Chapter Summary: The JL decide their next course of action. Zoro and Mihawk deal with the reality of their new situation, and make some friends.
"We can't let them go free," Bruce announces flatly to the conference room. Everyone else in the room mutters, opinions conflicting.
After the spar in the HSR, the swordsmen had departed for the cafeteria to eat and then back to the HSR for more sparring. Doctor Fate had made his own leave in the interim, promising to search for alternatives to solve the situation but making no promises. The Justice League opted to have lunch in the conference room as they discussed what their next step should be.
"I don't think anyone was thinking of suggesting that, Batman," Diana notes, her tone dry. "Even if we wanted to, these two men are in a completely foreign world with no documentation and no one else but each other. It would be wrong from a moral and ethical standpoint, let alone a pragmatic one."
"What do you have against these guys, anyway, Bats?" Wally questions, swallowing the last of his latest burger. "They've been pretty cooperative so far. And that Zoro-guy isn't really all that bad."
"You mean other than the fact that they're killers?" Bruce replies harshly, causing Wally to falter slightly.
Diana levels a glare at him in return. "Bruce, many of our allies are killers as well, and more than once, many of us have considered the use of lethal force. I don't see how—"
"They're criminals, Princess."
The room falls silent. Now everyone is staring at Bruce. "That's a serious accusation, Bruce," Clark points out calmly, before a cacophony can erupt. "What proof do you have?"
"You mean other than the video of the conversation they had at breakfast this morning? I also watched a video of their confrontation after their first spar in the HSR, complete with audio. They claim to be pirates."
"Pirates," John repeats, sounding skeptical. "Are you sure?"
"Roronoa outright said that he sailed with the greatest pirate to have ever lived in his world," Bruce answers, silencing any doubters. "Unless he says otherwise, it's safe to assume he is a pirate. And if he is a pirate, it's likely Dracule is as well." Everyone ignores the muffled snort coming from Wally's direction. "Granted, I don't believe Roronoa to be entirely malicious. He claims to have 'crushed tyrants' and 'toppled gods', whatever that means. But Dracule…"
The vigilante trails off, but everyone understands the gist of what he is trying to say. As superheroes, they had all interacted with all manners of people, and through experience were able to instantly discern the general nature of those they met, with a couple of exceptions. These swordsmen, for all their aloofness, were not exceptions in the least.
Despite his coarseness, most of them could tell that Zoro wasn't a bad man. He tried to be indifferent, and for the most part he succeeded, but the excitement on his face when they were traveling to the Watchtower and his conversation with Wally showed that there was some benevolence to him. He had a coolness to him, but they could tell there was underlying warmth there. The fact that he wanted to get back home to help whatever friends he had showed, at the very least, he wasn't completely lacking in empathy.
No, if there was anyone lacking in empathy, it was Mihawk. The man was emotionless, borderline icy, around them. Whatever emotions he did have that weren't some form of irritation or boredom came in brief flashes before quickly disappearing into non-existence. Simply put, the man was cold. Cold to them, to the staff, to everyone around him. Ironically, and rather strangely, the only person present that he seemed willing to show even the slightest, vaguest hint of warmth to was the man who killed him.
In short, Zoro didn't seem like the type to commit crimes without reason, and if they leaned on his growing friendship with Wally, they could have some form of control over him. But Mihawk… that man was unpredictable. Even having Zoro on their side was no guarantee to keep him in line. And that, that made him dangerous.
"We cannot throw them into prison. Even without accounting for the fact that we have no idea how their powers work and whether or not we can even hold them, we have no jurisdiction over any crimes they committed in their world," J'onn reminds them, scarlet eyes glowing. "So, I have yet to see how we are to keep them under our 'control', Bruce."
"We could keep them here at the Watchtower," John suggests, taking a sip of his drink. "Neither of them have ever even seen a plane before yesterday, let alone know how to pilot one. As long as we keep them here, they won't be able to cause any trouble."
"For five years?" Diana asks incredulously, and the Green Lantern winces, conceding the point. "There is no way we could hope to keep them here for that long. They'd go insane."
"Not to mention the fact that we're about to populate this place with like a hundred superheroes in a couple of months," Wally observes, munching on another burger. "People are going to be flying in and out of here at all times of the day. It'd be easy for one of them to sneak onto a Javelin and escape that way if we try to keep them here."
"So trapping them here is out of the question," Clark concludes with finality, giving his best friend a pointed look. Bruce meets his stare with a stony glare. "The question is now — what do we do with them?"
