All rights belong to their respective owners (Eiichiro Oda, Naoko Takeuchi, Bare Naked Ladies).
look this is straight up crack okay but there's art for it over on Ao3 or Justm3h's tumblr. also this is kinda a sidestory, there's definitely more coming, this au is fun.
"But what about those legs, though," someone says across the bar, and there's a round of truly disgusting sniggers.
"Bless sailor skirts," Jozu sighs, and Ace allows his head to fall fully forward onto the table.
Marco sighs. "It's not like they get a say in their outfits," he reminds the crew.
"But Jupiter's is long," Someone points out. "Isn't it, like, ankle length?"
"Yeah but everyone knows Jupiter is Jinbe the Warlord; the fishmen are really, really proud of it. Who wants to see that?!"
"I heard there's a Sailor Scout in the Marines now," Haruta jumps in, because rumormongering is her life. "And that the Moon Princess herself is somewhere in the New World!"
"No way!"
"What, really?"
"We'd've heard something by now-"
"I heard she was spotted-"
"Oh, I hope-"
"Those legs, though, am I right?"
"-seen the new Wanted poster?"
Ace shuts his eyes and wishes really really hard that he were anywhere else, because yeah, he saw the new Wanted poster. It's objectively a good picture, with the Moon Princess coming up out of rubble like a wrathful angel, armor torn and eyes blazing. And legs spread and braced, and it's just barely not a panty shot.
"Oh, yeah, we're gonna steal a case of them," Thatch says, rubbing his hands together excitedly.
"We are?" Jozu asks, looking towards Marco.
Marco shrugs. "It'll keep morale up," he says, and finishes his beer.
Haruta leans over towards him. "You're not, y'know, jealous?"
Marco levels a look at her over his empty glass. "The Princess has always been the cutest one," and there's amusement heavy in his voice. "Always has been, probably always will be."
"I met her once, y'know," an unsteady voice claims, and Ace starts paying attention again. Everyone turns to the older man sitting in the corner, smacking his lips and looking mighty pleased with himself. "Saved me, she did!" And then he stops and waits 'til someone buys him another drink before continuing. "I was just coming in for the day, from fishing, right? And I was unloading my catch, trying to hurry to get out of the heat, and then suddenly the building across the street started falling over! There was dust and rock everywhere, and lots of explosions and bangs, and then there was this big awful purple creature. Looked like a big, taller and thinner than a man could be, and the Moon Princess was fighting it! And when the building fell over, it was coming at me, but I had got all tangled in my net and couldn't move!
"And then she was there and she lifted me right out of the net, easy as breathin'! Jumped what must've been ten feet straight up, over the buildings across the street, and put me down there, and told me to get to safety. Her voice was like bells, all soft and pretty, and she went right back to the fight and beat up that creature, bam, no sweat!"
There's ooohs and scattered applause for the poorly-told story, and Haruta pushes herself forward to get more details. When snippets such as "delicate wrists" start drifting over, Ace chugs his own beer and stands to get a refill. It's gonna be a long night.
When he gets back with a pint for himself and also one for Marco because he is a good friend, Haruta's back and the conversation has gotten low and fast.
"-but does the magic give you, you know...super stamina?" Thatch is asking Marco, and Ace is done.
He slams Marco's drink down in front of Thatch, soaking the man's pompadour. "This," he growls, aware his face is flushed, "is disrespectful. And I'm leaving."
"What?" Jozu's saying but Ace is turning to leave. He has other things to do tonight than listen to speculation on Sailor Moon. More fun things, like murder, or maybe suicide.
"Ace." Marco's voice cuts through the haze in his head. "Ace, yoi. You okay?"
"Am I-" he tugs at his bangs in a nervous twitch, then flings his arm out. "How can you listen to this?" he demands. "Being-who you are."
"They're not talking about me , even if they were talking about me," he says vaguely, but Ace gets it. Marco's not about to admit to being Sailor Venus in a crowded bar, for all it's the worst kept secret on the Moby Dick.
