Father Figure

A grunt, a dreg, a G5 recruit that no-one gave a shit about—except Vice-Admiral Vergo—had a question for the pirate, Trafalgar Law. The surprise shichibukai. Scum one, scum all.

Just a few hours previously, he and Smo-yan had pulled that huge tub on wheels through the factory, and they all escaped with the ceiling spitting slabs of vengeance and spite. Smoker's expression pinned the man on his left with the same threat, though he hadn't laid a hand on him. How'd he get the ratbag to co-operate?

Both were bruised and scratched.

And maybe a few hours before that, before their final skedaddle to safety, Smoker, Law and Strawhat Luffy had stood, surrounded by the flattened bodies of Casesar's subordinates, near the entrance of the research facility—poisonous gas banking up outside, their colleagues hammering at the shuttered gates, freezing in the deep snow.

The three stood tall up there on the mechanics of Vegapunk's factory. Separator tanks bubbled and gears turned with a whine as the gates opened, ensuring shelter for their frantic comrades.

Smoker was the man. And Captain Tashigi stood right behind him—and the demon child—the light gradually revealing them as the shutters rose.

Then the shichibukai spoke down to them as if he was controlling the lives of navy men, as if he was in control. Longsword over his back, hands stained with shadowy affiliations.

It hurt to hear.

But he'd given them the timeframe in which he—he?—could protect their safety. Provided a route. Surely it would've been beneficial to him if they were all wiped out? If he'd kept his mouth shut. Didn't seem to be his aim.

What was he up to? His reputation was on the grisly side of gruesome. And that was saying a lot. G5 wasn't for sissies.

Smoker and Trafalgar Law supped Blackleg's broth. Steam and breath were indistinguishable in the cold. As snow papered the sky, white dusted the black coat trimmed with the Heart pirates Jolly Roger.

Sure, so close to safety, the pirate had wanted to depart with the kids they'd rescued, with the Strawhats present, with the marines in the room, and those of Caesar's underlings who'd survived. Mugiwara wasn't having it, waiting for the rest of his crew and those they were helping; those who were helping them.

But the grunt could see the sense in saving the majority and mourning the minority. It wasn't selfish. The roof was collapsing, poisonous gas closing in. But the Strawhats had great faith or foolhardiness—he wasn't sure which.

He had been glad to see the navy medical unit as they struggled under the weight of the giant girl they'd helped rescue, making it to the carriage just as another set of doors closed behind them, the toxic fumes released by Caesar hot on their heels.

.

Smoker chewed his cigars and turned them in the corner of his mouth like idling a car at the lights.

G5 scraped and slaved but didn't bow to anyone until they'd earned it or they'd beaten subservience into the scrappy unit. Escape successful, they'd painted a line down the loading bay they'd exited into, waiting for the cyborg and marines to patch up Doflamingo's confiscated tanker.

Law sat on a crate on the side of the criminals, the pirates. Smoker mirrored him on the side of justice, even though the Strawhats and kids and hungry infantrymen circled and cheered and chowed down together, ignoring the line.

Both lifted their bowls one-handed, sipped, and eyed the marine.

"What?" Smoker asked. "Spit it out."

The grunt's boots were tough and worn, his cape warm, loose and cowled. A bucket concealed his hair, the only thing available to cover his head. Once. Then it stuck. And never came off. G5 stencilled onto the steel.

"Wanna ask you—" he pointed at Law, hand shaking, though the might of the World Government was on his side "—a question." That man had put the navy on its side, or its warship, and jumbled the bodies of his friends. Sliced and quartered them like sides of beef, even if they reformed once they left his spooky power.

"Ask," Smoker said.

Black fleece hid half of Trafalgar Law's face. The marine wasn't sure if his eyes were stone, or ready to transform the weak to granite if he glared at them long enough, with enough ill-will.

oOOo

Law had things to do. Baby 5, Buffalo, Caesar. A Flamingo to bait and lure. He shicked Kikoku an edge from her sheath. Zoro's ears pricked, even with tankard in arm, an arm around a navy buddy, and ale guzzling down his muzzle.

The grunt shook but blurted out, "Imposter-Vergo flew away when they announced you'd entered D-block."

Law pushed Kikoku back into the scabbard with a clink and waited.

"What happened to him?"

