This and That

“You had your Jolly Roger on your clothes!” Usopp hissed at him.

“Kine’mon did it first,” Law huffed. “No one here reads the outside papers anyway. That’s not the point.”

“You’re damn right that’s not the point,” Usopp said. “Do your hand thingy and get me out of here before I get shipped to Kaido’s dungeon!”

“What?”

Usopp knocked his head against the wall. Carefully. “I’ve been telling stories to distract those Gifters from beating me up and now they want to drag me back to Onigashima so the guard here can’t kick them out. I don’t care if I end up with a wanted poster like Zoro’s, everyone can make fun of me forever, just get me out of here!”

Law hummed. It was not a ‘oh-Usopp-your-life-is-so-hard, we-should-all-have-more-sympathy’ hum, so Usopp hated it already. “Actually, this might be a perfect opportunity. We’ll stage you inside Kaido’s court. You look nothing like your wanted poster, so even the Gifters won’t recognize you.”

“Wh—come on!” Usopp hissed. “Don’t leave me here!”

“You’re not in danger, assuming you can keep talking your way out of injury,” Law said. “They’ll ask more questions if their prisoner vanishes, and it could blow all our cover stories. This way, you’ll be in position when we have to take the battle to Kaido.”

Usopp unleashed his secret weapon of their mutually assured destruction. “What’s going to happen when Luffy shows up and finds out I’m gone? He’s already gone chasing after Sanji! Are you going to risk him storming Onigashima early and ruining your plan?”

“Well, he’ll have to get himself out of Udon prison first.”

“…He’s here?”

“Here. Brought Blackleg back. Causing trouble. Getting himself caught by Kaido and locked up in Udon.” Law sounded very annoyed. “Because he couldn’t hold himself back from charging in at the first possible opportunity.”

“It is Luffy,” Usopp pointed out. “You think you’d have learned how he works by now, Torao.”

“The point is,” Law said, ignoring Usopp’s already-made very good point. “that he’ll have to get himself out first. Udon should slow him down for at least a week or two. Try to gather information until then, we should be able to execute a tactical strike to get you out if necessary.”

“So you’re just going to throw me to the king of beasts?” Usopp’s voice squeaked unfortunately.

“Didn’t you already spend two years on an island where everything was trying to kill you? Two weeks is nothing.”

“Torao, don’t leave me here—”

Too late to keep arguing. The cell door was opening and the Gifter standing there looked far too smug to have lost his argument with the warden.

“Who are you talking to?” the Beast Pirate asked, curious.

Other title I considered: Blunt force trauma💥 (When you dine and dash from the wrong restaurant)

Some notes for this time around!! I played around a lot more this time with poses and zooming in and out and I'm honestly super proud of how it turned out :DDD Coloring took a long while so it might not be feasible to continue doing this amount of rendering for every comic I do,,, but we'll see, I'll continue to experiment with it I guess

I tried my best this time around to use the color blue sparingly to show Tage's shift in personality from generally warm and amicable to just cold and ruthless when fighting. You can see that blue thaw out a little with the victory pose he does and when Ace checks if he's injured. Also the colors for Ace's little reminiscing panel are borrowed from the 1015 luffy/roger dream segment because I always think of it when I think about the three of them as kids...... the colors of the sunrise,,,

I also for some reason had Such A Clear Image of how I wanted the beat up marines to look. One of those very nice moments when what you envision lines up well with what you end up drawing haha

"Surrender, filthy Fish pirates-"

The Marine leader doesn't have time to finish. Not when a large tentacle smashes him down. A tentacle part of a huge mass, a mass that's just moved between the Sun Pirates and the attacking Marines. Stalling both sides out.

"Enough of this. You are waking me from my sleep."

There is a child. In the center of the mass. Connected to the mass. Wearing something of spines and spikes, of metal, on his head.

The tentacles are much larger than they should be for a merman or Fishman the child's age. More comparative to a Kraken than anything else, a Kraken in kelp bladder yellow.

The eyes the same color as the tentacles move to look them over. The child speaks.

"Ah. Lemurians."

"We're Fishmen," Arlong manages to grind out.

"Is that what you call yourselves now? Hm." The boy turns away from the Sun Pirates, towards the Marines. Unperturbed by the bullets they are shooting at him.

Because the bullets are clearly sinking into something, into that mass of tentacles much larger than the more human-looking portion, but there is no blood.

Nothing more than a sigh and apparent twitch of irritation as the boy's tentacles lash out to knock the attacking humans aside. Leaving them groaning and in some cases, all too still. No longer a threat to the Sun Pirates in any case.

"I," the boy states. "am going back to bed."

