A/N: Hi guys! So as you can tell, I've decided to completely scrap this first idea, and go ahead in the timeline to Water 7! I know that I have been gone a long time, but I hope you guys will like the new changes that I have come up with. If you guys are reading Hearts of the Children, my own OC fic, this character model taken directly off Lynch Cassanova. I tried changing his name in the first version, but I love the name Lynch Cassanova, and wanted to keep it. As always, please review and tell me what you think!
If you haven't already, go check out my more popular, longer story, Fire and Steel, which features Ace!
Wealth. Fame. Power.
The man who had achieved everything in life, like none before him, was the Pirate King, Gold Roger. The few words he spoke at his execution drove people the all over the world to take to the seas:
"My treasure? If you want it, you can have it.
Seek it out! I left everything in my life at that place!"
Men, bound for the Grand Line, will chase after their dreams. The world is about to witness a Great Age of Piracy!
I
I'm Going to Destroy Donquixiote Doflamgino! Enter scientist, Lynch Cassanova!
The sea billowed around the island city of Water Seven as the mayor, Iceberg, glanced outside his window, looking up from his blueprints, the rain pattering on the pane and the wind howling through the cracks of the old paint.
"Nmaa. So the Aqua Laguna's come," he muttered to himself.
The annual high tide that engulfed the lower parts of the city had been getting worse and worse with each coming year. Iceberg rubbed his brow as he thought of damage they would have to repair this year.
The man was fairly young to be the town's mayor, still having a full head of close cut blue hair, a rather serious look on his face and a tall stature not yet bent down with
age.
A sharp bang on the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Iceberg-san!" a frantic voice cried out from the doorway. "Excuse me barging in but there's something you have to see!"
Iceberg looked quickly to the door to where one of his lower level shipwrights stood in the doorway.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Paulie-san said it was too dangerous for you to come out but you have to see this with your own eyes!" the shipwright gasped. "It's a shipwrecked person on the lower shores!"
"Person?" There shouldn't have been anyone on the lower half of Water Seven, not unless they were an outsider.
Iceberg stood up quickly and grabbed his coat, sweeping it over his shoulders. "Take me there."
xxx
"Iceberg-san!" a man with long hair and a blue jacket yelled as he smoked a fat cigar. "You shouldn't have come! The Aqua Laguna is too dangerous!"
Iceberg had arrived at the lower levels of the city, meeting three of his Dock One foremen at the edge of the bay. The one who had yelled for Iceberg was holding a rope in his hands, pulling the broken bits of timber away from a fallen body. The second, a tall man with long hair and a goatee stood next to him, while the third, a large, barrel chested man with a short beard cut sharply looked to be impatiently waiting for the roper to finish his job.
"I'll choose whether or not it's dangerous for me, Paulie," Iceberg said as he walked closer to the shipwright, assessing the damage. "What have we here?"
"WUOOHH! PAULIE! YOU'RE TAKING TOO LONG!" the large man yelled and charged at the mess, flinging the mess everywhere.
"Tilestone!" Paulie snapped. "Stop yelling!"
The tall man silently stepped forward. He wore a black top hat, wearing only a white tank top despite the heavy rain. A pet pigeon sat dutifully on his shoulder as dragged a body from the debris. Dropped the person at Iceberg's feet, the quiet man stepped back to let the mayor inspect for himself.
The body was a young man looking to be about in his early twenties dressed in ratty, dark clothing that was most likely torn up by the storm. A shock of silver hair was matted with blood and seawater -a hair color that was rare. Like he had thought, the man wasn't from around their parts. Something about the man struck Iceberg's curiosity. Tattoos covered the man's body in intricate twisting black designs. The mayor bent down to examine one of them and retracted his hand like it had been burned. It was common for outsiders to come to Water Seven in hopes of purchasing a ship for themselves, but this man was no regular customer.
The tattooed smile of a familiar Jolly Roger leered up at him, reminding him of a particular lord of the underworld.
"Iceberg-san?" Paulie asked in concern as he leaned over his leader.
Iceberg reached forward and quickly covered the man's tattoo. "It's nothing. I want him cleaned up and taken to my room immediately. I'd like to be the first to meet with him once he wakes up.
"OF COURSE ICEBERG-SAN!" Tilestone roared and picked up the unconscious man like a rag doll from the ground.
