for this?"

Her CO arched an eyebrow back at her, "Having second thoughts, Lily?"

She sighed and looked away from him and back to the ocean. Despite them being about the same age, he was like a mentor to her, and she didn't like disappointing him.

He spoke up quietly beside her. "There are times that I wish I could remember everything from my past. My memories are harder to grasp onto than even yours. But I think for people like us, Lil, we have to realize that our memories are not everything."

Nudging her playfully, he smiled gently. "So what if you don't remember? Our memories aren't the only things that make us, us. Even though we may not know our past, our hearts remember who we truly are. You can do this, Lily. I wouldn't have fought so hard for you if I didn't think so."

Present Day, ruined remains of Marineford

Lily smiled resignedly before quietly whispering, "Thanks, Chief."

A lull had come over the battle as the Red Hair Pirates made their entrance and they were running out of time. She turned to Schaden, a look of determination on her face. "We're taking him with us."

A loud shriek could be heard, 'What?! But Lil—'

She continued on as she began to look for the best way of transporting the body. "I can save his life, Schaden, but I can't do it here and we're running out of very precious time. I need you to transport us both to the boat. I'll get started working on him while you set sail. We need to get as far away as we can and fast."

Schaden looked at the purposeful look on her face and sighed in resignation. Why did he even bother? 'Okay, but I didn't intend on having to use teleportation, much less doing it with more than one person, so I don't have a reservoir of energy on hand and the ride may be a little bumpy.'

Lily nodded absently, her mind already on the job ahead. She moved to carefully hold Portgas' body close to hers, trying her best to not make his situation any worse and tearing or damaging anything else that would make her decision pointless.

His body was still slippery with undried blood and lukewarm to the touch. It felt so sticky and distressing on her skin to touch him like this. She could almost feel his life slipping away through her fingers.

How had StrawHat withstood such a feeling?

They had to hurry.

Schaden expanded out his shadowy tendrils, enveloping both of them in absolute darkness. A jolt came over her as she felt the shift in her body as they switched dimensions, teleporting her and her patient off the battlefield.

This was a huge risk she knew. Using teleportation was a last resort that they used to make eleventh-hour escapes when absolutely necessary. Without sufficient prep, the move would put a ton of strain on Scha, and he would be zapped of most of his strength afterward, making them vulnerable.

Their original plan in case they needed to "take their leave" was for Lily to pretend to sail out on orders, with Schaden continuing to hide in her shadow, and then for them to quietly take off once they had gotten a few ports away. After that, they would do a myriad of complicated steps to cover their tracks and basically just disappear as if they were never there.

The second plan in case of emergency was to have a fast boat ready and supplied waiting in a secluded cove, using their navy cover to get them as far as they could go before hastily disappearing at a port further away.

Teleportation was the absolute last option and Schaden was already regretting using it. He steeled himself as he felt his body tremble and tear from the tension. He corrected his hold and continued to interlace his current surroundings with the dimensional doorway that he held within his body.

Utilizing a series of portals with his own body as a conduit, he was able to go to any location that he had already pinpointed ahead of time. However, while his people were naturally adapted for this kind of travel, regular humans were not. Traveling with human passengers necessitated protecting them from the harsh conditions of dimensional travel using his own body as a blanketing shield. He had trained well enough to take one passenger without much issue, even if his stamina would be pretty drained afterward.

But two passengers…

Well, here goes nothing.

A being of myth and legend to most of this era, Schaden was one of the last of his kind: a Cimmerian.

His people while vaguely humanoid in shape were not human in nature by any stretch. They were more so shades made of shadow, darkness, and mist. He could take a somewhat solid form if he wished, but only for a limited amount of time. His unique abilities gave him a connection to an alternative dimension that only Cimmerians could access, known to them as the land of Styx.

With this ability, he could absorb nearly anything and also reject those things, sending them hurtling back as a way of attack. He could also use this ability to teleport himself or very few passengers to known destinations.

He found humans curious beings. Ones that he avoided interactions with, but enjoyed observing. He trusted few humans, even those within the Revolutionaries.

Lily, his first and best friend, a light and beacon for him in his most hopeless and painful moments of despair. She of course was an exception. He would follow by her side always. She had saved his life, dreams, and ambitions he had once held, and he had decided to devote all of his to helping her achieve hers.

