Personally I'm struggling to wrap my head around the time travelling consequences... for example when she returns to her timeline does she and her crew become aware of what she did in the new timeline as well as the original? Because in the new timeline recruiting Robin would never have been a goal as she's not the only survivor. Moreover each time travel event will inevitably lead to her own history retconning, every time she travels to the past, unless she remembers the new history alongside the original history she could be completely unaware of enemies she's made or events she's influenced
Everything Taylor does until finally leaving the rainbow mist for good is what everyone, not on her crew remembers happened.
-> going with the events of Ohara.
Everyone will remember a Buster Call being sent there and then for them to suddenly go silent ... investigations will show a battle occurred there ... clear signs of Akainu using his powers ... but that's it ... until the Butterflies flap their wings ...
So in a sense, while with Taylor, they are protected from the altered timeline influencing them - pretty much like it is done in most works that have time-travel. The time-traveler remembers the timeline he comes from to be able to make changes ... and the consequences of his actions need to be discovered after the fact.
It will get easier - from here on out from Taylor's perspective most future station in the Mist will send her into the future. Aside from one exception, the events will take place after the year 1506.
Hm... Just to clarify how far Taylor's protection goes. Rayleigh who was aware of Taylor's goal to recruit Robin specifically - Will he still remember it because of it being apart of Taylor's timeline or will he remember that Taylor's merely looking for any of the surviving professors to help. (With Robin going into the Mist with the crew there is no way for Rayleigh, or anyone for that matter, to know about her specifically.)
Robin is, quite simply, the only real issue with the Time Travel. Everyone else was either brought from the future, unseen in the story so far, or was slain here canonically.
The knowledge was lost/hidden, the garden and island still burned, and we have NOT seen any of the now-dead Marines in Taylor's time. Ohara's people, except for Robin, are all non-existent in the future.
But. If we assume Taylor ALTERED The Past as it APPEARS with the Buster Slaying, shit's gonna be all KINDS of fucked, with the larger importance of the Vice Admirals and CP-9, not to mention any Marines that could have risen through the ranks. Who knows who was involved in Ohara, who would later have an illustrious career.
Captains through Vice Admirals, all slain before their own actions on the seas.
But if we assume Taylor's history already accounted for her actions, with the Slaughter of Ohara being a total wipe for "both sides" (a burned down Island, a destroyed fleet, no known survivors other than "Devil Child", Ohara's knowledge is all "lost"), the only real sticking point in this story is Robin. Taylor has already "altered" history, by escorting the "dead" Oharans and their knowledge to the future and slaying the Buster Call, but she doesn't need to violate the Timelines whilst she does it.
If she cannot rescue Robin before she escapes, we have a neat little timeline.
Taylor enters the past, interferes in the slaughter of Ohara.
Rescues the Oharans within the Tree, takes note of Robin.
Encounters Aokiji, fights as Robin goes further and further away. Robin is watching as she escapes.
Aokiji dies, Akainu intervenes, unaware of Robin's existence. Robin goes too far as the battle rages.
Robin witnesses "The End of Ohara" as Akainu erupts, and thinks that her Hero just died. She does her broken laugh, and takes the words of both Saul and her mysterious Hero to the depths of her soul...
Taylor successfully slays the Buster Call forces, but has lost Robin. Olivia is heartbroken, but Taylor assures her that they will search for her daughter.
After interrogation of the sole survivor of Taylor's attack, she ends his pitiful, disgusting existence and sails back into the Rainbow Mist, some Oharans and many, many books heavier after looting any usable supplies from the Island's remnants.
Informed of Robin's existence (either before or after the Ohara Slaughter), the Devil Child is given her epitaph when the World Government blames her for the destruction of the ships. Downplayed for the public to hide secrets, of course. Leading on a not-so-merry chase across the Blues.
Taylor and her crew emerges from the Rainbow Mist an unknown amount of time later, with Olivia's main goal to find Robin driving their Journey. The world's past is unchanged, but it's future is drastically altered with the Return of Ohara.
I want to point that i really liked the chapter, how I'm sure many others readers and i hope the writer, Time Paradox,isn't discouraged by the comments about time travel.
I want to point that i really liked the chapter, how I'm sure many others readers and i hope the writer, Time Paradox,isn't discouraged by the comments about time travel.
Don't worry - everybody is entitled to their opinion and forums like this are meant for feedback.
Besides, I usually don't hold back either when I write a review. So I should at least accept what I dish out -
As I see it those who invest the time to write a review or a comment in the first place are invested in the story - and at least in my case, I write comments to help improve the story or share my view on things.
I can't expect other authors to consider my critic when I'm not willing to do the same. I might not agree, but I will listen and consider what others have to say.
Furthermore compared to the comments I received to my other story Samsara - this is really mild in comparison.
Hm... Just to clarify how far Taylor's protection goes. Rayleigh who was aware of Taylor's goal to recruit Robin specifically - Will he still remember it because of it being apart of Taylor's timeline or will he remember that Taylor's merely looking for any of the surviving professors to help. (With Robin going into the Mist with the crew there is no way for Rayleigh, or anyone for that matter, to know about her specifically.)
Taylor and everybody from her crew will remember exactly those events they experienced...
So Taylor still remembers Rayleigh having trained with him and being told about Robin by Shakky.
Shakky on the other hand can't remember ever having heard of Robin since she never was reported as being the sole survivor of Ohara. (other things were reported but that would go into spoiler theory)
So in a sense - the only ones remembering the events up to chapter 8 as it was (unchanged) are Taylor and the Boa sisters. Everybody else remembers the changed timeline. The best and easiest way to look at it is probably to think of their entry into the rainbow mist as the starting point of the story. Every event prior to that is up to be changed through Taylor's actions in the mist. Only she and the Boa sister will fully remember the details of the unaltered timeline (and everybody who prior to changes was trapped in the Rainbow mist).
So the events in the Rainbow mist will overwrite history so to say.
Yep, could have turned out that way. To create a close-loop ... but then we would have run into the problems I outlined in my other post.
With me needing to keep track of all the changes and if they would impact on events another Taylor influenced.
This would get especially hard if Taylor emerges say the same time she entered the rainbow mist - but while she was in the mist she traveled a few years in the future and killed, for example, Fisher Tiger.
Would an action taken years prior by her older self change any of the events leading up to her younger self killing Fisher Tiger?
The more instance of Taylor having traveled to somewhere in the future there are the more complex this problem gets and without someone constantly poking holes in my outline - I bound to overlook something (One Piece is complex) ... and then it would all come crashing down.
This might be more about my own bad habits, but at a certain point (probably when Taylor killed Kuzan?) I formed the opinion that this was more of a vision or spirit journey or something than "actual" time travel, and started skipping ahead because it seemed to be getting more and more outlandish and I was looking for a spoiler to re-ground myself or something.
I feel like I'm still missing something. Is Taylor going to go back to the present, with child Robin, and later on in the story there won't be an Aokiji or Akainu around in the world? Will she find out that there haven't actually been any stories about the cursed demon child from Ohara because there was never actually a Robin who spend her childhood on the run?
edit: Or is she going to sail away from Ohara in this current time period and never return to the present/"future," and Rayleigh won't end up teaching her anything because there never was an origin for newly stranded past/"present" Taylor about wanting to save Robin? If she meets Rayleigh will he just maybe have deja vu but otherwise it never happened or...?
This might be more about my own bad habits, but at a certain point (probably when Taylor killed Kuzan?) I formed the opinion that this was more of a vision or spirit journey or something than "actual" time travel, and started skipping ahead because it seemed to be getting more and more outlandish and I was looking for a spoiler to re-ground myself or something.
I feel like I'm still missing something. Is Taylor going to go back to the present, with child Robin, and later on in the story there won't be an Aokiji or Akainu around in the world? Will she find out that there haven't actually been any stories about the cursed demon child from Ohara because there was never actually a Robin who spend her childhood on the run?
edit: Or is she going to sail away from Ohara in this current time period and never return to the present/"future," and Rayleigh won't end up teaching her anything because there never was an origin for newly stranded past/"present" Taylor about wanting to save Robin? If she meets Rayleigh will he just maybe have deja vu but otherwise it never happened or...?
Okay - I think everybody has seen "Back to the future" the time-travel I use here follows the same rules.
Probably shouldn´t have written my explanation text - by doing so I seem to have confused a few people.
So everything that happens in the Rainbow mist overwrites the original timeline. Meaning in the year 1502 the Buster Call sent to Ohara was wiped out. There were no reported survivors on the Island (I won't tell you more here - would go into spoiler territory).
Taylor and her crew are essentially still in the Rainbow mist - It will be explained in the next chapter in more detail.
But the mist is essentially still lingering around Ohara - only to be seen by Taylor ... should she attempt to leave Ohara she and everybody on her ship will be sucked back in to continue her travel through time.
From here on out, every other stop in the rainbow mist will go to the future (after her starting point of 1506) - with one exception -
With the current changes to the timeline made - Rayleigh would still find Taylor and bring her to Shakky - but there would be no wanted poster of Robin and she wouldn´t be called the sole survivor of Ohara / Devil child or have a bounty, in fact, nobody would know about her (until she makes a name for herself on Taylor crew). (I won't tell you more here - would go into spoiler territory).
So this might impact on Taylor's motivation if there is no small child with the presumed key to get back to Bet in need of saving. But Rayleigh would still insist on training her ... because Taylor wouldn´t live long otherwise.
Keep in mind those would be the results of the current changes - this one exception I mentioned above will later in the story have an impact on those events too -
I hope this could clear this up -
If you want to know more - questions that go into spoiler theory or something feel free to PM me.
Ah, so the time travel when only the traveler remembers the true path and the time line sort of twists itself a bit to make everything still line up. The reactions of the people this affects are always interesting when they try to understand what happened.
She not only survived that but managed to dodge their attempts of forceful recruitment for 20 years ... So I found the chances that Taylor might be successful in finding her, where other equally strong or stronger people with a solid power-base failed for that amount of time, despite all of her advantages (she might have over those others) rather slim. You might have more luck finding a needle in a haystack ... than finding her ... especially since Robin is constantly moving and not staying at the same place.
I find it amusing that you use some weird time travel stuff to make Taylor finding Robin believable when you, in that very same chapter, presents a power that could very well have been used to achieve the same end without weird time travel stuff.
We are stuck inside with no way out of it. The only form of navigation we have. If I can even call it, that is the ability I gained from the fate-spider. An invisible thread, originating from my chest extending into the fog. In default of any other viable options, I have us follow where it was leading.
I find it amusing that you use some weird time travel stuff to make Taylor finding Robin believable when you, in that very same chapter, presents a power that could very well have been used to achieve the same end without weird time travel stuff.
You are of course right the Fate Spider if slightly presented differently would have allowed for exactly that.
The problem, on the other hand, is a bit more complex than that. On Spacebattles there is a rather long-winded discussion regarding that topic so I´m only going for the cliff notes.
I wanted to have Robin and the Boa sister in Taylor crew -
Ohara was wiped out in the year 1502
Boa sisters were sold as slaves late in the year 1505
meaning there is a three-year separation between those events -
So the question for me was now how can I make it happen.
The easy way without having to change the arrival time of Taylor would have been to allow for the Fate spider to point Taylor in Robins's direction to avoid the unsolvable needle in the Haystack problem.
One of the problems that creps up here; from Shaboady to the start of the Grand Line Luffy crew had a travel time of roughly one year with about 10ish stops from start to finish.
Doing that in reverse with perhaps an eternal Pose might have reduced the number of Islands she had to visit, still, it would have been a long time a lot of chapters until she even got to West Blue ...
Time Robin would have had to spend on the run ... something I was not particularly fond of happening. Since especially the early years must have been hell for Robin and I wanted to avoid her having to go through that.
A pinky in the pond of bad experiences instead of a full bath ...
Alternative, I could have sent Taylor to a point in time before 1502 - say for argument's sake 1500 have Rayleigh find her train her in seeking answers have Taylor go to Ohara - after all it has the greatest Bibliothek in the world.
