Ch. 115 - How to Plan an Assassination
Nana sank into the white leather couch and crossed her legs. Beside her, Sanji moved his arm behind her head, across the back of the couch, and pulled her closer to him. As she nestled to his side, Pygmy licked his lips and reset his head on her lap with a contented sigh. Her hand went up to absently scratch the back of his ears while she turned to survey the room.
The black grandfather clock at the end of the room struck 5:30 AM. It's loud ticking was the only sound in the room. They were all waiting for the infamous Bege to make his entrance. The seating area was two U-shaped couches pushed together to surround a glass coffee table that was set with plates of cookies and pots of tea. The Straw Hats and their friends sat on one couch while Bege's crew sat on the other. Around the room, in front of the built in bookshelves and the walls littered with lavish oil paintings in gilded frames, stood Bege's men, who had their rifles trained on only one side of the room.
Luffy sat at the center of their couch with his arms folded across his red suit. They were all granted access to a lavish wardrobe. Apparently, not only did Bege demand cleanliness for his meetings, he also demanded a certain look.
Nana, herself, had her corset tightened over a white, collared button up. The sleeves were rolled past her elbows. She wore a tight, black and white pinstripe trousers and a red tie. She had a blazer, matching her pants, draped over her shoulders. Her hair was slicked back, still damp from the bath.
"Tea, Nana? Nami-san? Ladies?" Sanji asked coolly as he leaned forward in his seat. He had chosen to keep it simple with a ruffled, white button up with the first several buttons left open and black trousers. He ashed his cigarette and looked to each of the females. Each of them shook their head no save for Brulee and Pudding, who were tied up in the corner and glaring at everyone.
The door opened and the lord of the manor strode into the room.
"Yosh. Everyone's here, right?" Bege asked. He stared at his guests for a second and then approached the table, "Good. You're all clean. It's said 'Clothes make the man'. I won't do business with anyone who doesn't care about their appearance."
No one replied, which didn't seem to faze Bege. He sat down and took a deep puff from his cigar. "Now...we have about three and half hours to go. We have some decisions to make. First...whether or not we join forces…"
"Hrmmmm…" Luffy said as he sat forward in his seat and stretched out his hand.
Immediately, the sounds of weapons readying to fire echoed through the room and Nana sat a bit straighter in her seat. Sanji wordlessly moved his hand to her knee, giving it a reassuring pat, while he kept his eyes glued on Bege.
Luffy grabbed a fistful of cookies from the nearest plate and he crammed them in his mouth.
"Eh?" Chopper gasped as he mimicked his captain's actions and he smiled, "This is delicious!"
"Oy! You two! Restrain yourselves!" Nami scolded.
"Hrmph," Bege scoffed, "You guys are nothing but a nuisance to us. Killing all of you right here is the easiest solution."
Everyone on Luffy's couch tensed considerably with Nami and Brook's open mouthed expression the most visible. Even Pygmy's head lifted and he growled at the leader of the Fire Tank pirates. Sanji gave Nana's knee a squeeze before he took over and started to scratch Pygmy's head to calm him.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked calmly, "If I die, you'll lose your chance to kill Big Mom...Without me, there'll be no wedding. If I'm not back at that castle in two hours, they'll be suspicious."
"...Ah," Bege conceded. Both men eyed each other through the smoke rising from their vices, "Unfortunately, you're right...But that just means we can kill everyone else except you."
"You and what army?" Nana scoffed.
"Don't take us lightly," Nami warned.
"We're not going to make a misstep like we did in Zou," Brook added.
"We don't have time to intimidate one another," Jinbei advised and he looked sternly at Luffy, "Does your gut tell you that you can team up with them?"
Luffy gulped down his mouthful of cookies and his eyes roamed the people sitting across from him. The ones who were not his nakama. There was that long-tongued, rero guy. A large egg head with sunglasses. Bege. The woman who looked like Lola but wasn't Lola. Small Bege...and…
His eyes narrowed at the pale, purple haired man who sat at the border of the two groups, next to Pedro. Luffy frowned.
That man looked familiar…and he was starting to sweat…
Luffy knew that pained expression.
"AH! CAESAR!" Luffy exclaimed, "When did you get here?!"
"What?! Caesar?! Where?!" Chopper cried while Nana put a palm over her eyes.
"You...just noticed that now?" she sighed.
"He was here the whole time…" Sanji muttered and took a deep drag of his cigarette, "Do you know how hard it's been for me to just sit here quietly and not do anything to him? Every time I think about what his drug put Nana through…"
"But I'm fine now," Nana said but then Sanji gave a telling look at the bandaid right below her elbow that covered up the injection site of her most recent sedative dosage. Nana rolled her eyes, "Fine. I'm not completely out of the woods yet...But you guys practically travelled here together. You and Caesar should be fine now, right?"