Iceberg watched his foremen leave, a worried look knitting his brow. The man had a sign of the Shichibukai Doflamingo on his chest. He had only dealt once with that man, and even through that small interaction, Iceberg had quickly learned that Donquixote Doflamingo was not one to be trifled with. Had the man been sent here as a message from the Shichibukai? The mayor wrapped his coat firmer around himself and followed his group of men. It would only tell in time. For now, he would have to wait.
xxx
Iceberg sat on his windowsill, watching the young man's still form. He had gotten one of his doctors to bandage the stranger, making sure to get another look at the tattoo. It was no doubt, the mark of the pirate warlord.
A slight rustling caught the mayor's attention and he looked up slowly to see the man struggling to sit up.
"Where am I?" he croaked.
"This is Water Seven," Iceberg replied, not moving from his post. "If I may ask, what are you doing here?"
"Iceberg," the man said, startling the mayor. "You're Iceberg?"
The mayor hesitated and then nodded against his better judgment. "You're right. What do you want with me?"
The man stared at him for a moment, and Iceberg took the opportunity to go ahead and ask what had been burning on his mind all that time. "You have the mark of the Joker."
"Joker?" the man questioned, and then looked down at his bandaged chest. "Oh, you're talking about this. This is not the sign of the Doflamingo Family."
Iceberg narrowed his eyes. "But the smiley face-"
"Resembles his. But look closer," the man said, pulling aside his dressings. "Doflamingo has his smile crossed out. I do not."
As Iceberg leaned in and sat on the edge of the man's bed, he saw that the he was right. The smiley was not crossed out and the teeth were straight, rather than curved. "Then what is that?"
"An ulterior motive different than the Joker's," the man said, replacing his bandages.
"So there is no doubt that you have some sort of past with him," Iceberg said, stroking his chin.
"Yes," the man answered. "But I had no choice. You can't hold it against me. I ran from him to destroy him."
Iceberg's eyes narrowed. "Destroy? You seek to destroy the strongest Shichibukai on these waters that is protected by the World Government?"
"Pluton."
The man said these words and Iceberg's hand flew to the pistol that sat on his hip. Pluton was something that was an unspoken thing in his mind. Something to be avoided and never to be spoken of again. It was a hidden weapon that should never be brought to humanity again.
"What do you know of Pluton?" Iceberg asked him harshly. "What are you?"
"My name is Lynch Cassanova," the man started slowly. "I apologize, I didn't mean to startle you. Pluton is a weapon that my brother and I found in the archives of Doflamingo."
"You mean to say that Doflamingo has access to World Government information?"
"Of course he does," Cassanova sat up straighter. "Why else do you think he became a Shichibukai?"
To this, Iceberg didn't have an answer.
"You and I both know the terrors that will wreak the world if Doflamingo or the World Government get a hand on those blueprints," Cassanova continued.
"So what do you propose we do then?" Iceberg was troubled. He knew that the World Government had been after those blueprints, but to know that now Donquixote Doflamingo thristed after the weapon, it was more trouble than he needed.
"Let me stay here," the man requested.
"What?" Iceberg spat in disbelief. "I hardly know you. How do you expect me to trust you?"
"With inside information on the World Government that Doffy has gotten a hold of," Cassanova said. "I feed you information on their whereabouts, everything."
Iceberg was still skeptical. Seeing this, Cassanova added to his cause.
"I am a scientist. I know that this Water Seven is a shipwright's dream. I'll help you create more products in order to bring new customers in. I can help you Iceberg. If only you will help me. You need me as much as I need you."
Iceberg swallowed hard. To know the dealings of the World Government was a tantalizing offer. But this man had unknown dealings with the Joker. He stared into Lynch's unwavering green eyes, looking for an unknown answer in them. The young man was earnest, there was no doubt in that. Something in the young man reminded Iceberg a bit of himself when he was younger. The days of his youth flooded back to him, with Tom's workers.
"If you're a man, do it with a DON!" the hearty voice of Tom-san suddenly reverberated in his mind.
Iceberg blinked. Tom-san was right. If he didn't give this man a chance, there was no way to see what could've been. And if he was going with the theme of trusting his gut, Lynch Cassanova did not seem like the kind of man that was out looking for his neck. He gave the young man another look. The mayor didn't fully trust him, he decided. Cassanova's real intentions were still shrouded behind the curtain of the weapon Pluton and it's worth to Doflamingo and the young man. He had figured that Cassanova had researched the weapon because he realized it's worth to the Shichibukai and understood it's potential to be able to overthrow the powerful black-market overlord. No doubt he was going to try and take advantage of Iceberg to get the blueprints. But it was worth giving him a chance. There was no way that Cassanova would be able to get his hands on those blueprints.
"I understand," Iceberg finally spoke. "I'll let you work here as my second assistant under Kalifa."
