Arc 1: Seed

Seed: 1.1.

I wake up and prepare myself to face a new day and, as an automatic reaction, I immediately wish to return to sleep instead of facing what it means: another day of work.

I hate Mondays. I just do. They are the worse day of the week, where nothing good ever happens and I always work. Only bad things can happen today and that's bad because I'm most busy today than any other day of the week.

The routine never gets easier. No matter how much times passes.

I breathe, in and out. No use complaining and do nothing. Time to get up.

Looking around in our shared "bedroom," (more like a storage room than bedroom) I see that Ace had already woken up earlier than me and left without saying anything. Typical of him, though I have to admit I should have expected that. Our relationship wasn't close or cordial like other siblings. That was kinda my fault so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. But still, it was a bother to have to get my own food without his help, especially since animals made the most annoying sound when they died, and after that followed the most unpleasant part of the hunting job. It made me wish that Dadan wasn't such a useless bitch when it came to taking care of us but I guess I shouldn't ask for much. A roof and decent living conditions had to suffice, even if the company was lacking.

Rising up to follow my daily routine I can't help but think that if I had become a Protectorate hero instead of a villain, then I wouldn't be in this kind of situation. You know, karma and all that shit. Hell, If I have known that all of this would have happened if I went the path of a villain then I definitely would have jumped ship from that business and become the most goody two shoes hero on this side of the Atlantic. Heck I'd even go out of my way to kiss babies and save kittens out of trees. Like Scion, before he went all genocidal and all that.

I got up and went to the "bathroom" next to our room ( a medium-sized room with a mirror and a sink, plus a metal barrel as our bath) to wash my face and teeth. I looked myself in the mirror while I brushed my them. I couldn't deny I had very pretty face that could be the definition of "cute and adorable". I had several freckles in my nose and my eyes were brown and shapely. I was like a small clone of my mother at ten if my grandpa is to be believed, but since I only have pictures of her when she was an adult I didn't believe him much. Garp constantly says all kind of crazy shit, and is really dumb to trust him for others things that aren't to how to throw a punch. I try not to look much at the pictures, (kinda creepy watching photos of people I never knew and they are all dead), so I ignore them the most I can. I did save the majority from Ace rampage, mostly because whatever his opinion on Roger, he was still our dad and he may regret it later in life. Besides in several of that pictures was mo- I mean Rouge, and I owed her at least that. We owed her that.

Looking at myself in the mirror I tried to give the most sunny smile I could muster and tried not to make it too fake and unnatural. I was ten and pretty, so being cute and adorable was easy for me in short quantities with my personality. However, the charade was harder and harder to keep on with people I spend a lot of time at the day like Makino, the nice lady of the bar in the village and my boss, which made me realize that I needed to practice my cheeriness and niceties if I wanted to keep my innocent and nice girl facade for longer.

Makino already knew how I truly was, but the most likely chance when it came to her was that she interpreted my fake cheeriness and nice personality as a way to gather sympathy and make people like me to compensate and hide that my role model and (I can't believe I'm gonna say this) parental figures were Curly Dadan and her good-for-nothing bandits, or Garp who only understands the language of violence and fists.

The only downside of my job at her bar, besides the monotony, was that she insisted, rather heavily, in teaching me manners. I had to be all ladylike and shit now, for my sake apparently. I couldn't blame her though, no matter how annoying it was to take lessons that I already knew. She was right to be wary and concerned about my social skills, with no propel role model in sight. I didn't want to, obviously, but in order to sell my cookies in her bar she had that condition.

Bothersome was the most positive thing I had to say about her training but it worked. Everyone liked the little lady that helped the popular and angelic bartender, while everyone distrusted the little rascal of the mountains raised by outlaws.

I was certainly more popular than Ace at least. He seemed to like hanging out with that blonde loser of Grey Terminal whatever his name was, Sako? Nabo? Ando? Whatever. They probably stole from the morons there without caring who they pissed the fuck off. They were probably going to end up dead at some point. I wanted to do something for him. Little shit he was, he was my brother. But he was being impossible and honestly my patience was running out with his constant stupidity and commentaries.