Caesar gulped. "C-Caesar? No, I am Bege's sworn brother…'Gangster' Gastino! Shirorororo!"
"What kind of minimal effort bullshit…" Nana gasped.
"He didn't even bother to change his laugh," Sanji said while Luffy sat back down in his seat.
"Oh, you're not him? Sorry."
"No! You were right the first time! He's obviously Caesar!" Nami lectured.
"WHAT?!" Luffy yelled. He jumped right over the coffee table and got into Caesar's face, "So it is you! Why are you here?!"
"You think I'm here because I wanted to be? You idiot!" Caesar snapped back, "Because of you fools, I was handed over to Big Mom and now he has my heart. I've been pushed around from the get go! Tell Trafalgar Law that I'll kill him when I see him again! I'll kill you guys too when I get the chance!"
"Cut it out! Your argument is dull," Bege said as he gave Caesar's contained heart a squeeze, "And a waste of time."
"GYAAAAAA!" Caesar shrieked. He toppled over the couch and rolled around on the floor clutching his heart.
"Back to the issue at hand," Bege sighed as he tucked the heart back into his inner jacket pocket and laced his jewel-ringed fingers together, "Now then, Straw Hat...Do you want to join hands or not?"
Luffy returned to his seat. With every passing second that he stared at Bege, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper until it practically became one with the bridge of his nose. He balled his hand into a fist and he shook it at Bege. "Only if you let me punch you for shooting Pekoms!"
"Eh?!" The Fire Tank Pirates murmured.
Thunk!
Luffy's sandalled feet hit the coffee table hard as he stood on top of it and drew back his fist. "Ikuzoooo!"
Clank! Thud!
A porcelain saucer broke in half and knocked the barrel of a machine gun away from Luffy's head. The bald man with a purple beard, who was wielding the gun, glared at Nana while Jinbei's open palm intercepted Luffy's fist just inches away from Bege's face.
"Stop it!" Jinbei said as the safety clicked off from all the guns around the room, "Pull back your fist, Luffy. Everyone, stand down! We can't come to an agreement like this!"
"But he shot my friend!" Luffy shouted.
"No one takes that tone with Father!" The bald man exclaimed as he redirected his gun back at Luffy's face.
"You wanna dance, Humpty Dumpty?!" Nana seethed. She leapt to her feet with a teaspoon in hand just as Sanji got to his and held her back while the long tongued Vito intercepted his own crewmate.
"Stop it, Gotti!" Vito hissed.
"Nana, why the hell are you getting involved in this?!" Nami asked incredulously.
"Because I want to punch the whole lot of them!" Nana exclaimed, "They're the ones who took Sanji away in the first place...AND if I can't punch Bege at least let me get one on this guy and his shoddy gun!"
"Sh-Shoddy?!" Gotti gasped, "I'll have you know this gun is state of the art! We smuggled a whole crate of it from-"
"You can tell by the way it rattles that it was poorly made," Nana snapped, "Even a church bell in the middle of a hurricane would make less noise than that."
"Nana..." Sanji said under his breath. It took a second or two before she tore her attention away from Gotti and looked at the cook. One of his brow and the corner of his mouth twitched upward. "Spoon?"
Thwack!
The spoon came shooting out of the mechanic's hand and it hit Gotti right at the center of his big, shiny forehead. His head snapped back from the force and fell onto the couch as Nana smirked. "It's how you crack an egg right?"
"You little bitch...You want to fight?!" Gotti roared.
"DID I FUCKING STUTTER?!" Nana exclaimed, launching herself at him and finding no resistance from the cook, who was in fact joining her in the brawl.
"Who the hell are you calling a little bitch? I'll boil your head and serve it to the Sea Kings!" Sanji snarled as he landed a kick to Gotti's chest while Nana wrestled the gun out of Gotti's hands.
"AHHH!" Luffy roared from next to them as he tried to pummel Bege, who blocked it all with Caesar's heart.
"Gyaaa! LEAVE ME ALONNNNEEE!" Caesar moaned.
Nami buried her face in her hands as Chopper, Pygmy, and Carrot exchanged helpless looks.
"What a mess…" Brook said as he took a sip of his tea.
"Do you like Big Mom?" Jinbei demanded over the noise.
"No way!" Caesar, Luffy, Sanji, and Bege answered immediately, while Nana took that moment to slam the barrel of the gun over her thigh, bending the metal.
"That means you're on the same side," Jinbei said, "Even if you don't share the same lifestyle or goal, you have the same enemy to beat. You can kill each other later, but if you join hands now, it'll be in everyone's favor."
