Enlightenment

Marco drummed his fingers nervously on the ship's rail, staring out at the grey, misty drizzle that surrounded them. He and the rest of the Whitebeard Pirates –except for the absent Ace– had been lying low, hiding out on islands a little way inside the Calm Belts while they mourned and decided what to do next. In that time he'd got to know Edward Tempest, his Pops' oldest daughter, pretty well. In true mermaid fashion she looked almost nothing like Whitebeard, though there was something in the shape of her eye-sockets and cheekbones that reminded Marco of his captain when she turned her head a certain way. That was probably due to her being only half-mermaid.

As the months passed Marco had gradually become aware that Tempest was not the only one of the mermaids hanging around to be related to Pops, or indeed the only one with a pirate parent. Other than Gol D. Spitfire –who was impossible to ignore no matter how depressed you were– and Tempest there were Miranda, Medea and Mermera who were also his Pops' kids and therefore his sisters, Scopper Hydra –another infamous surname– and Calico Belle, who was the oldest mermaid at fifty and inevitably accompanied by one or the other of her twin daughters Cherie and Sirena. He'd seen at least two dozen more, all younger and not inclined to reveal their surnames at all despite admitting freely to pirate heritage. This profusion of proof that any number of famous –and not so famous– pirates had sired mermaid children had gradually led Marco to wonder whether he had ever left any of his past conquests with a nine-month surprise. He had seduced his way through a good portion of Fishman Island's female population over the years after all.

When he'd finally posed that question to Tempest she'd given him a thoughtful look, then asked if he was asking just for himself or on behalf of the rest of the crew as well. "After all," the curly ginger pointed out, "it's easier to get all the information together once than do it again and again for different people."

Marco hadn't thought of that. He promptly cornered Jozu with the matter, who had agreed they needed to at least confirm they didn't have kids, and then Izo, who agreed that everyone should be made aware of the possibility. Izo then pointed out that Fox was a mermaid's child but had legs, meaning she had a human grandparent as well, and she probably wasn't the only one out there like that. The rest of the Division Commanders had been summoned, news had spread and eventually every last pirate had put their name on a roll of paper to indicate their interest in learning the identities of their children, if they had any. Tempest had stressed that no commitment was necessary; this was simply a matter of identifying the existence of children. Acknowledging said eventual children was a secondary matter and entirely up to them.

That had been three weeks ago and rather than bringing answers, Marco and his brothers had been directed to an island in the middle of Shanks' territory where the information was being kept after the War of the Best; the Ryugu Archives were apparently no longer sufficiently secure for such sensitive information involving so many innocents.

However if he hadn't been assured there was an island here Marco wouldn't have believed it: he'd seen nothing but fog and sea drizzle for the past four days and the wind was almost non-existent, not blowing reliably from any quarter. There wasn't even a handy sea current, forcing them to tow the Moby Dick with the paddle boats in the direction indicated by their meticulous triangulation. The maps swore there was a big fat nothing in this area but Marco trusted Tempest not to send them on a wild goose chase, so they were persevering.

"Marco the Phoenix?"

Marco jumped back from the speaker of those calm, polite words right next to his ear; he was the strongest pirate on board and one of the best at using haki, but he was sure there hadn't been anybody there a second ago. The split-tailed Sea Dragon mermaid with wavy amethyst hair raised an eyebrow at him.

"Yes and you are?" Marco managed.

The mermaid smiled. "Silvers Astera; I'm in charge of guarding this area. Tempest mentioned you'd be coming so this is just a courtesy call." She grinned toothily, making her look disturbingly similar to the first mate of the Roger Pirates who had thrashed Marco repeatedly in his younger days. "Maintain your heading and you'll be out of the rain in less than a full day; the island should be visible about half a day later."

"How did you creep up on me?" Marco had to know.

Astera smirked. "I'm better at hiding with haki than you are at looking with it," she informed him smugly before slipping off the rail and back into the water. The de-facto leader of the Whitebeard pirates slumped forwards again; that was not helpful.

Two day later the Moby Dick was anchored several miles off the coast of a good-sized island surrounded by reefs and Marco was negotiating with yet another mermaid –this one a cute brunette– and a curvy, blueberry-haired woman who was pretty enough to be a mermaid but had legs rather than fins.

"Most of your boats are too large to make it through the reefs," the brunette mermaid said patiently, "and we don't really have room for one and a half thousand men to stay. Shifts are the best deal I can offer: two divisions at a time per half-day, returning to your ship afterwards. It'll take that long to get two hundred men through the paperwork Lisska has been assembling for them anyway and I'm sure they'll want time to process what they've learnt."

"Especially since I can guarantee the male members of your crew who haven't sired a child at some point can be counted on two hands with fingers to spare," the woman muttered.

"Pardon?" Marco wasn't sure he'd heard that right. Less than ten out of about fifteen hundred men hadn't got someone pregnant? That couldn't be right, could it?

The woman raised an eyebrow at him. "I've been helping with the paperwork," she informed him blandly. "Three weeks of sixteen-hour days as part of a thirty-strong team going over every last birth certificate and comparing the names to the ones on the list you provided. Believe me; I know exactly what you've all been getting up to and with whom." That sounded ominous. Which reminded him:

"Fox is here?"

"Yes: she volunteered to manage this whole investigation when it became clear quite how much work needed doing," the woman told him. "Without her help this would have taken twice as long at least. So, what are you going to do?"