It was not my fault I was the only one in the family with a brain and common sense. Seriously, it's no my fault I'm mature enough to ignore what those shitheads in town say about the sons of Gold D. Roger a.k.a us. He needs to grow the fuck up and someone had to told him that straight off.

Ugh, stop thinking about that Anne. More important things to do. Like eat.

I went to the kitchen already refreshed and ready for the day. Unsurprisingly bandits from Dadan´s group were sprawled around the hall and all the way to the kitchen. They all probably stayed all the night up, drinking and smoking doing shit all over the house after a hard day of "work" a.k.a stealing and destroying property all over the island. Truly, they were shining paragons of humanity.

Once inside the kitchen I was surprised to find the lady of the house herself, up and going. She was probably hungry like me and that meant that there was still food in the house. Good, most times these pigs ate it all up.

I opened the fridge and was pleasantly surprised to find some bacon and eggs of wild birds of the mountains. Yummy. I remember I hunted that one after it caught thinking me as food. For that, I snapped its neck and I was about to cook its little children before they were even born. Sucks to be them.

I set the pan on the fire. It was big enough for both things so I would eat quickly today. Speaking of food and morons who hunt it…

I looked at Dadan and grunted. 'So, where's Ace?'

She grunted back at lower and more, defined . 'Where do you think he is, brat? Don't ask stupid questions and you won't get stupid answers'? Or something like that, probably less clear and eloquent with more spit and shouting if she talked to me. 'Are you going to finally do you chores today or run off to do your shit at the jungle again?' Another grunt, a questioning one.

Talk about dumb questions. Of course I wasn't going to do her dumb chores. I already cooked for her and cleaned the stupid room we lived in thrice a week. She can clean the rest. It's her house after all, why the hell should I clean it?

I don't grunt this time, I just stare at her and raise my eyebrows. 'Seriously?' they say.

She growls this time. Sign she's pissed but she doesn't answer and let it go. She probably expected that as well.

Such a nice system we had going. Born out of our mutual dislike to waste words on each other. I had definitely a future like interlocutor to the stupid and disadvantaged, like the bandits.

I hum this time and point to the newspaper on the table. 'Are you reading that or just using it to look more smart that you are?'

She tosses it to me far more harsher than probably necessary, but it's okay i'm used to it so I tumble just a little this time. As I sit down to it with some orange juice she grunts at me one more time: 'Burn it after you're done with it, brat. Now that you've touched I don't want anything to do with it'

Yeesh that's prejudice against parahumans. Not my fault she so squeamish after what I showed it to her.

I shrug down, and keep eating. Whatever. If Ace is not here then he is with that blonde rat from Grey Terminal... again. There's nothing I can do about that for now. I need to focus on the most immediate issue.

I grunt a 'goodbye' or a 'fuck you hag ' to her and leave.

Time to get to work. That means time to go to my workshop. Finally.

Tinker Hour.

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Back home I could be considered an important figure among the cape community. A name respected among the villains. Someone feared and powerful with underlings and belonging to a strong faction.

I was someone with influence and contacts in high places. Someone considered an "A-lister" thanks to years of work, of building a reputation of professionalism and power, and refining my tinker powers and my specialization. A hard and sometimes thankless job that required more effort that I ever dedicated to anything in my wasn't easy; normies and even some capes back home thought that just because you have some power that sounded strong and versatile the had you life practically fixed for you. The heroes wold bend backwards just to have you while the villains would either threaten you or offer the entire world, and if you were a tinker then that was multiplied by ten. Even the weakest among us was more valuable that the toughest brute, or so they say. With my specialization being what it was, I had to be very careful in my first months as a cape, after all, being kidnapped or threatened to join a gang at gunpoint was a very real thing that could happen to me and I liked myself just fine, without a bullet decorating my head.

My specialization didn't help matters. A bio-tinker that somehow also affected emotions with her tech? It was a recipe for disaster let me tell you. If I wasn't careful there was a nice bullet with my name somewhere.