And even though she makes some of the most ludicrous decisions in existence! He thought with annoyed frustration as he ignored the pain beginning to eat away at his form.

He continued to follow her, incapable of allowing her to face the world alone.

Lily landed heavily on the wooden deck keeping the pirate king's son's body as steady as she could. As Scha's misty barrier receded, she took account of where they were and was happy that her partner had successfully gotten them to their escape craft. They were far away from the battle stage now, the entire area deserted and close to the far rocky western outer edge.

At the sound of a painfully ragged cough, she quickly turned around, worry sparking up for her partner. How much had he overdone it?

On the ship's deck, Scha was hovering against the wood, completely incorporeal like a murky black fog. The way his body was phasing in and out couldn't be good. Electric sparks flashed over his form, and his purple glowing eyes could barely keep themselves open as he looked over his friend to make sure that she had survived okay after the trip.

She approached him anxiously, concern in her voice. "Are you okay, Scha?"

He gazed at her and gave a slight nod, but he was too exhausted to audibly respond.

Lily smiled with relief before standing back up and taking a knife out of her boot. Cutting the mooring line and kicking the boat away from the dock with her foot, she felt the vessel sway for a moment before drifting quickly on the waves.

"Rest awhile, Schaden. You earned it. Let the boat drift for now. It will be less suspicious that way, we'll use the sails when we're far enough away. Only interfere if we're about to crash or something. You did well Scha, just rest and warn me if anyone approaches."

She didn't bother listening for a response. Time was precious and she didn't think the commander could wait any longer. With a heave, she picked up the body from the deck, slinging a limp arm around her shoulder, she headed down into the boat's hold. My God, the guy was heavy! If this is what he was like after months in the tender care of Impel Down's dungeons, she could only wonder what he had been like when he was perfectly healthy!

A light whistle like that of wind through hollow reeds faintly called after her. 'Don't worry so much. If anyone can do it, Lil, you can.'

With a large swipe of her arm, Lily cleared the table in the cabin, forgotten objects crashing to the floor. Balancing Portgas over her shoulder with one arm, she laid a hand on the table and activated her power. It took her but a second to sterilize the tabletop, killing every microbe on its surface with but a thought.

Pulling the man's body onto the table, she ran over to the storage room and grabbed the standard naval medkit and any other medical supplies that she could find. There was enough emergency reserve universal S- blood for a single transfusion, and while it would not be nearly enough for what she needed, it was a start. Bringing it back to the room, she started several IVs and as well as setting up the transfusion machine for when she needed it. Placing sterile gloves on her hands, she stood in front of the table. Looking back over him with her cellular sight she could see that activity had decreased even in the short minutes it had taken to get him here, but she still saw what had caught her eye on the battlefield.

With the power of her cyto-cyto fruit, she could see what no one else could: that Portgas D. Ace was indeed still alive!

Barely.

While he had stopped breathing and his heart had stopped beating, his cells are still alive. They are in the process of dying, but if she could get to him and move quickly, with her power, she could save him…possibly.

She had never done cell manipulation of this magnitude before. She had worked in the emergency medical unit back on Baltigo, repairing gunshot wounds, damaged limbs, concussive burns, and much more. Her abilities continued to expand at each new challenge.

But this? The damage done to him by the Marines' dog was beyond catastrophic.

And yet what kind of doctor would she be if she didn't even give it her best shot?

With another mental command, this time to her own body, the epithelial cells of her skin lost their healthy fleshy pink tone and became a stark ashen white. The once brown locks of hair also changed color to snowy white strands. Her entire body became as colorless as the fake uniform she wore.

While her ability did not allow her to actually do any permanent change to her own body, she could perform slight alterations of surface cells within her sight.

This allowed her to change certain phenotypes, like her skin, hair, eye color, or even shape if she had enough time. It was a talent that had come in handy as a tool on this job and saved time in having to don disguises. It also served to help stave off certain uncomfortable questions about her past that she didn't feel like answering. (Or even knew the answers herself really.)

But it took a low-level passive amount of energy to keep up, and she could spare none of her energy to maintain a disguise she no longer currently needed.

Throwing off her marine uniform coat and hat, she rolled up her sleeves. This would take all the strength and stamina she had, and it would take hours of constant work… if it worked at all.

