Chapter Three - Big Deals
They had arranged themselves on deck in perfect, symmetrical lines - every man deemed nonessential to ship's operations had a place to be in, and every man was in his place.
...Except for the leader of Squad A, that is, who was leaning uncomfortably against the railing of the upper deck, looking down at the formation. Few understood why he was up there instead of at the head of his combat group, but this was not the sort of boat where questions were asked of superior officers lightly.
It was four-thirty in the morning. The sun had yet to rise, the salt-air was chilling, and few of them had gotten a good night's sleep, but they were alert and undeterred. Men who weren't didn't last long on their boat. Here, you never knew when you would be treated to a surprise inspection or impromptu training session.
These were not just any old Marines.
The man on the upper deck cleared his throat, "Alright, people. We have a situation."
One of the other squad leaders decided to ask the question that was on everyone else's minds, and get this over with. It wasn't like Sergeant Brewer was Lieutenant Tashigi, or the Captain (which was weird in and of itself) - they were equals.
"What are you doing up there, Bru? Where's Lieutenant Tashigi?" called Sergeant Zhou, who led Squad D. Sergeant Schulze from B was giving him a reproving look. Schulze could bite him.
"That's the situation," Brewer cleared his throat again, clearly uncomfortable. Really, why didn't they just keep the man in supplies where he belonged? "Lieutenant Tashigi has gone missing."
Suddenly, the Marines looked alot less like lined-up toy soldiers, and alot more like very large, very angry combat professionals. Zhou could feel the tension simmering in the air.
If someone had messed with the Lieutenant, he was going to get his ass kicked from here to Headquarters. That was not a prediction, nor a threat. That was a fact. Spend a few months isolated at sea with your commanders, and you either grew to hate them, or get very, very attached.
"I have received orders from the Captain," Brewer soldiered on. "Until this thing is resolved I am to work as Acting Sergeant-Major. Squad leaders are to disperse into Nanohana and systematically search for any and all clues as to the Lieutenant's whereabouts. My men will cover the west, Squad B will cover the north, C the east, and D the south. Any questions?"
"What sort of searching are we talking about here?" said Schulze
Brewer responded with a shark-like grin, "We're authorized to retrieve information by any means necessary."
There were thousands of men in the East Blue Marines Corps, and each and every one had his or her own personal fears. Nevertheless, most agreed that there were only three fates a Marine might meet which were arguably worse than death.
The first, of course, was capture by pirates. Pirates with a bound Marine were like children with an ant and a magnifying glass. They'd tear his legs off and then burn him alive, just to watch him sizzle.
The second was hitting a calm belt, and running out of food and fresh water days away from land. They usually ate the new recruits first.
And the third? The third was being assigned to serve under Captain Smoker.
The reasons for this were many and manifest. Captain Smoker's men were beaten, bruised, abused, and more used to ludicrously dangerous situations than anyone outside of Special Ops could ever hope to admit. In Loguetown the worst of the worst had come to them, and now that they were out of Loguetown they went after the worst of the worst.
They were sad-assed bastards who were frequently and painfully thrashed during 'training sessions' by a scrawny girl who looked like a blind librarian at a luau.
They were the few, the proud, and the trodden-upon who were subject daily to the whims of a man whose fight reflex had beaten his flight reflex over the head with a rock until it died, and who therefore did not know the meaning of either "retreat" or "insurmountable odds."
Their hazing rituals were legendary, and their dropout rate moreso.
The net result of this?
Nobody fucked with Captain Smoker's crew.
NOBODY.
"Dismissed!"
"SIR! YES SIR!"
***
"This is all your fault!" Hina whipped into his office, slammed the door shut, and gestured with her cigarette like it was a rapier.
Now, Smoker didn't know much about women beyond basic reported intelligence. They liked: dead plants, dead animal skin, shiny stuff, inadequate light at dinner, and "feelings." That was why he was so glad that most of the women he met were not, in fact, full-time capital-W Women, but Bar Wenches and female Marines. Smoker regarded "relationships" with the same combination of contempt and dread that he had felt during his days as a Warrant Officer when he met his first Armed Sea. He could respect their power. He was forced by circumstance to accept their existence. But all of his instincts screamed that no good could come of them.
So. Smoker did not know women.
