MY ONE PIECE INSPIRATION IS NOT DEAD!

It's just been...really reluctant to get me to write until recently. That happens when you get another long monster to finish and start the next one, I suppose.

I know I promised at the end of "Sabaody and Marineford Mashup" that I'd write something else to cover what happened to Maria while she was training for those two years, but every time I attempted to actually start it, inspiration left me rather abruptly. So I decided to give a little snapshot into things instead. *shrugs* It is what it is, I suppose.

Anyway, I do intend to start working on the Fishman Island arc soon, but I can't guarantee that it'll be up right away - I'm working on a story called "World Collision," too, and I've already started uploading the chapters so I've got to finish that one. Obviously.

So, until I get the next one posted...here's a little one-shot!

Training-In-Progress

Monkey D. Garp frowned at the little island his ship pulled up to. The fact that an island like this could have a town that was thriving wasn't what caught his attention.

It was the fact that it was in the middle of the Calm Belt and it was thriving that made him suspicious of it.

That, and the pirate ship that was already at the dock when he pulled up, but the flag – a purple flag with a purple skull-and-crossbones – didn't look like one he'd set eyes on before.

"Your informants had better be right," Garp grunted to the man next to him as his navigator brought the ship to a stop. "Is she really here?"

"She is." Sengoku nodded to the island. "The people in Transport Town are friendly and haven't had any issues with the pirates. They have been more helpful than harmful, and don't seem to have been ruling over this place with an iron fist."

Garp snorted. "I find that hard to believe."

"Just wait and see." Sengoku shot him a look. Garp was starting to find he couldn't take him seriously, with his hair suddenly turning gray so soon after resigning his position as Fleet Admiral. The stress really had gotten to him.

Still, this more-relaxed Sengoku was one that Garp was quickly getting used to.

"All right then." Garp turned to look at their skeleton crew. "Stay on the ship and take stock of our supplies. Get what we need if we need anything, but don't get into any fights. I don't want to make the people here like us any less than they might already."

The crew saluted. "Yes, sir!"

Garp and Sengoku stepped off the ship and were instantly met with a young woman with a small pair of wings sprouting from her back.

"What's your business here, Marines?" The woman raised an eyebrow.

"We're simply looking into something," Sengoku replied calmly. "We're not here to arrest anyone; we're both retired as of…recent events."

"I was there," the woman replied flatly. Her gaze attempted to burn through the both of them, but the old men were used to glares of her sort. After a moment, her gaze softened. "You're really not here to arrest anyone."

"No. Just here to talk."

The woman inclined her head slightly. "My name is Max, first made of the Purple Pirates. This island is under our protection, no matter what happens to our allies the Whitebeard Pirates. Please, be courteous to the people here; TransTown hasn't seen any trouble other than what their own memories and dreams can create in the countryside." She started down the dock towards the town, Garp and Sengoku following after her. "Who do you want to talk to? Not many people can say they've gotten the Marines' attention around here."

"Fire Storm Maria."

Max stopped short just as she got off the dock. "Fire Storm?" She looked back.

"Fire Staff," Garp grunted. "They thought she could do with a name change."

"What do you want to talk to her for? She's training, and may not want to be disturbed."

"Training?" Garp blinked.

"It concerns things that are going on in the outside world," Sengoku replied. "If you want to listen in as well, I am not against it."

Max considered that, then nodded again and started into town.

Transport Town, or "TransTown" for short, was a rather well-run town, considering it was in the middle of nowhere – and even on the sea, that was saying something. It looked very self-sustained, which, considering how small the island was made it a bit of a surprise.

The people were also very polite and incredibly friendly, greeting Max with friendly waves and cheerful greetings, asking her – or others – to come back later, to spend time babysitting family or accepting gifts or meals in thanks for one thing or another. Garp and Sengoku, while strangers, also got similar treatment, with cheery grins and helpful directions to the only hotel on the island if they wanted to stay on land for the night.

"Seems these people like you and your crew a lot," Garp commented.