She avoided looking at the man's blood-stained face, knowing the tragic look of resigned happiness that still lay upon his ruggedly handsome features would probably undo her resolve. Instead, she let the clinical, detached side of the doctor come over her. Looking over the huge gaping mortal wound in front of her on her "operation table", she took a deep breath, she had a lot of damage to repair.

His entire ribcage had been pulverized, parts of his spine and backbone along with it. The level of burns to this body by the magma she had only seen in medical texts in the forensics section or on cadavers, there being no way to repair such damage using traditional medicine.

Parts of his abdominal aorta and inferior vena cava had been completely burned away.

His liver had an entire chunk ripped out of it, along with parts of his lungs, heart, and intestines, while his diaphragm looked to be barely hanging on for dear life.

All of the organs had horrible burn scarring, not only from the initial impact but from the fact that all the blood and fluids in that section of his body had practically instantaneously boiled away the moment the magma had made contact.

Splintered, broken bone had done its own harm, piercing the visceral organs around them.

The spleen, stomach, both kidneys, the pancreas, gall bladder...

The catalog of injuries and trauma went on and on and after a moment, she closed her eyes as the sheer enormity of the devastation that had been done was fully realized.

Taking in a large breath and letting it out slowly, Lily uncurled her fists and let her body relax.

One step at a time. She would do this. She was a doctor by God and she would do this!

Opening her eyes, she turned her sight on full force, and white light nearly spilled out from her eyes, a white glow flitting around her fingertips.

Ignoring everything else in the room, she focused on the dancing, twinkling lights in front of her on the table. Sparks that were quickly extinguishing themselves one at a time.

No time…

Moving swiftly, she did her first and most important step in the procedure, her fingers moving and invisibly reaching into the brain and commanding the neurons of the central nervous system.

"LIVE"

"DIVIDE"

The nerve cells responded to her call, awakening and working to once again transduce signals. Forced to go beyond their usual operation. Dead cells began to be replaced by new ones. Electrical sparks began to move again and new connections were made.

Her first job was to become his life support. She had to make sure his neural synapses continued to fire and his brain didn't die during the process while she was fixing all the major damage. Once she could get the heart and lungs working again, she could let his natural systems feed his most important organ.

Keeping an eye on the rejuvenated neurons, she quickly moved on. She would have to clear away the damage all the while replacing his organs concurrently, and for that, she would need to physically work with her hands and scalpel as much as mentally with her devil fruit.

Taking a deep breath before plunging her hands into the hole in the man's chest. Reaching into the thoracic cavity, she felt around for the ravaged remnants of the two most vital organs that it housed. She pulled the dead and dying cells to her will.

"LIVE"

"DIVIDE"

Cardiac and pulmonary tissue awoke at her words and began to go through cell division. Dividing to a much more rapid degree than it ever would have on its own. Some would have never done the process at all but for her command.

Responding to the force of her will, she concentrated on reshaping and sculpting the organs, all the while physically, carefully removing bits of bone and cauterized tissue. Cells continued to multiply and tissues were slowly rebuilding themselves, one layer at a time. A process that usually needed tons of energy, oxygen, water, nutrients, hormones, and time, she was able to complete using the resources from what was left in the stores of the man's own body, the power of her fruit, and her own will.

The procedure would take time, even at the reckless speeds she was working at. She just had to get the heart and lungs working again. She could fix necrosis thanks to oxygen deprivation, but only to a degree. After that, she could slow down, but only slightly. Altogether she was looking at many hours of work ahead of her.

She had never stretched her powers like this, but this was the first time she had another life that was this dependent on them. She'd used her devil fruit to help heal before, to treat others. Yet for wounds to this degree, the patient was usually much too far gone for her to do anything. Why was Portgas so different? Why had his body refused to completely shut down? The remaining flicker of life within him was enough of a spark for her to work with.

Lily observed the process distantly as she continued to force the man's cells to divide hundreds, thousands, millions of times, multitasking on different areas at once. She would have to remake his heart, his lungs, his thoracic cavity, his bone, muscle, skin…

Sigh. It was a long list...

She mentally touched the man's legs and her power winding its way into his pelvis, femur, and tibia forcing his bone marrow to create new blood cells at quadruple their normal rate. She would have to time this right. His newly made blood would be useless without sealed vessels and a working pump, but at the same time, without blood, his new heart would also die. And then there were the lungs...

So much damage to repair…!

Taking a breath, she exhaled slowly, falling into an almost trance-like focus. One step at a time.