Chapter One: Hey Asshole, Don't Text and Drive!
You know those commercials that pop up everyone in a while that really depress you? Not the Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercial that makes you feel miserable the millisecond it pops up and you end up crying over underfed, scraggly, looking kittens and puppies, or sink down into your seat whimpering because you want to change the channel, but you can't because it's the season finale of your favorite show and you were feeling the angst enough already, but now it includes sad baby animals and it's the absolute wooooorst!
I'm actually referring to the safe driver commercials that make you feel a strange mix between solemn, impatient and just plain awkward. You know, the one where family members hold up cards with the last text message the deceased driver either sent or read before they died in a horrific accident that might have made news, but you're more certain is a script created by the state government telling you to put your damn phone down. The deceased usually ends up being a teenager, despite the fact there are plenty of adults who text and drive. And despite knowing what it's about, when the commercial comes on it still makes you cringe a little bit before you scoff and say "Oh I'm much more careful than them" or "I never text and drive".
I was not the moron who died texting and driving. In fact, I was the innocent victim that was brutally killed in a horrendous texting and driving accident. I had solemnly sworn up and down that I would never, ever, ever, text and drive, and was practically the perfect model of a safe driver. Therefore, I was the one who got the shiny new car and my friend, who wrecked theirs almost the second they got it, received the crap grandma one. Personally, I didn't want my death to be the result of going out looking at a small cellular screen, only looking up once car horns blared and managing a small "oh shit" before wrecking. My Driver's ED class came with a lovely five-minute presentation on the result of car wrecks, and I preferred having my brain in my head and not on the pavement, please and thank you.
BUT THE ASSHOLE WHO FUCKING RAMMED INTO THE BACK OF MY CAR CLEARLY HADN'T GIVEN TWO SHITS ABOUT THAT NOW DID THEY!?
The only good thing that came out of that was the fact that I died pretty quickly. He on the other hand will probably rot in hell because HE TOTALED BETTY. Betty never did anything wrong! Sure I might have yelled at her when she was acting up, but Betty was a good car, a sweet car. Betty didn't deserve that! #ripbettyyouwillbemissed2016. I hope she's enjoying car heaven, driving down the blessed highways at top speeds without a care in the world like the beautiful sports car she is.
"But why the hell are you here, wasting my time about your damn car? Shouldn't you be frolicking among the endless fields of heaven in a white toga since you're so fucking perfect? Why are you being so preachy," you may ask.
I'll have you know that being reborn as an infant who can't do anything is just as boring as watching a whitewash job dry on a house on a cold day in January. Way too much time on my hands leads to me coming up with nearly a page full of self-monologue narrative crap. I literally just lie on my back, eat, shit and cry. I was okay with this after the first three days, before I realized how dull and slightly humiliating this all was on the fifth. The fourth was irrelevant.
Please someone put me back in my totaled car, I will gladly suffer through months of recovery and expensive medical bills that I must slave through for most of my life before I pay them or die and pass them off to my next-of-kin. Anything to relive this endless boredom and to completely purge my mind of the horrifying, disgusting, and quite disturbing, "miracle of 're'-birth".
The one nice thing that breaks through the monotonous slug of infancy is that when I get bored I can cry like a banshee. And when that occurs I will immediately get picked up by a set of strong arms. They rock me back and forth slowly, and softly run their large finger along my face, tracing the different features, or let me grasp it with my tiny baby hands. I was pretty freaked out when it happened the first time, especially when I was fresh out into the world again, but now it was soothing. Ever since my rebirth I have only been in repeated contact with four others.
The first person was very vague, and I can only remember their hands. They were wrinkly and steady, roaming all over to make sure I was functioning alright, removing fluids and substances I'd much rather not think about, and swaddling me in blankets before handing me over to my mother.
My mother was shaking badly once she held me in her arms. I wished I could have helped her, I could feel her tears dripping onto my face as she said her hellos and goodbyes. Although my eyesight was the poorest it had ever been, I could make out my mother's general appearance. She looked very gentle, and very sad, and oh so lovely all at the same time. We weren't together very long before I was taken away. I haven't seen her since.
