Xanxus' Adventures in Parenthood Piracy by InsaneScriptist
Beta'd by the unique Umei no Mai
Summary: Xanxus could only blame the damn scientists for stranding him in an alternate dimension. However Xanxus could only blame himself for allowing that woman to foist her child onto him. Drabble fic.
Individual
Xanxus found sleeping with Bester to be possibly the most relaxing thing he had done since making all those weapons a few months ago. He couldn't really torment Squalette like he could Squalo but that didn't make aggravating her any less fun. Killing marines was getting dead boring despite his personal amusement derived from misleading the investigators. The marines had mostly either cleaned up their act or stopped while they were in South Blue; there was still trash and scum in the marines but he wasn't being paid to kill them beyond personal satisfaction. Playing informant to the various rebel groups while interesting was nothing more than a casual pastime. Sansetto's company was just a means to gather resources; namely money, influence and power.
Xanxus was an assassin. He wasn't a nice man and he was rarely polite. He was demanding, impatient and overall a callous individual. Sure he could be sensitive and caring but it wasn't a natural reaction to him. If anything it was a studied and carefully calculated reaction geared towards a specific purpose.
His natural reaction to someone else's problems was in general to ignore it. In the mafia, you either solved it yourself or died because of it so it worked well enough; beyond that most people did solve their issues easily enough after a bit of whining like the trash they were. His second inclination was to take advantage of someone else's issue. Either by attacking at their weakest point or by manipulating them somehow. This was expected in the Mafia; other people's weaknesses were to your advantage.
The only exception to this was the Vongola; Xanxus cared about the Vongola and was interested in resolving all it's problems that weren't directly connected to him. Anything that could be a threat to the Vongola would be taken care of.
He wasn't there to do so personally right now so he'd have to rely on his Officers. His Officers were murderous on the best of days, but they were loyal to him, the Varia and the Vongola. In the Varia there was a certain freedom and addicting trust that their Boss just didn't care about their issues or quirks so long as they kept to Varia Standard. As much as he beat them up and even flat out abused them sometimes, the Varia loved him as much as they feared him.
Xanxus just wanted them to do their job. That's all he asked of an individual. If he made it hard to do the job sometimes because he liked being a person that was difficult to deal with... well, the Varia was more than just their job and there were many unsaid rules that governed that organization.
One of the most important ones was 'strength is respected.'
Xanxus had been acting like some sort of trash in doubting things and more importantly himself. What sort of Boss of the Varia did that shit?
Return
Bester was a well-trained and intelligent liger. Box animals were made more intelligent than their wild counterparts but they still had to be trained to obey commands. Strategies could be taught to them and they'd learn with enough practice. Commands like slash, roar or bite.
One of the more important commands was 'return.'
Bester assumed the sphinx like position to return to his box-space but Bester didn't transform into flames and return to the box.
This was why he had worried about calling Bester out. Different dimension, different physics or something like that.
Thankfully he had a way around that, as it was a relatively minor problem compared to what it could have been. He summoned a quantity of Mist Flames and overwrote reality in a small area; Bester returned to his box-space. Then he let the Mist Flames dissipate and Bester was snug inside the ring again.
Problem solved.
Now to call Tyrant.
Phone
Xanxus would be happy to have an actual phone but the equipment to set up a phone-system here wasn't available and most people were happy enough with the creepy snails. So Xanxus had to make do using the snails. He only vanished for a moment to grab the den den mushi and its smaller white companion that would keep the call private. No one at least could overhear the conversation that way, and to prevent any other issues, he was on a deserted island.
The call proved enlightening.
If enlightening meant utterly horrifying.
According to the 'Ladder Theory' they were using, it hadn't really been that long since he had disappeared. Probably not even a week.
He could practically hear his slight hope and minor expectations of this entire clusterfuck of a situation being over quickly break.
Report
"Tyrant report, how did the meeting go?" Xanxus had asked the retired Varia Boss. He would have called weeks earlier, but Tyrant had informed him that travel between dimensions wasn't what you'd call an exact science, especially returning to this side. Tyrant had told Xanxus that he was one of the better cross-dimensional travelers and he had an error margin at least half a year. That was really fucking good compared to getting off by centuries or decades, which that list he'd seen had proved was far from unlikely.