That being said, Smoker did know Hina, and because he knew Hina he understood instinctively that interrupting whatever insane tirade she had in store for him would only make this whole thing even more of a pain in the ass.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Hina distressed! Hina frustrated! Hina... ENRAGED! Your insensitivity has ruined everything, and I'M going to be responsible for it. And I bet you're happy, aren't you? Aren't you? You're happy that this ceremony is going to be ruined," Hina clenched the cigarette between her teeth, like a Doberman with a chew toy. Then she slammed her fist into his desk with enough force to set his pens rattling. "Well I'm happy for you Smoker. I really am. Great fucking job. Your men have been out there for two hours and so far they've got jack-all. And that girl isn't exactly hard to spot in a crowd, so that means she's either out of the city, or she doesn't want to be found. What am I supposed to do when Nefertari Vivi shows up and half of her reason for being here is missing? Put Fullbody in a dress and hope for the best!? If you could keep your big mouth SHUT then none of this would be happening!"
Smoker sympathized, fleetingly, with Roronoa Zoro.
Then he killed that thought, and took a shot of whiskey to disinfect his brain for good measure.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Smoke deadpanned, annoyed. Then he leaned back and put his feet up on the desk. Tactical analysis suggested that this this front wasn't about to get any more pleasant any time soon, so he might as well get comfortable.
Hina sucked on her nicotine, took a moment to pull herself together, and retreated back from enraged to her usual sardonic. Smoker was relieved. Hina was a Marine. Now she would be reasonable.
"I'm talking about bitching out your subordinate and causing her to run off to hell knows where," Hina rolled her eyes, and then sighed. "You always break your help at the most inconvenient times. That poor girl, it's no wonder that she cracked from the stress. I told you I sympathized with her problems."
"I do NOT 'bitch.' Telling her not to be weak and go into stupid-ass histrionics every time she gets pushed on the playground was good advice," Smoker frowned, offended. Clearly reason was too much to ask for that this point. Maybe it was part of some kind of bizarre female pact of which he had been blissfully unaware. Hell if he knew.
...
"And I don't break my help, either."
An eyebrow raised, "Since when?"
"It's not my fault if the dumbasses they graduate from Officer Candidate School these days are weaklings and fuckwits," Smoker protested, his frown deepening. "And I'm not putting up with it under my command. If they can't shape up it's better they ship out."
"So you wanted her gone? Is that it? If you'd told me I would have traded you for Jango," Hina's smirked sarcastically. Smoker wasn't going to dignify that last bit with a response.
"Actually," he paused, "...I figured she'd stay."
He guessed that those dipshits at the OCS weren't the only ones with shitty character judgment.
***
"What do you mean by 'fairy godfather?"
"I mean that I can give you power. You want them to respect you, don't you?"
"...I don't know what you're talking about."
"Hah! Of course you do. That's what you want from Roronoa, isn't it? That's what's got your panties in a knot about him. No one respects you for who you are; least of all him. And no one will respect you until you get stronger. No matter what you do, you'll always just be some kitten with a knife trying to play around with the big cats. Doesn't that bother you?"
"...."
"Yeah. Sure it does. But you can become someone that they would have reason to respect. I can help you do that."
"How? And ...why would you want to help me? It's like you said. I'm no big deal, right?"
"The why is the ten million bellies you're going to pay me. But the how? Here. Open the box. The how... is this."
***
Every fifteen minutes, they hit a new shitty pirate bar. This wasn't exactly the first area that Sergeant Schulze - or any right-thinking person, for that matter - would look for Lieutenant Tashigi. She wasn't Captain Smoker. But what the seedy side of town lacked in things that might attract their Lieutenant, it more than made up for in shady characters that might have decided to get their jollies by messing with their commanding officer.
Besides. At least being around all of the scumbags gave his men the opportunity to vent a bit.
He really, really pitied Zhou, who'd gotten stuck up in the fancy-schmancy pansy part of town. Zhou's boys couldn't even wreak some quality property damage without getting the Captain in deep shit with the Black Cage Fleet (something which Captain Smoker would not appreciate, if Lazlow from Supplies was right about what Captain Hina could do to a man with all of those chains.)
"So you haven't seen any swordswomen in here lately?" Schulze asked the bartender, while two of his troops roughed up some wino in the corner who'd given them lip about looking for the ship's bicycle. Dirty-minded bugger had it coming. And it was good to set an example. "Like, say, one about 5"3, with a really loud shirt on? A little... eccentric, maybe?"
"Can't say as I have," the bartender grumbled, cleaning a filthy glass with an even more filthy dishrag. Schulze guessed that spread the dirt around, at least.