"How about having them join the League?"
Diana barely flinches as every eye in the room lands on her, instead settling her own gaze on Bruce. "Don't tell me you haven't considered the possibility, Bruce."
The man in question sighs. "I have," he admits, "and it is the most logical solution. The only solution, really. But…"
"They are unpredictable," J'onn finishes for him. "There is no guarantee whether or not they'll accept the offer, or whether or not they are willing to… 'play ball', as you say on this planet, even if they do accept."
"They'll accept."
Once again, every eye in the room lands on Diana, who looks startlingly firm and assured of her opinion. "Unlike all of you, I grew up in a warrior culture," she explains, answering their unvoiced queries. "I know the kind of warrior these two men are. Even if we decide not to invite them to the League and settle them down somewhere on Earth until they can go home, they're going to become restless. These two… they live for fighting. And as much as they love fighting each other, eventually it's not going to be enough for them. They'll get into trouble, and either that trouble leads them back to us or leads them to our enemies."
"And what is stopping them from seeking out our enemies anyway?" Bruce shrewdly cuts in.
Diana narrows her eyes. "The fact that we have yet to antagonize them. Up until now, we've been entirely helpful. As long as we remain cordial with them and offer them aid, they have no reason to oppose us. As far as all of us know, we are their best option at returning home; and, until that is possible, their best option is settling into this world while they wait, which we have the resources for. As long as we remain that option, they will not betray us."
The Amazon's words sink into everyone's mind as the room falls silent again. Clark breaks that silence with another sigh, glancing to his right. "Bruce, I understand your paranoia. But right now, they haven't done anything besides getting into fights with each other. The fact of the matter is, we barely know anything about these two and the world they came from. Just because they're criminals in their world doesn't necessarily mean they're bad people."
"And even if they are…" Wally shrugs, and takes another bite out of his burger, "It wouldn't be the first time we've had to reform people like that, right?"
"Hn."
It's the closest to surrender they're going to get, and everyone present knows it. Even so, many of them smile. Getting one over the Batman when he is at his worst is always a cause for celebration.
"So, how do we go about this?" John asks, placing his arms on the table and adopting a serious look.
J'onn hums. "I suggest we refrain from asking them immediately. They are still trying to process the news, and it wouldn't look well if it seems like we are trying to take advantage of their situation."
"For the time being, lets just help them acclimate to our world before making the offer," Diana adds. "That will further our rapport with them, which will make them more susceptible to accepting it when it's finally forwarded."
"Then we'll have you and J'onn handle that, Diana," Clark announces, coming to a decision. "The two of you know best what it's like to adapt from one world to an entirely new one. If anyone can help them adjust, it's you."
"Very well," Diana says, accepting the order. J'onn nods in agreement. "We will need clothing for them to wear, along with money."
"I already have a box set up in your room with outfits appropriate for their respective sizes and a black credit card for use," Bruce tells her.
Everyone gives him another look, which he promptly ignores.
After another afternoon of sparring and a quick shower, Zoro meets Hawk-Eyes for dinner in the cafeteria. It's actually kind of tiring wearing the same clothes constantly, but he has no other outfits to wear; it's not like le Fay brought all their stuff with them when she summoned Mihawk and him here. He supposes he's going to have to buy some new stuff, since he was going to be stuck here for years.
Years. Years. Zoro remembers how much the others had changed, how much he had changed, after their two years of training. He can only imagine how much they would change after five. It makes his heart hurt just thinking about it. How much am I going to miss?
A piercing gaze nails into the side of his head, and Zoro breaks out of his nascent depressive spiral to glance at his dining companion. Mihawk is glaring at him, darkly, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that his Observation Haki had sensed Zoro's ongoing emotional turmoil. Zoro sighs and meets his glare with his own conceding expression, acknowledging the man's silent admonishment and ceasing his own thoughts on their ongoing situation. There is no point in wallowing on what they could not change on their own, after all.
Were Zoro younger, he would not have conceded so easily. He would have claimed that he would find a way back home no matter what, no matter who got in his way, and got into all sorts of trouble in the attempt. But Zoro isn't some snot-nosed rookie from East Blue anymore, or even a Paradise-level brat that's just made it to the end of the first half and thinks he's ready to take on the entire world. He's a New World veteran, one of the strongest pirates to have ever lived, a man who has fought the world time and again.
