Chapter Text
As conflict engulfs the vast seas, the shadow of tyranny falls upon Ice Island in the Grand Line.
The Scorch Pirates deploy 2500 soldiers to secure their hold on the island and extend their dominance over its populace, enforced by the War Armada and the Red Dragons.
Ice Island's rugged terrain becomes fortified with Scorch Pirate strongholds, their naval ports brimming with warships, and their aerial forces controlling the skies. The general population lives under the watchful eye of the Royal Special Intelligence and the Federal Bureau Of Royal Border Logistics.
Rights are stripped away.
Dissenters vanish into the depths of the island.
The voices of resistance are silenced, leaving the people oppressed and afraid.
PART 1: BREACH
Cutting through the infinite frozen tundra of Ice Island like a malignant scar - an imposing military compound, armored in sturdy stonework and spiked metal fencing.
Sentry towers stood at intervals along the towering outer walls, their alcoves currently unmanned against the roving snows.
The main gates, constructed from thick iron plating, remained sealed tight against the desolate white expanse beyond the facility's boundaries.
A series of watchful lookout positions were settled into the ramparts high above, one or two figures briefly visible as they patrolled the walkways.
Frost coated every exposed surface in crystalline layers.
Within the compound itself, a small contingency of Scorch Pirates could be seen making their rounds.
Their distinctive crimson garb and brutal horned helmets stood out starkly against the snowy backdrop as they marched in formed patrols.
The muffled barks of orders carried from one of the central buildings - likely the guards changing shift rotations.
Several ominous containment blocks comprising the facility's core structures remained windowless and featureless, their purposes unclear.
Plumes of condensation billowed from the rooftops, quickly dispersed by the relentless winds.
Occasional shadows flickered past the narrow air vents and gun ports dotting the fortified walls, revealing nothing of what manner of activities were conducted within.
The Scorch insignia - a fanged maw devouring a blazing solar icon - had been etched into the main entrance archway looming over the iron gate.
A bold, unmistakable statement of the dominion and influence wielded by this island's occupying forces.
For all its scarred, militarized construction, the compound nonetheless seemed to almost blend seamlessly into its unforgiving surroundings.
As much a part of Ice Island's brutal, elemental reality as the glaciers, blizzards, and soul-seizing chill itself.
Inside one of the featureless, windowless buildings comprising the fortified Scorch compound's core structures, a dimly lit interrogation room radiated an unmistakable aura of tension and hostility.
At the room's center, Astra sat rigidly bound to an unforgiving metal chair. Her hands were restrained behind her back, her jaw tightly set in defiance. Across the bare table, the imposing figure of Falcon - base commander of this remote frozen outpost - loomed over her like a merciless inquisitor.
His steely eyes narrowed as he consulted a thick dossier, the file's contents detailing everything already known about this particular revolutionary captive.
"This file only confirms what I already know about you, Astra," he began, his tone laced with subtle disdain. "Former Revolutionary officer. Expert swordsman. Possesses a loathing for our great cause that borders on the pathological."
With a sudden forceful motion, Falcon slammed the folder shut and leaned menacingly across the table's surface, his stare bored directly into Astra's unblinking eyes.
"But it doesn't explain why one of the Revolutionaries' finest would throw her lot in with those savages plaguing my men in the forests. The so-called 'resistance.'"
Astra remained utterly steely in her silence, steadfastly unmoved by the base commander's blatant attempts at intimidating her indomitable will.
Her restraint clearly only infuriated Falcon further, a deep scowl twisting his craggy features.
"I've had quite enough of this bloody guerrilla campaign disrupting operations!" He practically spat the words through gritted teeth.
"Soldiers turning up butchered like animals in those woods! It ends here and now."
Sweeping the dossier aside with an agitated hand, Falcon fixed Astra with an intense, expectant glare. "You're going to start talking, revolutionary. And you're going to tell me everything you know about the monsters lurking out there."