Cassanova leaned forward as far as his bandages would allow him. "Thank you so much Iceberg-san."
Iceberg moved towards the door and gave the young man a look over his shoulder before he left.
"Remember one thing Lynch Cassanova," he said.
"Yes?"
"Never show that tattoo to anyone who you don't trust," Iceberg moved out of the doorway. "And don't trust anyone here. Especially me."
2 years later...
Although Cassanova had found the group of shipwrights that Iceberg had hired to be a bit strange and odd, by his second year with the group, he had managed to find a place of his own for himself. Iceberg had been kind enough to let him stay for an indefinite amount of time. He wore an unbuttoned black suit jacket and a tight fitting gray shirt underneath, with the mark of the Galley La company printed underneath it.
He sat at his workshop, looking up every so often to watch the fight between the Dock One workers and a band of pirates who thought they could take on the shipwrights on. This had happened often, where pirates came to take a free ship. The Galley-La did not discriminate who they sold their ships to, but every so often, a pirate crew thought it upon themselves to threaten the shipwrights at blade point and demand a ship. This did not bode well for the pirates. A crowd would often gather, and the pirates would be made the laughing stock of Water Seven. Cassanova rarely participated in these activities. The last substantial thing that Iceberg had left with him had been the warning not to trust anyone there, and he followed the mayor's warning closely. Not wanting to reveal his full potential and ability, he sat back in the shadows, allowing the other shipwrights to show off.
He held the mayor in high respect. The man acted very differently in the public eye than he had when they had first met -he was more of a lazy, happy-go-lucky mayor who acted as though he didn't want to be there. Cassanova knew the truth. The man behind the façade was calculating and intelligent. Very different than the man that appeared in his countenance.
Although he did feel a sense of guilt. He had not told Iceberg the real reason he was here, only a partial truth. A memory of himself and his brother resurfaced in his mind.
"I'll see you in hell," a man with faint shadows under his eyes smiled. He slipped his fuzzy, white Northern style hat onto his head, and turned quickly. ""You know what you have to do at Water Seven, don't you Cassanova?
A handsome young man with short, silver hair nodded quickly. "Without the great weapon, we can't overpower Doflamingo."
The white hat nodded, and the man turned to his yellow submarine raising a hand in goodbye.
Cassanova opened his mout, "Law! Promise me this!"
Law stopped, one foot on the sub, the other on the dock. "What, Cassanova?"
"Promise me that we'll both come back stronger and meet again someday!" Cassanova said. "Just promise me that!"
"Of course," Law scoffed, but there was a trace of a smile on his face. "Sabaody Archipelago."
"What?" Cassanova asked.
"That's where we'll meet next," Law said. "So long, little brother."
Cassanova brushed a strand of hair away from his face and added a drop of liquid nitrogen to the wood, watching it spread across like fog and eat away at the timber. The crowd had started to die down. The shipwrights had finished their show.
"Oi, Cass," a friendly laugh sounded from behind him and he turned to see a tall, long-nosed shipwright.
"Kaku," he smiled.
Kaku had been one of the first to welcome him in with open arms. Although he was a young man, he had a strange tendency to talk the way older men did. Cassanova didn't mind. He liked the younger shipwright and had become fast friends with him. Out of all the shipwrights that Iceberg had on Dock One, to Cassanova, Kaku seemed the most down to earth.
A long arm was draped over his shoulder as the shipwright smiled. "Why don't you ever join in our fun?"
Cassanova laughed lightly. "That's not my typical idea of fun."
"Oh come on," Kaku pouted. "Don't you want to show off a little? I know you can't be weak if Iceberg-san hired you." The man drew closer, a dangerous grin on his face. "Or maybe you have a hidden Devil Fruit power?"
Cassanova pushed the young shipwright away. "Don't be stupid. I'm just Iceberg's assistant promoted to mad scientist."
"Well you got that right," Kaku scratched the back of his head under his hat. "Eh?"
Cassanova looked up as Kaku stopped talking and glanced in the direction he was. There was a young teen in a straw hat looking to climb over the barricade that was placed to separate civilians from the workers -it was a safety precaution.
"Excuse me!" the boy was yelling.
"I'll go see what they want," Kaku said as he jogged away and pushed the kid's head down.
Cassanova took his reading glasses off and squinted at the straw hat wearing teen. He looked vaguely familiar, as if he'd seen him on a wanted poster before.
"Wait," he muttered, rifling through the papers on his desk. "Is that, Mugiwara no Luffy?"