Taylor could have then arrived before or after the Buster Call - I had ideas in both scenarios of how Taylor could manage to get Robin to go with her
- During is rather self-explanatory
- before Taylor could have witnessed Robin abuse at the hands of the wife of her uncle ... with Robin missing her mother ... and then avoid the Buster Call altogether.
The problem than would have been to somehow fill the 3 years till the Boa sister are sold -
Of course, it would not necessarily be needed. Since I could just create another way for them to meet. Canonically the Boa sisters left the Island for the first time when they went overboard. But the Kuja Pirates could have met Taylor and Robin somewhere.
So all in all manageable so far right? And no time travel necessary -
The problem starts now -
With those and perhaps Bonney joining Taylor's crew the number of interesting prospects (female) gets rather scarce.
Since most canon characters with an interesting personality are yet to be born or are still in diapers. Canon after all starts in 1522.
Nami is born 1504
Luffy is born 1505
Vivi is born 1506
Rebecca is born 1508
This means the number of people I could pick from to complete her crew is incredibly small - Bonney opens up a few avenues of de-aging some characters but that is something I had planned to do either way. Doing it for all of the others seemed somewhat cheap IMO, another possibility would have been going for OC from here on out. Possible but too many of those is usually not a good idea. (Furthermore, there would be the relationships to consider - for example, would a Kureha fit personality-wise ... or would she just end up a troublemaker challenging Taylor at every turn ...)
So I needed a way to be able to recruit people who are born around Luffy's birth without having to fill a period of 10 years. Time-skip could have been used, but with the training arc already being one ... overusing didn´t seem a good idea. So the only real solution that was left was to use time-travel of some sort, to be able to meet all my goals.
..Ok, i think one of us misunderstood something. Probably me.
Was the "Taylor Interferes" timeline, the one where Ohara has survivors, the one that got erased? Or was it the timeline she came from, with the Amazon sisters and Bonney?
Because both have their own, extreme issues. On the one hand, the time where the Buster Call is wiped out is the true history causes huge problems. But, the Buster Call slaughter being a "Fake" history with some survivors has it's own issues.
The three biggest ones being Aokiji, Akainu, and Robin. You can probably work Robin around by insta-merging the two disparate Robins. Not a huge issue, from a functional history standpoint she basically warps across the sea and has a small number of clashing memories. Especially if they escape the Rainbow Mist soon after, no matter how far in the future they may be. "Child" and "True" Robin might have only a couple days of different memories, especially since they are incredibly low on food and just took on over double their passengers.
Basically, a Robin with both sets of memories. Her body could be either age (or they could level out). And hey, she may suddenly have a Devil Fruit. The only thing certain is that she'll have a killer migrane for a couple days. If you don't do that, you have an innocent little Robin...but with all of her knowledge and past actions being unknown, and the "True" Robin being erased from existence.
But the Devil Fruits are a huge issue. They're in circulation already in Taylor's original timeline. What happens to Aokiji and Akainu? Devil Fruits alter DNA, will they die? Turn into a pile of their respective element and esentially be transmuted to death? Will their bodies fall apart as their DNA can no longer support them due to the alterations vanishing? Will they just lose their powers mysteriously? All of the above would have severe knock-on effects into the pre-canon of where Taylor appears.
When she appears, they're slated to eventually become Admirals. Two top fighters either dying or being crippled is NOT good for the Marines or their forces. Not to mention the absolute PANIC they would have! Two Devil Fruits being "stolen" from two rising star Vice Admirals, regardless of the condition of the "victims", will get the attention of the Five Elder Stars and will earn Taylor an extremely fat bounty when they discover her crew with the fruits.
I am talking "Higher than any of the Supernovas" fat. "500,000,000+" fat! Not to mention all the greed and fear from enemies as high as EMPERORS OF THE SEA!
The ability to steal Devil Fruits from their still-living user, at a sea-wide range, with enough precision and speed to yank it from two VA's simultaneously?
They hunted Robin down for LESS!
I think Taylor may need to drop the fruits. She is NOT powerful enough to fight it all. And her crew would almost certainly die. Even if she brings the Fruits back, she needs to discard or discreetly sell them on an obscure market.
Might as well not make it a problem and just drop the two fruits from Taylor's inventory. They cause a LOT of problems.
If it's any consolation...You could grab the Yuki Yuki no Mi later and make one of the girls a Snow-Woman?
Besides, Taylor gets the joy of killing two insane, cruel Marines AGAIN if you drop the fruits!
But if Buster-Slaughter is the True timeline, we get massive butterflies across history. The deaths of an entire Buster call's worth of forces, including two future admirals, would have consequences above and beyond themselves. Those Marines, their actions, are all gone. Same with CP-9. And the higher they go, the worse the effects. A significant lose of force, vastly different results in thousands of operations, good and bad. Robin not running around? Less issues, but she was fairly influential as CP-9 or various pirates hunted her down, destroying the people she hides with.
The "new" timeline would be nearly unrecognizable to us and causes so many issues as to be uncountable. I'm talking "Notorious Pirate 'Hellflame' Corazon continues to terrorize West Blue, having slain Commodore 'Black Rabbit' Morgan " levels of unrecognizable.
Because I have yet to see something like this -
Then there is the fact that Taylor has 3 Amazon on board and the fate spider only likes females or something like that ...
Essentially there is no particular reason - there might be one later ...
But if Buster-Slaughter is the True timeline, we get massive butterflies across history. The deaths of an entire Buster call's worth of forces, including two future admirals, would have consequences above and beyond themselves. Those Marines, their actions, are all gone. Same with CP-9. And the higher they go, the worse the effects. A significant lose of force, vastly different results in thousands of operations, good and bad. Robin not running around? Less issues, but she was fairly influential as CP-9 or various pirates hunted her down, destroying the people she hides with.
The "new" timeline would be nearly unrecognizable to us and causes so many issues as to be uncountable. I'm talking "Notorious Pirate 'Hellflame' Corazon continues to terrorize West Blue, having slain Commodore 'Black Rabbit' Morgan " levels of unrecognizable.
But the Devil Fruits are a huge issue. They're in circulation already in Taylor's original timeline. What happens to Aokiji and Akainu? Devil Fruits alter DNA, will they die? Turn into a pile of their respective element and esentially be transmuted to death? Will their bodies fall apart as their DNA can no longer support them due to the alterations vanishing? Will they just lose their powers mysteriously? All of the above would have severe knock-on effects into the pre-canon of where Taylor appears.
This would be a consequence if Taylor would leave the Rainbow Mist for good while someone of her crew ate them.
The for good part is important - Taylor is currently still tethered to it - either way, the only item for which this will become an issue is Taylor sword ... because from here on out she is going forward in time - meaning she won´t travel further back than 1502 going forward.
So basically Taylor has read write privileges on the Book of history, sounds fun count me in. Question thoigh, does this affect the Void history also? Since the only "Real" history is the one Taylors makes yes?
So basically Taylor has read write privileges on the Book of history, sounds fun count me in. Question thoigh, does this affect the Void history also? Since the only "Real" history is the one Taylors makes yes?
Taylor won´t travel anywhere near that time (so no changes) - It would end up only guesswork on my part of what happened there and I try to steer mostly clear of things not confirmed in canon. Mostly ...
i new on this comunity bt i have to admit to yo all something.
none of you had trully seen all the episodes of OP?
it's a question not an insult.
because i remenber one of the "filler" arcs called "Arc of the rainbow treasure" were we see how Time Travel works on worm
exactly like the one portrayed.
i explain: in the arc the " villian" was the leader of a children group than when shild got lost on the mist and almost all of them died... except the villian; who got obsseseb with using the Rainbow mist to go to the past, when Luffy's crew go there the found the old cavern, with the villian when child and after a series of adventures (and Robin reading a few 'Glyhps) they took the children out....
which ending dissapearing; when they got out o the island is show then the old friends now survived.
in this arc it's show than the Rainbow mist is NOT time travel, basicly the Mist says: Time here don't exist, and until one leave the mist behind the history don't exist.
when one get out of the mist the history "readjust" making sure than the events get the clossest to the original timeline with the new elements; which do not return with the travelers, instead, they return exactly when they would be in that version of the History; in this case Taylor can take the onbjects there (in the show they are not affected) but the persons will be teleported to "where"they should be.
and another of the Effects is than now Taylor don't have to worry about the Marine going after her, for them the Mist is going to be a "climatic hazard", because without a method to navigate on it (the Fate-spider here, in the anime the cave) one cannot leave it.
so, when the World goverment go to send explorers.
the explorers would dissapear forever like the children, and the WG will assume than everyone there died thanks to it.
The fact that it was a filler arc is the reason some don't see it as canon (at least on Spacebattles this was a major point in the discussion) -
I can hardly hold it against them since I used that argument in past, too in some Naruto discussions ...
Aside from that, you are indeed correct - with most of what you said ...
one or two things in regards to the mechanic of the mist aren't 100% on the money, but more on that in the next chapter when I get around to it - (might take a little while longer sorry -) (not relevant to the discussion)
Just thinking of something to add, questions and what not.
Do the exact years the original events happened really matter for one? you are changing things anyway. like stuff from the movies, those are not cannon anyway doesn't really matter where you shove them in the timeline
I may be wrong but unless much of the entire story is already planned, killing some major players and changing things around Ohara would have major changes to the story down the line, mostly anything to do with poneglyphs.
I have seen plenty of stories dropped from things getting too complex too fast, after what was thought to be a minor change. I like what you have done so far, just worried on what it could cause from now on, if you have ever looked at some of those alternate history stories you can see just how quickly things can change.
What is wrong with it being an alternate dimension situation? just letting there be two robins can be another future plot point, could be funny too. The issues changing anything further down the timeline can be neatly ignored with this too. Hell with a second Robin you might lure the first directly to you, what is better than one of your favourite characters? Two of them!
It's just that changing things well over 15 years before canon in such a massive long running series is a huge effort and if you are up for it great I would love too see it and will cheer you on.
Again not trying to be forceful or preachy I just ramble and hope it is useful.
The table shook as Sengoku's angry fist slammed into it. The force reverberated through the table, but surprisingly didn't break as many other pieces of furniture would when hit by a navy admiral. Part of Sengoku had to commend the quality of the furniture of the Navy headquarters, although he understood the reasoning behind it. It was a subtle statement of power… and it was also cheaper to have an expensive but sturdy desk than to constantly replace cheap ones.
Only a small part of his mind was commending the furniture. The rest was seething as he tried to figure out how to deal with the disaster that he had inadvertently caused.
"You couldn't have known Sengoku."
The only other person in the room to witness his unprofessional outburst was his old friend and colleague, vice-admiral Garp. While technically his subordinate, Garp was all but his equal having refused promotion multiple times. Comparing the duties and privileges of vice-admirals and admirals, Sengoku sometimes thought that his friend had made the right choice.
One of those duties is what had caused this current crisis – namely, the protection of the Celestial Dragons when they visited Sabaody Archipelago. Obviously, an admiral babysitting the World Nobles would be a gross misallocation of resources, so they were more of a deterrent instead of bodyguard. An admiral always had to be on station at Navy HQ to protect the HQ itself, Marie Geoise, and to occasionally deliver retribution against the idiots who attacked the World Nobles visiting the Groves.
The last duty was quite infrequent. Once every year or three, some idiots would try it; and every time, an Admiral would quickly arrive to make a public example of the perpetrators. The public execution would cow the rest of the idiots, which meant the Navy admirals could spend their time not having to jump over the Sabaody every other week.
This time however, things were different.
This time, Sengoku had been the one to respond to the Celestial Dragon's distress call. Unfortunately, even arriving as fast as he did, he had been too late to save them.
While the World Nobles did get attacked every few years, it was uncommon that they would actually die. Most of the time, their bodyguards could buy enough time for the admiral on duty to arrive. The Celestial Dragons may occasionally sustain some minor injuries, but most of the time they would survive.
On the rare occasion where they did die, Marie Geoise would demand a public execution of the perpetrators. No exceptions.
Normally that would be fine, except the perpetrators – or who he believed to the perpetrators at the time – were junior members of Whitebeard's crew.
