T-Bone was, as much as it was possible to be, a man without vices. He did not smoke, did not have any partners male or female, and did not drink.
Except for one night. One night, every year, like clockwork, the Captain would enter the most disreputable, scum-infested bar he could find, order the most potent rotgut available, and drink himself into a silent stupor alone. The fact that he did this while dressed in his Marine whites and armor, and while carrying his sword, was enough to deter most of the criminals who typically infested such places from attempting to take advantage of his inebriation. For those who thought they could take him...they typically learned otherwise.
The smart criminals, though, kept their distance, and not entirely because the only reason someone who would do what he did was because they were someone who was outright looking for a fight. No, the smart criminals kept their distance because, while T-Bone downed bottle after bottle with his right hand, his left was occupied with one simple, repetitive task: spinning a coin on his palm, the metal disk seeming to levitate as it spun slowly.
Nobody did that without some kind of reason, and the ones who did, in the estimate of the clever criminals, were usually the dangerous kind of cracked in the head.
Once T-Bone had gone through enough alcohol to incapacitate a small village, he'd walk back to his quarters, lay down in whatever bunk or ship's cot had been given to him, and sleep until dawn.
That was what he did this night, and this year, as with every year, he dreamed.
"Ma, ma, T-Bone, you're going to get hurt for real if you keep pulling stuff like this," Grigori Von said as he tightened the bandages on T-Bone's hand, covering up the neat rows of stitches. The black-haired physician had a constant, cheery smile, which would have defused the warning if T-Bone hadn't seen the man disembowel an enraged pirate captain with a scalpel and the exact same expression on his face.
"Seriously, though, what on earth made you try to catch a bullet?" Grigori Alexandra asked, the sharp-featured surgeon frowning as she folded her arms and gave him an impressive glare.
T-Bone shrugged, which made Von hiss between his teeth and smack his arm to make him stay still. "That captain was aiming for some of the slaves, and I was trying to throw myself between him and them. Fell a little short, though."
"You and that selfless streak of yours are going to get you killed, one day," Alexandra said. "You've been in and out of here more than anyone else on the Flotilla."
"The Rear Admiral gave me the sword for a reason," T-Bone said, nodding to where Bamboo lay close at hand in its sheath, the ancient double-sided blade sitting ready. "If I do not put myself on the line to preserve others, how can I claim to be Just?"
"Tch. And if you're dead because you insisted on blocking a lethal blow, how're you going to help anyone at all?" Von groused, cheery smile never leaving his face. He flicked T-Bone in the forehead. "C'mon, T-Bone. Next pirate might not be so considerate in aiming away from your pretty face."
"Eh, he's hard-headed enough that it might not do any good if they do shoot him there," Alexandra jibed, smiling sharply. "But I have to agree with my husband. Take better care of yourself, friend. We all know the world isn't going to fix itself."
"Isn't that what we're all here for, though?" T-Bone asked as Von tied off the bandage. "To make things better?"
Alexandra chuckled. "And that's why we keep you around, friend. Wouldn't be the same without you."
"She means you're a good person, and we really aren't," Von translated, before tossing T-Bone a silver coin. "Here. Those stitches will probably dissolve in a couple hours, with your absurd recovery rate. Once they do, I want you to practice with the coin, like so." Pulling out a second coin, he demonstrated how precise flicks of the thumb and careful manipulation of the fingers could set it to spinning, seemingly floating above his palm. "It'll keep your tendons from scarring up wrong. You need a functioning hand to use that fancy sword right, after all."
T-Bone nodded, slipping the coin into a pocket of his coat as he stood and picked up Bamboo in his uninjured hand. "Thank you," he said awkwardly.
Von chuckled. "Don't thank us just yet, we're stopping by home tomorrow to drop off little Vinci at Pa's. And Alex wants to cook while we've got the chance at shore leave."
"Shut up, I'm not that bad. Everyone else just writes the recipes wrong."
"I see," T-Bone said, hiding a smile. "So I should bring something from Pyotr's restaurant, as usual?"
"Smart man."
T-Bone chuckled, and made for the door, before pausing. "Why...are you leaving young Vinci at home? You've kept him on board for plenty of patrols."
The husband and wife paused, exchanging a glance, before Von nodded.
"We've...heard a few things," Alexandra said carefully. "Where we're being sent next. And we don't think it's going to be a safe place for a child."
T-Bone nodded. "I see. Should I be worried, as well?"
"Nah," Von said easily. "Most likely, it'll be a bunch of patrol duty while the big shots get themselves roughed up like idiots like usual. But better safe than sorry, you get me?"
T-Bone smiled slightly. "I understand...friend."