With a heavy silence, everyone returned to their seats and composed themselves. Once they were settled in, Bege spoke.
"I have the perfect plan," he said with a malicious grin, "A plan to assassinate Big Mom at the Tea Party but I'll need your cooperation...Well, 'Black Leg' Sanji's to be exact."
"And I'm going to guess that you have some sort of poison gas weapon to use on Big Mom," Nana said slowly, leaning forward in her seat and eyeing the bad scientist, "Which is why Caeshit is here?"
"Gastino!" Caesar snapped.
"His stupid involvement aside," Sanji said, putting his hand back on Nana's leg, "I have no interest in taking part in the assassination of Big Mom. Taking a life goes against the principle of the love of my life. If you want my cooperation, you'll need to defer to her."
Everyone looked at Nana with shocked expressions. She, too, wore one. "S...Sanji?"
Sanji used his free hand to take out his cigarette and he let out a steady stream. "You were destroyed when you thought the G5 men back at Punk Hazard died because of the poison gas. I won't put you through that again. Even if the death is someone like Big Mom, it'll hurt you. I know it."
Nana sucked in a breath and then she covered his hand with hers. She smiled grimly at him. "I don't think we have a choice. Besides...Caesar couldn't even kill those men back there. You think he could take down a Yonko?"
"OY! I-" Caesar started to sputter but he was interrupted by Jinbei.
"That is a good point. Big Mom will not be the type to be taken down by something like a cannon or gun and if you intend to assassinate her, you would need to do it in one swift blow. Otherwise, an actual fight would not be in any of our favors. She is strong as she is ruthless. We are talking about someone who even killed her own son for sweets."
Chopper, Nami, and Carrot gulped.
Bege sat back and laid out his entire plan. He let Caesar explain, a little too enthusisatically for Nana's liking, the KX Launcher and the deadly poisonous gas it contained. They were to launch the gas at Big Mom after a pressure picture of a woman named Mother Carmel was to be broken at the tea party. Apparently, the picture had been jostled before and it left Big Mom so distraught that she let out a terrifying shriek. It paralyzed everyone for at least 5 seconds and also made several of them collapse. At the same time, she had gotten injured when she collapsed to the ground and scraped her knee. It was the only chance for the KX Launcher to penetrate her tough skin.
"If just breaking a picture would create such a big mess," Luffy laughed when Bege's men started to hand out earplugs for all of them to wear the day of the Tea Party, "We gotta save Sanji's family at that moment too."
Bege glowered. "Oy. Don't act like we'll be doing all the heavy lifty and you guys will be free to do whatever you want. After breaking the picture, it'll take about three seconds before Mama will have her panic attack. If you're surrounded by the angry Big Mom Pirate before it gets messy, it'll be miraculous for you to stay alive for three seconds."
"Why are you acting like Luffy is breaking the picture?" Nana demanded.
"Because he will be," Bege replied.
Both Nana, Nami, and Chiffon started yelling at the same time.
"Why the fuck isn't one of your expendable douchebags doing it?!"
"Wait a minute! That means Luffy is going to be bait!"
"Bege! Nami and her friends saved Lola! How could you ask him to take on such a dangerous role?"
They were silenced by the last person they thought would speak up.
"Okay," Luffy grinned, "I'll do it."
"WHAT?!" his nakama shrieked.
"Shishishishi. I just came up with an awesome way to show up at the scene!"
Chopper looked at his captain excitedly. "Really? What is it?"
Luffy folded his arms across his chest and smiled. "Can't tell you. It'll be a surprise but it's going to be really fun!"
Nana put a hand to her face. "Fine," she sighed, "Then I'll come with Luffy too as back-up in-"
"No," Bege said sharply, "I will need you, Mizu Nana, to be a distraction for the rest of the family during the three seconds."
Sanji's head turned sharply. "What?!"
"Mizu Nana has become the current public enemy number two to the Big Mom Pirates. Number one being Straw Hat," Bege said, "For destroying the Germa 66 fleet."
"You did what?!" Nami, Brook, Chopper, and Carrot shrieked while Nana gave a slight shrug.
"So? Don't they want to destroy Germa 66 anyways?" Sanji asked.
Bege nodded. "Yes but they wanted the technology for cloning and Mizu Nana…"
He let his voice trail off. There was no need to finish the sentence. Everyone in the room was quite aware of what Nana was capable of.
"I left everyone alive," Nana sniffed as she checked her nail beds, "I'm sure some of the scientists will be able to piece together some of the science…"
"Well, because of your actions, the Big Mom Pirates are on the look-out for you just as much as Straw Hat so on the day of the Tea Party, I want you to come out at the same time as Straw Hat so that everyone's attention...and their weapons...will be on you, giving him a slight opening to come out," Bege said.