Sengoku remembered how he'd been surprised that members of Whitebeard's crew would do something like this, as it didn't fit their usual style. Then came the anger, that these idiots had thought the reputation of their 'father' made them untouchable and dared to kill a World Noble. They had dared challenge the World Government, and now they would pay the price.
But it wouldn't end there. Unless Whitebeard renounced them and their actions – which was unlikely – this would mean war between Whitebeard and the Marines.
Well, if it was war, it would be war on their terms. Sengoku moved in to capture the miscreants as leverage when one of Whitebeard's commanders interfered. Rai "The Kabuto" Amano was a strong fighter, but he was no match for an Admiral of the Navy. However, Amano was strong enough to buy time for the killers to escape. It wasn't a huge issue, since capturing one of Whitebeard's commanders would be more strategically advantageous than three pirates of middling strength.
Kabuto defeated and manacled in front of the cameras, a strong statement about the futility of challenging the might Marines and the World Government and Sengoku quickly returned to prepare for the upcoming war. With the Golden Age of Pirates still going strong, it was more important than ever to showcase the strength of the Marines. Defeating Whitebeard once and for all would do that, and it could even mark the end of this chaotic age.
It wasn't until a day later that they realised they'd been tricked.
"That doesn't change the fact that I played right into her hands, Garp!"
"It could just be a coincidence"
"Do you really believe that? The first sighting of her in 4 years and her actions just accidently start a war between the two biggest powers in the world? She planned for this to happen."
The event that started a war of this magnitude had to meticulously investigated. Doubly so for something that had cost a Celestial Dragon his life. A few of the escaped indentured workers at the Auction House had been weighed down by the riches they tried to abscond with and gotten caught. It hadn't taken a long interrogation to find out what had happened at the Auction House.
A single individual had raided the Auction House and decided free all the slaves. Or more accurately, had convinced Disco, the manager, to free all the slaves. Some of the slaves had escaped, others had decided to kill all the bidders in a violent frenzy. This slave riot was how the World Noble ended up dead.
But it was the individual who broke in that got the attention of the interrogators, because the description matched a very dangerous and mysterious person. Someone the Navy and World Government had desperately been trying to find information on for 4 years.
Because 4 years ago, the Navy suffered its biggest defeat since they let Gold Roger usher in the Golden Age of Pirates at his execution. A Buster Call – the combined might of 5 Vice-Admirals, 10 warships and 10 000 marines – was wiped out by a single person.
The Monster of Ohara.
The Devil of the Mists.
Queen.
Almost all pirates and criminals revelled in infamy, enjoying having their names and faces printed on wanted posters for everyone to see. Queen was an anomaly in this regard, as apart from her approximate height and gender, nothing was known about her appearance.
She wasn't the only criminal that tried to conceal their identity, but most of the time the reason people did so was because they were cowardly, or too weak to put up much of a fight. Someone who challenged a Buster Call couldn't be called cowardly. Someone who won couldn't be called weak.
People that strong don't usually come out of nowhere. They started out much weaker, and gradually grew in strength over their careers. Even warriors from nations in the New World couldn't wipe out an entire Buster Call by themselves.
But Queen did it, and such a threat appearing out of nowhere understandably sent the world authorities into crisis mode. They were scrambling to figure out who she was, where she came from, what she wanted, how strong she was and most importantly, where she would strike next. But after her appearance in Ohara, she had vanished and hadn't been seen again.
Until now.
"There are a lot of ways her plan could've gone wrong Sengoku."
"She could've had contingencies. We don't know what Devil Fruit she has so she might have had a lot more control over the situation than it appeared. You saw the report about how the manager, Disco, was acting, doing something that was completely contrary to his interests without any sign of fear or hesitation or greed or any kind of emotion at all. He didn't even try to defend himself when one of the escapees killed him. She probably has some sort of mind control or puppeteering power."
"It's possible, sure. There are Devil Fruits out there that can do that, and that isn't taking into consideration the ones we don't know about. Even conventional hypnotism is a possibility here, if an unlikely one. But don't get carried away Sengoku, these are only possibilities. Let's look at the facts before we jump to conclusions. We don't want a repeat of Trubody Island."
Sengoku grimaced at the reminder of that mistake. Back when he was just a commander, he'd jumped in before he'd gotten all the facts at Trubody Island and had made a volatile situation worse. Only the fact that he'd managed to quickly fix his mistake let him avoid being demoted, although it hadn't helped him avoid a severe reprimand. He'd come a long way since then, but he was still occasionally prone to tunnel-vision.
Sengoku sighed.
"You're right Garp. I'm just angry that I made this mistake. If I'd been a bit more careful when entering the building, I could've realised that it wasn't the Whitebeard Pirates that were responsible, and we wouldn't be in this mess."
"I wouldn't have done any better in your shoes, so stop beating yourself up about it. Let's focus on the facts. First of all, do we even know it was her?"
"You don't believe me?"
"We've had many fakes over the years, I've hunted down several myself. How sure are you that this culprit is the real Queen?"
"I'm almost certain. First of all, she introduced herself as Queen."
Because they didn't have a picture of her and knew almost nothing about her, it would be far too easy for copycats to assume her identity and have a whole lot of false positive sightings of her. Indeed, this is what happened shortly after her appearance. So, they left out two minor bits of information to sort out the real one from the fakes. The first was her name. She had introduced herself as Queen, but the Bounty poster called her the 'Devil of the Mists' since the name Queen was already taken by a member of the infamous Beasts Pirates.
"Secondly, she had the Nodachi."
While she was described as a swordswoman, the information on her didn't specify what sort of sword she used beyond the fact that it was a large blade. It was possible that she used a variety of weapons, but almost all swordsmen of renown used a particular weapon. They only had descriptions of her Nodachi, a body length blade in a black sheathe with gold trimmings, but it seemed to match her last known weapon.
There were suspicions that the sword might be Izanami, one of the twelve greatest blades in existence, since the description could be a match for it. It wouldn't be surprising that someone as strong as Queen had one of the twelve. However, that blade was last seen in the hands of none other than the Dark King, Silvers Rayleigh, so there was a lot of speculation about how she got it. Queen might be his daughter, his apprentice, his robber or maybe even his killer; although few people believed the Dark King would die without the world knowing.
Indeed, if it wasn't for Queen's female body shape and voice, Rayleigh would've been the prime suspect as he is one of the few people in the world who could destroy a Buster Call on his own. Some people proposed that it had actually been the Dark King in disguise, but it was judged too unlikely. The Clone-Devil Fruit had been active in the New World at the time according to Cypher Pol – it was a Devil Fruit they were very interested in given their line of work – and besides, Rayleigh was too fond of swimming to eat a Devil Fruit. Or perhaps it was that he ended up swimming too often to risk eating one.
The Rayleigh angle had been explored because they didn't have much to go on regarding Queen, but considering the Dark King was just as elusive, it also turned out to be a dead end. If there was even a connection at all.
"Thirdly, she's strong enough to be Queen."
"How do you know that?"
"CP-0 has been going over the place with a fine-toothed comb. They found one man with a clean hole through his chest that was made with a fist. Looking at the damage, CP-0 think the attack could have been a bastardized version of Shigun, which means the culprit may be a Rokushiki user. But the biggest thing is that they found a broken set of shackles and collars next to him. The culprit managed to remove the bomb collars without using the keys. They broke them open by hand and disarmed the explosives before they could go off."
Cleanly making a hole through a person's chest using just a fist spoke of a lot of training and strength, but that wasn't rare on the Grand Line. It was certainly uncommon, but that still left a large pool of potential suspects.
Removing and destroying a bomb collar before it exploded however, was on a whole other level. It required a great deal of strength, precision and – baring a few exceptions – the skilled use of Armament and/or Conqueror's Haki to pull off successfully. To do it, a person had to be on the level of an elite vice admiral. At least.
"Hmm… we know Queen could use Soru, so if it's possible she could use other techniques as well. Being able to use even a bastardized version of Shigun is a point for the culprit being Queen. But removing and disarming a bomb collar with your bare hands… That's not something the average smuck can do. Alright Sengoku, it could be her, but it could also be some other bigshot in disguise. How strong did she feel when you were on Sabaody?"
"That's the final point Garp, I couldn't sense her at all. Someone that's at least as strong as a Vice Admiral should've stood out to me if she had been anywhere on the archipelago. But I didn't sense anyone like that aside from Kabuto of the Whitebeard pirates."
Sengoku put in a lot of effort into training with all three types of Haki, which meant he was very good at utilising Observation Haki. He wasn't the best, but even so, the number of people who were more skilled than him in Observation Haki was small, no more than 20 in the entire world. And that was making allowances because it was harder to measure a person's skill in Observation Haki than it was in Armament Haki.
Of those, very few bothered to learn how to hide or disguise their presence. Not only could it be seen through by those more skilled in Observation Haki, keeping it up while also using Observation Haki to sense one's surroundings was a lot more difficult than doing just one at a time. It was thought by many that hiding your presence also dulled your ability to sense others, which seemed to defeat the point of using Observation Haki in the first place.
On the flip-side, if you were more skilled at Observation Haki than the person you were hiding from, you didn't need to hide yourself from them in the first place. For the most part, people thought that combat ability and skill in Haki went hand-in-hand. One of the reasons for this stereotype was that, when it came to the more prevalent Armament Haki, there actually was a strong correlation between strength and skill. While this wasn't the case for the less common Observation Haki, the stereotype that skill with Haki equalled strength persisted. As such, hiding yourself from someone weaker than you, especially during combat, was considered a niche skill and your time was better spent elsewhere.
The most common example used was this; take two people that had equal strength and equal skill in Observation Haki. For the next few months; one spent all their time learning how to hide their presence, while the other spent all their time improving their skill with Observation Haki. If the two fought after that time was up, the one who spent their time improving their skill with Observation Haki would win.
It was considered a skill reserved for espionage, not for combat.
When Queen last appeared, the lone survivor told them how she managed to assassinate a Vice-Admiral right in front of him, killing him before he even realised he was under attack. To pull that off, Queen had to be a master of Observation Haki to completely conceal her attack from a Vice-Admiral.
"You couldn't sense her!"
"Yeah. Do you believe me now Garp?"
"…Yeah, I do. It was her."
The last word was growled out of clenched teeth. Sengoku could understand the feeling. They'd both lost friends when Queen sunk the Buster Call slaughtered its participating members, and the loss of vice admiral Kuzan in particular had hit Garp hard. While it wasn't the first time they'd lost comrades, to lose so many at once was a hard blow.
It came as a huge surprise to the Marines and World Government to learn that the Buster Call they had sent to wipe out Ohara had been destroyed. While a Buster Call was far from a routine mission, the danger involved should've been minimal. 10 massive warships carrying 5 vice admirals, 5 rear admirals, 20 commodores, 60 captains, 180 commanders, 10 000 marines of lesser rank, several CP-9 members and many Cipher Pol agents; all to attack a small nation in West Blue with no formal military. It was complete overkill, but the World Government wanted to make an example of the archaeologists trying to dig up the secret history of the Void Century.
The first thing that went wrong was that vice admiral Saul deserted his post after freeing the last Oharan prisoner they had. This was quite a blow to the Marines, and so the Navy decided to send a replacement vice admiral to make up for it. While the replacement member arrived quickly, it still caused a small delay in the arrival of the Buster Call, allowing Saul and Olivia to arrive at Ohara first, if only by a little bit.
Aside from that set-back everything else seemed to proceed well. The Buster Call arrived, the perpetrators of these crimes found and subdued, and the destruction of the island commenced. Taking down vice admiral Saul was the biggest concern, but the world Government felt the situation was well in hand and so turned their attention to other matters while they waited for the call saying that the destruction of Ohara was complete.
…except they never received the call.
Annoyed that things were taking so long, they rang Spandine asking for a status update only to find that the Den-Den-Mushi wouldn't connect. They began to grow concerned, especially when they found out that there wasn't a single warship or officer of the Buster Call that could be contacted.
An investigation was launched with great haste, trying to figure out what had happened to such a large concentration of their military power. It took nearly two days for the nearest ships to arrive at Ohara, and the Marines aboard found only a single survivor of the Buster Call. Spandine, chief of CP-9, was found on the half-destroyed island in a shell-shocked state. From what little they could get out of him, they learned that a single person had slaughtered the entire Buster Call except for him.
