Chapter 18: The Deal
May 14, 801 WG
"I can't believe you talked them, not only out of destroying Alabasta, but also letting you leave," said Fujitora as Lance rewrapped his claymore before hooking it over his shoulders to rest on his back.
Lance recalled the conversation that occurred after he had read the Gorosei the falsified media report for their approval.
"Despite your choice of actions, you still possess the keen mind that allowed your team to overpower the O'hare Pirates of two and half decades ago. We are in sore need of such military intelligence, and if you are not inclined to fall under Dragon's flag, we extend you an invitation to return to service at your former rank. This entire incident will be dismissed as irrelevant. A necessary destruction to avoid further trouble in the future. Your advice would be considered in all future campaigns to make certain that chosen activities resulted in the desired outcomes."
Lance held his breath for a half a minute after they finished their proposition. Cold fury building within that he struggled to contain. The Gorosei's offer was beyond generous, all things considered, but Lance's still felt insulted by it. That type of generosity always came with strings. What kind of fool did they take him for?
When he finally replied it was with one icy word. "No."
Silence followed the former vice-admiral's refusal. It seemed the Gorosei had no idea how to handle such a straightforward rejection. No one said "no" to them. Lance took another deep breath and continued, his voice even and devoid of emotion. He was trying not to express the rage that had flared at the offer. It would do him no good to start thundering at them. Things had going so well until this point. In fact, the offer revealed just how well he had been doing. Focusing on that helped to soothe his anger.
"I highly doubt I am you first advisor and I highly doubt you would heed my advice at every juncture. I would bet my entire career earnings that you have ignored other advisors when their advice ran counter to your 'grand vision'. This offer is just to get me off the playing field, to keep me out of the hands of your enemies. You have no intention of doing more than giving me a polite ear. You'll probably listen on some issues that aren't as important to you just to give me the feeling that you meant what you promised. But when it really matters, I won't have a voice. If I accept this offer, I will expose all my weakness to you, making retreat nearly impossible should I find our arrangement undesirable."
They understood nothing about his home island. To them it was some backwater superstitious island with little to nothing to contribute to their coffers. He would like it to stay that way. Once upon a time he had wanted to change that but not anymore. If they knew nothing about his home, then they would know nothing about his family. They couldn't use them to threaten him into taking actions he rather not take. He didn't want to become another Kuma… or Garp.
"So, again, no. I will not return to the Marines. You showed me your true colors when you allowed Helgram to become an admiral even while knowing the truth of Escarto. You showed those colors hadn't changed when you promoted Akainu to Fleet Admiral. If you had gone with Sengoku's choice of Aokiji, I might had thought you were beginning to grow wiser to what the Marines, the world, needed to happen. However, you once again chose power over compassion and now many will suffer for it. So, no."
The Gorosei were quiet as they took in his reasoning. They were weighing their options and the threat Lance posed to them and their order, should he continue to remain unattached.
"We could have you executed here and now," they replied. The expected answer.
Lance shrugged like it didn't bother him. His dying here would prevent anything from happening to his family. They would remain safe. Luffy would recover, he was resilient that way. He regretted he would be able to help his godson anymore, but the young man had done well 'til now. He would find his way and would be able to protect Mendora in time. Like White Beard had once.
Still, he wasn't out of hope. They had said, "We could". There was still a play to make.
"That would be the short-term solution. This is the closest I've come in nearly two decades to siding with Dragon again." He let that hang in the air. Those old men could sort out the unspoken.
The Gorosei waited a minute before responding, conferring again. "Do you foresee a long-term problem with it, other than you simply not wanting to die. You are human after all, and no human would choose death where life is possible."
Poor self-centered fools know not the lengths some people would go for their ideals and honor. An easy mistake considering they had neither. He wondered how far they would lower themselves if it meant saving their own necks. Hard as it was to imagine, there were deeper gutters they had yet to wade through.
"You're human too, for all that you and your brethren like to pretend otherwise," replied Lance. "However, know this, I would choose death before returning to your control. Now you must ask yourself, what would you gain with my death and what would you lose with it? If I foreswore Dragon and offered him no further aid in all his endeavors, nor seek his aid, as I did this time, to any future crisis, how would that change the scales you are currently weighing against my life? What would you gain and what would you lose in allowing me to remain a free agent with these stipulations?"
"A free agent, you say," repeated the Gorosei after a moment. "Are you stating that you could work with the Marines under certain conditions."
"I am but, before you even ask, I choose those conditions. Dragon and his own are not part of the battlefield. You don't want me to offer my services to him, fine, then I will not fight him either."
"That is not a very useful stance for us, considering what Dragon is capable of."
"Dragon studies strategy but his gifts are in building and leading people. That's why his revolutions are so successful. He thinks through the follow through, unlike your people. Destroying the World Government is only the first step and it's the one he has to take with the greatest care les he destroys more than what he could hope to repair. It's what comes after that allow men like him to shine the brightest. He is a builder of societies, of people, of armies, of organizations, of nations. I can maximize an army's abilities, but he is the one that will rebuild what war destroys.
"Those skills lend well to military strategy but what I do is not something he can replicate. He has to over plan his wars, which is why he is taking so long to come at you and why he will withdraw from this war now that he has suffered the losses he has. Honestly, the desperation of this situation reveals the differences in our approaches to battle. You can see that, can't you?"