Grandpa, or Gramps as he liked to call himself, was boisterous, steadfast (when he was being careful), and had the density of a rock in both brain and brawn. He was the one who would cradle me when I was upset, and even though he was quite at a loss at times over what action he should be doing with the babies (are we happy, are we sad, what on earth do you want brat, I still don't speak baby!), his caring actions were lovingly practiced, if a smidgen rough.
The fourth person was my absolute favorite. I had always been a sucker for babies and I thought twins were just the bee's knees, so having a little twin sibling was neat. They were very soft, and squishy. The two of us did everything together (we were a set after all) and it was cute when they got all grumpy when we were separated for long periods of time. And at night my sibling would reach out for me in their sleep, and come morning we would be tangled up together under our blanket. Of course, seeing as I was a reincarnation of a grown adult, I was the reasonable one out of the two. I was the one who didn't cry as loud, or as hard, or as long and though it confused the doctor at times I'm sure that my Grandpa appreciated it in the wee hours of the night. In the end, I was just more surprised that I could clearly hear them do these things. Or just in general.
For example, Grandpa's voice was a little scratchy sounding, but deep and loud, and he made it ridiculous sounding when he tried to cheer up my brother. At first it made the fussy baby cry a few times he started doing it, and though I couldn't figure out how to properly laugh again just yet I thought it was rather amusing to listen to. In the mornings, however, Grandpa insisted on shouting at some other guys startling the hell out of both me and my brother and making us cry. My brother would get the loudest, wailing hard enough that he could be confused for Canary from DC, though I wasn't very far behind.
To make easier to understand, the emotions a baby could use were rather limited. It was like the opening scene from Inside out where the only two emotions the main character Riley had were happiness and sadness only further proving that baby brains were quite underdeveloped. Even though whatever hoo-doo, voo-doo, crap that turned me back into a baby was still the weirdest thing that had ever happened to me physically, trying to figure out how to adult in an infant's body was the strangest mental trip by-far.
Ahem. After two weeks of properly listening to my surroundings and judging from how Grandpa was unnecessarily loud, and apparently yelled at others an awful lot, I hypothesized that he was therefore in control of a rather large amount of people. Despite being loud and in charge, he insisted on carrying either me or my sibling (usually both) with him everywhere and was hard pressed to let anyone else hold us since we were his precious grand-children. He was always talking to us when he wasn't rarely focused (which happened exactly once), or when he was eating (even though he tried talking to us while he was doing so). After collecting enough evidence to prove my hypothesis correct and champion the Scientific Method in practical everyday use, I put my new powers of Observation to use and learned serval interesting things in the following week and a half.
Firstly, we were on a boat because our grandfather was a very important Vice-Admiral in the Marines. This explained the yelling and the weird motions that were messing around with the equilibrium in my ear.
Secondly, my brand-new name was Anne, and I was destined to be "the prettiest girl in all the seas". And from that proud statement alone, I could tell that I was going to have my Grandfather wrapped around my finger for the rest of my life. Plus my new name was much prettier than my old one, which was a nice bonus.
Thirdly, Grandpa wanted me and my sibling to be Marines when we got older. Which was going to be a point of contention between my Grandpa and I, because I never had a desire to join armed forces of any sort and still had no plans to do so in the future.
Fourthly, Grandpa really didn't want us to be like our father when we grew up. He mumbled a whole lot of profanities under his breath when he said that, but it was almost done affectionately. Must have been his son-in-law, because he didn't say anything bad about mom, however he never mentioned her at all since we left her, so who knows?
Fifthly, even though Grandpa was in charge, he was rather horrible at it. He also ate way too much, slept at weird times, didn't do a damn thing he didn't want to do, and didn't know the first thing about child raising. Well the last thing was something he admitted himself, but the rest were from the other marines and I think I had to agree with them. There were several times I thought he was going to drop me and I was going to fall and get brain damage if it weren't for the crew members surrounding him at almost all times. (he did, however, drop my sibling, bless his heart). Despite all his short comings, what he lacked for in knowledge he made up for in emotion, and he did like taking care of us even if he constantly complained about losing sleep.