It seemed unbelievable, that the ultimate expression of the Marine's and World Government's military might could be completely destroyed, and by a single person no less. But searching the island found more evidence that such an impossibility had happened.
The corpses of Sakazuki and Kuzan, two of the most promising vice admirals of their generation, were both found on the island. The loss of these two alone was a tremendous blow for the Marines, as they were slated to become full Admirals in several years' time.
The frozen body of the traitor vice admiral Saul was also found, which showed that Kuzan had dealt with him personally. From what they could get out of Spandine, Saul had only managed to destroy a single warship before he was taken down by Kuzan, so whoever had destroyed the Buster Call hadn't benefited much from Saul's defection. They'd done the hard work themselves, and the rest of the evidence was on the beaches.
While most of the flotsam had drifted away from the island, there was still a lot of debris that washed up on the beaches of Ohara. Among the debris were small body parts, Marines cut up into small pieces by some unknown attack. Again, only a fraction of the total body parts had washed up on the shore, the rest had been eaten by sea life. Indeed, such a bounty of food had attracted progressively larger predators until a few sea kings had turned up around the island, which made searching underwater far more dangerous.
Overall, it didn't take long for the investigators to conclude that Spandine's half-mad ravings were correct. Someone, or possibly several someone's, had destroyed the Buster Call sent to the island. The perpetrator, who called herself Queen, had appeared with a burst of refined Soru and killed vice admiral Motoma in a single attack before the Marine could even react to her presence. She'd then somehow destroyed every remaining warship around the island along with all their personnel in a single, simultaneous attack.
However, Queen had spared Spandine. From what they could get out of the near-catatonic man, Queen wanted information, to know who ordered the Buster Call and why they decided to kill everyone on the island. Afterwards, she left Spandine alive to deliver a message to the World Government.
Acts of butchery such as this, the wholesale slaughter of innocents, would result in terrible retribution. If the Marines, the protectors of society, would betray their ideals like they had here then she would punish them for it.
Queen felt she was being generous by sparing one of leading culprits of this genocide, but since she needed someone important to send a message and since an Oharan child had managed to escape the island, she grudgingly let Spandine live.
Then she'd vanished and left the World Government with a massive crisis to deal with.
The destruction of Ohara was supposed to serve two purposes. The first was to stop the archaeologists trying to find out what happened during the Void Century. The second purpose of the Buster Call was to serve as a warning to others trying to decipher Poneglyphs, and to remind the world of the power of the World Government.
For the main objective, Buster Call was mostly successful, having reported destroyed all the records in the Tree of Knowledge and killed every citizen on the island… save one. Normally the survival of a single child could be overlooked, but according to Spandine, the child claimed to be able to read the Poneglyphs. Whether or not this was true, the World Government decided to give the child, Nico Robin, a 79 million Beli Bounty just in case it was.
As for a demonstration of the World Government's military might, the Buster Call was an utter failure. While it had managed mostly destroy Ohara, that achievement was vastly overshadowed by its destruction at the hands of Queen.
Two years before that, Roger's last words had heralded a new era of piracy, and even now there was no indication of the Golden Age of Pirates was going to end anytime soon. If anything, the number of pirates appearing each year was increasing. The World Government and the Marines had hoped that the Buster Call would act as a deterrent for those considering piracy, acting as the first nail in the coffin for the Age of Pirates. Instead, Queen's actions would make them look weak, encouraging more criminals to take to the seas with a black flag.
It wasn't just an appearance of weakness either, the loss of the Buster Call hurt the Marines badly. 6 vice admirals, over a quarter of their total number, lost in a single event – including two of their most promising Marines that were almost admirals. The loss of the lower ranked Marines and 10 warships couldn't be dismissed lightly either. While 10 000 marines only represented a couple of percent of the total number of Marines across the world, the soldiers aboard the warships were among the best available. Their loss would leave several areas short-handed for years to come, which would allow the world's rampant piracy problem to grow. Navy warships were powerful but very expensive, the loss of 10 would strain even the Navy's considerable budget and it would also hamper the Navy's ability to exert control over the seas for some time.
Unfortunately, they couldn't cover up the loss of so many Marines, especially the higher profile officers. But that didn't mean they couldn't soften the blow. Instead of having their force destroyed by a single individual, losing their fleet to one of the many dangerous and poorly understood phenomena of the Grand Line would be better. It wasn't a huge improvement, but if they had to lose, it was better to lose against something that could not be fought. It was even possible that they weren't even lying.
The last report that from the Buster Call happened to be an unofficial one. A low-ranking marine, Sergeant Pasqua, had a fascination with the Rainbow Mists and offered incentives to anyone who reported sightings of the rare phenomenon. The higher ups didn't mind his network of trusted informants, there were worse hobbies for a marine to have than researching a dangerous and poorly understood phenomenon. This paid dividends when they found that they found the last report from the warships stating that the rainbow mists had appeared behind the fleet.
The was extremely unusual. Never before had the Rainbow Mists been sighted outside the Grand Line. Or at least, no one had ever survived to report that it had. It also made some people think. Two unprecedented events; a Grand Line phenomenon appearing outside the Grand Line and the sudden 'debut' of someone as monstrously powerful as Queen, happening in the same location. It was possible they were connected, and they made a narrative to reflect that.
The destruction of Ohara was reported to be a complete success, a just punishment against those that would rebel against the World Government and bring back the ancient weapons of destruction. However, on their return trip, the fleet of the Buster Call unexpected encountered the mysterious Rainbow Mists and vanished. All the officers were reported as MIA instead of KIA – after all, it was possible that some of the warships had actually disappeared into the Rainbow Mists and would reappear at some point.
To investigate the disappearance of the Buster Call, vice-admiral Saul was dispatched along the navy's expected route to try and find out what had happened. Along that route, Saul ended up finding the Rainbow Mists outside of the Grand Line.
However, before he could try and investigate the mists, an unknown figure appeared and attacked the ship. Saul bravely fought to buy time for the marines to escape before being killed by the unknown attacker. They only had a description of the culprit from some of the survivors, a masked and cloaked individual that seemed to be female and carried a sword.
A bounty was posted for the 'Devil of the Mists', with a record starting bounty of 666 million Beli, which completely overshadowed the 79 million Beli bounty of the 'Devil's Child' Nico Robin. While 666 million Beli was ridiculously high starting bounty, it was still far below what someone capable of wiping out a Buster call should've been worth. But the World Government couldn't justify pushing the bounty any higher without making people suspect that there was more to the story than they were telling.
With this, they could cover up the embarrassment of Saul's defection while simultaneously giving the World Government a reason to put up a such a high bounty on Queen without revealing what happened on Ohara.
However, while this misrepresentation of the truth softened the blow to the reputation of the world authorities, it did nothing to fix the deficit of combat power that they were currently experiencing. To counter this, the World Government issued a military draft.
The purpose of the draft was to headhunt skilled and powerful combatants and offer them generous incentives to join the Marines. Famous bounty hunters, independent adventurers, elite royal guards, veteran arena gladiators, retired war heroes, battle-scarred mercenaries and even powerful slaves were all given the opportunity to get high ranking Navy positions with minimal training.
While the draft did result in the marines recovering their strength far faster than normal, there were consequences to this reckless action. Firstly, the cohesion of the marines was reduced as having so many outsiders take up officer positions caused a fair bit of friction and resentment, especially when the new officers had poor characters or dubious histories.
The next problem was that many of these new marines had been recruited from the elite forces of several countries and kingdoms. While the World Government didn't force their subordinate kingdoms to give up their top soldiers, they exuded considerable political and economic pressure not to interfere with the draft and encourage their veterans to join the marines.
This caused some bitter feelings from the kingdoms around the world, especially the ones in the Grand Line where the draft was focused. This bitterness grew as these kingdoms had fewer elites to fight off pirates, resulting in much higher casualties than before. The World Government tried to diffuse this resentment by justifying it with a lot of statistics. They pointed out how the more mobile marines were more effective at countering piracy than the land-bound kingdoms, and that the draft would curb piracy in the long term, with the kingdoms reaping the benefits in the years to come.
The fact that it would make many kingdoms more dependent upon the Marines – and by extension, the World Government – for their defence was a completely unintentional bonus. Ohara's 'treason' had made the World Government more wary of what their subordinate countries might be up to.
However, since the draft was mainly aimed at replacing lost manpower rather than increasing it, Marine patrols did not increase and so this justification felt hollow to many countries. Objectively, they understood that without the draft, there would be fewer marine patrols, which would increase pirate attacks as well. But it was hard to be logical when pirates were killing and looting, and most of the time the marines didn't turn up until it was too late. Indeed, such a predicament became a golden opportunity for a different faction.
The Revolutionary Army.
This group had formed recently, headed by the mysterious Dragon and aimed at opposing the World Government. To do so, they needed the alliance and support of many countries and kingdoms. While they planned to depose many corrupt and tyrannical regimes, there were many countries with honourable leaders which the Revolutionary Army didn't want to attack. Instead, Dragon and his subordinates wanted to earn the allegiance of these honourable rulers, and the draft provided a great opportunity to do so.
The Revolutionary Army increased its influence with various countries by helping fight off pirates and training the local soldiers and militia to a standard that would allow them to fend off marauders on their own. This policy both increased the independence of the various nations and earned them a lot of goodwill. It also made people take them a bit more seriously, as most people laughed at the thought of a group trying to overthrow the World Government.
As much as the World Government wanted to stamp out the Revolutionaries, their actions were barely an inconvenience compared to the masses of pirates they had to deal with. Their actions fighting pirates was actually beneficial, and their activities even restored stability to many kingdoms at no cost to the World Government. If it wasn't for their attempts to undermine their authority, the World Government would be quite happy with the actions the Revolutionaries were taking.
Additionally, the Revolutionary army would need a concerted effort to stamp out. Just tracking down their members would be difficult, and their leaders were quite strong as well. Ideally, the World Government would send out a Buster Call, probably accompanied by an admiral, to make an example of those who tried to oppose them.
Unfortunately, the World Government didn't know where they were, and didn't want to divert such a concentration of forces against what was a secondary priority - especially after they lost the last Buster Call. Instead, Cipher Pol dedicated more resources to discovering the secrets of the Revolutionaries, the prepare for the time when the World Government could divert the proper resources to crush them.
They would regret not stamping out this movement sooner, but they had other priorities at priorities at the time.
The World Government still needed to deal with the aftermath of their destroyed Buster Call, and the person responsible for it, Queen. To do this, first they needed to track her down. The problem was, they had practically no clue about who she was or where she might go. As such, even the smallest possibility was considered, such as her connection to the Rainbow Mists.
The World Government issued warnings about the Rainbow Mists, and even hoped it would dissuade would be pirates from entering the Grand Line. The Buster Call's disappearance into the Rainbow Mists was something that could happen to anyone and was a cautionary tale to the world about the dangers of this infamous sea. A new protocol was established that the Rainbow Mists were to be reported as soon as they were sighted due to the dangers of becoming lost inside them. In reality, it was to check if Queen was actually related to the Rainbow Mists. If she was, it should prevent her from wiping out another fleet without anyone knowing about it, and they would know more about Queen.
But that plan didn't quite work out. While there were several sightings of the Rainbow Mists, there was never a confirmed sighting of Queen. Rumours and reports of her did pop up, but investigations revealed that they were imposters trying to cash in on Queen's reputation. It wasn't too hard to impersonate someone as famously unknown as Queen, so there were plenty of opportunists willing to use the moniker 'Devil of the Mists' to their advantage. It made a fantastic smokescreen for the real Queen, wherever she was, so the marines were quick to stomp out this behaviour.
The Navy didn't want to lose any more high-ranking officers to Queen, so they sent out captains and commodores to chase down the various appearances. It was callous, but they couldn't afford to send an Admiral to every sighting of Queen. The lower ranking officers would act as a canary in a coal mine, where their defeat would signal that the real Queen had been found.
The only exception to this was Garp, who hunted down the leads for Queen personally. He was furious about his protégé Kuzan's death and wanted retribution. He may officially only be a vice admiral, but he was arguably the strongest marine in service. That didn't mean the Navy was happy with Garp running off to hunt down Queen, they just couldn't stop him.