As with every year, T-Bone woke in a cold sweat, memories and specifics slipping out of his mental grasp no matter how much he tried to hold onto the dream.
This year, he sighed heavily, dragging a hand down his ruined features, as he dwelled on how badly he'd failed Alexandra and Von's son.
When Sakazuki - and T-Bone refused to call him anything else - had destroyed the Flotilla, scarred T-Bone in body and soul, he'd nearly given up on living, especially as he'd lain on the hospital bed and heard enough news to know he was the only survivor.
It had been the Vice Admiral who had come in, sat by his bedside, and laid Bamboo on his lap. The blunt-featured, terrifying man, had seemed...worried. Worried for him, and that had been nearly madness to contemplate.
But then the Vice Admiral had begun speaking, and things had changed.
Sakazuki had spoken of the necessities of command. Of how he'd weighed the lives of those in the Flotilla against the knowledge that risked being spread and what could happen, and made the decision nobody else could. Of how a Captain, by the name of Vergo, had provided damning evidence of the Flotilla's plans to not only mutiny, but to downright turn to piracy in support of the Devil Child of Ohara. When T-Bone had gasped out that no such plans had existed, and if they had he would have known of them, Sakazuki had nodded solemnly, and explained that Vergo himself had been taken in by a criminal conspiracy festering on only one of the Flotilla's vessels, and had been overcome with grief at the results of what had happened.
T-Bone had been too wounded to do more than glare at Sakazuki as every fibre of his being boiled with rage, at how the Flotilla had died to a miscommunication, and Sakazuki had accepted that hate with another solemn nod, and begun speaking again. Of what he'd seen, what he'd done, of prices paid and souls sold and why it had been necessary - cruel and hateful and wrong, but necessary - that the Flotilla die at that moment, of how the turning of a fleet renowned for good works would have ripped the oh-so-fragile power of the Marines apart for long years. Of the cruel and cold world that the two of them lived in, and how Sakazuki lived with a life as the monster and hound that kept the wolves away from the flocks of the world's citizenry.
And then he'd pushed Bamboo's hilt into T-Bone's burned and bandaged hands, and given him an order that lasted to this day:
Be better.
And T-Bone had. He'd served. He'd spent years at work. And whenever he could have, he'd been better. Spare the innocent, destroy the guilty. Black and white, none of the shades of grey that dominated the lives of men like Sakazuki and let them judge and weigh the lives of others.
People could be saved and redeemed. People could damn themselves while thinking they were righteous. T-Bone had seen plenty of both, and made his own judgements as to who belonged to which category. He had a feeling that, if not for Sakazuki's eye on him, those in the Government who had believed in shades of grey would have long since made life difficult for him. Certainly there had been enough attempts to send him on missions that seemed designed to make him question his principles.
But he had not. Not until he'd seen Grigori Vinci's face on a bounty poster, read of his crimes and the crew he'd gathered to him, and wept at what had happened to the son of his closest friends, to the boy he'd once told stories to.
He'd hoped that meeting the boy face-to-face would give him a chance to turn him to the light, that his acceptance of Warlord status indicated that, perhaps, he'd seen that Justice mattered, that crookedness could not be abided - but he'd failed, crossed some invisible line when he'd asked why Vinci had made the choices he had, and destroyed any hope of salvaging that once-cheerful child.
He'd tried again with another of the Nightmares, Bertram Lauren, that broken girl who turned the loss of her family and home into nightmares she'd inflicted on the world to dull her own pain...and he'd failed again, doomed before he even started because his appearance had wounded her from the beginning.
Rubeus Jack was a non-starter, as was Gin and the monster-child that followed Lauren around like a murderous cat. Bosque Herman had only stared at him with his solitary eye full of scorn, and asked if Bamboo's hilt burned his hands anew every time he drew it.
And the Butcher Bird...even if T-Bone had been inclined to grant forgiveness to a creature like that (and there were no shades of grey, murder even to eat was murder), he had heard word of how it thought. There was no common cause to be had there, only lines drawn between them.
And so T-Bone lived with his failures. Because he had to. Because, at the end of the day, there was one simple command for him: be better.
The coin spun in his hand, the silver disk long since worn smooth. He placed it in a pouch he had long since sewn into the lining of his Marine mantle, before donning the garment alongside the rest of his clothing and armor. There was a long day ahead, and T-Bone would try to leave the world a better place than the one he'd woken up to.
He had nothing else left.
There were three constants.
First, the number of occupants.
Second, the age of those occupants.
Third, the omnipresent weight of power, saturating the very air around them. It might have been an artifact of political power, the unspoken truth that the occupants of that room could reshape the world with a word in the right ear...or it may have been the presence of the men themselves, too much to be contained by mortal bodies.