And lastly, my new sibling was a boy named Ace. After much work, yelling, bribery and doughnuts, the combined efforts of Grandpa and the very exasperated ship Doctor had compiled enough information to concur that Ace was the older one by five minutes, he was slightly larger than the average baby his age should be (we both were really, but Ace was more obvious), Grandpa was really bad at taking care of small infants despite already going through this process before (which started a whole round of angry muttering yet again), and that Ace could actually see now.
The only issue that Grandpa complained about me and Ace's appearance was that our eyes looked like our father's, but he decided to ignore it because he was so ecstatic that Ace could finally look at him. Ace occasionally made happy babbling noises at our grandfather so I assumed the old marine wasn't too heavy on the eyes. They played peek-a-boo a lot which was always fun to listen to, but when the topic of development focused on me, there was concern that I hadn't reached it at the same time as my brother. Not for a lack of trying on my part, but the ship doctor was convinced that I was either going to be a late bloomer or might have a few health issues, or better yet, a bit of column A and B together due to "an unconventional birth". After hearing the doctor's concerned conclusion my Grandpa casually dismissed it saying, "Ace was a few days earlier than what you thought, and don't forget Anne is a D as well. And you can't tell a D what and when to do something, we're spunky like that! This little princess won't do a damn thing until she feels like it, and not a moment sooner," and he finished off with a booming laugh. I just sort of mentally shrugged my shoulders, despite the brief alarm at health issues, and went with whatever weird ass explanation Grandpa pulled out of his ass. Wouldn't be able to get a straight answer out of him anyway.
Soon after his vision got its act together, Ace started wiggling around a lot when he was surprised or super happy. He still didn't quite know how or what hands were for and would constantly flail them around instead which led to Ace's first big discovery, which was moi. I had to forgive him because it was probably cute from another point of view that an innocent baby would find a semi-violent way to discover the warm solid, soft, thing that he would cuddle up to at night, was another baby like him. I ended up crying a little bit when a baby fist smacked my nose out of nowhere, which was still embarrassing, but after Grandpa calmed me down and put me back in the crib he decided that he might as well show Ace who exactly he hit.
"See her Ace? This is your little sister, Anne. You're not supposed to hit her when you get bigger so I'll forgive you this one time, but from now on you'll have to watch out for her. Be good to her Ace, she's our one and only princess!" Ace was placed right next to me again and this time his small hand grasped onto mine (which I'm sure was really an accident he had horrible motor control). But it was the cutest thing I think I never saw, so I made happy noises while grandfather laughed and cooed along with me.
Finally, a whole week later than the doctor expected and to my immense relief, I could see. Of course, Grandpa's completely ridiculous face was the first thing I saw. He was playing peek-a-boo with Ace again, and his exaggerated facial expressions was the silliest thing I'd seen since my death, so naturally I ended up giggling, which got Grandpa's attention. He wasn't quite sure that I was laughing at him at first, so he continued making a face at Ace, who was no longer paying attention, and I laughed instead. He paused before continuing and I laughed again. This happened a couple times and it was such a stupid gag that I was compelled to go along with it. By the tenth time he did this, Grandpa finally realized that, yes, his granddaughter was really laughing at him because she could finally see how stupid he looked and he quickly scooped me up and paraded me across the entire ship. An hour and a half later (this is a pretty damn large ship after all) he finally came back to the office and I could get a proper look at his face.
Now I had to admit that I had seen prettier mugs on even older people. He had wrinkles all around his face, particularly around his mouth and eyes, which suited an expressive man like him. His dark brown eyes were almost as black as what was left of his fading hair color, and around his left eye was a long, thin, scar in the shape of an introverted letter c. His eyebrows were also graying and bushier than what I thought he would have, seeing as the rest of his hair was only a few centimeters longer than a military clip. The brows were currently furrowed as my grandfather examined me back. We were completely silent for a record five minutes until Ace decided that he had had enough and began making insistent noises to demand attention. It caught Grandpa's attention quicker than I thought, and he gave me a large grin before lifting me into a backwards seated position so I could observe my twin from above our shared crib.