However, most the fakes were weak, with the average Marine captain able to take them down. None of them could beat a Marine commodore, and the unfortunates that ran into Garp severely regretted their choices.
As more reports of fakes being caught circulated around the world, less people believed the imposters who claimed to be the owner of a 666 million beli bounty. This in turn, meant the number of people pretending to be Queen dropped dramatically. Queen started to fade from people's memories as new big shot pirates stated to make names for themselves. Queen wasn't forgotten, but she wasn't often thought about.
The Marine's hunt for Queen seemed to have hit a dead end. 4 years, and they knew no more about her than they did when they started. They still hadn't fully recovered from the loss at Ohara, especially among the upper ranks of the Marines. This meant they didn't have the resources to search for a criminal that hadn't been seen in years when hundreds of pirate crews were causing havoc all over the world. Despite the threat she represented, there was currently only a small taskforce dedicated to investigating Queen and their main occupation was chasing down rumours. They had no tangible results to show for their efforts.
Until today.
"Don't do anything stupid, Garp. I know you want to go and chase her down – I want to do the same – but she's probably long gone from Sabaody by now. There's nothing we can do there that the thousands of marines and government agents couldn't. If they find her, we'll go together and crush her once and for all. But until then, stay put."
Garp looked irritated at the thought of waiting, but then took a deep breath to calm himself.
"Fine. You're right that she's probably long gone by now."
Garp closed his eyes and started to properly digest the information that his old friend had given him. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and continued talking.
"You know, you were in serious danger Sengoku. If she'd attacked while you were distracted by The Kabuto…"
"It would've been bad. But I wasn't in any danger of being attacked."
"Hmm?"
"She might've been able to seriously injure me, maybe even kill me, but that wasn't her plan. She could do far more damage to the Navy by tricking us into a war with Whitebeard. She wouldn't even have to participate in the war from that point. Even if we win against Whitebeard, it'll still cost us a lot to take him down."
"This again?"
"I thought you believed me Garp."
"I believe that it was Queen. That doesn't mean share your beliefs as to why she was in Sabaody. I agree that her actions indirectly resulting in our war with Whitebeard is gruesomely suspicious, but it still could just be a coincidence. Even if it was deliberate, that might not have been her main objective."
Sengoku furrowed his eyebrows as he considered the implications of Garp's words. He had been too focused on how Queen had tricked him into setting off a war, thinking that was Queen's ultimate goal during her appearance. But what if the war wasn't her final objective, but simply the first step in a greater plan?
"Not her main objective… a distraction?"
"You have to admit, it would make a hell of a distraction. If that was even her plan."
"No, you're right Garp. Our preparations to fight Whitebeard mean we would need to gather our fighting forces from around the world. Whitebeard isn't an enemy we can fight half-heartedly, and the he will have the initiative for when to attack. Until the war is over, our ability to respond elsewhere in the world will be limited."
"Queen isn't the only one who could take advantage of this situation you know."
"True, but we'll consider that later. We need to focus on what Queen's up to. If she doesn't participate in the war, we need to think about where she's planning to attack."
"Assuming that this was her plan. Don't forget we're speculating here Sengoku."
The Admiral nodded to Garp in acknowledgement. His old friend was doing a good job of playing the devil's advocate, usually it was his role to stop his friend from jumping to conclusions instead of the other way around.
"Even if it wasn't her plan, she could still take advantage of it. But alright, if we assume a worst-case scenario that this was her plan, then there are only a few of locations that she could be planning to attack."
"A few? How did you narrow it down to a few, Sengoku?"
"Queen is strong enough that she wouldn't need the distraction to attack most locations. Only a few locations would require a distraction for her to attack."
"Mmm… like Ennies Lobby? We could reinforce Ennies Lobby in 30 minutes from here."
"It is a possibility. But I think Impel Down is more likely. Attacking Ennies Lobby wouldn't result in the same level of damage as losing a Buster Call. The only thing there that is unique is CP-9, and even the loss of every member would not be as bad as losing a vice admiral and his aides. Losing Ennies Lobby would make it harder to process criminals, but even if she destroyed the whole area, we could rebuild without too much trouble. There's no target there that would really hurt us like last time. On the other hand, attacking Impel Down could hurt us far more than that."
"Destroying the prison? Or do you think she could be planning a prison break?"
"Either. Maybe both. This could all be an elaborate ruse to free someone from Impel Down."
"And we don't know enough about Queen to guess who it could be either."
"It might not be a specific person either. If she freed everyone in there, it would cause havoc around the world. Worse, if she destroyed the prison, we'd have nowhere to put the prisoners even if we caught them."
Impel Down was the World Government's most secure prison, a mostly submerged tower in the Calm Belt. The location alone made it almost impossible to reach outside of using the Tarai current, and it was guarded by a small flotilla of Marine ships as well as powerful Wardens. Its underwater nature meant that trying to tunnel through or break the walls – which were incredibly tough – was suicide unless you were a Fishman. There was only one viable exit. Its reputation as an inescapable prison was also a potent defence against escape attempts and few pirates would seriously consider breaking out comrades that were imprisoned inside its walls.
It was a masterpiece of engineering, and a hellishly expensive one as well. If it was destroyed, it would take years to rebuild, and the Navy would have a much harder time keeping hold of their prisoners. Losing Impel Down would be a bigger blow than losing Ennies Lobby, as criminals spent far more time in the former than the latter.
"Assuming Whitebeard doesn't destroy it first. Kabuto is being kept there isn't he?"
"He's in transit as we speak. But if we're forced to fight Whitebeard at Impel Down, Queen could go after another target."
"Another target? You mean here, the Marine Headquarters? Losing it would look pretty bad… but I know that look Sengoku. What am I missing?"
"Why was Queen on Ohara in the first place?"
"To destroy the Buster Call?"
"But why did she do it?"
"Because the Buster Call killed all the Oharans? Where are you going with this?"
"On whose orders?"
"…The World Government's. Sengoku, you think that Queen might be aiming for Marie Geoise!?"
"What if her true target isn't us, the Marines, but actually the World Government? During the actual fight with Whitebeard, we wouldn't be able to respond if the Celestial Dragons came under attack."
"Marie Geoise isn't defenceless," Garp countered, "I don't know the full capabilities of CP-0 or the defences around the Holy Land, but they should be able to hold off Queen for a short while at least. Besides, CP-0 are more suited to countering Queen's stealthy fighting style than we are."
"Queen isn't just an opportunistic assassin. She beat vice admiral Sakazuki in a direct fight, and he was almost as strong as an admiral."
A large area of Ohara had been destroyed by magma, which had cooled and solidified by the time the investigation team had arrived. Still, it showed that Sakazuki had put up a hell of a fight before Queen killed him.
Sengoku continued, "And it's been four years, it's entirely possible that Queen is even stronger now. CP-0 may not be enough to hold her off for long, especially if they don't recall their members in time."
CP-0 was based in Marie Geoise and worked directly for the Celestial Dragons as bodyguards and operatives. Though the protection of the World Nobles was their primary goal, very few people were brave and/or stupid enough to attack their charges. Due to its proximity to Navy HQ, no one had ever successfully attacked the Holy Land in living memory. As a result, often the elite members of CP-0 were sent on furtive missions at the behalf of their masters, confident that they were safe from harm in the Holy Land.
"Surely the protection of the Mary Geoise overrides anything else CP-0 is doing."
"That depends on convincing the World Nobles that they are actually in danger."
"Ha! Sounds about right. Some of those guys actually believe they're invincible. Do you remember the time when-"
"I remember. You should also remember to be respectful of them."
"Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. Still, dealing with the World Nobles is Kong's problem, not yours. Even if Queen doesn't attack during the war, someone else might, so recalling all of CP-0 is a good idea." Garp paused for a second before continuing, "speaking of Kong, have you told our fleet admiral about Queen yet?"
"Not yet. Kong's in a meeting with the 5 elder stars, probably over our failure to protect the World Noble and the upcoming war with Whitebeard. I thought I'd talk to you before I went to him with this, although he'll probably have the preliminary report on his desk by the time he gets back."
Garp nodded thoughtfully and started to leaf through the report in front of him. After a few minutes of reading, he started a new line of inquiry.
"Alright, now that we've explored the theory that the war was Queen's plan, let's explore the theory that it isn't. What other motivation could she have had for attacking the slave auction?"
"You mean the 'Public Employment Security Office'."
"Oh, come on Sengoku, they're slaves and everyone knows it."
"They're indentured workers. Slavery was outlawed by the World Government almost 200 years ago, so obviously they can't be slaves."
"… you know Sengoku, that hypocrisy might be why Queen attacked in the first place."
"What do you mean Garp?"
"Well, Queen claimed to have killed the Marines because they killed those they were supposed to protect. Maybe the fact we outlaw slavery yet turn a blind eye to it on our doorstep is what prompted Queen's visit."
"You mean-"
"I mean slaves, Sengoku. You came to me for an honest opinion, so don't complain when you get it. Leave all that politically correct crap at the door and focus on the issue."
"…Fine, Garp. Just don't say that stuff where everyone can hear."
"Sure, whatever. Just tell me what you think about that idea."
"… I don't think so, it's too small for Queen's methods. If she was making a statement she would've attacked all the auction houses in such a way that there was no doubt to her message."
"Hmph, sounds about right," Garp grunted as he flipped over another page of the report. The vice admiral frowned as he read something.
"Hey Sengoku, were there any other collars that were opened by hand? Or was it just the three of them in the back room?"
"It was just the three as far as I'm aware," Sengoku replied, before startling as he realized what Garp was getting at, "You think Queen's aim was to free certain indentured workers?"
"You were too focused on the murder of the World Noble. All the slaves were freed using the keys except for these three, who Queen freed personally. She even protected them from another of the slaves. If she started the slave riot, what if it – and all the consequences that came from it – were meant to distract us from her connection to these slaves?"
"Damn it. I should've seen that." Sengoku cursed himself for his tunnel vision. He was normally more level headed than this, but his failure yesterday still had him riled up.
Garp looked through the supplementary information at the back of the report, detailing everything the slave auction claimed was stolen or lost yesterday. Because of the manager Disco's death, it wasn't a complete list. But luckily, the surviving guards knew about some of the more exotic items Disco was bragging about, including the slaves kept in the separate room.
"Apparently, the person who sold those slaves to the auction house claimed they were taken from the ship of the Kuja pirates."
"The Kuja pirates! That… is a useful lead to follow up on."
"You don't sound convinced, Sengoku. Queen could be a member of the Kuja Pirates, or from their homeland at least. We don't know where it is aside from somewhere in the Calm Belt."
"Queen just doesn't fit with what we know of the Kuja pirates' culture. The Kuja pirates never hide who they are when they attack, they barely bother to hide their bodies with clothing. Queen hides her identity and completely covers her body. The Kuja pirates main goal is loot, whereas Queen's is killing. None of the Kuja pirates have demonstrated a single Rokushiki technique in decades, whereas Queen can use at least 2 and probably all of them. Even though we don't know the exact location of the Kuja pirate's home port, we know it's somewhere between Paradise and East Blue. West Blue is almost completely on the other side of the world, and no Kuja pirate has ever been sighted there. So, if Queen was a Kuja Pirate, why was she at Ohara?"
"Hmm… she could be some sort of outcast, but you're right. It just doesn't fit. But why would she save those three specifically? If she isn't a Kuja pirate, then maybe she's an ally of them instead? Or maybe she just saved like that because she couldn't be bothered getting the keys?"
"Or maybe this is another distraction to throw us off the scent."
"Ah, hell, now my head's starting to spin with all these plots within plots. Look, let's just add these kids to the search list-"
"-All the escapees are already being searched for."
"Of course they are. Although I'm curious about what crimes we'll charge them with when escaping slavery is technically legal since slavery itself is illegal."
"Escaping unpaid debts is the usual charge, I think."
"Hmph, I'd be curious to find out where those debts came from, but we'll sort that out another time. Anyway, we'll find them and question them about Queen. If they do know something, we don't want them to slip through our fingers like Nico Robin did."