"Indeed, you had few resources and took a high stakes gamble, but it paid off. Dragon came at us with far more forces and lost. Even if luck was with you, destroying seven battleships with Mugiwara's one ship and getting him inside to do the damage that he did… You are indeed one of the most brilliant military strategists of our time, a rare talent to be sure, and it would be a shame to lose you, but if you won't fight for us…"
Lance said nothing in response to their implied statement. However reluctant the Gorosei seemed to throw away a military asset they would rather throw it away than see it in the hands of the enemy. But he had stated he would work with them, just not against Dragon. There were other places where he could be of worth to them.
"What targets would you be willing to work with us on?"
Lance smirked at the memory then replied, "I would be an arrogant fool if I thought that was entirely me. Even if leaving Alabasta alone was in their best interest after Pluton was destroyed, they still should have killed me. I didn't think I had nearly enough to offer to make it worth keeping me alive. Especially when I turned down returning to the Marines."
"Are you going to join Dragon despite your promise?" Fujitora asked. "I won't say anything if that's your plan but…"
"No, I'll keep my word. If I join Dragon now, I'll just wind up destroying the Revolutionary Army. Unlike Dragon, I'm not so nice. If Helgram and I end up in the same room I will kill him. I know that will tear the Revolutionary Army apart but there is no way I could ever work with that man again knowing what he's capable of and how much of a threat he is."
"So, it was never your intention to join Dragon," said Fujitora. He sounded disappointed.
Can't blame the man for his feelings. This whole episode really rocked his inner convictions, thought Lance.
"I'll do more good staying with the boy. He's going to need all the help he can get, considering how things stand now," he said.
"What boy?"
"Luffy, naturally."
The man snapped his head like he'd been slapped, but his voice was steady when he spoke. "You really believe Mugiwara survived that? Or were you lying about his location?"
"I didn't lie. Staying honest is what allowed me to convince the Gorosei in the first place," replied Lance. "He was the reason I was on Pluton. I was the decoy while he ran below."
"Still…" Fujitora frowned.
Lance grinned and patted his shoulder. "It's exactly as I explained to the head honchos. The gods have a plan for him, and it doesn't involve dying right now." Fujitora sighed. He probably didn't believe Lance's story, but it didn't matter. He would realize the truth soon enough, along with the rest of the world.
"Are you going to join the Thousand Sunny?"
"I'm not joining his crew, no, but I will be riding with him until I get home. However, my support won't end once I'm off the ship."
"Why is it so important for you to support him. And what did you mean by 'how things stand now'?"
Lance eyed the blind admiral, wondering just how much to reveal. "You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. There are not many like you in the Marines these days."
Fujitora said nothing to that comment, waiting for the man to answer his question.
The former vice-admiral sighed and continued, "There was a trap on Raftel. Set by the ancient people that once opposed those that would create the World Government. From what I now know, Maryanne stopped it a quarter of a century ago when Roger found the island. However, Luffy doesn't have his mother's experience and he could only postpone it."
"A trap? What kind of trap?" the admiral asked, alarmed.
"One that would put the lives of every man, woman and child in this world in peril. It was a type of trap that grows more potent with age and at this stage it is apocalyptic."
"How did Mugiwara delay such a trap? Why couldn't he stop it? How can we stop it?"
"The last question has an easy answer. You stop it from going off by letting Dragon win and toppling the World Government. Ending its reign forever."
Fujitora was taken aback by the answer. "How can you declare that when this Maryanne found a way to stop it before."
"She merely reset it. Put the Jack back in the Box, if you will. Luffy can only hold the lid down, he can't reset it. From what I can tell, it was designed to destroy the World Government, and it will do it, if it is let out of the box. For Luffy to keep the lid on the box, he has to prevent any further massive death events… like the destruction of an entire country. If you had gone through with the Buster Call… the trap would have gone off and the world itself would be in flames right now."
"Why didn't you say that to the Gorosei? Wasn't that why you enticed them to talk to you directly?"
It had crossed his mind to lay out the entire problem to them. But the World Government was rather selective about what they considered relevant information. He was actually surprised Fujitora was doing more than humoring him. Most people outside of Mendora would have dismissed all this as mere superstitious nonsense. Even if he was leaving out the spirit details of the trap's nature that came across as highly illogical and thus implausible.
Perhaps Fujitora's blind eyes had caught glimpses of the less substantial side of the world.
"I didn't trust them to act on it. So, I gave them something they could believe, something they could verify, something they were already aware of as a potential issue. If that didn't convince them then, and only then, would I bring this up with them. Don't give me that look, Fujitora! I didn't lie about a damn thing. They are on thin ice, even without this Jack-in-the-Box issue."
"They may have taken you seriously…"
"And they may have decided that the solution was to blow up Raftel. Unfortunately, I don't believe for a second that would have solved this. Instead I think it would have guaranteed their destruction. They have a bad habit of erasing things that are inconvenient without any thought to the consequences of such actions. The current issues with the Revolutionary Army are proof of their short sightedness."
Fujitora fell silent again and Lance took that as his sign to head out this time. "I look forward to working with you, Admiral Fujitora." He gave the man another pat on the shoulder. He hoped he would be allowed to work with Fujitora. He didn't know anything about Admiral Ryokugyu and Admiral Kizaru had always annoyed him in their brief interactions two decades ago.
Lance started to walk past the blind admiral and was almost to the door when Fujitora spoke again.
"How do you see all this playing out?" he asked.
Lance paused at the threshold but didn't turn around. "Prepare for a storm. Dragon was hurt badly. He can't challenge the World Government again for a few years. Luffy will do everything he can to protect the world only because he has many people he loves living in it. But I can't see this ending in anything but fire and brimstone. There is only so much one man can do. Sakazuki is too in love with power and doesn't understand how fragile it really is. The Marines will be demonized before this is over."
Lance then passed through the door leaving Fujitora alone with his thoughts.