Still, "It's not right," he grinds out. He never needs to think about Sailor Moon doing-doing that, and even the thought is making his skin flush so much redder.
There's a soft gasp, and he glances sideways to see Haruta studying him and no no hell no, he doesn't want to draw any attention, he just wants to go back to his bunk and smother himself in peace.
"Ace," Haruta says in tones of deep revelation. "Are you-"
He braces himself.
"Are you crushing on Sailor Moon?!"
"NO!" is his immediate and loud denial, but he knows if he looks down, the blush will be sliding splotchily across his collarbones. "No, I hate the Moon Princess, absolutely not."
"You should've said!" Thatch says excitedly, getting up to catch Ace in a friendly headlock.
"I don't!"
"How're we supposed to help you bag your Princess if you don't tell us?"
"You're not because I'm not! Because-get off!"
"Admit it!"
"But I don't!"
"Admit it!"
Ace growled, twisting in Thatch's hold, and gives him one more warning. "Let me go."
"Or whaaaaaaaaaaa-"
Haruta whistles. "Damn, Ace. Vicious."
"I'm out," Ace announces again. "Before the stupidity becomes catching."
And this time, he makes it out the door. There's whispers and laughter behind him, but the low whine of Thatch's pain is a pleasant enough counterpoint.
Maybe he can find some left over razored wire to floss his brain with, and when he wakes up it'll be like nothing ever happened.
Probably breaking the headlock with that particular move had been overkill, but a childhood with his Gramps has taught him that overkill is never enough kill. He at least pulled it enough not to leave a bruise or break Thatch's nose, so it was only a severe overreaction instead of a straight-up attack.
Ace still feels mildly bad about it the next morning. Bad enough, at least, that he's considering apologizing.
He considers it all the way up until Izo catches his arm on the way to the cafeteria and wants to tell him all about the time he watched the Moon Princess defeat a youma. He's still half asleep and thinking of yesterday, so it takes him most of the familiar story to catch the pointed descriptions and more pointed looks.
Thatch spread his poisonous lies to Izo, and Haruta was there last night. That means even odds that the whole ship will know by noon.
Ace stops considering apologizing and starts regretting not properly breaking Thatch's nose when he had the chance.
Namur is really just minding his own business. Humans are ridiculous at the best of times, which this decidedly isn't. But Ace is generally pretty reasonable, as far as humans go, so Namur has been ignoring the latest rumor going around.
Honestly, it traced back to Haruta, which means it had about a thirty percent chance of being true. Namur takes anything she says with an ocean of salt.
But this morning Ace is pacing the bow, muttering and playing a single-player game of increasingly violent charades. There's stabby deaths and burny deaths, and what looks like a spine-pulling-out death, and that's possibly a variation of the disembowling death?
Namur doesn't approach so much as gradually migrate into Ace's path. He's eventually close enough to catch Sailor Moon's name a rather inordinate number of times.
"You good?" he asks when Ace stops a few steps away to do a strangling death.
"I'm gonna kill Thatch," Ace says, and stalks away. Dire threats trail in his wake like dead leaves.
Namur nods, and remains sitting where he is, leaning on the railing. When Ace eventually comes back, he asks, quietly and carefully, "Sailor Moon?"
Oh, that's the pulling-limbs-off death, and Namur shrinks back a bit because Ace is putting off serious heat. "I hate her," Ace tells him, eyes far away. "I hate the damned Moon Princess and everything she stands for and there's nothing I wish for more than her erasure from existence."
"Right," Namur nods agreeably, because Ace's fists are flirting with flame right now. "She's awful, right?"
Ace makes a violent screeching sound and tugs at his bangs, then says, "She's not awful, and it's not her fault I hate her; it's just her existence that's the issue!"
"Oh," Namur says, nodding some more and scooting further away. "Right, okay, sure. Existence, I see."
"So awful," Ace groans. "Sometimes I think my whole life is a joke, and then shit like this happens and I know it is."
