Chapter 19: Silver & Rainbows
"You've met the Silver Queen!" Luffy shouted in excitement; leaned forward in glee. "The Pirate Queen to the Pirate King!"
"No, way! I don't believe that." Sanji looked surprised.
"What did she look like, was she SUPER Pretty!" Franky leaned forward, his face lit with shock.
"Hm, you are old enough to have met her, aren't you, Musician-san?" Robin's voice sounded thoughtful.
"Oh wow, you met the Silver Queen; that is so awesome!" Usoppu banged the table; covering his leaking eyes with the other hand. "Did you manage to see her face!"
"Wow!" Chopper's face, like Franky's, was alight with awe.
"Did she give you anything like a treasure map or something!" Nami had that gold-lusting look in her eyes.
The astonished reactions of the pirates threw the Truth-asker for a loop. Jiru had never heard of such a name before.
"The Silver Queen?" the Treasure hunter looked around at her friends, at a loss of knowledge. "Who's that?"
"You've never heard of the Silver Queen? Nyuu~" Hachi finally spoke up; the octo-man's face mirrored the pirates, and was awed.
"No, I…I haven't heard of the Silver Queen."
"Well, that's a first, the Chibi isn't as all-smart as she leads us to believe." Zoro's voice needled her again.
"SHUT UP, MARIMO-JERK. Tell me what you're all excited about!" Jiru yelled back at him, but calmed down as Luffy hugged her to him.
"Relax, Ji-chan." He chuckled. "Brooke surprised us with his answer."
"Yohohohohohohohoho!" The skeleton laughed in mirth. "I am serious when that is the truth!"
"WHO IS THE SILVER QUEEN!" Jiru asked again, her curiosity burning.
"Ah, you truly haven't heard of the Silver Queen, have you, Miss-Jiru?" Brooke asked her.
"No, I haven't…now somebody PLEASE-"
"Ok, relax, Jiru." Nami spoke. "The Silver Queen is just as famous as Gol D. Roger, the Pirate King. You know about him, right?"
"Yea, the pirate who died after he became the Pirate King decades ago."
"Right." Nami continued. "Well, the Silver Queen was his rival, a pirate woman that helped him amass his fortune and hide it."
"So the Silver Queen was the Pirate Queen?" the smaller female inquired further, her body growing tense; as if a secret was going to be revealed.
"Something like that." The navigator nodded. "Although they weren't romantically involved or even on the same crew, they were labeled as the Pirate King and Queen. The marines hated them both."
"Yea, and the Silver Queen was a wily one. She kept taunting the Marines whenever they thought they finally cornered her for capture." Usoppu jumped into the conversation. "They say she knew what would happen and always escape."
"Uh, ok…sounds nice and all, but I don't understand how that would make her be the Pirate Queen." Jiru sounded dubious. "Wouldn't the marines have killed all of the Pirate King's friends back then?"
"They may have." Franky joined in. "But when the marines executed the Pirate King, it was the Silver Queen who showed up and announced she would bury his body somewhere in the New World, the second half of the Grand Line. The Marines believed the Silver Queen may have buried him on Raftel, with his fortune."
"Ouch, I bet they hated her for that." Jiru, unconsciously sat up a little straighter, listening closely. "Usoppu-kun asked about her face, was something wrong about her face?"
"No, not really. You see, the Silver Queen's identity and past was shrouded in mystery: nobody knows where she came from or what she looks like. She often wore a mask made of silver." Franky parted with his knowledge. "After she took the Pirate King's body, she was never seen or heard from again. Never."
"Wow, that's creepy." Jiru relaxed subconsciously; a deep dark secret still running in her head. "She…she must be old now, right? Twenty years older?"
"That's right, if she's even alive." Sanji nodded, bringing out another cigarette and lighting white little romantic hearts danced around his face. "I believe the Silver Queen is the most beautiful woman ever; because she, in my heart, is still alive!"
"Oh, really, Sanji?" Nami glared at the mooning cook.
"Sanji-chin, you're so funny!" Camie tittered at the blonde cook. "She would be too old for you!"
"Ne-next to my lovely Nami-swan and Camie-cwhan of couuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurse!" he quickly corrected himself and gave the two females affectionate looks.
"Hai!" Pappug jumped off Camie's lap and lifted one of his starfish-y appendages. "I've heard that the Silver Queen had a baby and that the kid was stolen by pirates."
The Mugiwaras all tensed, but only for a moment, before relaxing. The mention of the word 'baby' brought back terrible memories for all. The mood passed as Nami laughed, setting it right again.
"That's awful; but the rumor I heard was she gave the baby to the Whitebeard Pirates to raise as their own."
"Nyuu!" Hachi looked thoughtful. "You could be right, Nami-san, but I don't know. They are just rumors. If either of them are alive; the kid would be twenty years old or something, Nyuu~"
XXX
Jiru listened to the conversation about the Silver Queen with her nerves wound tighter than coiled wire. She had, unknowingly, thrust herself into extremely dangerous waters. She knew exactly who the Silver Queen and her child were. It was none other than herself and the child that she and Ace had conceived in Alabasta's desert.
It had been a huge surprise to find out she had been with child. The mild-going treasure hunter had known it and felt it – and cursed her luck. She had really gone out on a limb and allowed Luffy's brother, Portgas D. Ace, to make her feel good – all night long. It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise to find herself in that condition, considering how many times she and Ace 'safely' did it. By the time they departed Alabasta a month later – sadly leaving princess Vivi behind – Jiru knew for certain of her condition.