"We brought more life to this place," Max replied. "The other name for this place is Memory Isle. As soon as you set foot on this island, the geography changes, creating places from your past. Maria has control over that right now, because of how many she has."

"…how many?"

"We're not sure. She's still working on recovering the memories she's lost."

They reached a bridge on the other side of town and started to climb up a plain dirt path into the trees.

"Don't step off the path," Max warned. "If you do, you'll step into one of the memories and have to make your way through that landscape up to where we live."

Garp frowned at that, but then the landscape changed from trees to a barren landscape made of nothing but metal. Then it shifted again, showing a city made of buildings that reached up so high he had to crane his neck in order to see the tops.

"What is this?!" Sengoku's voice was a sharp bark, but he was amazed as well.

"Maria's memories," Max replied. "Stay on the path."

The landscape changed again – the city, but marred, with the buildings destroyed and crumbling, a tall tower standing in the distance – a warehouse standing in the distance, glowing an eerie green – a town with a giant, glass flower blooming in the center of a circle of log cabins – a destroyed tower, floating in the sky, red clouds swirling above it – a city made of white stone, with a bright blue-white second sun joining the first –

Garp and Sengoku blinked sharply when they found themselves suddenly in front of a two-story white house at the end of the dirt path, completely ordinary.

Except for the strange bird-man that Fire Staff – no, Fire Storm – was sparring with a short distance from them.

"Maria!"

Maria paused at Max's shout, as did the red/white bird-man who was about to kick her in the head. She turned to look over at them, and her gaze hardened instantly.

Garp suddenly had the feeling he was looking at a war veteran, which wasn't far from the truth.

Maria lowered her fists and pulled back from the strange creature, which bowed before exploding in a puff of smoke. "What are you two doing here?"

Sengoku stepped forward. "We are simply here to talk; no more than that."

"Are you?" Maria tilted her head slightly. Garp noticed she wasn't in the armor she had been wearing at Marineford, and was instead wearing the clothes she'd had in Water 7 – orange jacket, red shirt, blue jeans, white tennis shoes with red.

"There are some things I want to confirm and some things I feel you should know, as a World Jumper."

Maria paused at Sengoku's words. She raised an eyebrow, then nodded and relaxed. "What is it, then?"

"You do realize that after Marineford, the world has shifted," Sengoku said.

"I may be isolated here, but we're not unable to get news." Maria folded her arms across her chest. "We get irregular post. I know you're retired, and I know what you call me now." She smirked. "I like Fire Storm a lot more, to be honest. I haven't relied on my staff very much for attacks lately."

"Glad you do," Garp muttered under his breath.

"But I'm wanted 'Only Alive' because of Vegapunk."

Garp looked at Maria sharply. "How did you—"

"There's a note on the wanted poster," Maria replied flatly. " 'Wanted alive and in one piece and to be turned over to Vegapunk.' He sees me as the next Pacifista, doesn't he."

The cold tone in the fire user burned.

"That was above us," Sengoku replied. "And it may change. I have chosen Kuzan to be my successor, but Akainu plans to challenge him."

"Lava and Ice?" Maria shook her head. "Your chosen isn't going to do well."

"Which is what I am worried for. Akainu is far too headstrong, too violent. He does far better as a dog chained as an Admiral than as the head. Kuzan knows far better what he should be doing."

Maria inclined her head slightly. "Considering what I've heard of him from Robin and seen of him at Marineford, I am inclined to agree. However, as a pirate, I worry for anyone who is placed in that position. Power tends to corrupt absolutely, in case you haven't noticed."

Sengoku nodded. "Which brings me to my first question of you: what was the reason you came to our world?"

Max frowned at the question.

Maria blinked slowly. "There is someone here like me, going by the name of Airam. She is what happens if you take me and turn me into a Pacifista. It happened on her world, and it was entirely torn apart as a result. Not even pieces of it can be found in other dimensions and that's saying something." Maria paused. "Before she was changed, she was a World Jumper, and a pirate captain besides. Being turned into a Pacifista warped her way of thinking, changed her to be more violent, more chaotic."