Nico Robin had been an afterthought in the massacre at Ohara. By the time the World Government realised that she might be their only lead to finding Queen, the girl had all but vanished. The agents and marines they sent after her always seemed be a few steps behind the girl, but they could never seem to catch up with her. Bounty hunters also seemed to have no luck either, despite how many had come to West Blue in search of a big bounty.
This was troubling for the World Government. The fact that an 8-year-old girl kept avoiding pursuers implied that she was getting assistance from someone else. They had started to suspect that Queen had a connection with Nico Robin, but they didn't know. They had hoped that some marines or bounty hunters would have been able to corner the girl, either tying up a loose end from Ohara or forcing Queen to reveal herself to save her. If they knew that Queen was helping Nico Robin, then they would send a taskforce comprised of an admiral with vice admiral support after the girl. This would force Queen out of hiding to fight.
But before that could happen, the fake Queens started to show up and the marines shifted their attention to dealing with them. By the time the issue of the fake Queens had been dealt with, other issues had come up and Nico Robin had been a lesser priority.
Sengoku frowned as he remembered a report that had crossed his desk many weeks ago. He had barely glanced at it, the report hadn't seemed important at the time, but it may have a connection to the case at hand.
Sengoku got up from his desk and walked to his bookshelf containing all the reports that crossed his desk. The files got archived every 6 months or so, so that report should still be here somewhere…
He found the file and brought it back to his desk to read over.
"What's in that report? Something about Nico Robin?"
"Indirectly. This is a report about taskforce 83, one of the groups that have been chasing down Nico Robin for the last 4 years."
"So what, did they have a lead on her location?"
"It's not a report from the taskforce, but a report about the taskforce. Apparently Cipher Pol noticed some irregularities in their reports and decided to investigate."
"Irregularities?"
"Taskforce 83 manages to locate Nico Robin every few months or so, but she always manages to get away before they can catch her. After multiple repetitions of this happening, Cipher Pol started to have a closer look at what was happening. A combined team of government agents and marines shouldn't have much trouble catching a preteen."
"True, but we've had plenty of instances where pirates constantly slip away from pursuit. I can't remember how many times I cornered Roger, only for him to pull off some ridiculous escape. Sure, Robin is a young girl, but she could have a Devil Fruit that helps her get away."
"Cipher Pol considered that, and so sent two addition taskforces to help catch Nico Robin. This is where the irregularities start to appear. Their reports didn't match up with Taskforce 83's. Only taskforce 83 ever reported confirmed sightings of Nico Robin, the other two taskforces never caught sight of her. When the taskforces questioned witnesses, they found that what taskforce 83 was reporting didn't add up."
"So, they were falsifying the reports? How? Why?"
Sengoku kept reading, "when Cipher Pol investigated taskforce 83, they found that the members all had one thing in common. They were all first responders to the Ohara after Queen's massacre."
"They were sympathisers?"
"That's the conclusion that Cipher Pol came to."
"So they were intentionally letting Nico Robin get away because they didn't agree with what happened on Ohara? They were pursuing her closely enough to stay on the case and throw off the other agents, but far enough away to not actually catch her?"
"No, it's worse, Garp. Cipher Pol thinks they may never have been chasing her to begin with. There are only a few independent, reliable eye-witness accounts of Nico Robin outside of taskforce 83, and that was on the adjacent island 4 years ago. It is where we got the photo of her for the bounty poster. After that, nothing. It is entirely possible that taskforce 83 have been throwing everyone off course with false sightings of her for years."
"Okay, that's pretty bad. But there have been no other sightings of her anywhere, right? How did she hide from the world for 4 years?"
"She may have had help from an expert."
"Queen? You think Queen helped her? But if she wanted to protect the girl, why say anything? We wouldn't have known she survived if she hadn't told Spandine that she escaped."
"Queen probably wasn't aware that Nico Robin could read Poneglyphs and that we would put a bounty on her. When we did, she found the girl and took care of her."
"Maybe, but I'm not sure where you're going with this Sengoku. What has this got to do with yesterday's events? Unless you're saying that Queen has a habit of picking up young girls? Or that Nico Robin was spotted on Sabaody?"
"It's not that, Garp. It's why taskforce 83 decided to lie about all of this. The profiles of some of taskforce 83 don't seem like sympathisers. When Cipher Pol questioned them, they seemed to really believe that they were close to catching Nico Robin. When this taskforce of agents and marines volunteered to chase down Nico Robin, everyone thought they were after an assignment that could get them promoted. But what if they got told to get this assignment?"
"Told? By who? You think someone higher up ordered them to throw everyone off the scent?"
"Not quite. Disco's actions yesterday imply that Queen has some kind of mind affecting power. You agree with me on that at least. So what if Queen was still on Ohara when the first responders arrived? She could have affected the members of taskforce 83 into thinking they were actually chasing Nico Robin."
"But the timeline doesn't match up. We didn't know Nico Robin survived until we questioned Spandine. So why would she… unless… if Queen was there on Ohara when the investigation team arrived, and if she has some sort of hypnotism then… that casts doubt over the entire Oharan investigation report!"
"Exactly Garp. Nico Robin may not be the only survivor of Ohara. She was the distraction, a weak young girl to draw our attention while the rest of the archaeologists continued their work on the Poneglyphs in secret. She used taskforce 83 to stop us from discovering the ruse until now."
"Can hypnotism even last that long? Make a whole taskforce chase shadows for 4 years seems unlikely."
"It's not as unlikely as you think Garp. Have you heard about the pirate Motango?"
"Jeez, that was… 40 years ago? He used hypnotism to steal a few hundred million Beli from the kingdom of… Simzania? Or something like that?"
"Almost. He used hypnotism to convince the prince of Simzania that he owed a huge debt to Motango and needed to pay it back. Motango convinced the prince to extend him a generous line of credit he could use to cover his expenses anywhere in the world in order to pay back the debt. Even several years later, the prince of Simzania still believed he owed Motango a debt, even though he hadn't met the pirate in all that time."
"Really? What Devil Fruit did he have?"
"That's the thing Garp, he didn't have a Devil Fruit. He was just a master hypnotist."
"Hypnotism can really last that long?"
"With sufficient skill, such a suggestion can last until the victim is presented with strong evidence they are mistaken. Sometimes not even then. Whether Queen has a specific Devil Fruit is mind control abilities, or if she's just a master hypnotist, I think this is what may have happened to Taskforce 83."
"Damn. If you're right, the World Government is going to be really pissed. We'll need to send another team of investigators to Ohara to check if your speculation is correct. But it might be too late to find evidence that contradicts the original report after four years."
"True, although if I'm right, it may shed light on Queen's motives."
"How so?"
"Why was Queen on Ohara in the first place?"
"Didn't we already go over this Sengoku? To destroy the Buster Call."
"That's what she did. But that's if you're assuming that she knew about the Buster Call before she arrived at Ohara. What if she didn't?
"I'm assuming? That's rich coming from you Sengoku. It sounds like you think her appearance at Ohara was a coincidence."
"Humour me Garp. What were the Oharans famous for?"
"…Knowledge. The Oharans were the premier scholars of the world and Ohara had the greatest library in existence. You think she was going to Ohara to find out something and just happened to be there at the same time as the Buster Call?"
"Queen may have an interest in the poneglyphs. Someone that strong belongs in the New World, and what is necessary to reach the end of the New World?"
"… Reading the Road Poneglyphs. You think Queen is looking for One Piece, and went to Ohara to find someone who could read the poneglyphs?"
"She called herself Queen. Just as Roger became the Pirate King by conquering the Grand Line, she wants to become the Pirate 'Queen' by doing the same."
"She might simply want to be called Queen, or it could be referencing her supposed ability to control people, or maybe she's actually royalty from some country or another. I think you're reading too far into this Sengoku."
"Hmph, fair enough. But she could still be after One Piece."
"And how does that tie in with what she did yesterday?"
"If she did mean to set off our war with Whitebeard, then maybe it is a distraction in order to study some Poneglyphs under the control of the World Government."
"I wasn't aware we had any Poneglyphs under guard. Something you'd like to share, Sengoku?"
"Do you know what happened to the Poneglyph at Ohara? It got transported by warship straight to Mary Geoise escorted by Cipher Pol agents."
"…I can see the logic. If I was a powerful ruler and there was something I didn't want anybody to read but couldn't destroy, moving it to the most secure location I could makes sense."
"Right. And I bet there are other Poneglyphs in Marie Geoise as well. Queen could be using the war with Whitebeard as a distraction to get in and study the Poneglyphs in the Holy Land."
"I wasn't aware that we had captured any of the Road Poneglyphs and considering what an uproar that would cause in the New World, I'm pretty sure we haven't. So how would reading the Poneglyphs in Mary Geoise help Queen reach Raftel?"
"There is a lot we don't know about Poneglyphs, but we do know that they are connected to each other in some way. After all, the information from all four Road Poneglyphs are necessary to reach Raftel. It is possible that the others could be used as a substitute, or possibly give directions to the more important Poneglyphs. Or they could be connected to the ancient weapons, which would give Queen the power to directly oppose the World Government"
"Or the Poneglyphs contain some of the secrets that the World Government doesn't want anyone to know."
"Or that. Which would imply a different motive… perhaps she has a greater connection with the scholars of Ohara than we thought. She could be helping them, or Nico Robin at least, study the various Poneglyphs around the world."
"That sounds a bit more plausible. So, if Queen is using the war with Whitebeard as a distraction, whether she set it up on purpose or not, we have two motives for her to attack Mary Geoise. But what if her goals have nothing to do with Whitebeard or Mary Geoise? How does your theory about the Poneglyphs tie into what she did at the Auction House?"
"… perhaps the Kuja Pirates have a Poneglyph on their island, and Queen wants to negotiate access to it by returning some of their lost children."
…Maybe. Look, Sengoku. You've made some good points, but I think we've strayed too far into the realm of conjecture here."
Garp sounded sceptical of the admiral's speculations and Sengoku couldn't blame him. While some of his theories were plausible, many of them were supported by far too many theoretical data points. Sengoku prided himself on being a good strategist, but to properly strategize he had to understand his enemy and he really didn't know much about Queen. The lack of information about such a powerful threat really threw him off balance, he was too used to pirates that boasted and prided themselves in their criminal actions. An enemy like Queen that was both strong and secretive was something he had never encountered before. Having Garp there to act as a sound board for his ideas had helped get his head back on right at least, fleet admiral Kong would've laughed him out of his office if Sengoku tried this with him.
"Yeah, you're right Garp. Although I'd like to hear what you think what you think her goal was yesterday."
"Mmm… my gut instinct is that it has to do with the Kuja girls she freed. But the report also mentioned that there were four devil fruits in the Auction House that have gone missing, so maybe Queen was after one of those?"
Sengoku nodded. He had overlooked the Devil Fruit angle because Queen already had one and he had been focused on the Whitebeard angle, but perhaps she was looking to give it to a loyal follower of hers. He frowned as he recalled the Fruits in the report.
"Correct me if I'm wrong Garp, but weren't all the Devil Fruits unidentified?"
"Mostly, they suspect that the third Fruit was the Paramecia Love-Fruit, since it has hearts all over the peel, but otherwise they have no clue which ones they are."
"Hmm… maybe… no, let's not drift back in the realm of theory. Perhaps Queen knows which ones they were and made a move to secure them, is that what you're suggesting, Garp?"
"Devil Fruits are rare, so the chance to secure 4 at once is something a lot of people would jump at. Problem is, that doesn't help us figure out what she's going to do next. Will she sell them? Give them to someone she trusts? The only person that may be associated with her is Nico Robin, who hasn't been seen in, what? six months?"
"Eight months, assuming we can trust the testimonies of Taskforce 83 and she wasn't recruited by Queen four years ago."
"So, assuming that is true, Nico Robin is the most likely person that Queen would give one of those Devil Fruits and we don't know where she is either. If it isn't true, we have no clue about what she'll do with the Fruits.
"Even if it is true, Nico Robin won't be a candidate for eating the fruits since she already has a Devil Fruit power."
"Wait, she does? Which one?"