She had been attempting to bring herself to tell Luffy when she had reached one of her personal goals: to find and claim the missing shard of her celestial jewel. It was in some nameless port that the pirates had run into a phenomenon known as the Rainbow Fog; a patch of distorted ocean that bent the Rules of Time. Had the Mugiwaras never got mixed up with the greedy, treasure-hording bullies in that town, she would have missed sensing her jewel shard completely and events would have been completely different. (She would have experienced Jaya, Skypiea and the Davy Back Games.)
Certain greedy marine-pirates, having experienced the phenomenon decades before, knew all about the Rainbow Fog and the lost treasures within. They opted to wait; and since there had been innocent victims involved – lost childhood friends of some old townsman – others waited too; researching and building a way to escape the Fog.
As it was, the Mugiwaras became stuck in the timeless patch of ocean fog; and refused to be trapped there forever. It was completely astonishing to experience that adventure; the adventure of rescue and escape. With the aid of a very tall tower an Old Man had built, the Rainbow Fog's mysterious shell was cracked and the treasure within, looted.
However, the greedy pirates had the upper hand and, after stealing all the Fog's treasure, trapped the Mugiwaras within the Fog by blowing up the tower-made pathway.
Not knowing any other way to expel the pirates and children from the distorted space, Jiru – having sensed her jewel shard was within the Fog's timeless space the moment she became trapped – found her lost jewel shard, reuniting it with the incomplete jewel housed within the broach Luffy took back from Arlong.
It had been a painful, heart breaking choice, but by using that backlash of power, she would send the entrapped parties two different ways, freeing them from the Fog's grip. The Mugiwaras would be sent flying back to the same port, same day; while she and the lost childhood friends of the Old Man would be sent the opposite way, thirty years into the past – the day that the young children became trapped in the Fog.
Having not had the chance to say her farewells or to explain her choice of leaving suddenly to Luffy and the others, Jiru found herself in the past; where none of her friends were born yet! It was to that extent, that she remained with the now-free and future-knowing children. Time was an extremely tricky thing; she managed to teach the children. The Mugiwara Treasure Hunter, also, knew the future and swore them all to a code of important secrecy: using only their knowledge to somehow set themselves up to meet with the Mugiwaras again in the future – a future meeting that would happen after she set the Mugiwara Pirates free.
Setting the children up within a branch of the Marines, Jiru had stayed with them until they were old enough to not need her. Parting ways after renewing their promises – and leaving a hand-written letter containing a clue of her fate for the Mugiwaras to read in the future – the Treasure Hunter traveled the world; keeping a low-profile. She had yet to physical touch the more completed jewel in the broach, as the act would tear her from this dimension and into another, sending her along her shard-finding journey.
However, things didn't allow her to keep a low profile when she gave birth to her and Ace's child: a boy. It was insanity as she somehow found herself right in the middle of a clash between two powerful pirates: Gol D. Roger and Edward Newgate, aka Whitebeard.
Being stunned into inaction upon meeting the living legend and a younger Whitebeard, Jiru was unable to defend herself or her newly born boy as the two pirates came to an agreement: one pirate would take the mother and the other would take the child.
These series of events certainly weren't in Jiru's future-knowledge, and she worried about screwing with Time's flow. She certainly voiced her concern loud enough to Roger, as the future Pirate King ended up choosing her; leaving the squalling baby to Whitebeard. Whitebeard was decent enough to allow her to name the child before leaving. She had given the boy the name: Puma D. Trace, not knowing what else to say.
Years later, having been stuck with Roger, Jiru managed to build enough respect and strength to challenge Roger and become his rival. Hiding her aging face, she grew to interact with younger versions of people she knew from the future: Garp, 'Dark King' Silver Raleigh, Doctor Crocus, Red-Haired Shanks, Buggy and others.
In one final adventure, she challenged Roger in his last adventure before his inevitable end. She knew he was dying. Sailing with him on the last voyage, she watched quietly as he amassed all his wealth, fortune, power and fame on one island.
She had refused to witness Roger's execution, knowing the time of her dimensional departure was near. After failing to locate her son – the boy had been renamed by Whitebeard and ate a powerful, rare bird-model Akuma no Mi – she granted Roger's last request to her: to take his body and bury someplace wild – someplace where the Marines would never find it. She had been asked to do so in the flashiest way she could come up with; Roger's way of challenging her one last time.
She met Roger's challenge and managed to take his body, freshly dead, out from the Marine's eyes and bury it on a secret place on Raftel, the island where she had helped Roger amass his fortune. Having been nearly caught by Garp; whom had studied the aged pirate woman the world had dubbed 'The Silver Queen'; and knew where she would be, Jiru, aged sixty-four, finally left the Vearth Dimension behind by touching her broken jewel.
XXX
Author's Note:
If you don't like this chapter; tough. It came out from rough ideas; and I find it fun. You say Ace shouldn't have a son? This is a fanfiction, read it and enjoy. I pondered long and used different ideas for the son of Ace, and ended up using a real OP character for Ace's son. I didn't outright give the new name for Ace's son, but put clues instead, hoping it would be enough for avid One Piece fans to pick up and connect the dots.
Yes, enjoy the Time twist, and be sure to watch the OP episodes of 139-143 to see the Rainbow Mist (Fog) references.