He looked back up at the marine, ignored Smoker to his right, though the vice-admiral's careful indifference was obvious.

"Imposter-Vergo?"

The shichibukai's tone, that scrape of voice, was a misstep in manners. Who did he think he was? "Vice-Admiral Vergo-sama."

Law's eyes flared, but he let it go. Smoker got the demeaning kun after his name, as if Vergo had sixty years on him and had known him as a child. Maybe he'd trained him as a recruit. The marines demanded Law address any one of their kind politely and fully expected him not to. Scum of the sea.

He sipped the broth again, bare hands used to the biting cold—he grew up with it after all, survived amber lead, Doflamingo and blizzards—not taking his gaze from the man in front of him.

Law was the same age that Cora had been when Doflamingo snuffed out his benefactor's life. Doflamingo at twenty-eight had been two years older and hardly an elder. Law didn't care how many times the Family called him a brat, he'd witnessed firsthand the destruction upstarts wreaked. Had seen rules and deference raze towns to dust.

"Vergo sama is a great man, Smo-yan." The grunt was surprised when Smoker's eyes lit with almost the same burn. Maybe Smoker wanted him to use 'sama' too? But Vice-Admiral Vergo was a real gentleman. It couldn't be denied.

"Tashigi-chan—"

"Captain Tashigi." Smoker held his cigars between his forefinger, middle and ring finger.

The grunt nodded. "She said—she knew—Vergo was like a father to us strays. She said that man with his haki, and bamboo iron, and finger pistol—the one who got her good and smashed her into to the ground..." Here he slapped his palm with the back of his hand. Fake Vergo had haki-punched her clear across the face. The concrete cracked when she fell. "She said the real Vergo would never do that. Never hurt us." Nuh-unh, never-ever-ever.

Vergo had sped through the air like that once before—to save one of his own men when he fell down an embankment in a drunken stupor, two stupid stumbles shy of a freezing lake.

The marine knuckled the metal on his head. Sure got noisy in there. Remembered his friend petrified on the other side of a gate in Caesar's laboratory. The G5 recruits who couldn't afford caps wore cleaning hardware.

Trafalgar Law rested his bowl to the side, cupped that ugly tattooed-hand behind his neck, and pulled it one way, then lifted the other arm to his head, and pulled it the opposite direction. Dropped his shoulders, nodachi always near, stared directly at Smoker. No respect whatsoever. The grunt's fingers curved around the hilt of his machete. He felt the warlord trace his movement even though he wasn't looking his way.

"Made a mistake in returning your heart."

Whatever that meant. "The real Vice-Admiral Vergo is an honourable man who always defends his band of outcasts," the infantryman stated. Conviction the core of his being. "Sir."*

Law knew the courtesy was not for him.

Smoker intended scouring the files on the North Blue pirate when he got the chance. Vergo and Caesar and Doflamingo's sneering words indicated Law's deep ties to that den of thieves, but he'd definitely fallen from grace.

Vergo had shown his true face—true strength and menace to Law many years ago. The Heart captain let Underground secrets spill when they were caged together.

In the SAD manufacturing room, Doflamingo spoke of past beatings, the den den mushi an amused snarl, listing Law's shortcomings, his idiocy in thinking beyond enclosures that kept flunkies safe. Useful.

He praised his swordplay.

Vergo chastised Law—an ungrateful serf who dreamt caste was a role to surpass, not a position ordained. Was all too happy to compress Law's heart to infarction for the smallest infraction.

Tashigi fought bravely, not that Smoker would tell her. They all collected bruises, but Vergo was a threshing machine. Subordinate, superior, equal, child, enemy—all fell to his determination to safeguard subterfuge, to not disappoint his employer. To complete the mission at all costs.

In which bed did Law's loyalty lie?

He wondered why he'd never informed them about the turncoat. In some way. After all, the next step for Law was Green Bit. The source, the youngest shichibukai himself. The intel stated clearly to Smoker. But pirates lie. Only a fool trusted their utterances. Especially Law. Nothing straightforward about the guy.

oOOo

Pirate Cora or marine? Which was the false Cora-san? The false Corazon? Law clung to the childhood title because, even though he'd got to know the man away from the role, neither had the chance to properly reinvent themselves outside their Family positions, to present themselves as they truly were to the other. To come to terms with death and survival. Rebirth.