"No one died or received crippling injuries." Tyrant reported. This was actually a good sign as on numerous occasions someone of the Varia killed someone else during a large meeting; they of course made sure that no evidence was left behind but that just meant he couldn't officially punish them should they deserve to be punished. Only the Boss of the Varia could officially do executions but the Varia was unruly on the best of days; some people always got a bit over excited. "Kawahira, Verde and a number of other experts were very intrigued by the existence of this dimension. The marshmallow-lover whined about you having all the fun being a pirate."
"They don't know me." The displaced Varia Boss growled.
"Agreed. Independence suits you better than freedom."
Xanxus turned that statement over a few times in his head. It worked well for him. Xanxus had always associated freedom with death.
"What's the deal with Earth Flames? Do you know yet?"
"Kawahira hasn't heard of Earth Flame People but when he was born the tribe and its lore was already much diminished. Verde is investigating using a genetic comparison of a few of the Shimon but he's pretty certain it has to do with the red eyes that the Shimon all have. Some sort of mutation to balance the Sky Flames a certain way to create what the Shimon call Earth Flames."
"I guess I could experiment with my own Flames in that direction. I wouldn't know how accurate it would be in comparison to the Shimon's Earth Flames without seeing how they use theirs." Xanxus replied.
He didn't say, 'I think I could manage Forest Flames with a bit of difficulty.' Same with Desert Flames. He also didn't say that he could probably pull off Glacier or Swamp Flames with a bit more experimentation or at least the effects he was told of. Reports of the Shimon-Vongola conflict weren't something he had studied intensely, just skimmed over really. So he didn't know the details of the Earth Flames and he hadn't bothered to investigate further; Squalo had offered the Varia's services for that conflict but they had an abnormally busy time before and after that crashed ceremony so that information had forgotten about in comparison to more immediate things like killing trash who thought that the Vongola was weak for choosing such an unimpressive heir.
"Verde also expects that your Flames of Wrath are also due to this mutation, possibly due to a recessive in the Ninth's bloodline combined with your mother's blood. You have red eyes too."
That... that was interesting. Verde still believed that Timoteo was his father and probably wasn't going to be enlightened otherwise; Reborn was the most likely candidate to do so but it would impact the Vongola negatively if it was known to the mafia public. While he had long since stopped thinking of Timoteo as a father didn't mean he didn't want to know who his real father was. He wasn't interested in father-son bonding as he had been thoroughly put off the entire need for a father and parental approval in general. He had made himself who he was and all Timoteo did was provide the resources to do so. All he wanted to know was why his father had left him and his mother to suffer; possibly kill him if he was still alive if he did that intentionally.
Dying was one thing, but hadn't the Shimon been part of the Flood of Blood incident that happened a few years after he had been frozen? So if he was related to the Shimon, he had probably been born a bastard that was never mentioned or his father didn't even know he existed. Either way, his father was probably dead and long gone like all of the elders of the Shimon, if he was of the Shimon in the first damn place. Daemon Spade had killed them, the malicious ghost pretending he was CEDEF's Sawada, according to the reports he had read; that had sparked the Shimon's attack at the inheritance ceremony he purposefully missed. Well, all of the Shimon that were left. Supposedly the Shimon had faked their entire Famiglia's death centuries ago and moved to Japan to escape Daemon Spade in the first damn place. It made him wonder if Vongola's Primo had visited them in hiding or something since they were friends and in Japan.
As for how he knew all that crap, if the Vongola didn't want the Varia to know, they should have kept those reports behind tighter security. Vongola business was Xanxus' business, which made it the Varia's business. The Neo-Primo considered the Shimon to be allies, which meant Xanxus needed to know at least some details about them. The Shimon-Vongola conflict reports were more about Daemon Spade's genocidal agenda and Primo's history than descriptive about the Shimon's Earth Flames with only a little about their combat capabilities tossed in. It was practically worthless in that regard, while the Shimon's Decimo hadn't impressed his Officers either during the Representative battle, the fact that the Shimon's Decimo could intentionally remove both his internal and external limiters said it was more motivation issues than lack of ability.
"Ah. How is he explaining Secondo?" Ricardo Vongola had possessed green eyes.
"Possibly as a recessive explaining the lack of Wrath Flames in his descendants, or the gene link between unusual Flames and red eyes hadn't been established yet. The Shimon have lived in relative isolation since Primo's time."
In other words, there'd might have been a bit of inbreeding or some very odd marital bed arrangements if all the surviving Shimon had red eyes. The Sawada-brat was Primo's great-great-great-grandson, so that meant at best all of the current Shimon were fifth or sixth cousins but were probably closer than that at third or fourth cousins. He wondered what their family tree looked like, as a passing thought.