"How do you know?" Garp responded.

"I knew Myra before she was changed."

Garp blinked a couple times at that.

"Myra…" Sengoku frowned. "I assume that's her actual name, then."

Maria nodded shortly. "I need to corner her, return her sense of self. She can't World Jump anymore as a result of some things, and I cannot guarantee that she will be a World Jumper again, but she will not be like Doflamingo, at least. She'll be more like…" She tilted her head slightly. "Like Luffy. Just more prone to looking for a peaceful resolution than punching the nearest Marine in the face, even if she is capable of it."

"If we can find—"

"You won't be able to do anything against her." Maria cut Garp off with a sharp shake of her head. "She is like me. I can throw fireballs around – so can she. I have armor – so does she. Airam is mine."

The conviction in Maria's voice made Garp blink. He knew that tone. That was the same tone he'd used when talking about Roger.

"Just make sure you catch her," Garp growled.

"She's coming after me, I doubt that I'll be able to not." Maria sighed and relaxed. "Is that all, then? Because I have a question for you – how do you know what a World Jumper does?"

"There have been some famous Navy officers who have been World Jumpers in the past," Sengoku admitted. "That hasn't been happening recently, however."

"I bet it has something to do with your belief in justice," Maria replied. "You put so much conviction in it that it's become warped and corrupted." She shrugged. "Let me not be the first to admit that pirates can be just as corrupt as the next, but there are some who choose to become pirates because they want freedom, and a normal life won't give them that." She sighed again, looking more relaxed.

"Your power doesn't come from a Devil Fruit," Garp said.

Maria laughed and shook her head, half-smiling. "No, no. Definitely not. I'm still not sure where they originate from, but I know that I've had them as far back as the first time I World Jumped. I didn't obtain them by eating a fruit – I can still swim." The smile faded a little. "Why come here and tell me about Vegapunk? About Akainu?"

"As a World Jumper, being aware of what is going on in the outside world is a given," Sengoku replied. "The world is going to be a different one when you make your move again."

"I don't doubt it," Maria replied. "The Marineford Massacre was too big an event to not leave the world unchanged. Speaking of which, what's being done about Blackbeard?"

Maria's voice glitched with a metallic noise suddenly at the name, causing Garp to stiffen.

"He revoked his title as one of the Warlords and has started to encroach on Whitebeard's territory," Sengoku replied. "He's taking over Whitebeard's title as Emperor."

"And the other Yonko have yet to do anything about it," Max said, speaking up for the first time. "Luffy's going to cross his path when they reach the New World; it's inevitable."

"Since he kidnapped Ace and had been planning on going for Luffy, I don't doubt it," Maria replied, causing Garp to stiffen.

"He what?!" Garp snarled, fists clenching tightly.

"A part of me recovering my memories caused me to have some visions involving that disgrace of a pirate." Maria bared her teeth in a grimace. "He told Ace he wanted to go after Luffy and asked him to join up with him. Guess how well that went over." Her expression went from sour to grim to sorrowful. "Luffy thought that Ace was going to be fine, despite the fight I saw that followed. He was confident enough to not stop our journey and leave Ace as he was."

"He's doing all right now?" Garp's voice caught him by surprise when it turned upward in hope.

Maria eyed him, then nodded slowly. "Rayleigh is with him now. I won't say where."

Garp nodded. He knew Rayleigh; if he couldn't be there for his grandson, the Dark King was a not-as-good-but-decent-enough substitute.

"Two questions more," Sengoku said. "What do you plan to do when you defeat Airam?"

"That depends on how entangled I am in this world," Maria replied. "I could continue on with the others and obtain the One Piece, as Luffy wants. But if everyone knows me as a Straw Hat and expects me to be a part of his crew, then I have to remain and see things through."

"But then, you do not know what will happen in the future."

"Except that it's going to be interesting and I look forward to seeing how strong my crewmates are when we next meet, no, I don't know what's coming." Maria shrugged. "I'll do what I can to keep things from getting too out of control, but you have to understand – I'm a pirate in this world, so what I do is gonna be taken with a grain of salt by everyone else."