Not that he gave a shit about pirate health-code regulations. If disease took them, more power to it.
A moan of pain wafted towards them from the corner, followed by a yelp and a sickening crack.
"You sure about that, pal?"
"I swear, I swear! Just stop drivin' away my customers," the bartender sidled closer to him, his voice low and desperate. "Look, if I can give you a pirate will you leave me alone? I got a business to run here."
"What kind of pirate?" Schulze grabbed the bartender by the collar of his shirt, and yanked him across the bar. Give lowlives like this an inch, and they'd take a mile, they would.
"Real crazy guy," the bartender whispered. As if he wouldn't be pegged a rat by half the pirates in the city by sundown, anyways. "So he shows up here, with this box. Wants to know if I can hook him up with anyone not currently, er, uh, 'indisposed' who'd be willing to buy an uneaten Devil Fruit. Said he was gettin' desperate, that his Captain made his profits offa finding and selling the things to pirates who wanted a bit of an edge, and that he was their transport guy. Said he had to sell the Devil Fruit get the cash to pay off some debt he had, else the pirate Captain was gonna be pissed. My guess is, he was here to deal with some Baroque Works Officer Agent looking to power up and get promoted, but when the shit hit the fan he got left high and dry."
"And did you buy?" Schulze pulled the shirt tighter around the bartender's neck, cutting off his air.
"Are you kidding? I wish. I don't got that kind of cash lyin' around, and neither do my contacts. This place is a hole."
Well. That had... nothing to do with the Lieutenant whatsoever.
Sergeant Schulze unceremoniously dropped the man to the floor, and motioned to the privates who'd accompanied him. "Come on. The only intel here is useless."
***
Hina still looked disgruntled. But Smoker'd explained himself. What the hell was he supposed to do - break out into an interpretative dance? Maybe he'd been wrong about the bizarre female pact. Maybe putting up with all of this foppy clowns on her crew had finally gone to Hina's head.
This wasn't Smoker's day. People just kept disappointing him. What was wrong with Marines these days? Where the hell had standards gone?
"I explained myself," Smoker righted himself so that he could stab out the dwindling remains his cigar, simultaneously fishing another one out of his desk door with a tendril of smoke. "Why are you still here?"
"You know, Smoker, some of us have it alot worse when it comes to
subordinates than you do. Like when poor Admiral Rourke had that imbecile
Nelson as his assistant, and his bearers kept 'accidentally' dropping
him overboard," Hina drew out another cigarette, and then fumbled
for her lighter, "But enough about that. We've got other immediate
problems to deal with. Like the ceremony this afternoon."
Shit. He'd been hoping that she'd gotten distracted. It was really too bad that making smoke-animals usually only worked on people under the age of ten. He would have to think of a more cunning way to change the topic.
"Whiskey?" he offered, gesturing to the bottle on his desk. It was old and high-proof.
Hina flicked some ashes on to his desk, and chuckled, "Hina not stupid."
Smoker cleared his throat, and then poured himself another shot, "Tashigi's gone anyways. That means: screw the goddamn ceremony."
"That's not acceptable." Smoker looked for an escape route, but Hina was leaning against the door.
"What do you care, anyways? Headquarters doesn't even have to know," Smoker grumbled, shoving another cigar into his mouth as if it were a lifeline. "This whole thing is bullshit, and we both know it."
REAL Marines didn't let themselves get paraded around like goddamn debutantes. And Smoker was, above all else, a REAL Marine. Hina would have to understand that.
"No it's not," Hina said quietly.
What?
"What?" said Smoker, slightly confused. She wasn't supposed to babble nonsense until after he distracted her by getting her drunk, dammit.
"I said: no it's not," Hina replied more forcefully, "Do you honestly think I would care about this if it were just some juvenile little party? If I got off on arranging streamer colors then I would have stayed home and become a socialite."
She huffed, "I could be out there capturing pirates, or securing strategic navigational islands. There's been an upsurge in pirate activity coming down the line ever since you left Loguetown. But I chose to stay here. Because this has to get done."
***
"Pirate! I won't let you get away with this!"
"Whoa, whoa, this is grade-A merchandise. What's the matter?"
"You're nothing but a filthy smuggler, that's what's the matter."
"I... holy shit, you're a Marine!?"
"Lieutenant Tashigi of the East Blue Armada. In the Name of the World Government, you are under arrest!"