"Mmhmm," Namur hums, trying to be unobtrusive and also maybe slipping forward under the rail a bit. "I just gotta-" and he slips into the ocean below.
It's only about a twenty foot drop, and anything is preferable to staying where he was. Haruta was their intelligence master for a reason, he supposed, and next time, he'll trust her at least enough to not go poking around himself.
"You should ask her out," Thatch tells Ace casually, sliding the last plate over.
Ace glares at him but doesn't stop 'til he's cleared all the food away. Then he burps, aggressively forgets to excuse himself, and says, "No."
Thatch just grins at him. Ace scowls back. Thatch widens his grin just past the edge of madness, and Ace breaks and looks away first.
"I kinda hate Sailor Moon," he says, slumping onto the tabletop. "I don't see why you're convinced otherwise, but please, for the love of the Blues, let it go."
Thatch's grin softens into something real and he leans over to drop his arm over Ace's shoulders. "What kind of sibling would I be?" he says, both teasing and sincere. "If you really like this girl, and it seems you do, then it's up to us as your supportive and wonderful siblings to play wingman for you!"
"I don't like her," Ace despairs, but he's also given up hope that anyone's actually listening to him about his own feelings.
"I never figured you for a prude," Thatch says over Ace's protest and ignoring the fresh blush, "but if all you wanna do is hold her hand and bring her flowers, then I'm here for you, bro. Well, okay, Izo's probably better, he knows more about flowers and stuff, and, well, Vista's the only Commander who's managed a stable relationship, you'd probably wanna ask him about that-but I digress!"
"You could just stop," Ace suggests hopelessly.
"The point-" Thatch says right over him, "-is that we're here for you! No matter if you just wanna stare at her from afar or take her and-"
Ace slaps his hands over his ears and shamelessly and desperately says, "LA LA LA" until Thatch's mouth stops moving.
"Prude," Thatch points out, then continues anyway. "Basically, we just wanna help you be happy!"
"It would make me really, really happy if you would all just stop," Ace assures him, but Thatch just shakes his head and laughs.
"We're gonna get you over this shyness, no worries," he says, slapping Ace on the shoulder, and he steals the empty plates and leaves the table before Ace manages to get his mouth closed or his voice back online.
"I'm not shy!" he bellows at Thatch's retreating back, but doesn't expect it to change anything.
Vista really never meant to get involved in Thatch and Haruta's crazy. Really, he didn't. He's long since learned that when one of them gets an idea, his best bet is to hide until everything blows over, and when they're conspiring together he tries to get long missions, far away.
So he's not sure how he's ended up here, clutching Thatch's handmade monstrosity.
He glances down, again, at the collage. The Sailor Moon from the third Wanted poster is cut out very carefully and glued next to a cut out of a sleeping Ace, a picture from any given day. He suspects, in the way that it's only suspicion because he never wants proof, that it was Haruta who raided Izo's magazines to find the white dress and black suit that they pasted over them. Although, possibly Izo volunteered them himself; everyone else seems to be catching this madness too.
Unless and until Ace himself tells Vista, "Please help me woo this girl," he's not going to believe his generally level-headed friend is heels over head for someone who he'll probably never actually meet.
But Haruta was very persuasive and he did owe Thatch a favor, and if attaching this frankenstein's creature of a wedding montage to Ace's door will get him out of hock with Thatch, Vista will take it. Owing Thatch favors is dangerous.
He sidles down the hall, sticking as far into the shadows as he can and stepping slow and light. He pauses around the corner, dithering. Maybe Ace is still asleep. Maybe Ace won't see him and he won't have to offer to talk and-
-and Ace's door is opening. Vista quickly shoves his hands behind his back, keeping the poster flat and pressing back around the corner. Ace only went back to his room about twenty minutes ago, he generally sleeps much longer than that-
-that's not Ace.
Pink boots, blue skirt, glowing necklace, shining hair ornaments, and the way her face is only a vague impression of pretty-wide eyes-magic all but screams that this is the real deal.