At last, Astra's measured tones sliced through the interrogation room's heavy tension - her voice carrying an undercurrent of defiance despite the situation's overtones of peril.
"I don't know anything about a resistance force, Falcon. I'm just a solitary wanderer, separated from my crew...which you already know."
Her last words only seemed to inflame Falcon's wrath. With an animalistic snarl, he slammed a meaty fist down upon the table's surface hard enough to make the very furniture shudder.
"Lying will only compound your situation, Astra! We have monitoring systems trained on those woodlands. Uncovering every last one of their rathole encampments!"
Even in the face of such explosive aggression, Astra's measured calm did not waver.
"Then I suspect you'll find only what you brought upon yourselves through tyranny," she replied, a veiled implication dancing beneath her words.
The base commander's face mottled a violent crimson at her none-too-subtle insinuation of the Scorch forces' culpability.
For several tense moments, his chest heaved with tightly constrained fury. Only after a slight pause to regain his composure did he continue.
"So that's how you want to play this? Fine," Falcon ground out the words through gritted teeth. "I'm beginning interrogations on the entire island population this week. We'll find these vermin by any means necessary."
Astra held his seething stare without flinching as Falcon crouched down, his voice dropping to a sinister register that seemed to leech the interrogation room's air of any remaining warmth or levity.
"But you...I'll be reserving a few...special methods to loosen that revolutionary tongue of yours. Unless you want to reconsider speaking with me before we transfer you to Bakemono Island...where the interrogation is much more unpleasant."
The unspoken threat hung in the air like a guillotine's blade…
The jagged, snow-capped peaks loomed high above the frozen tundra where the Scorch compound stood sentried.
Among those treacherous cliffs and precipices, the Nightstalker Pirates had made camp - biding their time to strike at the outpost below.
Beam surveyed his crew with an assessing gaze as they finished preparations.
The fugitive captain's expression was grim, etched into a permanent scowl befitting his outlook.
Yet an unmistakable fire burned behind that gruff exterior - the persevering determination to see their mission through.
"Make ready," he growled, the words emerging as a rumbling baritone slurred with his gravelly tone.
"Time we paid our friends down there a visit."
With a casual arc of his hand, Beam exerted his mastery over his power. An invisible field radiated outwards, drastically decreasing the mass and weight of every pirate gathered in its radius.
One by one, their stances shifted as the anchoring force of gravity effectively loosened its binding hold.
"Like boulders kicked loose," Mads grunted in his accent, testing out his newfound lightness with an experimental hop.
The vice-captain's scarred knuckles pounded together in eager anticipation of the coming battle.
"Then let's quit dawdlin' and get to it," Pam barked, as she gestured impatiently towards the distant compound.
The crew moved with practiced unity - leaping and bounding down from the towering mountainside with exaggerated ease.
Tek and Bo took the lead, scouting out a safe traversable path through the winding cliffs and outcroppings while Beam's gravity powers augmented their descent.
Within moments, the pirate crew had made their way closer to the outpost's outer perimeter than should have been possible by normal means.
Beam allowed his fruit's power to dissipate, returning their full mass as they took covered positions.
"Stealth and hit hard," he reminded them, his gravelly tones lowered to keep the rasping timbre from carrying towards the compound.
"They don't see us comin' until it's too late."
With that simple order, the pirates moved out - closing in on the fortified Scorch base with silent lethality.
Beam's scowl deepened, both hands tightening around the hilt of his massive greatsword as he led the charge.
There would be no destiny or glory today. Only a single-minded mission of preventing whatever foul deeds these "justice" purists had instigated within these unforgiving Arctic wilds.
The Nightstalkers fought on - fueled by their captain's convictions to live by one's own Personal Code, no matter how dark the path became.
Slaloming down the snowy mountainside, the Nightstalker crew rapidly closed in on their vantage point overlooking the Scorch compound's outer perimeters.
Tek took point, carving out a path with deft motions of his katana to keep their descent controlled.