"You think you can catch me? Think again."
"I don't have to chase you. I'm holding your merchandise."
"Hey! Marines don't steal!!"
"I'm not stealing. I am confiscating contraband."
"You still want the power, hunh? You Marines are all the same."
"That's not it at all!!!"
"Isn't it?"
"...Shut up. Or I'll... I'll... I'll shut you up!"
"You can try. But let's be realistic, shall we? I've got devil powers,
and you've got jack-all. You don't even stand a chance against a guy like
me."
"You've eaten the devil fruit? ...I'll take my chances."
"You look hesitant."
"If I am defeated, so be it. No big loss, right?"
"Aw, look - your shouting has drawn an audience! It's time for my disappearing act."
***
Squad D had taken to kicking down the doors of middle-class pansies like fish to water - not only because it was fun to make the nancy-boy civilians bleat, but out of sheer desperation.
All attachments and pride aside, there were very practical reasons for wanting Lieutenant Tashigi onboard. After all - as much as she enjoyed knocking them around, she was still the lesser evil in comparison to whatever unimaginable hell a training session with a pissed-off Captain Smoker would be. The longer the Lieutenant stayed missing, the more likely the Captain was to get into one of his moods, and then all hell would break loose.
Once they'd finished their preliminary sweep of the streets at five and realized that she hadn't just knocked herself out somewhere, a cold, leaden fear had settled into the pits of their stomachs.
One hundred and twenty-four doors, two threatened complaints to Headquarters, four screamed profanities, and an overzealous old woman with a very large purse hitting him over the head later, Zhou hit paydirt.
"Y-yeah. I saw her running somewhere, last night, and I invited her to my party. Good looking girl, your Lieutenant."
The man, who called himself Omar, tittered nervously in the doorway of his bungalow. Zhou had the private who was partnered with him push their witness into his living room, and on to an uncomfortable-looking chair. Zhou handcuffed him there. This was going to be a proper interrogation.
"The Lieutenant finally gets some action, and it's this clown?" the private mumbled. "Joey's gonna love this. If her standards are that low, then I've got some bets to change..."
"This is neither the time, nor the place for that kind of comment, private!" Zhou ordered.
The private gulped. "Sorry, sir."
Zhou turned to their witness.
"Tell me more."
"It wasn't my fault. She tripped, and fell, and then that was it... It wasn't my fault. Please don't hurt me!" Omar began to shake. "Don't turn me over to the White Hunter!!!"
"You don't have to be afraid of Captain Smoker right now," Zhou had had it with this blubbering fool. It was time to knock some sense into the joker - Marine style. He'd probably be frightened into making sense before the first punch landed. "You have to be afraid of ME. Now tell me your story again. This time I want the long version."
***
"Right. So Headquarters is screwing us both over with these dumbass orders," Smoker growled through his cigars. "That's all the more reason not to go through with this."
"Oh, for gods' sakes, Smoker, take some responsibility for once," Hina snapped. "You were making a name for yourself in Loguetown. No one made it through that port. No one. And did you think that the only ones who would notice were the people of Loguetown? Shutting down the East Blue entrance to the Grandline cut back on the small fish entering the route, and the big fish noticed. The people near the entrance to the Grandline noticed too."
She shook her her head, inhaled some toxins, and continued, "But you decide to up and throw their peace of mind away because you've got a yen for action. Special Ops kicked you out because you passed the age limit, and it pissed you off, so after a couple of years in Loguetown you decided to up and make up your own Special Ops mission, because you don't like to feel old. Am I right?"
That bitch! The HELL he was going to sit here and listen to this!
If the room hadn't been so misted over with tobacco smoke, Smoker might very well have started seeing red.
"Shut up!" Smoker glared a glare so powerful that it was said to make pirates handcuff themselves, and walk into lockup of their own free will. "You have no idea what you're talking about!"
And he was NOT old! Thirty-four was NOT an old age, goddamit! He could still kick ass with the best of them, hell, he WAS the best of them, and was that reason that he was the only person who could handle the threat of a loose cannon like Straw Hat in the first place! Jackass morons like Nelson couldn't tie their shoelaces without half of a battalion there to hold their hands. As far as Smoker was concerned, he was the only responsible one in the Marine Corps - not the other way around! Bashing pirate heads in solved alot more problems alot more directly than diplomatic nancing ever would.
