Another challenge story for the One Piece fandom. This one will be centered on a certain divergence that I believe should've happened in canon. Let's be honest, Monet deserved more screen time, and not counting the blindly loyal and abrasive Lao G, Gladius, and those above them, I think the Donquixote Pirates weren't a completely bad bunch as a whole, they just got a bad chance at life, one by one. Here are some guidelines and a disclaimer.
No unnecessary bashing: seeing characters grow up and show hidden strengths is all good until it looks like the writer is purposefully making the character in question look like an unlikable nuisance at best and a complete villain at worst. Trust me, it's best to show both the positives and negatives of those in a story. And since this is an AU, I'm working forward to some people growing up differently, especially in a positive manner.
No slash: I try not to judge people who have different "bonding" preferences compared to mine, but I really don't think that characters that weren't listed as canonically yaoi in nature should be depicted as such. Not that I like gender bending much either.
Keep the content at a controlled level: meaning that it's probably best to be mindful of which direction the story/stories will go. I like straight lemons as much as the next fellow, but given how things all are iffy on certain websites like FFN, it would probably be wise to just walk first before jumping.
Don't shy away from asking me for advice or beta reading: however, I won't dictate your execution as it should ultimately be your decision. I'm doing fine with it so far with digemsmack over his Fairy Tail story which I gave my patronage for, Ascension of the Second Apocalypse.
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece, Eiichiro Oda does.
[HP]
Hazardous Punks
[HP]
"I don't suppose this is all a bad dream that we can wake up from in time." Monet said sarcastically to her crewmates, Baby 5 and Buffalo, as all three of them were cuffed and chained to the floor with Sea-Prism Stone in the Thousand Sunny's aquarium bar.
"Have we ever been that lucky?" Buffalo replied just as dryly.
"Well, at least we're still alive, right?" Baby 5 said in an attempt to be positive. "You can still see your sister, Monet. The fight isn't over for us."
From Baby 5's words, Monet couldn't resist a smile, but it then turned into a sad frown. "I don't know, Baby 5. Has the Young Master ever been merciful to anyone who's failed them?"
Baby 5 thought on that hard before awkwardly saying. "Well, he didn't kill Bellamy or Disco, so either of those could be a start."
Buffalo sighed pessimistically. "He didn't kill Disco because he didn't have an interest in the slave trade anymore. As for Bellamy, well, he's quite merciless even when he's giving away hope. I mean, don't you remember what the Young Master did to his own blood brother? What in the name of Heaven makes you girls think he won't be even more cruel to us?"
The silence lasted for a while until the pirate captain of their captors, Monkey D. Luffy, entered with a wide and annoyingly innocent grin on his face.
"How's it going, guys?" He asked energetically, as if not noticing the ugly glares he was getting from the three Donquixote Pirates.
"What do you want, Straw Hat?" Monet hissed.
"I just wanted to know if you guys were making yourselves at home."
Buffalo scoffed while Baby 5 had an idea for a seduction. "You know, Captain, we'd be really at home, if you removed the Sea-Prism Stone from our bodies." She then smiled flirtatiously and flashed her eyelashes at him. "You can even do it slowly on Monet and me, if you like."
Buffalo rolled his eyes at the scene, but Monet herself, seeing what Baby 5 was doing, played along. "Please be gentle, dear Straw Hat." She said with a convincing blush.
Luffy, however, paid the flirting no mind or apparent recognition. "Sorry, guys, but after talking it over with Law and my crew, we decided that we'd only remove the cuffs and chains off all three of you when you earn our trust just as we will earn yours."
That brought the situation to a pause as each of the Donquixote Pirates processed what he just said.
"Trust?!" Snapped Buffalo to a taken aback Luffy. "Don't get cocky with us, you stupid brat! The only reason you have us alive and in your custody is because you want us to spill the beans on everything Joker has planned! Isn't it?!"
The Straw Hat Pirate Captain sighed, but was able to reply. "I am trying to take down your captain." He admitted at last. "But I also want to help you guys, too." He then added with a small, hopeful smile.
Monet scoffed after registering her surprise at the statement. "And what makes you think we need your help?"
Luffy shrugged. "You said so yourself, Monet. He'll kill you just like he'll kill us. And from where I stand, that's not the way a real captain should look after his comrades. A real captain should stand up for what would make his crew happy, not just himself happy."
"I see." Baby 5 noted uncomfortably which her frustrated crewmates and a concerned Luffy noticed.
"Mingo doesn't treat you guys well, doesn't he?" He asked at last.
After a long silence, Baby 5 asked. "If someone in your crew fell in love with someone outside the crew, would you still support them and not kill those love interests to the point there's nothing left of their home cities as well?"
"Baby 5, please." Buffalo tried to say before Luffy replied.
"Well, nothing like that has happened seriously yet, but I care about each of my crewmates more than enough to support them no matter what. As for the murder and rampage part, well, not counting a few places, like Enies Lobby, I'm not really into that sort of pirating." He then smiled more confidently. "I want to be King of the Pirates to be the freest man in the world. The whole power stuff is alright, but to be free is my dream."