Finally, they came to a precarious cliffside ledge offering a clear visual of the fortified outpost sprawled out below.
Beam motioned for them to take up overwatch positions, hunkering low against the wind-blasted rock as Bo produced his telescope.
Through the scope's magnified lens, the young sniper's gaze swept over the compound's defenses with a trained eye.
"Two scouts patrolling the east ramparts," he murmured, carefully tracing their movements. "Armored, but...they don't seem too alert."
Beam grunted, keeping his voice pitched low. "Any other activity?"
Bo shook his head minutely, still glassed in on the pair of Scorch troops.
As if to confirm his assessment, the two continued their patrol rhythm - unhurried and almost...casual?
Despite the brutal Arctic conditions besieging the island, they seemed thoroughly unperturbed.
"Wait..." the sniper's brow furrowed slightly as the figures paused, one clearly speaking to the other in an animated fashion.
"They're just...chatting. Like they're out for a stroll in fair weather."
Muffled voices, distorted by distance and the buffeting winds, began carrying towards the pirate crew's hidden position.
Bo adjusted the scope, straining to make out the conversation's subject.
"...telling you, this is some real bullsh*t assignment," one gruff voice could be heard complaining. "Getting shipped out to a literal frozen hellhole. Middle of nowhere!"
His compatriot let out an audible chuckle, sounding utterly unconcerned.
"Better'n getting rotated to Scorch's big show at the iron mines down south! I hear the heat down there is killer."
"Pfft, you kidding? This icy pisshole takes the whole damn cake. Only action we get are those dumbass wolves roaming too close to the fence..."
Rising into a slight crouch, the Nightstalker captain waved the others forward with hand gestures - first Mads, Pam, and Sibyl to take the opening charge, then the rest providing staggered flanking waves.
As the strategy played out rapidly in sharp gestures, the edges of Beam's scowl finally upturned into a faint, mirthless smile.
"Time for these bastards to live up to their name...and get well and truly scorched."
With silent lethality, Beam and Mads broke off from the crew's staggered formation.
Moving like shadowed wraiths against the frozen backdrop, they rapidly closed the distance to the two unsuspecting Scorch sentries.
The gurgling gasp of the first guard was horrifyingly abrupt - choked off in an instant as Beam's seven-foot greatsword impaled him through the back.
The obscenely wide blade punched through armor plating with brutal ease, protruding from the man's chest in a grotesque crimson spray.
In the same moment, Mads brought down his wired bat in a blindingly fast overhand strike.
There was a sickening crunch of ceramplast armor denting inward, followed by the unmistakable dense crack of shattered bone and pulped flesh.
The second Scorch trooper crumpled bonelessly to the frozen ground, his skull stove in by the furious swing.
Thick streams of viscera and brain matter oozed out from the ragged exit wound, staining the pristine snow ruby red.
Mads grunted with animalistic satisfaction as he wrenched his bat free, flecks of gore and bone fragments spattering across his leather jacket.
Beam, meanwhile, simply shrugged off the weight of the first man as his lifeless body slumped off the massive sword's spike in a heap.
"Tsk. Should've quit their yammerin' sooner," the captain rasped, his gravelly tones laced with cruel dismissiveness towards the two brutalized corpses now rapidly staining the ice crimson.
The Nightstalkers maintained their stealthy approach, avoiding detection as they closed in on the Scorch compound's outer defenses.
Up ahead, a sentry tower loomed over the narrow path leading towards the main gates - a single guard stationed at its edge, unaware of the imminent danger.
With hand signals flashing among the crew, Tek broke off and melted into the frozen shadows like a wraith.
Utilizing every ounce of his assassin's training, he rapidly closed the distance while the oblivious sentry remained focused outwards.
In one fluid, nearly imperceptible motion, Tek's blade hissed from its sheath and opened the guard's exposed throat in a precise horizontal slash.
Not even a strangled gurgle could escape before the man's lifeblood sprayed out in a brilliant crimson arc, spattering the pristine white snow.