With experience comes wisdom, and Zoro is no longer so foolish to tackle a task he barely understands, in a world he barely knows. Especially not on his own, not when he's had a crew at his back for well over a decade until now. The simple reality is that, even if he were to try such a thing, he wouldn't know where to even begin. He knows nothing about the method that brought him here, and knows nothing about the world he was brought to. He knows no one here except for a man who is supposed to be dead and is, in part, an enemy. One that he respects greatly, yes, and respects him in return, and one he might even consider an ally in some twisted, convoluted sense, but still an enemy, a rival. He doesn't even know how to get off this Watchtower, outside sneaking a trip off one of those 'plane' things.
Even though he knows in his heart that he is no longer that frog at the bottom of the well, it certainly doesn't stop from feeling like one, here and now. It's a feeling that Zoro wants to get rid of, sorely, if only for the memories it brings.
"We have company."
It is said casually, but Zoro knows it as another admonishment. He glares at the man across from him before glancing at the entrance of the cafeteria, where his own Observation Haki has located the approaching auras. Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter enter the room and make a beeline for them immediately. The swordsman can feel the concern and apprehension pulsating from them, and can only conclude that they are here to discuss the repercussions of the very thing that is causing him so much distress.
"This may seem like a foolish question, but… are you doing alright?" is the first thing that comes out of Wonder Woman's mouth the moment Martian Manhunter and her close their approach. She's directing the question to him specifically.
Zoro narrows his eye ever so slightly, wondering what, exactly, Mihawk had told their hosts about their situation. Even so, he answers truthfully. "Not well, to be honest. But I am… coping."
"Understandable," Martian Manhunter says, tone sympathetic. "I know what it's like to be forced to adapt to a new world, with your old one out of your reach."
His aura fills with loss and sadness, and from that alone tells Zoro that he is speaking the truth. "You do, don't you?" There is no mocking in his voice when Zoro speaks.
"We both do," Wonder Woman replies, and almost unconsciously, she takes one of the seats between Hawk-Eyes and himself. Manhunter takes the other one, and Zoro now knows this is going to be a much longer conversation than he originally assumed. "Would you like to know?"
"Are you comfortable with telling us?" He asks in return. It is an automatic reaction. He has had more than one friend over the years agonizing over discussing their difficult pasts, even if it was necessary to provide some sort of context to the ongoing conflict.
Both superheroes (seriously, he is never going to get used to that) blink at the question, as if not expecting such consideration. Wonder Woman then smiles, as if touched. "It's fine," she tells him. "We've made our peace with what's happened." She glances at her teammate, tilting her head, and Martian Manhunter gives a nod, and they begin.
"Our story begins on my planet Mars, approximately one thousand earth years ago…"
"And they just banished you?" Roronoa sounds incensed. Unsurprising. His crew has always had strong morals for pirates. Mihawk imagines it had something to do with their captain's upbringing — for all his troublemaking, Straw Hat had been raised by Garp the Fist. "But you saved them! So what if you had to bring a few men for help and break a stupid law like that to do it?"
Wonder Woman — "Diana. Please, call me Diana." — gives a soft, appreciative smile. "Flash said the same exact thing when he found out. I understand the anger, but as much as she was my mother, she was also my Queen, and the Queen of our people. She could not bend the rules for anyone. Not even me."
Roronoa scowls. "Then why not just change the law? If she wrote it, she could change it, couldn't she?"
"Roronoa, you and I both know that a leader that cannot stick to their own rules is one that does not deserve to lead at all," Mihawk intones, taking a swirl of his glass of water, sorely wishing it were wine. He's gone far too long without a good merlot, and while he has enough control over his body to not be impeded by such a loss, it irks him all the same.
"But still—everyone would've understood!"
"They would have," Diana concedes, "but it is not that simple. Our laws are not just bound to the foundations of our society and our culture, but also our oaths to the gods. If my mother had done anything to subvert that law, our most sacred law, then she would've brought the wrath of our patron gods upon Themyscira. That is not risk she could take, not even for me."
That statement is met with an even fiercer expression. "Gods," his students spits with venom, "they always have to screw things up, don't they?"
The sole female of the group frowns at that, while J'onn (a literal alien, much to even Mihawk's surprise) raises a nonexistent eyebrow. "I take you don't have the best experiences with gods in your world?"
Roronoa snorts, and his master can only agree with the sentiment. To anyone that does not bear the blood of that world's creators, gods are terrible creatures indeed. "To say the least," Mihawk tersely states, taking a sip of water.