"That's putting it lightly," Max grumbled.

Maria nodded. "Honestly, I'm going to have an easier time trying to keep the peace than keep Unicron in the core of my home dimension's planet by myself, but that doesn't make it any easier." She shrugged.

"A unicorn?" Garp repeated, frowning.

"Unicron," Maria corrected. "Evil incarnate, giant robot-looking being, wants to destroy every single speck of life in the universe." She made a face. "And my home planet's made from his carcass. Him attempting to wake up was not a fun day, let me tell you."

Garp wasn't exactly sure what Maria meant, but he decided to take her word for it.

"Max mentioned you're recovering your memories," Sengoku said. "Have you…found them all, yet?"

"I've got most of them; it's just tinier bits and pieces." Maria took in a breath and forced herself to relax. "There are…some things…that are taking their time, but the gaps are starting to shrink in on themselves rather quickly. Having access to my own memories in real time helps a lot with that." She smirked. "You saw some of them, coming up. What do you think?"

"I'm questioning if those places were even real," Garp responded with a snort. "A land of metal? Buildings so tall they scrape against the sky? Something about those places felt wrong."

"I guess that Cybertron and New York would have that sort of affect. Especially since Cybertron is a planet of giant transforming robots." Maria burst out laughing at Garp's and Sengoku's expressions.

Garp pulled up his jaw, recovering more quickly than Sengoku. "You're saying…there's a place that's populated by robots?"

Maria snickered at his stare, and that was all Garp needed.

"SHOW ME!"

Sengoku stepped back as a galaxy of stars exploded around Garp's head and Maria doubled over in laughter – a stark contrast to the stoic young woman they'd seen when they'd arrived.

"Like grandfather, like grandson! HA!" Maria wiped back the tears of laughter as she straightened herself up again. "If you really want to meet what I remember of them, I wouldn't be against it. Just don't tell any of the Marines, all right? If Optimus Prime and his Autobots are in this dimension, too, I don't think getting them involved in your war against the pirates would be a good idea."

"They're basically the Marines then, on their world?" Sengoku asked.

Maria shook her head. "Nothing's as black and white with them. Their world, when I first found them, was in the middle of a civil war. They'd had a caste system, and tensions ran a bit too high before finally exploding. Literally." She reached under her jacket and pulled out a rather thick-looking tome, holding it out to Sengoku. "This covers their history – including my involvement with them."

Sengoku took the book and frowned at the cover. "The Covenant of Primus?"

"Their deity and creator." Maria waved off the odd stares she was getting. "I remember this world far better than the other ones – probably because it's from my home dimension." She smiled, almost wistfully. "Kinda makes me miss my family a little, actually, but I know that they'll be okay without me. I've popped in and out on them for stuff like this before." She clapped her hands together. "So, you want to meet the Cybertronians? Let's go meet the Cybertronians!"

Time Break

Garp and Sengoku stayed for two days, which was two days longer than they had been planning to, but they were retired and could get away with things like that without making anybody mad.

Maria was a surprisingly gracious host, despite her initial greeting, and Sengoku was amazed to discover she could drink Garp under the table without so much as batting an eye.

"Garp is going to be horrible to deal with tomorrow morning." Sengoku glared at his snoring friend, who had collapsed onto the table and spilled his drink in the process. He looked at Maria, who was looking sheepish. "How is it that you can out-drink him?"

Maria paused mid-drink at the question, and put down her mug. "That goes into why Vegapunk wants to get his hands on me. I'm…" She trailed off, then shook her head. "I'm like the Pacifistas. I used to be human, but now I'm not. The only difference is that I was able to keep my sense of self, and it was done because I would have died otherwise." Her glum expression brightened into a grin. "So I can't get drunk because I don't have an organic body, and I can outdrink everybody and no one'd be the wiser!"

She laughed, but it wasn't a full one. Sengoku noticed, and Maria noticed that he'd noticed, and so she just sat there, staring into her mug.