He crumpled bonelessly to the ground, lifeless hands still clutching futilely at the catastrophic wound as Tek cleaned and re-sheathed his katana with practiced efficiency.
The assassin rejoined the Nightstalkers without a sound, betraying no hint of emotion beneath his steely exterior.
"Clean work," Beam rasped in a low gravelly whisper of approval. "No alarms raised."
He scanned their path ahead leading towards the inner compound gates.
The heavy steel barricades looked nigh impenetrable from this angle - a decidedly less subtle breach than the one he'd forced open earlier.
They would need to rely on guile rather than brute force.
As Foxy scouted ahead once more, the other Nightstalkers tightened their formations - weapons at the ready and utterly focused.
Despite the brutal cold clawing at their exposed skin with numbing ferocity, a palpable sense of determination radiated from the tight-knit crew.
The narrow path wound ever closer to the Scorch compound's fortified gates.
So far, their advance had remained undetected as they stealthily closed the distance.
Up ahead on the outer perimeter's defensive path, a sentry stood stationed in a raised watchtower - seemingly engrossed in taunting the other Scorch troops patrolling the ground below.
"Oy! Baker, Collins! You lard-arses best be waitin' to catch a frozen shard from me next!" The guard's raucous jeers rained down, laced with mocking undertones.
"Tell it to Gin if you're feelin' too nippy! This frozen pisshole's only fit for melting those cheesy guts of yours!"
His fellow sentries emerged from behind the towering stonework fortifications, pelting snow back up at him in response.
"Hold your tongue, Clovis, 'fore I bugger it out through that smug trap of yours!" one of them shouted back amid the casual, aggressive banter.
A pronounced scowl creased Beam's features as he surveyed the exchange. Once more, the captain's iron-willed resolve only hardened the longer they were delayed.
He flicked a harsh glance towards Mads, Tek and Pam - each of the seasoned Nightstalkers giving a grim nod of readiness.
"These thick-skinned fools," Beam rasped, his gravelly voice gritting out the words.
"Let's see how long their arrogance lasts pitted against us..." With a silent hand signal, he motioned for Aelric and the rest of their pirate crew to tighten their encircling formations and prepare to breach the compound in one overwhelming surge.
"Keep any unnecessary bloodshed to a minimum," the captain commanded, his tone edged with lethality.
"We need to seize this place intact, but we won't hesitate to make an entrance..." He trailed off, leaving the steel-edged promise hang menacingly in the air.
The pirate crew held their tightly-formed positions, coiled like venomous serpents ready to strike as the oblivious Scorch soldiers continued their juvenile taunting down the path.
That was, until an unexpected clattering noise shattered the icy stillness from somewhere off in the distance.
All heads turned towards the source of the disturbance - a strange object came clattering and bouncing down the precipitous hillsides well away from their current position.
One of the sentries, a guard named Collins from the earlier jeering, immediately snapped to wariness.
"What in blazes...?" he growled, already beginning to unlimber his rifle from its holster across his back. "Clovis, Baker - on me! The rest of you check the southern ridge!"
With the troops scrambling into a hurried search pattern, their former laidback posturing evaporated in an instant, Beam's scowl deepened anew.
He shared a sidelong glance with Aelric, giving a short, succinct nod.
In a mercurial blur of motion, the warrior moved. One moment he was shrouded in the snowy camouflage alongside his crewmates - the next, he had closed half the distance to the nearest guard.
Aelric's legendary blade sang through the frozen air, a streak of gleaming darkness trailing behind as he brought the razor edge around in a blindingly fast horizontal arc.
There was no cry of alarm, no reaction whatsoever from the sentry.
Only a harsh, wet thump as the man's head abruptly parted from his shoulders, separating into two distinct pieces that crumpled brokenly to the ground an instant later.
Aelric did not so much as break stride, sheathing his sword with consummate poise as he rejoined the Nightstalkers' staggered ranks.
