The arrival of Kaku
"Kaku!!" Exclaimed the Blood Moons, seeing their last member arrive.
"Kid, that power belongs to Golden Lion, Shiki right? How did you get your hands on it?" Asked Bullet as he remembered his previews encounters with him during their big battle at sea.
"Yes, we got his power after his death not long ago." Added Lucci.
"Heh, your crew got quite lucky, his power caused endless troubles for the marines for years. Even now, they would find it impossible to catch him if he did not become all crazy and attack the Marineford by himself after Roger death." Said Bullet while the others were busy admiring their new base.
"Indeed, we also got his full legacy, as you can see!" pointing at the flying islands ahead.
The flying archipelago was home to a lot of strange and powerful beast due to Dr.Indigo experiments with IQ plants, but their huge sizes only added to its beauty, creating a new and unique ecosystem, as some of the beasts even rank above the ones Luffy faced in his haki training.
On the way to their main base, Kaku started his report about what he found after Lucci and Blueno left him, and it turns out that they missed out on quite a lot of things due to their rapid departure.
Kaku, while on his journey, had time to check every corner of the archipelago looking for survivors of Shiki crew, so he learned quite a bit about the said beasts and also managed to capture quite a lot of people, among which is also Dr. Indigo, who at the time of their sudden attack was inside his laboratory. All the people found were immediately locked away, waiting for Lucci's decision on what to do with them. Listening to the whole report left Lucci quite dumbfounded, he completely forgot about Dr. Indigo and the IQ plants, but after thinking for a bit about the mysterious plant and its uses he comes up with quite a crazy idea.
' What would happen if the IQ plants experiment is combined with the artificial Devil Fruits created by Caesar Clown, would it result in a perfect Devil Fruit or something else entirely?' Thought Lucci with an excited look on his face. For some reason Lucci could not get the idea out of his mind, so he decided that after the war he will direct a little bit of his attention to this side project, who knows where it would lead and what kind of new power will he get his hands on.
Putting the idea on the shelf for now, he started to contemplate what to do with the prisoners from the Golden Lion old crew, although they are not on the same level as the five hundred escapees from Impel Down, the more than five thousand people locked inside their base would make his little crew into a quite reasonable fleet but unlike the escapees those people don't seem that strong-willed, so he should be able to use his hypnosis on them to encourage them to stay loyal for now. However, this solution is only temporary as he did not know how and when something might go wrong resulting in a stab in the back, but at least for now it should work.
After Kaku set the course towards Marineford all the Blood Moons started to rest and get to their best shapes before joining the war. Not long after their departure Lucci started to bring people under his control and also heal the former residents of Impel Down all his actions went relatively well however some of them started to rebel after being brought to their top shape reminding him that he is still lacking when it comes to charisma compared to someone like Buggy.
However, if one can't win through simple charisma or some dirty tricks a show of might would do the trick so Lucci immediately hit the people resisting with a wave of Conqueror Haki bringing them to the point of falling down but due to his blood control powers they were forcefully kept standing all of them currently experiencing the loss in control over their bodies which terrified them to no end, not long after all the rebellious pirates lost their beginning resistance submitting themselves to his rule. So the Blood Moon pirate group transformed in to a fleet of almost six thousand people.
"Are you done, sir?" Asked a clown who was waiting at the door in a polite manner, showing unwavering respect.
He was Dr. Indigo the first among his prisoners to join him, he didn't even need to be forced to submit all Lucci needed to do was to share his idea with him which instantly lighten his scientific spirit as he went to his lab right away to run some simulations while laughing maniacally.
'Truly a mad scientist.'
...Later at Marineford...
Whitebeard initial attack was stopped by the intervention of Aokiji who froze the tsunamis and the water in the bey area, which announced to the world the beginning of the war as pirates and marines rushed into action. The first to move were the admirals, who each took a shot at Whitebeard, but some of their attacks were stopped by his crew, while others were almost taken as a joke by him.
Except for the Dark King beside Whitebeard things went exactly like they did in the series up to the point when Oars Jr. was about to rush into the battlefield but was stopped by the falling of two ships full of people which seems to come down from the sky. Unlike in the series, Luffy managed to arrive a little bit earlier due to Lucci's intervention and Buggy managed to recruit a lot more people as his followers.
Their arrival finally answered some of Sengoku's doubts about what happened in Impel Down, and judging from the uniforms of the people on the boat, things were way worse than he imagined.
"Garp, you and your damn family!" Screamed Sengoku in despair while looking at Garp beside him.
"LUFFY!!!"x2 Exclaimed Garp and Ace almost at the same time.
"ACEE!!! I'VE COME TO SAVE YOU, WAIT FOR ME!" Exclaimed Luffy as the Impel Down prisoners lined up behind him, forming an impressive line-up which attracted most of the attention from the masses due to a much bigger crowd than one in the series.
This time, Crocodile did not rush to Whitebeard as in canon, as he was smart enough to notice Rayleigh beside him.
With the arrival of Luffy and Lord Buggy, the already chaotic setting of the war reach a new peak, much to Sengoku despair.
As the fight intensified between the pirates and the marines above the battlefield, a blurry shadow could be seen way above the clouds as Lucci and his crew arrived and were readying themselves to join in the fun.
"Alright, everyone, before we make ourselves known to the world, we need to add a few finishing touches to the plan. Blueno, you take Kumadori and Fukuro to the room below the bay area, there you will find a lot of the Marine new weapons called Pacifista. I want you to take them away, let Fukuro eat every singer one of them and bring them here, we could use them in the future, not to mention take one of their biggest trump cards they will use during the war." Said Lucci facing the three crewmates.
"Understood!" Replied Blueno in return.
"Yoyoi, It's finally time to show my brilliance!" Said Kumadori.
"As for me, I will go and take a much-needed Devil Fruit from a young marine for our new and still unwilling crewmates." Said Lucci with a slight grin on his face.
"Lucci are you sure? The two of them seem hell-bent on not joining us, especially after you kidnapped them." Stated Kalifa.
"Hmm, don't worry, after they ``join`` us during this war they would not have that much of a choice. Speaking off, how is your illusion mastery going, do you think you can accomplish the plan later?" Asked Lucci in return.
"Yes, after a few tries I could do it very naturally, so there is no problem." Said Kalifa with a stern voice.
"Good, be ready and make sure our new crewmates know about it and have time to process it also tell them their new positions and their job in our crew this should ease the unwillingness in their minds a bit." Said Lucci.
'After the recent problem with the troublemakers in our lower ranks, having two persons who are already great at keeping things running would be great. As Chief Guard and Head Jailer of Impel Down, Sadi and Domino, had to have developed skills to keep their people and the prisoners in line. Sadi would be a good deterrent, especially for the former Impel Down prisoners who already fear her to some extent and with her future Devil Fruit the loyalty of our lower ranks could be guaranteed as for Domino she should be used to managing a large crowd as she often did this job in Magellan place as she assigned most of the duties inside Impel Down. Not to mention, they are basically making sure that the people who escaped Impel Down do not commit atrocities after escaping.' Thought Lucci while comforting himself.