The poster of a smiling teen waving at the camera appeared from under his blueprints and logistics papers. It read 'Wanted: Monkey D. Luffy. Dead or Alive for 100,000,000 Belis.' He looked back in surprise as he watched Kaku fly off in the distance, most likely looking for the crew's ship.
What was a well-known super rookie like Mugiwara doing here? Never mind that. The most prominent member of the Straw Hat's crew was her. Cassanova pulled another wanted poster from under Monkey D. Luffy's.
Nico Robin. Poster not yet updated from since she was child. He had done he research into Doflamingo's archives and knew what she was on the run from. Her ability to read Poneglyphs had gotten her the price so high from the age of eight. Cassanova grinned slightly. This was just his lucky day. The secret to Pluton was held in the puzzle of the Poneglyphs. Nico Robin was the only one in the world who could read those intricate carvings. He needed to speak with her. The scientist stood up and pushed his tools away as he saw Iceberg appear in front him.
"Nma," he started, with his usual verbal tic. "Is everything going well?"
"It's fine here," Cassanova replied, and glanced over at Mugiwara and his crew members. "So the Straw Hat crew finally made it here, huh?"
"It appears so," Iceberg said, musing as he watched them from a distance. "Nico Robin is on their ship."
"I know," Cassanova replied.
"You know what you have to do," Iceberg said. "Make sure to protect Pluton from her at all costs."
"I got it, Ossan," Cassanova smirked and stopped short when the straw hat wearing teen approached them.
"Hey, Ossan, everyone says you're a really good shipwright," Mugiwara said as he patted Iceberg on the shoulder. "Want to become a pirate with us?"
Cassanova turned as he heard the angry whispers of Paulie and Kalifa.
"Wh-What did you say?!" Paulie said.
"Ill-mannered brat!" Kalifa hissed.
"Nma," Iceberg said, seeming unperturbed by Luffy's offer. "You don't have a carpenter on your ship?"
"Nope," the teen said nonchalantly. "We came here to repair our ship and find a carpenter to be part of our crew."
"There are plenty of carpenters here," Cassanova said, approaching the young super rookie. "But I don't know if one is willing to become a pirate."
"If you do find one who is willing, I don't care if you take him with you," Iceberg added.
"Really? You're so nice!" Luffy laughed. "But you can't come Ossan?"
"Nma. I'm the mayor so of course not."
"Oh well then," Mugiwara said and then turned to Cassanova. "What about you?"
"I'm not a carpenter," Cassanova said, raising his hands. "I'm just a researcher. A scientist."
"Oooh a scientist!" Luffy said excitedly. "Can you make big explosions with your experiments?"
"In a way," Cassanova chuckled. "By the way, there is a woman named Nico Robin on your ship, right?"
"Yeah," Luffy replied. "She's smart!"
Cassanova gave Iceberg a quick look and opened his mouth to ask another question but was cut off by an orange haired teenage girl.
"Luffy! Get down here!" she called.
Luffy leapt down from the scaffolding to the main dirt ground where Kaku was now standing, with Paulie sitting on a piece of timber, smoking his cigar. Cassanova followed, as Kalifa trailed slightly behind them.
"Where's Usopp?" the girl asked Mugiwara.
"Dunno."
"Oh. He left the money here so never mind."
"How much will it cost?" Luffy turned a grinning face towards Kaku and patted his suitcases. "I have tons of money to pay! If you can, make it super strong and then add some cannons and make it go faster!"
"Please also do some decorative remodeling on the exterior," the girl added. "And some remodeling for the rooms too."
"Allow me to speak frankly," Kaku started. "Your ship suffered significant damage. Your trip to here must've been very eventful."
"It sure was!" Luffy grinned. "We climbed a mountain and went into the sky! That's why we want to make sure you repair our ship good!"
"Will it take a long time?" the girl asked.
Kaku paused. "No. The truth is, even we aren't able to fix your ship."
"Even if we patch it up as much as we can, the probability of you making it to the next island is zero percent," Kaku finished.
"What?!" Luffy exclaimed. "But we had been sailing perfectly all this time!"
"Is something wrong with the keel?" Paulie asked.
"Yes," Kaku replied. "It is severely damaged."
This took Cassanova by surprise. He had assumed that perhaps the Straw Hat crew were going to be stuck here for a few days, but to be stranded here for at least a few weeks now that they needed a new ship? This was a prime opportunity for him to get to know Nico Robin a little better, and to move his long-postponed plan with his brother, Law, along the way that it was always supposed to go. He felt the eyes of Iceberg staring at him, and he returned the mayor's gaze. Giving Iceberg a quick nod, the young, silver-haired man excused himself and strode off into the city of Water Seven, intent on finding Nico Robin.