"No need," Luffy laughed, "Like I said, I have a great idea to come out. Nana doesn't need to show herself for that."
"But-"
The smile left Luffy's face and he looked at Bege in a rare moment of fierce intensity. "I promised Nana when she joined that there will be no killing not by her hands so Nana stays out."
"Luffy," Nana whispered as the two captains glowered at each other. Bege was practically chomping the end of his cigar.
"Fine…" he said after a long while, "Then we need to decide on what your signal will be. I had initially hoped that it would be when the bride and groom are up at the altar, since that should draw everyone's attention...but…"
He looked to Pudding, who was exuding utmost fury with every fiber of her being.
"Like I would help you in any way. I hope you fail and you all die! DIE!" she shrieked.
"Pudding," Chiffon started to coax but Pudding just directed her anger at her sister.
"You are a traitor! How can you plot to go against our family?" Pudding spat, "You are disgusting. You are just like Lola! You two-"
"Wahhhh!"
The baby in Chiffon's arms let out a wail but Chiffon was not in the mood to soothe. She handed the baby back to Bege. "Please take care of Pez," she said softly and then walked over straight to Pudding.
"What we have is not a family, Pudding," Chiffon said in a calm but firm voice, "This...Pez...Bege, they are my family took me awhile to figure it out but this past year with Bege...has been the happiest I have ever felt. Bege and everyone here...They don't laugh at me. They don't say I'm ugly or that I'm a love me and accept me no matter what. I have found my happiness and Lola left to go find hers."
"Madam!" the Fire Tank Pirates sobbed in gratitude while a warm smile spread on Bege's face. It was odd and looked unpracticed.
"If I could escape Mama without killing her, I would," Chiffon said, "But...there is no other way and I'm asking you, sister to sister...as people who have both experienced our share of bullying and Mama's warped definition of love...to please help us. It'll give you a chance to find your happiness too."
"I am happy!" Pudding screamed, "How dare you even suggest I'm not. I am Charlotte Pudding, beloved daughter of Big Mom. I am-"
"Then why haven't you taken up the position of Minister of Chocolate?" Chiffon asked and then Pudding fell into silence. Tears started to flood all three of her eyes and Chiffon gave a small smile, "I miss her too, Pudding. I know how kind she was to you when you wanted to learn how to make chocolate and how sad you were when she left. She was the bravest out of the three of us."
"I...I…" Pudding stammered and then she choked out a sob when Chiffon wrapped her arms around Pudding and gave her a long hug.
"Aren't you tired of hiding who you really are?" Chiffon asked, "A real family doesn't do that, Pudding. A real family will love and accept you no matter what."
Pudding's eyes narrowed. "You are just trying to sweet talk me into joining you! All of you just want me to participate in your little plan and use me like a pawn! I'm just-"
"No, Pudding-chan!" Sanji shouted as he got to his feet and glared at Bege, "Bege! I will not have her used like this against her own family. No matter what is going on in their family, that is a line I will not cross. If you put Pudding-chan at that altar, I will not show up, Bege."
"S...Sanji...san?" Pudding whispered.
Sanji looked to her and he smiled sadly at her. "I will never put you in unnecessary danger, Pudding-chan. Trust me."
Bege shifted angrily in his seat. "Now, listen here, 'Black Foot'-"
"It's already a risky plan," Nana interrupted, watching Sanji warily but not budging from her seat, "What's another risk? Besides, if they figure out it's a fake Pudding, that'll just be a bonus distraction and Luffy can go out while everyone is trying to get her. If they don't figure it out, Carrot just has to remain silent and let Sanji do all the talking. When the time comes for him to kiss her, or whatever, she'll take out a gun and shoot him in the face. Can you do that, Carrot?"
Everyone gasped, except for Sanji, who looked curiously at her and Nana snorted. "What? Sanji can easily dodge it and I'll give you blanks to load the gun with just in case."
"Ah. And that'll be my signal to make my big entrance!" Luffy laughed.
"Right and then when it's all said and done, I'll grab Brulee, that wall mirror over there, and then fly you guys out," Nana said.
Bege's cigar dropped right out of his mouth and landed on the carpet. "That is...the escape plan I had in mind but with Caesar holding the mirror. How did you-"
"I wouldn't trust him holding even a pencil," Nana shot back, "No. I'll carry the mirror and make sure all my nakama are safe first. Then I'll come for you and your men. Luffy's the first one into the fray so you're going to be the last one out. It's only fair."
Bege picked up his cigar and he glared at her. "Why you…"
"Deal," Chiffon said and she smiled at her bewildered husband, "They saved Lola, honey. It's the least we could do."