No matter the words spoken or the actions taken, in that room high above the rest of the world, those three constants eternally prevailed.
"They are dead, then," the one with the birthmark said.
"Of course," the man with the sword replied. "It appears that our belief that that particular creature had been destroyed was...in error."
"To risk any more vessels is unwise," the thin one said, one hand grooming his impressive mustache and goatee. "We cannot deploy the kind of firepower needed to subdue it without being noticed."
"Then leave it," the youngest said. "The creature will serve to prevent anyone else from reaching that place, which was the goal all along."
"And the one we have in sight? What shall we do with it?" the one with the sword asked. "Leaving it to its own devices is...foolish. It might be leashed for now, but it will chafe at Grigori's restraining it eventually."
"The leash only needs to hold for a few more weeks, weeks it may spend asleep if the latest reports are correct," the scarred man said. "Then, it will be here, and we can fulfill our command."
"And the world of order will grow all the stronger for it," the youngest stated.
"And then the question becomes...what do we do with the other?" the thin man asked.
The one with the sword snorted. "It is recalcitrant and only lives as it does because to subject it to the punishments it deserves would only give it the chance to break free. Once we have something more...cooperative...it is dead weight. And it will be given the treatment all such things are."
The five men nodded as one.
As they willed it, so it would be.
Jabra sat at the crappy little table in the crappy little cafe in the crappy little town, and tried to ignore how much his everything hurt.
That damn cook of all people hit worse than the damn Sea Train, just his luck. Well, at least Jabra had left the bastard a few things to remember him by, including one hell of a gash that'd taken off the abomination to natural law that was that man's swirling eyebrow. Jabra hoped it scarred, just to spare future generations the sight of it.
And, hell, it wasn't like anyone else had come off any better. Not during the fight, and sure as hell not during the aftermath.
Burned. Discarded. Being hunted, because Spandam was ten pounds of shit in a two-pound bag and blamed them for losing to a crew of what, a month or two ago, Jabra would've probably called monsters. He knew a hell of a lot better what real monsters were like, but he had to admit, the Straw Hats came close. Especially their Captain, who had turned out to be far tougher than any sane person would expect.
Jabra suppressed a growl as he pretended to read the morning paper. At least this one didn't feature any puff pieces from the Hunt. Probably because Morgans had gotten bored and wandered off to find another scoop, but if Jabra had had to read another article featuring the damned Butcher Bird trying to incite pity with his sob stories about having 'a serious medical condition that made him eat people' he would've killed someone, so small mercies.
The paper was still shit, though. Stupid fucking articles trying to convince the sheep that the world wasn't going utterly to shit and that everything was fine despite Warlords defecting and pirates burning down Judicial islands and all the other assorted chaos that followed it.
Jabra very carefully did not react as a young woman slid into the chair opposite his. After several moments, he put down his paper. "So you're who they sent," he said neutrally.
"That's right," the young woman said cheerfully. "So, I assume this means you're interested?"
"Some of us," Jabra said quietly. "Others...are less than convinced our methods are suitable for your people."
Gods above, below, and in-between, he hated this part of the job. He preferred tall tales and legends and stories so ridiculous people believed them anyway, not this careful doublespeak. But everyone else was either too weak to make a good showing (Fukuro and Kalifa, Jabra hated both of them), too flamboyant (fucking Kumadori, Jabra hated him too), or too preoccuppied with keeping Lucci from murdering everyone else for even considering the actions they were taking (Kaku...who Jabra currently didn't have it in him to hate, namely because the giraffe bastard had nailed Lucci in the nuts with a Nose Pistol and the sight of his rival's face at that moment had been immensely gratifying). So it fell to him.
The young woman sighed. "And at least one of you is immensely pissed off and is likely to go strikebreaking if you take jobs from us?"
"That about sums it up," Jabra admitted. "But, our concerns…?"
"You'll take commissions, we get a lot of anonymous requests. Big parties and the like, work you're quite suited for if your previous record is any indicator. I hear it's loud work, though. Plenty of exposure, I suppose."
So. They needed a deniable wet-works team. Not assassins, really, more something they could fire and forget. And it'd be work that would put Jabra and his compatriots in the hot seat because of that lack of stealth.
Eh, what the hell, it wasn't like they'd been very good at the 'quiet' part anyway.
Hell, the way it was sounding, it'd be like they never left the government's employ at all.
Jabra smiled thinly. "Well, then. You want to head back to the shop, work out the details?" he offered.
"Of course," the young woman replied. "I'll have the opportunity to convince your coworker to not break from your little union, too."
Jabra stood, sizing the woman up as he did so.
The animal part of his brain went ha ha, nope.
Jabra nodded to the Revolutionary Army agent, smiling genially. "I look forward to it."