"They've been played," Pam growled, holstering her revolvers. "Bo's distraction lured the patrols far afield...leave the rest to clean-up crew."
With the path now clear, the pirates surged forward in full sprint - their charge eerily silent save for the percussive crunch of boots on frozen earth.
Taking full advantage of the remaining troops' scattering disarray, they made a beeline straight for the imposing iron portcullis separating them from the Scorch compound's inner courtyard.
Tek took point this time, unsheathing his katana with a deft, practiced flourish. In a dizzying whirlwind of strikes, the blurring blade danced across the unyielding iron bars - carving out a ragged hole at head-level just wide enough for a body to squeeze through.
Without breaking pace, the Nightstalkers surged through the newly-hewn gap, swiftly enveloping the inner compound with their stealthy presence.
Raised voices and the distant pounding of bootsteps signaled the remaining Scorch troopers closing in - much too late to deny the pirates their silent ingress.
"Spread out," Beam's gruff rasp issued the command, already pressing forward with his powers rippling outward.
"Leave no corner, no cellblock unchecked. Our business here is far from finished..."
As the crew melted away to carry out their search patterns, the Nightstalker captain allowed the faintest hints of a fiendish grin to play across his lips.
Brandishing his massive greatsword with casual ease despite its immense bulk, he turned to face whatever unfortunate garrison still remained within the compound's central nexus.
They would find out firsthand why his name had become whispered in tones of fear and dread - Beam, the scourge and pitiless reaver whose convictions and personal code brooked no compromise.
"All right, you justice-peddling scum...who wants to go first?"
The compound's inner courtyard rapidly devolved into chaos as the Nightstalkers made their ingress. Bogotá and Foxy worked with brutal efficiency, systematically cutting down the remaining patrol troops that had been sent off in search of Bo's distraction.
Foxy was a blur of afterimages, his Speed Fruit augmenting his movements into a dizzying flurry.
One guard's alarmed shout transmuted into a gurgling scream as the pirate's cutlass tore his throat out in a spray of crimson.
Before the man even crumpled lifeless to the ground, Foxy had already rematerialized across the yard - burying his blade deep into the back of another sentry.
Not to be outdone, Bogotá channeled his mastery over the Wood Fruit into raising a veritable briar patch of gnarled branches amidst the scrambling Scorch forces.
Wicked wooden tendrils lashed out, impaling one man through the chest and ensnaring two more in a spine-cracking crush.
"Damn tree-hugging freak!" One of the surviving soldiers got off a wild shot that pinged harmlessly off Bogotá's bark-like hide.
The shipwright didn't even break stride, replying only with a sad*stic grin as blood-slicked oak limbs erupted from the ground to seize the offending trooper.
Within moments, the courtyard was a grisly painting of scarlet and sprawled corpses.
Pam and Mads mopped up the remaining resistance with calculated brutality - their revolvers and wired bat ending any pleas for mercy with cold pragmatism.
"Path to the bridge is clear, cap'n!" The vice-captain called out, nudging aside a headless body with the toe of his combat boot.
"Just gotta deal with whoever's hidin' up in those watchtowers ahead!"
Beam grunted in acknowledgment, already leading the charge forward with his massive greatsword brandished.
Up ahead, a smaller iron bridge spanned a crevasse separating the courtyard from the towering central keep where their true objective lay.
But the vantage points were already manned - snipers taking up overwatch positions to try and stall the relentless Nightstalker assault.
"I'll handle crowd control," the captain rasped, motioning Tek to take point. As the blade-dancer moved to engage, Beam swept one hand in a slashing arc - extending his will outward through his Gravity powers.
Like a rippling shockwave, the distortion tore across the bridge's span - abruptly inverting gravity's influence over a localized area directly beneath the snipers' nests.
The Scorch soldiers felt the very ground get violently wrenched away as an unstoppable upwards force seized them, shredding their anchoring holds and lifting them wholesale into the air.