Xanxus frowned at what went unsaid in that all the current Shimon were probably related to its founder, if distantly. Possibly several times over. If that was true, they were more of a Clan than a Famiglia in terms of genetics. Then he thought about Verde.
"Someone is keeping watch over what that scientist is doing right? Verde's an expert but he's also a freelancer. I don't want him trying to create some genetic chimera or selling the information if he's taking samples from the Vongola."
"Bel has taken the precaution of setting up a watch. They're Varia that are qualified to act as assistants to the ex-Acrobaleno, and they really are capable of keeping up with the associated techno-babble as well; Blut, Venin and Toxique are looking forward to assisting on the project for all that they're part of the watch. Sin has been briefed but is uninterested until they actually manage reliable cross-dimensional travel so he can investigate in person. Verde was very interested in my survival because of the Nazi's crude methods but he's not getting paid to look into that, so he's focusing on this project."
"Anything else noteworthy?"
"The Varia have sent you a care package. It has ammo, knives, wire, your crafting tools, your spare pair of boots and other odds and ends they deemed necessary for any extended stay."
That was an interesting turn of phrase there. There was no telling what they had considered necessary. Weapons were obvious, but the boots said at least some clothing had also been shipped over. Tyrant had probably gotten the final say but Tyrant had probably allowed some leeway in terms of necessity.
Wait. His crafting tools? How the? His workshop was actually locked up and secured tighter than his sleeping quarters. When he was in there, no one tried to disturb him. Unless they had Sky Flames and knew exactly how to by-pass the traps it was overkill lethal and utter suicide to try. Even then there was a password and it was changed internally immediately after Xanxus entered. It was even programmed to change after a certain amount of time if he hadn't used it. He randomly rotated through about sixty five of them based on all sorts of strange factors.
In other words, that meant the only two people out of the Varia who could enter his workshop back home were Xanxus and the Tyrant as they were the only two in the Varia with Sky Flames. Tyrant was only allowed to enter because someone had to clean it up and while he kept it workable and organized didn't mean it was pristine either. Tyrant was only informed of the newest password after he had been working in there and it was only good for nine days at max.
"How did you get the password?"
"It hadn't changed since the last time you gave it to me. I only had to remember it." Tyrant informed him dryly.
Xanxus let that statement knock around in his head and came to a disturbing conclusion.
"Is this your way of subtly informing me that not even a week has past in my home dimension?"
Tyrant made a humming noise.
"Explain the cross-dimensional crap in simple terms for me."
Because time travel was headache inducing but cross-dimensional clearly had to be migraine inducing. Then there was the concern of parallel dimensions and assorted shit that would require a couple of diagrams to sort out or something. Understanding everything in cross-dimensional travel clearly was an exercise in futility since everyone was happily making a craptastic mess of everything.
Ladder
Tyrant explained how cross-dimensional transportation worked. If it was possible, Tyrant might have used cartoon-ish figures to explain but you couldn't do that over a phone -den den mushi- call. It wasn't an exact explanation but it worked and continued working. The 'Ladder Theory of Cross-Dimensional Travel' would remain a theory until it was disproved but it seemed unlikely to be proved wrong any time soon.
In essence time in both dimensions ran forward, if at different paces since this world was in the year 1506 and his home dimension was centuries after that. Though considering there'd been no mass conversion to Christianity in this world, comparing the local calendar to the one back home was stupid and pointless as they referenced different events as their starting point. Hell, the current calendar didn't even 'start' when the World Government was created either. That was something to ponder on later and it was interesting, as didn't the Chinese Calendar put the present as the year four thousand six hundred something? It was known that parallel dimensions sometimes ran a little slower or faster than their 'sibling' dimensions -or at least it was inferred thanks to Byakuran's meddling in futures that never would be now- so it was likely that it was the same for completely different dimensions.
The issue in cross-dimensional travel was that there was more resistance to the travel. The ten year bazooka had the five minute time limit for a number of reasons but it generally could be worked around to an extent without complicated timeline-destroying issues. Even so, cross-dimension was a far greater distance that moving up and down the 'ladder of time' for a set period of time after all. Call it an obstacle, a universe's protective membrane or whatever. It made cross-dimensional travel difficult as fuck.
In essence it allowed for a number of time shenanigans, so long as a person could pass through reasonably well enough. It was not an easy process to do right either. A six month margin of error was fucking ridiculous but compared to a decade...