Now he had Monet's attention of consideration rather than anger. "Dream, huh?"
"Yeah, don't you guys have dreams?"
That question shocked the trio once again. They had spent so much of their lives working for Doflamingo, they hadn't dreamed much for themselves, if at all. Buffalo almost said that fact awkwardly and just when he tried to act defiantly, Baby 5 decided to speak.
"I was abandoned in the mountains by my family when I very young and poor." She started. "My own mother said I was useless. I guess ever since then, all I ever wanted was to feel needed by others. I even gave up my real name so that I could follow our captain's lead better."
Luffy blinked at that before asking. "You guys don't use your real names in his crew?"
Buffalo sighed, but decided to play along. "Some of us. It's for protection reasons. The elite officers do it, including Vergo when he was still around, Baby 5 and I do it, and that's all you're getting out of me."
Luffy nodded understandingly before turning to Monet who remained silent before she finally spoke.
"Did Law every tell you of Flevance, the White City of the North Blue?"
"Uh, no. To be honest, I've never really been to any of the other Blue Seas, not counting my birth place in the East. Is it a cool place?"
Monet couldn't help but smile. "I remember it being very beautiful from the few times my family and I visited it on business. The ground, the grass, and the trees were all pure white. For a long time, the world believed it was like that because of the Amber Lead that existed underneath the kingdom to mined and refined into whatever appropriate item to be sold for profit. I wasn't born there, of course, but, through my father, I still have a blood relation to one of the first of Flevance's citizens who traded Amber Lead with numerous North Blue islands in a company that by the time I was fourteen, had grown to have buyers and contacts all over the world."
Luffy smiled as Monet talked, but it lost its happy edge when he realized she was speaking in past tense. "What happened to the family business, or the White City?"
Monet frowned. "When I was fourteen, the world had come to realize that Amber Lead was toxic to each passing generation, especially in the place it was mined and largely refined at. In fear that the sickness was contagious, Flevance was destroyed by its neighbors, and my family's company went down under. My father tried to speak in defense of our heritage and livelihood, but last I heard, he was killed for being suspected of "carrying" the Amber Lead Syndrome and my mother lost her life defending our home office from a paranoid mob of pitch forks and touches. All that remains of the family, is my little sister, Sugar, and I."
Sighing, she went on. "For three years, we had to travel across the whole North Blue and scrounge up money and food to survive. It got so bad overtime that my nine-year-old sister got bedridden in a certain industrial dump called Spider Miles and I couldn't do a thing about it. I needed money to afford a doctor, so when I heard there was a nearby pirate crew that collected Devil Fruits, I thought I could break in and steal what I could that would help me save Sugar, but I got caught and the Captain offered his help in saving Sugar and getting a better life for both of us, if we both swore our loyalty to him."
Luffy narrowed his eyes. "Mingo."
Monet nodded. "After a year of training, we were both given Devil Fruits. We wanted to be useful so much that we didn't even think of the consequences of Sugar's Devil Fruit until it was too late."
"Huh? What do you mean? She wanted to be a professional swimmer or something?"
"No. Her Devil Fruit paused her body, so to speak. She hasn't aged since she was ten. She gave up the chance to grow up stronger and find love just to serve Doflamingo better, and I didn't do a thing to stop it."
A silence filled the aquarium bar for a time before Luffy finally broke it. "If you're all unhappy in his crew, you're more than welcome to join mine, or at least leave to discover your own path." Making eye contact with the three shocked pirates that tried to kill him and his friends earlier he said. "You don't have to decide now. Just think about it."
He then left the three confused pirates to think what they were able to do as well as what they wanted to do.
[HP]
This one is rather simple. I'd like to see a story that has a majority of the main Donquixote Pirates, aside from the obvious ones, switch sides from Doflamingo to be either Straw Hat Pirates, Heart Pirates, or even their own crew, including a surviving Monet, so long as it's nothing random and unrealistic. I think this story could also match with any of the other challenge plotlines I already wrote, but it's your decision. Check for some examples I thought of in the next paragraph.
Beakwood made a story called A Change of Heart that had Monet get a second chance and also be the one that indirectly helped Chopper save the children Caesar Clown was experimenting on. I know it might sound out of character of her, considering her canonical loyalty for Doflamingo, but it makes more sense, given the circumstances at the time. HikariNoTenshi-Crystal made a one-shot pairing of Luffy and Baby 5 as did I, more or less, and I'm rather for her finding other options aside from him and Sai, like Sanji or Law, if lucky. Something similar for Monet, too, even though I don't think Buffalo is that much of a catch.
I also hope you like my story-specific version of Monet and Sugar's past. Some on the Oro Jackson website say that they're actually what's left of Flevance's royalty, but that might be a big leap, even though I liked the connection well-enough, so I kept them grounded, so to speak, by making their history an inverse of what both Kaya and Nami are in canon and went through before the start of the canonical story. Whether you can keep it or not is up to you. If you can make a good, alternative history for the two sisters without giving too much power to original characters, I'd support you, regardless, but I'd also greatly appreciate it if you kept what I figured was a good background for them.