"I did this with Ace before but now it's your turn Anne! You see, this little brat is your older brother. It's his job to look after you, but if he's anything like your old man you'll have to look after him more often! Make sure you don't let this little rascal go." And after a loud round of laughter from him and baby noises from Ace I was gently laid back down next to my brother.
Ace was one of the cutest babies I had ever seen. Well his nose wasn't all that cute from the front to be perfectly honest, but it was round at the tip when viewed from the side so it got a pass anyway. His face was rather round and there was a small mop of black hair already growing on the top and his large eyes were round now, but hinted at an almond shape soon, with pupils that were small, and black, giving the impression that his eyes were even larger than they were. They stared at me, unblinking, until I was finally laid next to him when he gave a large toothless smile right out of the blue. I just about died again right there because it was one of the sweetest things I had ever seen.
Yep. No worries here old man, I'll take care of this little rascal forever and ever. I shall call him squishy, and he shall be mine, ya-de-da. So, I smiled back and we laughed as grandfather joined in with a smile of his own.
Two more months had passed in similar fashion before Grandpa started to receive pressure from his superiors. He had received numerous many calls from a man called Sengoku, along with a few others, wondering when Vice-Admiral Garp was returning to service. According to them, Pirates continued to roam the seas unchecked, which was super cool, and he needed to get back to work ("Who the hell gave you this much time off anyway?" a rather suspicious voice asked, and Grandpa only sweated nervously before giving a bogus excuse to hang up). Also, he was to stop ignoring the stacks of paperwork that had completely taken over his desk at Marine Headquarters because they nearly lost a relatively new recruit when several stacks of documents fell on top of him. Of course Grandfather completely brushed it off and choose to laugh at the poor man instead, but it made some sort of impression on him.
By now Ace and I could lay on our stomachs, pick ourselves up a little and Ace could enjoy the presence of others. Well I say others, but he only tolerates Grandpa and I, and I'm the preferred favorite. I think it's absolutely adorable and will admit to indulging him more than I should. Grandpa used this as a reasonable measure for drastic change in our life. Which was a horrible idea, and in case you thought I was just messing with you before, we were not fucking around at all when we declared him horrible at child rearing. However, it did start with a rather memorable event.
Grandpa had a wall in his spacious office filled with pictures. Or at least what I thought were pictures until one fateful evening when the sun was setting he scooped me and Ace up into his arms and brought us over to it. When we were finally close enough to look, there were several bounty posters instead of the innocent pictures I thought there were. Not a single bounty on the wall was under a hundred million, and the faces ranged from smiles to frowns and sinister to nearly completely innocent. In the center of them all, a little separate from the rest was a bounty of a dark haired man with a long mustache and the fiercest, most confident, and almost happiest, grin I had ever seen. It was a little frightening to behold and it made Ace uncomfortable if his small whines and wiggling was any indication. It was also extremely familiar looking and I was having a hard time trying to place where I had seen it before. I knew it was something I had seen with my younger cousin before that asshole totaled my car, something on the television… a show or-
"Gol D. Rogers, The King of the Pirates. He was the most famous pirate in all the seas, my greatest rival and the man I could trust more than anyone else in the world. He was fierce, loyal, brave, reckless, violent, selfish, and short tempered," Grandfather's voice grew graver as he called out the king's ill traits, "but he was flashy and just a bit lucky and his actions were always pure and straight. In fact, he was just like a child," grandfather laughed at this before he became somber again. Ace and I could only stare spelled bound at the bounty before us as our grandfather spoke with conviction and a little bit of awe. "He was a good man, for a pirate. Ace, Anne, this man is the reason that I have to hide you two from now on. This man, the only man to have reached the last island, Raftel, the most wanted, and the most feared man in all the seas, is your father."
The first thing that came to mind was a big smile, rubber, and an old Strawhat, yet all I could think about afterwards went along the lines of, "And this, boys and girls, is why we don't text and drive."