In effect the person doing the cross-dimensional jump was jumping off of one timeline into another one, holding a safety line that would pull them back when they finally wanted to leave. Once across the dimensional gap, they could stay practically indefinitely and return with ease thanks to the safety line. When they got back only five minutes had passed. Enough practice allowed for insertions into other parts of the time line they were from for a limited period of time. Then their safety line would punt them into their correct time without their consent like the bazooka did.
In short, Tyrant had spent maybe five minutes out of his own dimensional time line, even if the retired Boss had spent years here. Then Tyrant spent who knew how long gathering all the experts, and then holding the meeting in Xanxus' own time period since that password would have only been good for four days after his 'accident.' Tyrant then popped back to his native time, only to swing on over to this dimension again, or something like that. It depended on how fucking ridiculous time shenanigans could be with cross-dimensional travel before the dimensions were in trouble of warping or breaking down.
The benefit about that safety line was that Tyrant hadn't really aged while over here. The drawback was that it was harder to recover spent flames over here for them. They had longer recovery times. Not that most needed to use the flames, and detecting flames wouldn't work as they were equipped with a technological version of Mammon Rings.
His personal problem was that he had no 'safety line.' In effect it was like he was a natural citizen over here in terms of time, recovery and the like; they didn't know how he would age, but the fact that his hair had grown as it had, suggested it was acting on this world's time. He also had the issue of finding the correct dimension to return to once it was possible, since unless someone dragged an extra line over or the egg-heads found a way around the single person limit innate in the bazooka's technology to bring him back with them. Unless that happened, he was pretty certain he was stuck unless he wanted to risk running into an alternate dimension, which was possible.
No offense to Byakuran who shared minds with all his alternates, Xanxus knew what that meant: in theory it was disturbingly possible to wind up in an alternate of home where the Varia were all female or a place where Squalo was a sniper and Bel a swordsman or his officers could even not be assassins at all. Either fucking way, it would be strange and it was possible he'd become some sort of aberration like Byakuran's flame-devouring alternate Ghost in the future that wouldn't happen should he land in a dimension where 'he' already was.
Unlike the Acrobaleno who were in essence the same people in any alternate dimension even if they were of a different gender, there was no certainty that the rest of the Vongola would be. It didn't have to be a Vigilante organization turned Mafia Famiglia; it could easily be a famed dance troupe, a sect of mercenary peace-keepers, a pirate crew or gods knew what else.
Either way, he was well and truly stuck here for possibly years on end. A year in comparison was fine. He treated it like an extended mission and vacation at times doing as he wanted for comfort and excitement. Even a few years could have been tolerated... but if only a week went by a year and the Vongola scientists and associated experts had a working prototype to cross dimensions complete with all the tests within the month, that was still four years, maybe even five for him. Tyrant swung back some time before the creation of the prototypes, so maybe two months before they were made. Eight years? A decade? Three months? Fifteen years?
How long would he have to wait? How much would he change? Age? Hell, would the time dilation or whatever the fuck it was between dimensions stay consistent?
"I'll finish listening to your report later. In the mean time, I want an in-depth report down to the minute, complete with opinions and comments written and ready to fax over to a secured line later." Xanxus replied. He was quite proud of how steady he kept his voice.
"Understood, Boss. Take care."
Xanxus took a few breaths in the attempt to calm himself down. It wasn't working. Fuck. He hadn't even been this disturbed when he learned that Timoteo was a lying asshole instead of a caring father who took in his bastard son; when all his dreams would never come true because was just a whore's son and not the Ninth's son. He had his rage and wrath over that betrayal to at least give him a direction and an idea of how to rebuild himself.
He knew he was shaking in agitation and a degree of shock. He knew it was shock. It was a sort of emotional numbness that made even touching a hint of rage impossible. It felt like he was shaking apart so much that even his eyes hurt.
Feeling as if he was going to hurl he placed his palms flat on the ground and moved onto his hands and knees to ground himself as his mind spun and emotions swirled behind a wall of numb raised by shock. Focusing on the unmoving ground he noticed spots of wet sand.
He looked for the rain only to have a cloudless blue sky mock him. He raised the back of his hand to feel his face.
He was crying. Crying! Fuck. Fuck! Fuck! He was crying.
So much for forgetting how to cry. It only took getting his world broken twice to make him cry for the first and only time he could remember. It wasn't that pathetic, he wasn't a wimp or a crybaby. He was strong damnit! He didn't need to cry and despite wiping his eyes on his shirt sleeves he couldn't make himself stop.
Xanxus cried as he broke a second time.
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