"In the Oharan investigation-"
"-assuming Queen didn't sabotage it-"
"-some of the diaries of the Oharans describe Nico Robin having powers that best fit the Flower Devil Fruit."
"…Well, shit. I hope your theory about Nico Robin joining up with Queen is wrong, because if a Flower Devil Fruit user learns the Rokushiki techniques…"
"…We may get a second Lee on our hands."
Of all the Devil Fruits, the one that had the most synergy with the Rokushiki techniques was the Flower Devil Fruit. It made sense, the Rokushiki involved turning the human body into a weapon, and Flower Devil Fruit involved multiplying and amplifying the human body. However, there was more to the story than that.
Those who were instructed in the Rokushiki techniques were given an overview of their history, which natural included their origins. While some of the techniques had existed individually before Rokushiki, it was the work of the famous martial artist 'Island Cracker' Lee that had brought them together into the single style now known as Rokushiki.
Rokushiki wasn't actually the style that Lee had used, but a pale imitation that he had taught to others. The reason being was that Lee had eaten the Flower Devil Fruit, and many of his techniques get been created or augmented by using it.
Soru, for example, was a high-speed movement technique that involved hitting the ground several times in rapid succession to boost your initial momentum beyond what was possible with two steps. Lee could take this technique to another level by growing additional legs to hit the ground with, but everyone else had to make to with just two legs to get an inferior version of the technique.
Geppou allowed a Rokushiki user to jump on air by creating a shockwave in the air with their legs. Lee had achieved this by nigh instantaneously growing dozens of foot soles on the bottom of his feet – the speed of their appearance stacking together and causing a shockwave which could move him quickly through the air. He could also use this technique offensively to augment his attacks.
In Lee's hands, Shigun became a terrifying weapon. Every surface, even his opponent's bodies, became a vector for a lethal finger thrust, making it extremely difficult to guard against.
In addition to the six Rokushiki techniques, the Flower Fruit allowed Lee to create and combine many techniques that were simply impossible to replicate with a normal human body. But even without using his Devil Fruit, Lee's martial arts and techniques were perfect. He is considered the best martial artist to ever live, and was so powerful, people still knew his name even many centuries later.
"Then again, maybe not, Sengoku. There have been others who have eaten the Flower Fruit before and none of them have come close to Lee's power."
"None of them had a teacher of Queen's calibre either. We'll see what happens next time Nico Robin appears, but for now, let's just focus on Queen's motives."
"Fair enough. So, Queen may have hit the Auction House for the Devil Fruits, but that doesn't explain why she introduced herself. It's the same problem if her goal was something to do with the Kuja girls. Why would she bother to let us know she was there?" Garp closed his eyes in thought for a few moments before continuing, "personally, I still think that freeing the Kuja girls was one of Queen's main objectives. But as for why, and what they have to do with her long-term goals… I just don't know Sengoku."
"You're right. We just don't know enough yet. I wish the investigation at Sabaody would turn up more information…"
Brr-Brr-Brr Brr-Brr-Brr
Sengoku blinked and trailed off as the Den-Den-Mushi on his desk started ringing. He picked it up.
"Sir, this is Captain Borno. I have an update from Sabaody I thought you'd like to hear."
"Report, Marine!"
"Sir! Since many of the escaped slav- I mean, indentured workers took a lot of treasure with them when they ran, we've been following the trail of jewels and gold to track them down.
"And? Get to the point, Captain!"
"Yes Sir! We came across a merchant captain who was trying to exchange about 280 million Beli worth of jewels into cash. He claims that got that treasure legitimately from selling his ship yesterday to a stranger who was very keen to leave the Archipelago on short notice."
"So, some of the indentured workers managed to escape. Why are you wasting my time with this, Marine?"
"But, Sir! The person he sold his ship to was a woman who was wearing a dark grey overcoat and had a body length Nodachi with a gold-trimmed, black sheathe! She was also accompanied by three young girls who could be a match for the Kuja pirate girls in the previous report! I think this is her, Sir!"
Sengoku locked eyes with Garp, who nodded in agreement. This was probably Queen.
"Was she wearing a mask? What about her name!?"
"She didn't give her name, Sir, and she didn't wear a mask!"
"No Mask!? A Photo! Do you have a photo!?"
"I'm sorry, Sir, but we don't. We're still checking, but considering the chaos, the odds are low there being any for us to find."
"Keep looking Captain! And don't let that merchant leave! If we can't find a photo of her, we'll get him to give us everything he knows."
Sengoku was already thinking up how to get the most out of this windfall. He would hire a dozen of the best drawers and painters he could find and then have the merchant describe Queen to all of them to draw. Then the merchant would pick the best one to add to Queen's profile. Human memory was fallible, so it wouldn't be a perfect likeness, but it would be a lot better than what they currently had.
"Put it in the report later, Captain. Do you know any information about where they went?"
"Not much, Sir! The ship wasn't painted, so they haven't gone to Fishman Island. We checked with HQ, and they don't have any records of this ship passing through the Red Line. The ship's trajectory was eastward, but they could've gone anywhere after that. The merchant had three eternal poses aboard, linked to islands in the grand line and plenty of maps. He says she didn't mention anything about where she was going, and she set sail within an hour of purchasing the ship."
"Mmm… what islands are the Eternal Poses linked to?"
"Water 7, Dandelion Peaks and Blacksand Kingdom. The log pose was last attuned to Water 7 as well, sir."
"What about the ship itself?"
"It's a newly built schooner from Water 7. Apparently, the trip here was its maiden voyage. No particular distinguishing marks or modifications."
"Alright, Captain, get a description or photo of the ship and circulate it to all the Marine bases as a target of interest. Talk to commander Tillman and organise some artists to get a picture of our suspect from the merchant and his crew. I want an updated report with an artist's likeness on my desk by sunrise tomorrow!"
"Sir, yes, Sir!"
Sengoku put down the receiver and looked over at Garp, who had a anticipatory look on his face.
"Think this is her, Sengoku?"
"I'm not 100% sure, but it is the best lead we've gotten so far. I think it's more likely it's her than not. What do you think, Garp?"
"Yeah, I think it's most likely Queen, "Garp paused for a moment, before a fierce grin appeared on his face, "and we finally have a face to go with her. We've got her!"
"Maybe."
"Maybe? Sengoku, we've finally got a face we can use to track down Queen. With this, it'll be much harder for her to hide from us. Unless you think it wasn't Queen that bought the boat?"
"That isn't what I'm saying. My problem is that we'll be getting this information about Queen from people who may have been mind-controlled by her."
"You think this is another distraction? A ploy to throw us off her scent? You're overthinking things Sengoku. If you keep going like this, you'll become paranoid that everyone has been mind-controlled by her. If that's the case, then the original description of Queen we got from Spandine is also thrown into doubt."
"Hmm…"
"Wha? No! Don't follow that train of thought, Sengoku! I brought that up to make you less paranoid, not more!"
"It is a valid point worth considering, Garp… but it doesn't change much at this point. Queen was certainly on the island yesterday, and this is the best lead we have so far about where she went. Assuming it isn't a decoy."
"Please remember that we don't know she has mind control powers, we only suspect she does."
"We strongly suspect she does, and we're not the only ones either. But I'm wondering why she didn't take more precautions to avoid being recognised. The fact that she called herself Queen in the Auction House was a message to us, saying that she was the real Queen. She should've known that we would scour the island for any scrap of information about her. She takes off her mask, yet she takes along the Kuja pirates she freed to hint to us what she did. Even the act of disarming the bomb collars by hand is a subtle hint that she is the real Queen. It's like she's leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow, giving us enough clues to follow her, but not enough to catch her. Why take off her mask? Her anonymity was her biggest advantage, but now she gives us an idea about what she looks like. I must be missing something here."
"She may have just gotten complacent, taking off her mask is how she's managed to avoid attention for four years. The reason we don't know much about her is because she killed all but one of the witnesses last time. She might not be as good at avoiding attention as you think Sengoku."
"Haaa… You might be right, Garp. Putting the wrong face on such a large bounty would be bad but having the correct face and not putting it on the bounty poster may be worse. But we'll do our best to avoid whichever mistake Queen is trying to steer us towards. We'll see if we can get a hypnotism expert to look over the merchant crew and check if they've been controlled. We'll get them to check over Taskforce 83 while we're at it."
"What about where Queen's going? Any ideas?"
"With three eternal poses and an accurate map of the Grand Line, Queen could go just about anywhere she wants. I'm more curious about why Queen needed a ship in the first place."
"Huh… yeah, I didn't think about that. I wonder what happened to her last ship? Sold it? Sunk it?"
"Who knows? But Queen spent a lot of treasure to quickly get a ship. Gold and jewels that came from the Auction House. Maybe we've been looking at this the wrong way…"
"Oi, Oi! Surely… Surely, you're not saying that our war with Whitebeard started because Queen needed a new ship?"
"…It's a possibility we haven't considered. The Auction House would've also been an ideal place to recruit a skilled crew and freeing the indentured workers would've earned Queen their loyalty. The mass breakout acted as a smokescreen, distracting everyone from what Queen was up to."
"But then, why introduce herself at all? Like you said, calling herself Queen was a signal to those in the know – us – about her real identity. If all she wanted was a ship, why leave her signature on the riot at the Auction House? Was it just to remind us that she was alive?"
"Hmm… true. You're probably right, Garp. There's no way her motive was that simple…
Rayleigh's roaring laughter echoed through Shakky's bar, though luckily there weren't any other patrons of the bar to disturb this time. Shakky herself looked on in amusement at Rayleigh's antics.
"Really, Ray? How come you don't know about this already? Surely you didn't get yourself dead drunk and hid under a rock the last couple of days?"
The retired legend got his laughter under control, so he could answer.
"Give me a break, Shakky. I haven't had a drink since I started teaching Taylor nearly two years ago, so I thought I deserved to indulge myself a little," Rayleigh said, before deciding to amend himself under the weight of Shakky's amused stare, "alright, I indulged myself a fair bit. And when I felt Sengoku approach the island in a hurry, I decided discretion was the better part of valour. He's one of the few people who might be able to see through my veil if he got close enough."
"For shame Ray. Weren't you worried about your student getting caught by Sengoku?"
"Ha! As if Sengoku had any chance of catching Taylor."
"Really? You told me a bit of how much Taylor has improved, but I didn't think she was strong enough to beat the Buddha himself!"
"I didn't mean that. Oh, Taylor could give Sengoku a serious fight, but she needs more experience before she has a decent chance of beating someone like him. No, what I meant was that between her Devil Fruit powers, her mastery of Observation Haki and her expertise with Rokushiki; Taylor's ability to disengage from fights and evade pursuit is almost peerless. If Taylor's serious about escaping, Sengoku wouldn't have been able to catch her."
Rayleigh took a sip of his moderately-strong alcoholic drink – Shakky refused to give him anything stronger as a mild rebuke for missing all the fun. To be fair, Rayleigh was regretting that he was learning all this second hand. He hadn't expected Taylor of all people to create such an entertaining mess so soon.
"By the way Shakky, how did you find out about all this anyway? They haven't mentioned anything about Taylor in the papers."
"Now, now, Ray. A girl's got to have her secrets you know." Shakky replied, before chuckling at Rayleigh's raised eyebrow.
"Hmm… so one of the escaped slaves asked you for help and told you what happened."
"Got it in one, Ray. She also brought some goodies along with her to pay for my assistance."
"Good to see your uncharitable reputation proceeding you again Shakky."
"What are you talking about Ray? I'm very charitable-"
"-to people who you find interesting or entertaining. And to finance your laudable generosity, you shake down everyone else."
"Oh? You didn't want to hear the full story?"
"Well, now, I didn't say that, Shakky. Surely your legendary charity will incline you sharing some gossip with me."
"That it might. I'll also have you know that I only took the same amount that I gave Taylor when she left."
"Plus expenses?"
"Well, maybe a little bit. A girl's got to make a living after all."
"Hmm… well Taylor will be happy she's paid you back, even if she doesn't know it. She was always uncomfortable feeling indebted to others."
"I know, that's what makes it so fun to help her out. Well, that and how interesting she is. Also, I'm pretty sure she's still holding onto that money I gave her, just so she can give it back next time she sees me. Not that she needs it anymore."