Hesitant, Fisher Tiger clears his throat. When yellow-green eyes turn to look at him, slitted as any fish's, he manages to say, "Thank you. For your protection."

"Hm."

Movement is difficult to place, only that it clearly happens within the tentacles mostly alone in a rolling motion, human legs seemingly unnecessary.

The entire crew watches, as the stranger reaches out to touch Koala's hand, his hand barely bigger than her own.

"You'll get home eventually," he says, somewhat nonsensically and also not, because does he know that Koala is a human that came from this island originally?

That seemingly settled in the strange squid-like boy's mind, he heads off towards the sea. Completely unafraid and unaffected as the waves wash up against him, until he vanishes somewhere off the coast.

Leaving the Sun Pirates to simply stare at him. Deciding what to do next.

"Well. I suppose we need to get you home, huh?" Fisher Tiger glances over at Koala, the entire reason they're on this island in the first place.

Jinbei's already over there, ready to get her moving. Before he stops. Pauses.

"Big Brother?"

"What?"

"Uh, I don't know if we can take her back anymore..." Carefully, the whaleshark-man nudges at the girl from the behind.

Who obliges by raising her hands.

Hands that now have webbing between them. To go along with the new gill slits on her neck.

She's here for her children, her last daughter, she says, and deep inside Ace, some part of him can't help but wonder-

would Portgas D. Rouge done the same for him, here and now, had she lived?

He shoves the thought away as quickly as it popped up, because it doesn't matter. She's dead, she's gone, and he's here, and going to be dead soon.

The thing about the position he's in, is that the Admirals don't care to hide what they're talking about from him. Not when he's going to be dead anyway.

Which means Ace catches Aokiji muttering to Kizaru, "do you have an open angle to catch her by, with your Devil Fruit?"

Kizaru, a Light Human, faster than nearly anything on both sides of the Red Line. If he can grab Nico Thais, there's no way she has a chance in hell to get away. Shit. Ace's muscles tighten.

They loosen slightly, at the man's barely present headshake and admittance of "Not at where's she standing. Get her to move a little more closer or to the right, and I can probably do something then."

Fuck. Does Ace shout something? What would he shout? Any warning he might give would probably shock the woman enough to move her into line of fire. So nothing. Nothing.

"That is my reason for standing here, for my children. Do you have a reason to deny me, to stand here in turn?"

Not a mention of Ace, of the execution platform. Though her eyes aren't visible, from what he can tell, she's not looking in his direction at all. Only at the Admirals.

It's both painful and not, to know that she's not here for him at all. The same as it is for Pops not being here, because he shouldn't be, it's dangerous, too dangerous, but some guilty part of Ace longs for him and the rest of the crew to be here anyway. For him.

(Even though he doesn't deserve that.)

"The reason we are here in the first place is to reveal a crime that should have been taken care of years ago, on the island of Baterilla-" Sengoku starts. Starts the beginning of the end.

No. No. No.

He yells, he screams, about Pops being his true father. But they don't listen. Even Gramps glancing him with guilty eyes super quick. They never do. All they care about whose cursed blood runs in his veins.

The blood of the Pirate King. Of Gold Roger. The child that should have never been born.

"Portgas D. Ace is the son of Gold Roger!"

Oh no, oh no, they all know the truth, they are all going to hate him-

(Like he deserves.)

It is the Mother of Devils that changes the entire situation yet again. Shouldn't be a surprise but it is somehow anyway, everyone having forgotten about her in the face of this new horror of Ace's ongoing existence.

Their mistake.

"How do we know you're not lying about the boy being Gold Roger's son?"

What.

"Why would we lie-"

"Why would you kill countless women for the crime of being pregnant when a man visited their island?" the Mother of Devils shoots back, head held high. "You would lie to make their deaths worth it. Instead of admitting you killed them for nothing."

Like Ohara, Ace can't help the connection that flickers in his mind. That's why she's speaking up. Because all of those women dying, it's like all of her people dying in Ohara. Because the Marines said they should.

It's not about him at all. Not really.

"Only the guilty hide from Justice!" Akainu shouts.

The woman spreads her hands, veils falling from them enough to reveal dark skin palms. "If only the guilty hide, then why do you hide the names of Ohara's dead from me?"

Muttering. Getting louder and louder. Riding the opening created by her last statement, Nico Thais continues, "This boy's mother was rightfully afraid for her child's life, and did what she could to protect him. Because you would not listen to her if she claimed not to have Gold Roger's child within her. Like you did not listen to any of those other women who did not."

"I stand for Portgas D. Rouge. Her sacrifice..." A hand goes to the woman's chest, to something silver that gleams on a chain there. "I will forever honor."