Fucking Nilbog, fucking Heartbreaker. Couldn't those assholes do something else with their powers than taking over a city of building a fucking harem? They made my job even more difficult just by existing

And besides the issue of my powers you could say that it wasn't easy being a newbie I'm every aspect of the word. I was entering unfamiliar territory where one misstep wpuñd be my end. But I knew what I wanted and I was willing to do anything to achieve it. Money, power, respect, love. Being someone that just...mattered

At one point I could even say I got it. I had everything. I had finally made my mark.

Now, here I was in another body that wasn't my own , making 'special' cookies or cakes in a fucking mountain jungle where everything was humid or trying to kill me, to get to ends meet.

Fuck me. And fuck you God as well.

It wasn't hard to make a workshop, or to find someone that would make one. It was the birthday present that Garp made me. Ace refused to accept anything from him so I pounced at the opportunity to have is undivided attention for once. He made me a little treehouse and I helped. I even got that grouch to join in the fun and speed up things. It wasn't my old greenhouse with everything I needed but it had to do for now. The only thing that remained to get the most basic ingredients was a garden. Lush, and green, and pretty and all for me.

And I solved that thanks to Makino's birthday present. A bunch of gorgeous seeds. I was ready with that

The workshop as a tree house, part of the ingredients as the flowers and vegetables. I only need the actual equipment and some nice fertilizers and I'll be done.

Grey Terminal served for the more mechanical and artificial parts but that only would work for the most barest and amateurish creations. Not only because of lack of prime necessities, but because I really didn't want to drag attention to myself without better equipment. Creating little helpers was a difficult inversion as well. I was never good with minion making and they were costly and clumsy as well. Better as cannon fodder than meaningful help.

As I said before Grey Terminal was perfect to find unique elements and oddities. It was dangerous but if Ace and his sidekick could do it then I could do it too. I was, maybe, less aggressive that my twin at fighting or or in my training but that was because I wasn't a fighting enthusiast like him and honestly I considered the use of violence at everything dull and moronic. Fitting to the rest of my family in this weird world but I could do better. At least back then when I had the time. I still trained hard practically everyday but tinkering took its sweet time, even more with this shoddy workshop I have so It was a constant balance needed between both things.

I couldn't help notice that the inhabitants of this land were physically more powerful that the ones in Earth Bet, so with the right training and consistency I thought that I could achieve very easily a Brute rating without actual physical enhancing powers. However that revelation didn't make his training less awful to me or Ace when it came to Garp.

Being able to punch a hole in a rock and jump really high was not enough to wave down the fact that the things he did to us and still does are abusive and have a negative impact onto us. Besides who the fuck thinks that bandits are good for raising a pair of children anyway? That was a pretty big alarm on itself about his sanity.

He definitely wasn't smart enough for his high rank. That I could tell easily. I mean does he actually thinks that me and Ace are going to be Marines? If there was something we had in common it was that. No future in the Navy for us

Ace wanted to be a pirate. And I wanted to be... something else. Anything else.

A pirate was like the thing everyone else expects me to do (except my grandpa) if they knew who was my father, but I needed a proper reason to become one- unlike my big brother who wanted to be one for some inconclusive or abstract reason like "freedom". No, I needed more than that. A concrete goal.

I go to stairs dangling from the tree and enter the treehouse. Before that I give a once over to the garden to check everything is okay and growing strong. It still does. I smile.

Once I'm in my little hideout I immediately start making inventory: vats? check. chemistry set? check. Microscope? check. Fungi, dry flowers, biomass that I don't remember where the hell I got? Check, check, check. More stuff? Check. Ready and raring to go then.

Being a tinker gave the capacity to built tegnologies beyond the wildest dreams of anyone without even needing to understand what I was actually doing. The bad thing about that was the world I lived seemed to be far more behind in terms of technology than Earth Bet, so I lacked the super high- grade stuff I used to bought.

I needed more funding, more materials. A bigger garden, and of course more of everything. But i'll make do for now. It's actually pretty surprising that my powers came back at all but I decided that nothing could come out of searching answers for that right now, so I took the wise decision of just roll with it.

My little treehouse was quiet as always. Ace didn't like coming here since he called my stuff boring and girly so I put a 'no boys allowed' in the front door and since that he didn't came back. Kids logic was the best logic after all.