"That does sound like her. But, why doesn't she need it anymore?"
"Because she stole enough treasure from the Auction House to bludgeon a merchant captain into selling his new ship in less than 5 minutes."
Rayleigh raised both his eyebrows at that. Merchant sailors depended on their ships for both their livelihoods and their lives and were extremely reluctant to part with them. Taylor must've really overpaid to make a merchant sell his ship so quickly, especially when Shakky elaborated on the ship that she'd bought.
"That's an impressive find at short notice. But even with Taylor's power, sailing a ship that size on the Grand Line isn't something that can be done on your own. She needs to still needs to sleep. I taught her the basics of sailing, but we didn't have a ship that size to practice on. I hope she hasn't bitten off more than she can chew there."
"Don't worry, Ray. Taylor was prepared. Apparently, she was accompanied by 3 young girls who I believe were members of the Kuja pirates."
Rayleigh blinked as he digested that piece of news. For the Kuja pirates, piracy was a way of life. How to fight and how to sail were skills were considered rudimentary skills for them, slightly more complicated than knowing how to walk and about as important. Taylor would be hard pressed to find better crewmembers to help her with her new purchase.
As he was about to reply, Rayleigh paused, then smiled as the implications of what he'd learned dawned on him.
"Shakky. Are you saying that Taylor raided the Auction House, started a slave riot, stole a fortune, recruited a crew, bought a ship and accidently started a war between two world powers in the space of two hours… all because she didn't want to use the money you gave her!?"
Shakky took a long puff of her cigarette before answering.
"Mmm… possibly."
Rayleigh once again burst out laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of Taylor's actions. By the end, he had some tears in his eyes from laughing too much.
"She is truly unique. For someone who was extremely reluctant to make waves, she's doing a good job of toppling the world like I asked her. Now, I would like to hear the full story about what happened."
Shakky giggled in response, "She sure is. Taylor's already made things interesting and well worth helping her. I can't wait to see what she does next. But first, let me tell you what my little guest told me…" Shakky went on to tell Rayleigh what had happened at the Auction House, both from the escaped slave she was harbouring and other sources.
"She called herself Queen? Appropriate considering what she can do with Conqueror's Haki, but…"
"But there is already a rather famous pirate using that name. Say Ray, you did take some time to educate Taylor about this world, right?"
"Sure, I did. But I didn't go into too much detail about the various world powers. I told her about the most important figures and factions and how the balance of power existed between them. I also told her a lot of basic information about our world, but I may have missed a thing or two since it seems like common sense that everyone would know."
"Mmmhmm. I'm sure. But Queen is one of the most famous pirates in the world, an elite of the Beast pirates, so the fact that you didn't tell Taylor about him makes me wonder… Say, you didn't neglect to inform Taylor about various people so it would be easier for her to mistakenly get into trouble, did you? All because you didn't agree with her sentiment of avoiding trouble."
"… that's some scary intuition you have there."
"Don't underestimate a woman's intuition. That's being a bit dishonest, Ray."
"But with Taylor's skills and mindset, it would've been too easy for her to keep out of the spotlight. So, I decided I might… rig the game a little. Don't give me that look, I diligently trained her to a level that will let her manage just about any amount of trouble she gets into. Besides, if she never gets into trouble, she won't grow. We've both had many misadventures, and we're both better for it."
"Only when we didn't lose anyone on those misadventures."
"Haa… I suppose that's true. We're lucky that those were rare tragedies. But Taylor is better prepared for those misadventures than we were back then. I didn't neglect to tell her vital information, I simply left out some minor details."
"I suppose that also means she has no idea that she's started a war, does she?"
"Well, I don't remember if I told her how fanatically protective Whitebeard is about his sons, but I know I didn't tell her about all of his commanders, so… probably not."
Rayleigh had a small chuckle at the thought of his pupil's ignorance of the mess she'd made. Although, Rayleigh wasn't sure the outcome would've been different if she'd known the characters involved and the consequences of Kabuto's capture. But as he looked back at Shakky, he saw a bemused smile tinged with… concern? When was the last time he'd seen that look on her face?
"What's wrong Shakky? Are you worried about Taylor? Look, she caused a war here by accident sure, but it was accidental and indirect and she's not going to catch any of the fallout from this."
"If only that were true…"
"hmm?" Rayleigh was puzzled by Shakky's response. Taylor's involvement in this mess was small, she'd be a footnote at best with the imminent war, and too small for the World Government to really take notice. Rayleigh would be surprised if Taylor got a bounty of more than 50 million Beli for her actions. Even then, she had been wearing a mask, so her identity would be secret. Unless…
"Are they blaming her for the death of the Celestial Noble?"
"They're assigning her partial blame, but it's not just that. All the Marines and Cipher Pol agents crawling over the archipelago got really interested when the learned of Taylor's involvement. I was curious as to why, considering this is her first public appearance since appearing in our world. But an hour ago, I got an answer to that question." Having said that, Shakky reached down and pulled out a Bounty Poster and showed it to Rayleigh.
Rayleigh blinked as he looked at an artist's rendition of Taylor's face. It was… a fairly good depiction to be honest, the quality of non-photo bounty posters was usually much poorer. That didn't mean it was perfect though, far from it. As someone who had been by Taylor's side for a couple of years, Rayleigh could see the various mistakes the artist had made. It looked like a relative of Taylor's rather and Taylor herself, but it was a decent attempt to pin down her appearance.
Then Rayleigh's eyes drifted down to the name and he startled in shock. Then he did so again when he read the reward.
"…What?"
WANTED
DEAD OR ALIVE
THE DEVIL OF THE MISTS
777,000,000 BELI
Rayleigh sat in stupefaction for a few moments as he tried to understand what he was seeing.
"They think she's the Devil of the Mists? The real one? Why?"
"I don't know, Ray. We know she can't be, she only appeared two years ago. But for some reason, they think she's the real one. I was hoping you might know why."
"… Sorry Shakky, I have no idea why the World Government think she's the Devil of the Mists. I don't suppose your woman's intuition has anything?"
"Nothing plausible. I'm a woman, not an oracle." Shakky rebutted him.
Rayleigh sighed and sipped more of his drink. Well, this was a mystery they wouldn't solve anytime soon, so best to move on to the next topic.
"Well, it looks like Taylor won't be able to avoid making plenty of waves now. You shouldn't worry about her, Shakky, she's more than capable of taking care of herself."
"Haa… I wasn't worried about that, Ray. If what you told me is true, then even a bounty of 777 million beli is underselling her abilities. I'm just concerned about why they're linking the Devil of the Mists with Taylor. Something that makes no sense like that bothers me, like we're missing a critical piece of information."
Rayleigh chuckled, "I forgot how much it bothers you not to know something. Don't worry, we'll find out the truth eventually. We can even ask Taylor when we see her next."
"She's probably even more confused than we are. I'm guessing you didn't tell her anything about the Devil of the Mists either, so can you imagine her face when she gets slapped with such a huge bounty for a simple robbery?"
Both of them had a laugh at the thought of Taylor staring at her own bounty poster and fuming impotently at her new infamy. Rayleigh finished his drink and Shakky went out the back to get something special to celebrate their student's debut onto the big stage. While he was waiting Rayleigh wondered about the Devil of the Mists.
An infamous bounty that had only ever appeared once, appearing out of the Rainbow Mists to slay a vice-admiral before disappearing. The Rainbow Mists had already been on everyone's minds after the news that an entire Buster Call had vanished inside them. Combined with this news, the sightings of the Mists now made entire fleets turn tail and run. Rayleigh had never encountered the Rainbow Mists himself and counted himself fortunate that he hadn't done so. He couldn't be confident that he could escape when an entire Buster Call could not.
Rayleigh frowned as he realized something. The Buster Call that had vanished into the Mists was the same one that had destroyed Ohara. Vice admiral Saul had died to the Devil of the Mists when he'd gone to investigate the Buster Call's disappearance. It meant that the Devil of the Mists had been active roughly around the time of Ohara's destruction.
Rayleigh glanced back down the likeness of his student on the bounty poster. A student that had been very interested in Ohara and its only survivor. A student that wanted to stay out of the spotlight, much like how the Devil of the Mists had vanished 4 years ago. Shakky said her scarily accurate woman's intuition wasn't giving her anything plausible. He wondered…
Rayleigh shook his head as Shakky returned with a bottle of Vanplume Blue. It couldn't possibly be true. It must be just a coincidence… but he couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't.
As Shakky poured a glass for each of them, shifted his thoughts away from that impossible truth.
"Well, Ray, it's sooner than expected, but here's to Taylor!"
"To Taylor! Cheers!"
"Cheers!" They clinked their glasses together and drank the particularly good – and expensive – alcohol. After savouring the taste for a bit, Shakky continued speaking, "may she continue to entertain us!"
"Oh she will. Don't worry about that."
"Care to elaborate, Ray?"
"I'm sure you've noticed Taylor's personality. She's driven, and has a strong sense of justice, but it is tempered by ruthless pragmatism. Over the time I've been training her, I've gotten to know more about her. She is used to fighting from a position of weakness in her world. Her power was good, incredibly versatile, but she was constantly forced to fight enemies with far stronger powers. She's had to pick her battlefields and make tough decisions to save people. Taylor's been force to make difficult compromises, sacrificing a few people to save the many, permitting smaller evils to fight the greater ones.
"It was not that she was too cowardly to fight, Taylor has the resolve to throw herself against impossible odds. It was not that she was too callous, she regretted many times the decisions she made and grieved for those she failed to save. It was not that she was too willing to compromise on her ideals, it pained her to do so, even if she understood the necessity. Her ruthlessness stems from having to pick a bad option, when a stronger person could pick a better one. She lacked the power to make her ideals reality, the ability to save everyone instead of having to make do with a few, the strength to dictate to the world how the story will end.
"Now, I have given her that strength, and the world is going to tremble."
Shakky chuckled in response, "looks like things will be getting very interesting from now on. She's certainly off to a great start."
Rayleigh nodded, "I expected this to happen, just not so soon. While her goal is to find a way home, she won't be able to close her eyes to the injustices she'll see along the way, especially now she has the power to fix them. And with her abilities, she'll be able to see a lot more injustice than most. She's going to be the hero she always wanted to be, and in doing so, topple the world."
Shakky turned her querying gaze upon Rayleigh. They both had high expectations of Taylor, but this seemed like… something more.
"How far do you think she'll go, Ray?"
Rayleigh paused a moment and took another sip of his drink before he answered.
"… She might be the one Roger was waiting for…"
Shakky's eyes widened in shock at that answer. To hear this, from the right-hand man of the Pirate King, was a massive endorsement of Taylor. Far beyond what Shakky was expecting.
Rayleigh gazed at his drink but seemed to see something far beyond it as he continued to speak.
"I always expected the person who would carry on his legacy would be someone just like him. It would be incredibly ironic if the person who finished what he started was someone with no interest in him, his title or even his treasure."
Rayleigh smiled reminiscently, "Roger would find it incredibly funny."
The Dark King almost heard his captain's distinctive laughter echoing around the empty bar. Taylor had very little in common with Roger, but they both had that incredible determination to achieve impossible goals and a strong sense of what was right. Finding a way back to her home dimension would take a long time, if it was possible at all. And during that time, as Taylor journeyed around the world, she would see how broken the world was, just like Roger had. Rayleigh was confident that Taylor wouldn't ignore these problems, not after he had given her the strength to fix them. And with each problem she fixed, each person she saved, it would caused more and more ripples to spread through the world.
He couldn't be sure, but Rayleigh thought that one day, those ripples would grow into a storm that engulfed the world. And in that storm, Rayleigh hoped to see the cumulation of his best friend's Will.
The next words he spoke were for Taylor.
"You told me you regretted your actions. This is your opportunity to do things differently. You told me you wanted to be a hero. You'll find this broken world is in dire need of one. You told me you wanted the chance to do better. I have given you all the power you need to do so. You have everything you need; the opportunity, the motivation, the power. All you need to do is commit yourself.
"The world is at your fingertips, Taylor, so what are you waiting for? Go forth and save it!"
-