Sailor Moon is leaving Ace's room in the middle of the day. Ace said he was gonna go take a nap, and now twenty minutes later Sailor Moon is leaving Ace's room.
Well.
Okay.
Vista swallows and watches her glance around and scurry off down the hall, the poster burning into his back.
He's still not getting involved in Thatch and Haruta's madness, he's really not, but maybe…
Maybe, just this once, they're actually onto something.
"Marco! Marco, c'mere, hurry-"
"What? Haruta, slow down, what-"
"It's Sailor Moon, come on, hurry, she might need your help!" And suddenly Haruta's not towing Marco anymore as he keeps pace.
Haruta hurtles down the street, saving her breath for running now that she's convinced Marco. They blow past Thatch and Kingdew, and she takes the corner fast enough to overbalance. But there, right in the middle of the street, there's Sailor Moon, large as life and twice as pretty. She's panting but standing strong, and there's only one youma left against her.
Haruta grabs Marco to stay upright and ignores Thatch and Kingdew arriving just behind them. Her eyes are only for Sailor Moon, who's straightening up and taking a pose.
Sailor Moon raises one hand up, a small pink wand twirling over her palm. She grasps it firmly and "Moon Healing Escalation! " rings out. The wand drips glittering moondust as she spins easily and above gravity, and then she draws the outline of a full moon in front of her, her back an elegant arch. The light shoots forward, carried on the moondust, and it spins around and envelops the youma until the creature breaks, revealing a regular guy, who collapses the moment the magic lets him go.
Sailor Moon huffs and stumbles just a bit, catching herself and standing firm once again. She scowls at her wand and it turns into sparkling light, reforming into a necklace of large beads, and Haruta sighs happily.
Sailor Moon sighs, tugs her skirt down with one hand and flips her bangs away with the other, and then turns to face them. "What," she asks, delightfully grumpy.
"Thank you!" Haruta says, linking her hands together so she won't reach out. "You saved us!"
Sailor Moon gives her this real unimpressed look. "Why'd you come running?" she asks. "What are you even still doing here? Why didn't you set sail the moment this started?"
"Couldn't, yoi." Marco shrugs, only a tiny bit out of breath and hand still hovering over his chain. "You might've needed help."
"Thanks, Venus," Sailor Moon says, mostly sincere and only a tiny bit bitter, and Marco's eyes widen a bit. Haruta bites her lip; that answers the question of if Sailor Moon knows, but raises three more on how. "I think I can handle a few youma all on my own."
Marco shrugs, letting it go, and Haruta jumps in. "Well, we're still looking for Ace anyway, couldn't leave without him!"
Sailor Moon rolls her eyes, and Haruta is suddenly aware of how big and pretty they are. "I saw him earlier," she says. "Leave the poor kid alone, seriously. He looked like he was about to cry."
Ace had gone ashore with Thatch and Kingdew and Curiel, Haruta suddenly remembers. Thatch is to blame, then, if Ace is crying or dead. She makes a mental note, and refocuses on the fact that Sailor Moon knows Ace enough to recognize him on sight.
"Oh, of course," Haruta says, folding her hands under her chin and leaning in. Anything Sailor Moon wants, she'll make happen. This is so exciting! "If you say so, of course." She's babbling, and also suddenly really wondering what flavor Sailor Moon's lip gloss is. "Thank you so much!"
"Did you see where he went?" Thatch asks from behind her, and she can tell, he caught that Sailor Moon knows Ace's name as well. He's just really bad at subtlety. "Can you show us, maybe?"
Sailor Moon immediately shakes her head and Haruta steps back heavily onto Thatch's foot. "That way," Sailor Moon says, jerking a thumb towards the mess of alleys and sidestreets behind her. "Probably lost. And I'm late, so good bye, stay away from youma, nice to see you, Venus, let's do this again never."