I went to the left side. My actual workshop. I already made the cookies, three trays of them, yesterday at midday, I just needed them to cool down and mature a little. Then a little bit on the sun and, presto, they were ready and gripe for the eating after some time out of the sun in the dark as well. I could consider the consequences of feeding innocent people tinkertech in the form of the "super-healthy, super-delicious organic cookies" but they didn't have any actual detrimental effects on people… almost. They were organic, as in made of organic parts ( as in made of a mix of flowers and vegetables and other vat- grow and artificial materials) and homemade ( in a literal vat with a previous substance inoculated before and during the maturation process), and they were really delicious ( a simple paste that when integrated in the process gave it their multi frutal flavor and stimulates the generation of endorphins. Easy peasy.) I made them as a nutritive and addictive option for the people and the most basics of my meals. They were the easiest to do and honestly they sold quite well. In the most intense summers they sold really well with my "natural juice", and in winter with my "sweet tea". I made them and Makino sold them, and it worked.

Three bigs trays yesterday and four boxes from the production of the weekend. An another big batch already in preparation. They weren't very big so I could get a lot of them.

It was a good business for now that I was ten and I lived with the bandits but I needed more. I wanted more. And the mere idea to live forever in this island without achieving anything was enough for me to consider to throw myself to the sea and be eaten by the sea monsters.

Oh yeah we had those as well. Sea monster and abnormal beasts all around. It kinda really feels like a shitty remake of Jurassic Park sometimes.

I checked around me. On the left against the the left wall was my old vat. Five feet tall, cracked in some places and looking like its glory days were long past with it´s shody top I found among the trash. A tube connected its top to the my "sink" (a big basin with a tub for disposal connected to the ground to the base of the tree) , when the water touched the ground, it was observed by it, or more specifically to the little l garden at its side. The flowers and vegetables would grow with my water and a fertilizer I made from dead things and then I'll use them to made more of my products. It was a recycling cycle that while useful only worked for limited and simple things but as everything in my life, it had to work until I was far more grounded and settled. In somewhere else.

I had other experiments lying around but I'll to see those later. In the jungle, alone. With meat in hand.

A small cauldron was on the table in the centre of the room. At its side were several pots, all of them with the top covered. I uncovered one and smelled it. I could help but smile at the fragrance that escape the pot. It was almost done. I'll need more thing to complete this and then I´ll have to take it to the wild to finish it. Too risky if Ace or Dadan discovered it. I didn't want them drooling for me after all.

At the other side of the table, only occupying a quarter of it, stood my chemistry kit and some bisturies at its side. Another thing I needed to safekeep, if someone got inside. I also needed to clean the bisturies and knives, some blood remained in them.

Looking at the clock, and paling at the hour I realized that it was far more late that I intended and I needed to fucking hurry. And I still needed to put the cookies in the empty boxes! Fuck, Mondays are always heavy days on requests as well.

I had a feeling today was going to be a even more shitty day then normal as well. A foreboding feeling that I couldn't shake off.

"Fuck me. I hate Mondays." I said aloud as I rushed out of the treehouse grabbing everything I needed along the way.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Thank you for buying, and for coming!" Makino smiled as the old couple left Partys Bar. Her smile was honest of course, without a hint of sarcasm or unhappiness for the fact that she seemed to be stuck working in the costumer service area for the rest of her life. She was so nice, and so earnest, and so kind. I'd honestly thought I was hallucinating when I met her.

I didn't have anything of her natural charm so I had to fake my happy waves and goodbyes. I feel envious about her sometimes. Some people… are just born that way. The happy go lucky kind that it always optimism no matter what happens and has a nice thing to say about anybody. And of course everybody has a nice thing to say about her. People… for her they seemed to be way too easy. Like she could strike conversation with anyone and not fuck it up just for being her. So unfair to people like me…

Eh, but I have superpowers so I guess with that the situation was even.

I continued cleaning one of the empty tables as I counted the hours to do anything else. Since she handles the sales of my bakery, and I have mostly nothing to do, besides training and reading or or in my lab, I stay around and work as her little helper.