They want to press, he can tell. And, well, there is no harm in parting the information, is there? "Until recently, as I have just learned from Roronoa, our world was ruled by a political and military entity called the World Government, comprising of most of our world's nations. The World Government was created approximately eight hundred years ago, when the first twenty kingdoms came together to form it. Upon its creation, nineteen of the original twenty's royal lines 'ascended', leaving behind their original homelands in the hands of new royal families and moving to their government's new capital, the Holy Land of Mariejois, to rule over the world. They, and their descendants, became known as the Celestial Dragons, or the World Nobles — the 'Gods' of our world."
"Humans calling themselves gods," Diana murmurs, her frown deepening. "That never ends well."
"Indeed," Mihawk concurs, closing his eyes and trying not to think of the atrocities that he had been forced to bear witness to during his own visits to the Holy Land. His decision to abscond from any Warlord meetings aside from a scant few (including the ones he had been forced to attend) were not borne solely out of his general irreverence for the Government. Even he could only take so much of the rot of the world before he choked on it.
"The Celestial Dragons were literally above the law. Any whim they desired was catered to, no matter the strain it put on those beneath them. They murdered people in broad daylight with impunity, enslaved others off the streets even after slavery itself was outlawed by the government that propped them up, and any that defied them were forced to face the full weight of the World Government's wrath." Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Roronoa clutching his gut, no doubt remembering the results of his own first encounters with the rulers of the world he had eventually helped destroy.
His gaze shifts towards his other two companions, taking in their horrified expressions. "They were everything that was wrong with our world. I will never profess to being an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, and neither will Roronoa here, but the rivers of blood we've shed together cannot compare to the oceans that one World Noble alone is responsible for. And all of them together… together, they left our world drowning in crimson."
Mihawk can see the Martian swallow, the woman biting her lip. "I see," Diana says slowly. "I understand why you both are so adverse to the idea of 'gods'. I just have one question."
"Ask it."
"You said 'recently' — does that mean the World Nobles no longer have that immunity?" she asks, with a hint of hope.
He cannot help but be impressed. A kind one, indeed, to care for the people of a world that is not her own. Even Roronoa looks surprised, though the lingering smile on his lips suggests that he too is pleased by her concern. Bleeding hearts like that usually cause Mihawk to scoff, as it is usually born of naïveté, from people who have never known true conflict, of war. But this woman… she has a worldliness to her, and the heart of a warrior. He already knew of that from the tale she had told him from her own lips, and yet it is only now that he can truly see it. She knows of how the world can be, of how people can be, and yet she still clings to her ideals? Such strength is rare in any time or place.
The swordsman takes a gander at the other hero's face, and to see Diana's concern reflected on J'onn's face is, while also pleasing, not necessarily surprising. J'onn's story reeked of conviction from the onset. Guarding the tomb of your enemies for five hundred years to ensure that they could not escape to destroy another world like they had yours? Failing that, and yet still seeking to stop them anyway, to save another world you barely knew? This alien had more heroism in one finger than Mihawk had ever seen in most marines. Something like that, even he could not help but respect.
"Yes," Mihawk answers, "though Roronoa is better fit to answer that, seeing as he is one of the people responsible for what happened."
Two pairs of eyes turn towards Roronoa, who can only blush awkwardly. "It was nothing. My crew and I… we just helped take down the World Government."
Both heroes stare. "You took down the World Government," J'onn states slowly, disbelievingly.
"The most powerful military entity in your world?" Diana adds, looking skeptical. "I understand why you would hate them so, any decent person would, but to take on such a powerful, established force…"
Roronoa shrugs, though his eyes are wistful. "We never had the best relationship with the World Government," he admits. "To be honest, several of our members had every reason in the world to hate them. And our captain… he was the kind of man who would challenge the entire world for the sake of single friend. He did it several times, in fact. And eventually… something happened that he couldn't let go of, that we and several of our allies couldn't let go of, and it just all came to a head." He doesn't say any more than that, and anyone can tell that he won't, even if they press.
The heroes both look contemplative. Mihawk cannot help but look at them both, even as he takes another drink. This world is indeed full of weaklings, but there is strength and conviction to be found here as well.
Maybe staying in this world for a couple of years wouldn't be so bad after all.
Mihawk, above all else, respects strength. And not just physical strength. He respects strength of character, of ideals, of ambition, of determination. That's how Zoro earned his respect, and that's how Diana and J'onn earn his respect here. He can tell they are both strong-willed individuals much like his student and himself, and respects that fully.
But, well, there's a reason that Zoro, who is one of the less-morally inclined members of the Straw Hats, is still a much more moral than Mihawk, even after two years under the man's influence.