The island was a crag of rock in a windswept sea, a mountain of sheer cliffs and scattered spires that was impossible to lay anchor near. Nothing grew on it, and it had no resources to exploit. And then there was the fact of its location, namely, one island of many that was ignored by the chaotic magnetic fields of the Grand Line. Such places were countless, uncharted dregs unmarked on any map save perhaps a few crude charts shared among clusters of neighboring isles. Certainly not noticed by any nation or organization.
Save one, though 'organization' might have required some stretching of the definition. They did not need Log Poses or maps to find this place.
The island was bare, it was cold, it was unapproachable, and it was inhospitable, but such things hadn't mattered to those who had laid claim to it. Tunnels and chambers had been carved into the rock, entrances hidden below the waves with such cunning even such fishmen who were suicidal enough to come here would not have noticed them...and would not have noticed anything else ever again in very short order, for the island had guardians of many sorts, all of them as vicious and grim as the island itself.
Of the chambers, one stood in the exact center of the island, and in the center of that was a table. Perfectly circular, it held space for eight to sit, though only six chairs, three facing three, graced it. In the remaining spots, opposite from one another, were a prison and a throne.
The throne was empty, and always had been.
The prison was occupied, and always had been.
The chairs held occupants as well, which was a rare occurrence indeed. Six things that were far greater and far lesser than men had gathered on this day, which was immensely rarer still. There had been only two prior times all six had been present, and both times had been centered around eras that still echoed into the present day.
"The World Serpent is awake," the one who had the prison immediately to its right said, opening the meeting. The name-that-was-not-a-name echoed. It was a necessity - there were names, and then there were names, and none present wished to invoke the latter. "We can all assume why."
"Because you three decided to let him run wild," the speaker's neighbor said, glaring at its counterpart on the opposite side of the table. "To unearth centuries of preparation on a whim."
"If you think it a whim, King of the Deep Ones," the counterpart responded, "you are mistaken. As are you, First Scolder. Things are coming to a head as never before, and in such times, when the last of our blood finally walks free...we all know what is coming."
"We thought the Immortal Apothecary the last, and after him the Abyssal Angel," the one who sat with the throne to its immediate left cautioned. "What makes the Hungering Wyrm any different? Is the third a guarantee or another indicator of false hope, Destroying King?"
"Ask the Prisoner, then," the one with the throne to its right said, interrupting any retort from its neighbor. "Ask it, Silvertongue, and see what portents it gives us, before you condemn us three."
"If you insist, Morningstar," the one with the prison to its right said wearily. "Hungering Ghost?"
The one with the prison to his left nodded, and produced a few hairs, wrapped tight in wax paper. It turned to the prison.
The prison was a solid cage of metal, welded plates overlapping like scales, only a small grid of bars offering any opening. One hundred and eight nails of ocean stone had been driven into it with no sense of order or purpose, and an equal number of chains covered it.
The one referred to as Hungering Ghost pushed the hairs through, and withdrew its hand before he could lose it permanently. Its flesh steamed and turned black for long moments afterward, as a growl came from the prison.
It subsided, and the six waited eagerly.
Finally, a voice issued forth, clouds of smoke pouring from the bars.
"It is not him."
The Hungering Ghost, The Morningstar, and the Destroying King paled.
"Not yet. Untempered and raw. But he is the last, and he will be the first. His coming shakes free vermin and gutter scum and the demons and devils, he walks alongside children of gold and iron and brass and steel and song. He is slaughter and hate and cleansing flame, toy of gods and breaker of them. He is the bane of heroes and the guardian of the unloved. He is the killer of the uncrowned and the deliverance of the undeserving, and his name is known:
NIDHOGGR."
The smiles of one side were as sharp as knives.
"As are the names of those who will fall," the voice continued in a sibilant, caressing, joyous whisper.
"DAGON. COYOTE. PRETA. LOKI. LUCIFER. APOLLYON. Those who will die for another age."
The voice fell silent, and the smoke ceased.
The six exchanged glances, then, as one, nodded.
"We must make ready, then," the Destroying King said softly. "Things...will no longer be the same." It stood. "We all have our own to watch and to reassure, to give explanation for why one of their own is still breaching our law without swift death following. And it is not yet time for this truth."
"Agreed," the King of the Deep Ones said. "Not yet."
"Agreed," the remaining four echoed.
"And when things change?" the Silvertongue asked. "What then?"
"Then...we unlock the gates of Hell, and see what happens," the Morningstar said, and though their brother was the most impulsive and least thoughtful of them all, none of the six could disagree with that summation.
Six of them, for six seas. They had built the world their people inhabited, through their own blood. And if they had to die so that their people would at last leave the shadows?
So be it.