"Enough of this," Sengoku finally says. He gestures to the executioners with their blades. "It is time that we finish this."

Blades about to press into his back. To die like him- no, no.

CRASH-FFFSSSSH.

Ships, rising from underneath the waves. one of them the Moby Dick. On that deck, among his brothers, stands someone all too familiar.

Ace breathes. Because-

It's Pops, it's Pops' voice now echoing over Marinford.

"Garp," Sengoku demands. Of the man who hid the devilspawn away from Justice. Who only still stands on the side of Justice due to the old friendship between them. "What is the connection between her and him?"

Garp shakes his head, brow furrowed. "Nothing. Nothing I know. Roger would have-" He stops.

Sengoku doesn't need him to finish the statement. Yes, the Pirate King would have bragged to have someone proving to be as elusive and as dangerous as the Mother of Devils among his crew. It's that same spirit that led to the launching of the Great Pirate Era after all.

The subject of their discussion continues to move forward, each step measured and stately, as she moves from what appears to be floating bark to land. Unhesitating, even as guns and weapons of all kind are pointed in her direction.

Until she stops. Before the stand holding admirals and prisoner alike. Raises her voice loud enough for all to hear. "I have come to air a grievance!"

"What grievance does an island destroying monster to share?" Akainu answers back.

"Justice," she says without hesitation. "Justice for those lost from Ohara. Justice for Miza, Oran, Abbasid, Ire-"

Sengoku blinks. What is she listing off, are those names?

"Justice? Get to the point!" Akainu demands again, getting visibly frustrated. He would, as a man who believes that pirates and rebels have no right to claim the term.

The veiled head lifts her chin visibly. "Those are the names of every civilian on the ships you destroyed, Akainu."

A headshake, slow and just as measured as her earlier strides. "I remember my children you killed, for fear of your prey escaping. Slaughtered and blamed my last remaining daughter for."

"So yes. I seek, nay, I desire justice before the only assembly of Marine leadership I have ever heard of, outside your walls."

Sengoku grimaces. So this is happening because the Mother of Devils somehow heard that the Marines were gathering here? Not because of the execution itself? That's-

"Ridiculous! Everyone knows that Nico Robin was responsible for those deaths and that's the reason for her bounty!"

"If you care so much, give me their names!" Horns thrown back, fists clenched at her side, the woman speaks even louder. "Give me the records of those who died, so that they may be honored!"

Suddenly, her arms are raised, fists facing upwards and clenched. An offering. "If you do this, I swear on my life I will willingly allow you to arrest me. For the names of my children!"

This... they stay silent. Because there are no records to offer. Everything was destroyed in the Buster Call of Ohara, and if there were things not burned in that, they would have been disposed of later on.

They know this, and Nico Thais must know this, cunning woman, as she demands this before the entire world. Before Sengoku has even had a chance to announce exactly whose blood has been hiding away.

"Ah." The woman in question sways in place, hands lowering back down to her sides. "You don't. You don't even know who you killed, did you, Akainu? Are you truly a protector of civilians if you cannot name even one who died under your protection?"

Akainu says nothing, vein moving in his jaw. Because he can't name anyone. Not anyone who wasn't a clear criminal, already labeled for execution.

Fuck. Optics is everything and though the reputation of the Marines is solid, there's already muttering among the ranks about why there might be no records, why Akainu can't seem to name a single person he failed at Ohara. And if that's happening here, among the Marines, Sengoku hates to think what the muttering of the watching world will be.

And he can't shut the damn thing off yet, the announcement needs to be made! The woman has to made to shut up, in a way that doesn't involve gunning down a seemingly helpless individual before the snails.

If there's one advantage in facing Whitebeard, Sengoku darkly reflects, it's that the man is a well-established pirate and looks like one. Not like some innocent dressed in clothing meant for mourning. Because he knows what those veils are for now.

Aokiji steps forward, seeing the problem just as much as Sengoku does. Clever man.

"If names are so important, then tell me, Nico Thais, why do you claim relation to a girl who has a different recorded mother? Why do you lie about that?" Aokiji narrows his eyes. "In fact, are you related to anyone from Ohara at all?"

"I never claimed the name of Nico, that was given to me as I asked about my daughter. And as for my relation to Ohara..."

The face veil lifts, just enough to expose a small smile.

"In a world where swords can walk and growl like beasts, why is it so strange for a tree to come forth as a woman? All those who lived under my branches are my children."

Fuck. Fuck. Sengoku stares in almost horror, as the Admirals who were at Ohara don't quite manage to hide the same emotion. They should have checked the island more thoroughly, seen what other secrets those damned scholars were hiding away.