"Although I wish I could," she admitted. "Sometimes. There are some memories that are coming back that I'd rather not think about, but I can't avoid thinking about them." She took another swig of the beverage.

"You are like Airam, then."

Maria laughed again, this time bitter. "She's my dimensional counterpart, of course we're alike. It's just that her moral code's been perverted and twisted as the result of the programming that's been forced on her – I was able to avoid that because the man who rescued me wasn't planning on using me for war. He just wanted to make sure I could keep living. Well, the Multiverse screwed that one up big time."

She drained her mug and slammed it into the table. "I think I've had my fill of drink for the night."

"Yes, that…might be wise." Sengoku pushed his own mug of alcohol away from him and towards the middle of the table. "How much have you remembered, then?"

"Since you two got here? Not much. Only bits and pieces." Maria sighed, drawing a circle into the wood grain of the table with a finger. "You two helped me fill in more that I know about people I looked up to as role models over the course of my early days of World Jumping. Optimus and Magnus, Batman and Captain America, Dr. Light and Blues and ShadowMan…" She sighed. "Even my own brother, Matthew."

Sengoku blinked. He would have asked who helped her remember what, but it didn't seem like the right place to ask such a question.

"My memories are nearly complete. I've got about eight months left of training here to get everything back, and I'll probably get them all back by then." Maria smiled a little. "Memory Isle is a godsend. I'm grateful that I was able to get back what I've been missing in such a short time." Her smile faded. "Even if…some memories are more nightmarish than others."

"Then you have seen more than your age suggests."

Maria looked at Sengoku and raised an eyebrow.

"When we arrived here, I noticed that your aura had more age to it than the Purple Pirates, who are all about your age."

Maria snorted. "My age in appearance, yes, but not in mind. Becoming a Reploid means that I don't look older than I did when I was changed."

Sengoku blinked. "Then…."

Maria grinned. "Forty."

That revelation nearly knocked Sengoku out of his chair. "Forty?! But that can't—"

"It's how old I am back in my home dimension." Maria shrugged, looking amused by Sengoku's reaction. "If I was to take in how time fluxes between dimensions and how long I've been in each dimension, that number jumps up quite a bit and Matthew never liked the idea that I am actually older than he is." She snorted. "So I say I'm 40."

Sengoku recovered himself and straightened himself in his chair. "I find that rather hard to believe, but after having seen what your memories have done to the landscape of this island, there are very few things that I can say are hard to believe anymore."

"I'm glad you see it that way." Maria rose to her feet and looked up at the night sky above their heads. "Hm; it's almost two in the morning. It might be a good idea if we turned in now."

Sengoku didn't bother to ask how she knew; he knew how to tell the time by the stars and the moon just as well as any other sailor. "I agree." He pushed himself to his feet and looked over at Garp as he continued snoring. Then he looked back at Maria. "Have you unlocked your Haki?"

Maria blinked at the question and frowned. "Hm. Well, I did manage to get a couple hits in on Kizaru back at Marineford without passing through him, but I haven't really learned how to control it yet. Most of my focus here has been on recovering what I've lost – which is quite a bit."

"Yes, I've seen that." Sengoku looked at Garp again, then at Maria. "Garp knows how to utilize Armament Haki. If he feels up to it, I should think that he would be willing to train you in using it."

Maria's eyebrows shot up, but then she frowned. "Would a Navyman want to train a pirate?"

"No, but I think he would want to train a World Jumper in at least the basics." Sengoku's eyes twinkled with amusement.

Maria blinked a couple times, then grinned. "All right, then. I know that he and Luffy don't get along too well because he pushed him to his limit, but I don't intend to let Garp push me that far. If he decides to, he's going to find that I've got a lot more strength than most my size!"

Sengoku laughed, and Garp snorted in his sleep and pulled his arms over his head. "Then it is settled! Your training will begin tomorrow. I don't doubt that Garp will push you to your limits regardless."

"I'll take that challenge," Maria shot back.

"Before that, however, let's get your drunken teacher to bed, eh? Help me carry him?"

"No problem!"