Panicked shouts and flailing limbs filled the void as the helpless troopers were rendered weightless - dangling and pinwheeling about in total freefall.
With sad*stic ease, Beam waved his free hand in an idle twisting gesture.
In response, the spherical gravity distortion shifted - sending the airborne men plummeting back towards the bridge in a cacophony of sickening cracks and crunches.
"Bridge is clear," the reaver announced with a tone of finality, already pressing forward again. "Let's see what other surprises these scum have waiting for us inside..."
Leaving the buckled, broken bodies strewn across the span in his wake, Beam led his crew in storming the central keep's main entrance.
They would cut out the heart of this Scorch outpost - or be buried beneath its burning remains. The only path forward now was whichever one was soaked in the most blood…
The winds carried the faint sounds of raucous laughter and coarse joking up ahead.
Beam motioned for the crew to proceed with caution as they emerged onto a cleared road beyond the destroyed courtyard.
In the eerie darkness, the glowing embers of a campfire became visible through the swirling snow squalls.
Creeping closer, the individual voices began to resolve with grisly clarity.
A group of Scorch troopers, perhaps a dozen or so, were indeed gathered around the blaze - regaling each other with stories that made the hair on the back of Pam's neck instinctively prickle.
"--an' then we found them rebel bastards hidin' out up north, y'know? Whole family squished away like roaches!"
One grizzled veteran wearing sergeant's stripes was rambling in between pulls from a dented metal flask. "Pissed themselves an' started blubberin' when we rolled up with howitzers blastin'..."
Guttural laughter erupted from the gathered troops, the amber glow rendering their sneering faces demonic in the firelight. Another, younger man - practically a fresh-faced recruit by his higher-pitched tones - quickly took up the braying chorus.
"That ain't a patch on what we done to that island settlement down the Blind Coast! Whole village of prime breedin' fillies when we hit 'em!" He cackled, to the accompaniment of approving whoops and whistles.
"Had me such a nice lil' filly too - tied her arms so tight her bones started creakin' when I--"
Whatever vile act he'd been about to describe was instantly cut off as Tek erupted into sudden violence.
A blur of motion, the assassin's katana slashed outward without warning - neatly severing the recruit's head from his body in one vicious stroke of metallic vengeance.
The decapitated corpse slumped backwards as the severed skull lolled away into the snow, stem of blood hosing upward from the ruptured stump of neck.
It took several astonished seconds for the surrounding Scorch troopers to register what had happened.
By then, the rest of the Nightstalkers had already descended upon them - rage and bloodlust burning white-hot in their expressions.
Beam became an unstoppable whirlwind of steel, his massive greatsword cleaving a path through their ranks as he roared wordless, inarticulate fury.
Beside him, Mads waded into the fray with manic glee - his wired bat pulping bones and splattering viscera with every brutal, unrestrained swing.
In the heartbeats it took their unsuspecting victims to fumble for weapons and come alive, nearly half their numbers already lay dead or mortally wounded in the snow.
Those that hadn't fallen were swiftly overwhelmed - dispatched without fanfare or mercy to whatever grim realities now awaited them in the afterlife.
Only the grizzled sergeant remained, sprawled at an odd angle with his left leg caved inwards - bone shards protruding obscenely from the ruined limb.
Beam loomed over him, eyes blazing from beneath his stormstruck brow as he planted one armored boot directly onto the wailing man's injury.
"Wh...What in the hells...?" The maimed soldier finally babbled at last, flecks of bloody spittle flying from his lips. "Who...are you monsters?"
Beam threw his head back and laughed - a hollow, gravelly bark of unbridled blackest amusem*nt that seemed to swallow all the warmth from their frigid surroundings.
"Look around you, fool," he growled, twisting his heel to grind the shattered leg joint anew - drinking in the sergeant's scream of fresh agony with gruesome satisfaction. "We're the f*cking Nightstalkers. And we're just getting started..."