"You've never met the Monkey, or his crew," Smoker ground out. The trail of smoke from his cigars twisted threateningly, like the tail of an angry cat. "You haven't seen him. He's just like..."
Hina was apparently unfazed by this, "I don't have to have met Straw Hat. I've met you."
"I'm not going to let someone like that run wild over the blues," If Hina and his other old friends had been swayed into irrelevancy, that was fine. Smoker would do what had to be done. A man who laughed at death didn't just break the law - he broke all laws of human decency as well, and had no respect for life. "Not again."
"And I know there's no stopping you," Hina admitted, slumping against the wall. "But if you want to do this, you've got to give people something in return, even if this PR isn't very classy. If the Marines can't have you guarding the Grandline, then they need your reputation to help scare people off. That's the price you pay to live free, and also live within the law. So be a man and deal with it!"
... Smoker got the feeling that this wasn't a fight anymore. Not that either one of them was going to admit it.
"Alright. Alright. Fine. So it's important that we find Tashigi and trot out like show-ponies for an hour. You still don't get to dictate to me what..."
"Sir!" A messenger barged in, hacked up half a lung in protest at being exposed to such cloudy, poisonous air, and then continued. "Ma'am. We've got news on the Lieutenant - Sergeant Zhou and his men found a witness to what may have happened to her. And we're pretty sure she's alive."
"Excellent! Hina relieved," Hina smiled graciously, regaining her posture. How she did that with no sleep in the last thirty-six hours, and no clear evidence of coffee consumption, Smoker would never know.
"Take me to him right away," she ordered. "We may salvage this thing yet."
Smoker stood as Hina started off to follow the private, and grabbed his coat off of the back of his chair.
"Where do you think you're going?" Hina asked, from outside the cabin.
What, was she drunk or something?
"To interrogate the witness," Smoker elaborated, as if to a small child.
Smoker was looking forward to breaking some kneecaps after the night he'd had.
Hina laughed, the kind ominous chuckle that drove men to drink, "Don't be ridiculous Smoker."
Then she kicked the door shut, turned, and snapped her fingers. Not that he could hear the snap, per se, what with the mass of deadbolts, bars, and chains that descended upon his door and porthole at the same time.
"This ceremony WILL go ahead," her voice was muffled by the door, as well as the inch-thick iron mesh that had joined it. "And until it does, I'm not dumb enough to let you go anywhere."
***
"The only place you're going to is prison, pirate."
"You know what? I am so sick of this island. First I have to go through all that secret-handshakes crap merely to deal with Baroque Works, THEN my customer base dried up in a bloody revolution, and now I'm being assaulted by a rabid Marine. There has to be a better place to do business than this. Anywhere would be better than here."
"Put your hands in the air, or else I'll be forced to take action!"
"Whatever you say, lady."
"Good. Now start walking back to the dockyards. I don't want to see you making any sudden moves!"
"If I concentrate, to find the door as far from here as I can possibly reach, on another, better island..."
"I said MOVE!"
"What do you think I'm doing? If I concentrate, and focus all my will, I can do it, I can open...There!"
"That's it! What are you doing!? I'm afraid that I'm going to have to restrain you by force if you are going to act suspiciously. Don't think that I can't use this sword one-handed."
"Sorry, sweetheart. I've already written my ticket out of here."
"We'll see about that, criminal! There is no escaping justice!"
"Ms. Business! Watch out for that that pipe!"
"AAAAAAAH!!!!!"
"Hey, where'd that Marine lady disappear to...?"
"No. NO WAY. She can't have tripped into my portal. She's got my merchandise, and I don't even know where that door led to!"
"Did you hear that? The pirate did it! Run! Everyone run!!!"
"Captain Bell is going to KILL me."
-TBC-
***
Author's note: These things just keep getting longer Oo;;;
Exposition ahooooy! The finished version of this chapter contained more speechifying (especially on Hina's part) than I'd originally intended. C'est la vie?
Why am I saying that Smoker used to be a part of Special Ops? Clearly there's no direct canon proof of this, but in my twisted Mess-logic it seemed pretty likely. The job would suit him, I can't see him as ever having been a sort of aide-de-camp like Tashigi is, and (most importantly) he's been repeatedly described as an elite soldier from heaquarters.
Like the whole Tashigi = Lieutenant thing, it's not canon... but it's not exactly against canon either. Just my interpretation of the background facts.
Next chapter it's back to Tashigi-POV. Yay?