And she's up across the rooftops and gone before anyone can react, heading towards the harbor. There's an appreciative moment of silence as they all watch her go.
"She's amazing," Haruta sighs, and lets herself fall over onto Thatch. "I want her and I want to be her and I want to be her bestest friend and paint her nails and worship her face."
Thatch scowls down at her and pushes her back upright. "Ace has dibs," he reminds her, and she sighs and slumps against his hands, refusing to take her own weight.
"I know," she says sadly, "but let me have my dreams."
By the time the four Commanders find Ace, snoozing face-down in an alley close to the entrance of the warren of the city center, Sailor Moon is long, long gone.
Haruta stoops down to poke Ace's face. Ace makes a grumbling noise and rolls his head to the side, but doesn't wake up. Marco sighs, and moves to pick Ace up, but Thatch stops him.
Instead, he squats down beside Ace and croons, "Sailor Moon~"
Ace makes a horrified snorting sound as he chokes on an inhale and coughs himself into wakefulness. He hacks and sputters for a good half a minute before he can breathe again, and even then it's uneven.
"What," he sputters, and stops to finish coughing up a lung. "Why. Why would you."
"Because you missed her," Thatch says, grinning madly. Marco sighs and leans against the alley's entrance, and Haruta is barely upright she's laughing so hard.
"Good," Ace says, and scrambles to his feet in an incredibly graceless way. "I hate her and never want to see her, not ever."
"Not entirely sure she's a her," Marco says casually. "That a dealbreaker?"
"No," Ace sulks, crossing his arms, and Haruta squeals. "Because there's no deal to break!" he hurriedly explains, but it's far too late. "She could be a purple mermaid tentacle creature and it wouldn't change how much I hate her! Him! Them! Whatever!"
"Interesting type," Thatch muses, failing to keep a straight face. "I hadn't pegged you for purple tentacle monsters, but…."
Haruta gasps and falls over.
"I despise everything," Ace tells them all, and is unsurprised that even Marco's laughing at him. He sighs, flicks his bangs away, draws the tattered remains of his dignity around him, and keeps his chin up as he ditches the losers in the alley.
"Wait, Ace!" Haruta gasps. "She saw you! knows your name!"
Thatch cackles. "She thought you were crying! Good first impression!"
Ace ignores them magnificently and doesn't slow down. Marco follows, still chuckling, but he's pretty sure the other two are still dying all over each other back in the alley.
At least someone can laugh at the mess his life has become, because he's sure as hell not at that point yet.
They get a letter one day, and it's from Shanks. Well, Ace says "get", but it's more like "recovered from a confused and hungover crew member found passed out in a cave last shore leave".
It's a simple envelope with Ace's name-well, a reasonable approximation thereof-on it, wrinkled and stained but still sealed. The poor crew man still doesn't really remember that whole week, but he's still hungover and having nightmares about red laughter, so it's a pretty safe bet that it's from Shanks.
Haruta marches it right to Ace, even though it's lunch time when they find it. It's from a yonko, after all, who's gone a real roundabout route to get a letter to Ace, specifically. It could hold valuable strategic information, or, even better, really juicy gossip.
Ace frowns at it but opens it immediately, to Haruta's private delight.
Ace stares at the single, torn up sheet for a long slow breath, and Haruta twists behind him immediately to blatantly read over his shoulder.
It's a good thing she's small and fast, because she barely sees the familiar Sailor Moon Wanted poster, the new one featuring the smile and the pose and the sparkles, with a bold red "HA HA HA" scrawled across it before it crumples. Then it catches on fire.
"I hate him," Ace says, voice low and cold. "It's a shame I owe him my life because I'm going to burn out his spine."
Marco, seated next to him, had also got a glimpse, and is watching the spectacle happily. "He's probably very flammable," he offers. "He'd probably burn for days, yoi."
"Next time I see him, we'll find out," Ace promises to Marco's great delight, and then he turns back to his food.
Haruta beams. Even Shanks ships it, wait 'til she tells Thatch!