Law was a doctor now. What do you think of that, Cora-san? He'd end Doflamingo—or Kaido would—and imposter-Vergo-san had been stopped dead in his tracks. Yeah. Imposter was a good definition for the Bamboo Demon. Rang true.

.

"Fake Vergo went up in smoke with the factory. I sliced him and hung his body parts on pikes like a carcass cut, salted and hung to dry. He sang Joker's praises until the end."

The shichibukai described murder as if it pegging socks to the line. A mundane task. "Joker?"

"Doflamingo," Smoker spat. Law glanced up at the clouds, wiped a speck of snow from his eye.

"The real Vice-Admiral's safe, then?" the man smiled easily. Happily. G5 were worth something to such a refined man. They'd see him again, be under his protection.

Law shrugged, stood and cut across the snow while it lay powdered and fresh. There were kinder ways to understand that everything wasn't what it seemed than being an onlooker—a survivor—of genocide and fratricide, but fodder didn't need to think.

If contempt was all that was known, a kind word—like air spread from the flap of a harpy's wings—resounded. Gratitude ran deep, servility was an honour, a vision shared was purpose to live. To die.

The marine eyed the mouthful of soup left in the bowl on the crate and dove for it, stopped himself, then dove again once Smoker waved his hand, a flick of approval.

oOOo

Frozen from the Arctic waters, bruised from fighting the Straw Hats, the fruit users sick with sea water and stone, Caesar, Baby 5, and Buffalo were wrapped in sacks and blankets. The noise of the banquet filled the air now that Shinokuni's fumes had blown away. Law guessed he had Buffalo to thank.

Law easily decapitated the panicked propeller boy and blade girl with the use of his devil's fruit, Caesar gibbering, though they knew they'd reassemble if their body parts were left in the same region. Shame that wasn't the case.

The lifeboat from the tanker, the Family's Jolly Roger fluttering overhead, reminded him of the skip he and Cora took across the waters seeking a cure for his illness. Growing sicker and sicker and sicker, and not from the rough seas.

It was impossible to offer physical solace when your body lay headless in the snow, and an adversary (who used to be your brother) strapped you to a raft. Baby 5 and Buffalo babbled and Buffalo comforted the woman with his words. Law's pointed stare reduced her to tears. Buffalo soothed and scolded, then asked for an increase to the loan she'd promised him for the casino. She agreed in a quick rush, all the while letting Law know exactly how the young master would destroy him. Their confidence in Doflamingo was unshakeable.

Vergo was like a father to G5. Their father, their imposter-traitor, had accelerated Cora-san's demise. Law knew he had a father. Knew well. Cora-san had reminded him. About his mother too. But, without that prompt, without Cora's headlong and reckless heart, would he have returned to himself, or still be serving Doflamingo blindly? Content so long as his purpose was defined and valued? A cow grazing a field of clover, unaware of bloat.

Tightening the chains around Baby 5 and Buffalo, he set the timer and lit a fuse for the explosives in a bucket on the floor of the raft. The den den really hadn't done anything to be left in such distasteful company, but what needed doing needed to be done. He missed the bowler the snail sported, his old style, but the cap he wore now cut the ocean glare.

What had Buffalo and Baby 5 felt when they learnt of Cora's betrayal, his death in the snow? Saved them a few beatings. How had they spoken to Vergo? If they saw the first Corazon now, what greetings would they use?

The world government needed fodder. The expendable. Pirate crews, Revolutionaries, the Underworld—sought the same. Fodder needed ideals. Let G5 have their father, even if Law couldn't have his own.

Knowledge, held and withheld, usually worked in his favour.

A/N: The upper echelons would have to be informed of Vergo's betrayal, and I've touched upon the guilt Sengoku must have felt in sending Vergo to Swallow Island (if Law ever expanded upon his and Cora's story with him) in other work.

But I always found it really unfair that Tashigi (at least) kept Vergo's pristine reputation intact to salve the egos and psyches of G5, while those who'd long been victims to his tactics continued to be vilified, or in the case of the families, left without an honest explanation.

Probably her words were words for the moment to make sure G5 made it out of Caesar's labs, but I don't think we've got any new info on how the marines reported his treason. Correct me if I'm wrong. Just leave a note in the comments. I'll have a Law/Tashigi conversation at some point. That's a future fic.

* This is a paraphrase from the English translation manga.

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