New Technique

"What the hell happened to you, Edward? It's like I'm fighting the you from thirty years ago." Garp said, shaking off his hand which ached a bit from the counterattack he just took.

"Gurara! A new special technique of mine, don't worry about it." Whitebeard lied through his teeth.

Although Cherry had done this for him right before their eyes, it was such an outlandish thing to do that it was easier to believe Whitebeard's little lie about it. Cherry would be under a great deal of suspicion still, but without solid proof they might just let her off for it.

After all, who could reasonably believe that some upstart rookie was capable of empowering the legendary Whitebeard to such a degree?

Sengoku, Garp, and Sakazuki pulled a tactically retreat, not yet ready to go all out against an even stronger Whitebeard than anticipated.

Whitebeard allowed this as going all out would not only endanger everyone here, enemy and ally alike, but may also force the marines' hand to execute Ace on the spot rather than let him potentially escape. Better to let his allies weaken the marines' forces first before taking more direct action.

Cherry climbed on top of the crow's nest of the Moby Dick after taking a quick rest to settle her vital energy.

'Now is as good a time as any to try this out...' Cherry thought.

She placed her hands in front of her, palms facing outwards. She activated her devil fruit and focused on the air.

A gentle breeze suddenly picked up and seemed to converge on the point in front her. No one seemed to take notice as the battle was far more chaotic than what she was doing.

*Hum*

A humming sound started to reverberate and got steadily louder. After about 30 seconds, a pin point of light could be seen forming in the center of the gentle vortex of air.

Meanwhile, Hancock had 'kindly received' the keys to Luffy's and Ace's handcuffs from a 'very nice marine'. He snuck her way behind the execution platform and chucked the key within Luffy's reach.

"Hurry up, Luffy! They annoying men are coming back!" Hancock whispered to him. Her observation haki warned her of a threat and turned to see a flying sword attack from Hawkeye's direction.

Hawkeye watched her dodge his attack, which wasn't all that surprising as he was only putting in the bare minimum of effort so that the World government couldn't complain about a lack of participation.

A strange sound was picked up in his ears and he turned to find the source, ignoring the enraged ramblings directed at him by the Kuja Empress.

He found his target of interest as he looked up at the crow's nest of the Moby Dick, where he saw his supposed daughter, though he didn't have any doubts about that fact.

She appeared to be struggling a great deal with her face turned beat red with bulging veins in her forehead and bloodshot eyes. As to what she was struggling with, that was likely to be the ball of intense light right in front of her, that was roughly half a meter in diameter and was too bright to properly identify.

The loud humming of the ball of light as well as the brightness of the thing had started to draw the attention of many on the battlefield.

Cherry started looking around for something, scanning the crowd left to right. Her eyes stopped when they met with Hawkeye's.

Hawkeye wasn't really sure what to do as it was sort of their first meeting and simply stared back stiffly.

Cherry's face split into an evil, mischievous smile and she pulled her hands, and the orb of light along with them to point in Hawkeye's direction.

"Uh oh..." Was all Hawkeye could say before all hell broke loose.

"Solar Flare..." Cherry spoke normally, but amplified her voice so that all could hear it.

*SCREEEEAAAAM*

The sound of a thousand voice screaming in perfect harmony rang out. Burning plasma with the heat of the sun was released away from Cherry in a cone of solar flames.

Hawkeye ran away as quickly as a father going out to get some milk. The marines that were nearby ran away as well, but many of them didn't make it all the way out and suffered from severe burns across their bodies, instantly removing them from the fight.

The center point of the affected area was turned into a large crater filled with molten rock.

'Does she resent me that much?' Hawkeye wondered, surprised to find that it stung at his heart to think of it.

He turned to look at Cherry. She was making a silly face at him with her tongue stuck out at him, but he did not find the resentment he expected.

'Ah, it seems that was a practical joke...' Hawkeye thought, which had him reconsidering if he really wanted to reconnect with this troublesome daughter of his.

Cherry seemed to laugh at the conflicted look on his face, then she glanced towards the execution platform. Hawkeye followed her gaze and saw that Luffy and Ace were no longer there.

'Whoops... oh well.' Hawkeye thought. He didn't really care if they escaped or not in the end, but started searching for them anyways.

...

In a city on an island in the first half of the Grand Line.

An old woman had been loudly complaining the actions of one Harpin D. Cherry.

After the 'Solar Flare' attack was released towards the world's strongest swordsman, Hawkeye, however, she suddenly changed her tune.

"Light that bastard's ass on fire, Cherry! Give another one for your mother, your grandfather, and I too while you're at it! Hahahaha!" Grandma Angela laughed with a certain madness in her voice and a half drunk bottle of bourbon in her hand.

Borke and Slenk were just grateful they weren't near any crowds while their master was openly revealing her relation with a world infamous criminal. Not that they had any bad feeling towards Cherry, but they didn't want to paint a target on their backs.

...

Back at Marineford.

Captain Hina witnessed the attack Cherry delivered with her own eyes. She was having trouble reconciling the Cherry she was seeing now with the one she met back at her home.

Was the Cherry she met before just an act? Was the Cherry she was witnessing right now some sort of sick joke or trick? Or perhaps was it her own world view that was too black and white, too eager to assign the labels of good and evil.

She shook those unnecessary thoughts out of her mind and focused on what was in front of her. That being Whitebeard's pirates, which she could deal with without any complicated questions about her sense of justice.

Cherry, on the other hand, had decided to sneak away and have a look around the fortress for any goodies. they didn't have any devil fruit laying around as far as she could tell, which was disappointing, but perhaps there were some other goodies to find.

She needed to recuperate some of her energy reserve anyways and the battle wouldn't reach its climax for a little while.

Cherry burrowed beneath the ice and made her way to the stone of the wall and dug into it as well. Soon she broke into an open space that appeared to be a storage room.

Poking around there wasn't really anything of interest here, so she moved towards the door and started wandering the halls. There were only a few people down here so she didn't need to be particular careful.

*Tang tang tang*

The familiar sound of hammer meeting metal was heard after walking around for a few minutes.

In fact, it was a little TOO familiar. Soon, Cherry realized why.

"I found you~" Cherry said, her face twisting into the countenance of a demon.