"Phew, I'm glad that you made it in time Anne. Your cookies as always are one the best desserts around here. You arrived a little late tough. Is... everything okay up there at your home?" Makino´s words held no double meaning, or hidden intention. They never did. She seemed to care for me a lot if I interpreted her fussing in a correct way, but that also had the side effect of her being very noisy sometimes. I had to hold down my annoyance several times because of that, because I'm trying to be nice to her in gratitude for all she has done to me. She may fuss a lot about me but compared to the other two, she as well may be a saint. I had another gift for her as well. I just needed time to finish it and give it to her.

"It's alright, Ace wasn't around as always and the fatso was gorging herself up as always so she didn't talk and left me alone. Too complex for her." She frowned disapprovingly at my comment about the obvious weight excess (all muscle my ass), of my caretaker and probably was about to comment about that when the door of the bar opened and more people entered forcing to go there and attend to them. The rush was always bigger at midday and night, when its main function as a bar could shine to give the boring inhabitants of this sleepy village some entertainment and booze.

In Foosha village there wasn't much places to 'go out' for saying so. It was a very small place, with very few inhabitants and, from an outsider point of perspective it would look like a few buildings, an a few streets loosely organized with the most notable building building being the bar, and some windwills that were really big and around them? Nothing but pure and wild fields. It was the definition of a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere were everyone knew about everyone and everything.

It was also the most boring place i've been to, and I desperately wanted to get out of here, but living in the main city of the Goa Kingdom has it fair share of troubles with Garp around. That old man would probably hunt me down to the Grand Line just to beat me up…

Also I have zero money or friends in there. I probably wouldn't even last a week on my own.

I sigh and continue my work. No use thinking about that. After cleaning the last empty tables, I´d need to go to and check in the deposit and check how much food, drinks, and other necessities for the bar we have. After that I'll probably be sended to buy the stuff that we don't have and after that...who nows. I work here only a few hours and then I go back to the mountains. If it were for me I´ll be all day long on my lab or the jungle tinkering. But being cooped up and crafting abominations of nature all day apparently isn't healthy for a ten year old girl so I work here to do something at mornings that isn't tinkering and for a change of scenery. Even if the change is from a deadly jungle to the most boring place on the world.

As the hours keep ticking and the waves of people start to slow down I started counting the remaining minutes I could go back to the jungle where my love- I mean my ongoing projects waited for me. I wonder if Makino would let me take some fresh meat with. They are probably hungry by now and to handle that I'll probably need-.

I stopped. Something was going on outside. A commotion or something. Did another pirate crew docked just now in this sleepy village? Or maybe today was work day for the bandits? What's happening?

I got my answer when the door of the bar opened and to my surprise someone that I didn't really wanted to see entered. Makino was surprised as well but I beat her to the punch at expressing it.

"What?" I said numbly. I couldn't believe my eyes.

"Ah! There you are brat! Stop staring and come here to give your grandpa a big hug, Annie!" His voice was high and loud and there was no doubt that with that tone half of the village had listened to him already.

He shouldn't be here. Not now, did he really wanted to beat us both that badly that came earlier? Or worse was he trying to actually bond with us in another way, like, oh god talking to us. I didn't know which one was worse. His beatings as training, or him fumbling and reminiscing about the good ol' days. It was a lose-lose situation, no doubt.

Garp was dressed sharply in a blue suit that actually made him look good while his face had a huge grin. It increased in size and practically split his face when he looked at me. I couldn't be fooled, that wasn't the smile of a grandfather looking at her granddaughter and being happy to see her. That was the grin of a predator trying to lure his prey close to him to devour her without mercy.

His right hand remained outstretched and inviting at me ( a deadly iron maiden) while his left one was occupied with….what? Seriously? What the fuck?

No, focus!

Fuck, fuck, fuck me. But focus on what? Where the fuck was Ace when I need a decoy? What should I do now? Run? Hide? Set the bar on fire? And the last question:

Who the fuck was that little brat with the straw hat that Garp was holding in his left hand and looked like he wanted to get the hell out of here?

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SEED 1.1. END