Marco thought about it. "Two divisions per half-day is acceptable, so long as half of the division commanders can stay on the island at all times," he decided, glancing over at the mermaid. If Fox was here, so would Ace be and he wanted a chance for those in the know to catch up properly.

"Perfectly acceptable," the mermaid agreed. "I'll see to escorts; please load everyone coming today into boats with a shallow draught as quickly as possible. Ruby, please make sure everything's ready."

The woman bowed politely, turned and dived off the side of the ship, vanishing into the reefs at high speed; seeing how at ease she was in the water gave Marco a sudden insight into how much Fox had lost after being forced to eat Devil Fruit. Then the mermaid followed her over the rail and Marco was left to summon on deck his and Ace' Divisions and get them into the smaller boats so they could land on this hidden island.

When noon came around it found Marco sitting at a table in a large open wooden house, staring in shock at the papers and photographs scattered over half of the wooden surface. Opposite him his supposedly dead brother was leaning against the kitchen wall with an evil smirk plastered across his face while to his right Fox supervised a pair of ten-year-olds who were preparing the meal.

Forty-six children. He'd been expecting one, maybe two or three, but forty-six?! The eldest was twenty-seven and had two children of her own, meaning he'd been a grandfather for the past five years and never realised it. The youngest two weren't even three months old meaning they'd been conceived on the Whitebeard Pirates' last trip to Fishman before Thatch was murdered, which had been almost exactly a year ago.

At least Fox had waited until he was safely inside her home before breaking the news; he knew his brothers and sisters were going to tease him mercilessly about this once they found out.

"Marco?" The blond Zoan looked up as Fox came over to sit next to him. "Are you alright?"

"I…" Marco honestly didn't know. He stared at the photographs again, noticing this time how many blondes there were, who had little bits of his bone structure showing past the chaos of mermaid genetics and which ones looked nothing like him. "I have kids," he said hoarsely after a long pause. "Dozens and dozens of 'em and I never had a clue." The identical twin ten-year-olds doing the food were his, too: One of Fox' aunts daughters, meaning he'd slept with at least one of Madam Pearl's younger sisters. Those two adorable little girls with corn gold hair and grey eyes were Fox' cousins as well as his daughters; a connection he hadn't even known existed until today.

Fox cleared her throat gently, drawing him out of his daze. "All things considered, I thought you might like to know about Thatch's kids as well," she said gently.

"Thatch?" Ace asked, stepping away from the wall and settling himself at the table. "Didn't he have a steady lady-friend somewhere?"

"She's another of my aunts," Fox admitted; "my grandfather is even more of a player than you are, Marco. Thatch has a mermaid daughter of twelve by someone else and three mostly human children by my aunt Pythia, who are aged between five years and three months."

Marco stilled. "The youngest," he managed before his throat clogged and he couldn't continue.

"He never got to know," Fox confirmed quietly. "My mother's been looking after them all since it got out."

"How many aunts and uncles do you have, Precious?" Ace asked Fox curiously.

"Considerably more than forty-six," she replied dryly, "and my youngest aunt was born last week."

Marco choked as Ace boggled. "Who's your grandpa anyway?" he asked.

Fox glanced sideways at him from under her lashes in a way that suggested he should brace himself for a shock. "My mother's full name is Silvers Pearl," she said sweetly.

Marco's eyes bulged as a whole lot of pieces fell together in his mind and several deeply uncomfortable facts brought themselves to his attention. "You're the Dark King's granddaughter," he realised. "Oh, hell: I slept with one of Rayleigh's daughters!"

"Several of his daughters," Fox corrected him; "you just didn't have kids with most of the rest."

"Most?" Marco repeated weakly.

Fox sighed. "To be born human to a mermaid, a child must have both a human parent and grandparent. Of your children, nineteen are human. That's fourteen mermaids you had children with who had a human parent of their own. As my grandpa is a major contributor to the gene pool five of those half-human mermaids were his daughters; one of the other nine was your Pops' daughter Medea, incidentally."

Oh, god no! He thought he'd recognised her and that felt like incest! Marco flopped forwards to bang his head on the table. "I should have known this would come back to bite me," he whimpered miserably. "I can't even take a break without incurring new responsibilities!" There was no way he wasn't going to acknowledge his kids: Pops would murder him in the afterlife if he didn't.

Ace promptly doubled over in his seat, laughing madly as Fox rose from her seat to check up on the girls doing the food. Marco lifted his face off the table to glare at his brother.

"How many kids have you got then?"

Ace smirked. "None yet, mister stud."

Marco blinked; Ace was not the player the Zoan was, but he had spent each visit to Fishman with several pretty mermaids. "How is that possible?"

The look in his younger brother's eye was positively wicked. "I met my sisters on my first trip to Fishman and, as my responsible elder siblings, they explained a few vital facts of life to me. I therefore know how to pick up mermaids who don't want children yet and how to make sure they inform me should it happen anyway."

The Phoenix Zoan's jaw dropped. "You conniving little bastard, you knew! You knew all along and you never said a word to any of us!"

Ace grinned. "Don't ask, don't tell, Marco; you certainly never asked."

Marco narrowed his eyes across the table. "I'm going to get you for that," he said evenly.

"Can it wait until after lunch then," Fox asked, walking over to them, "as the food is almost ready?"

Ace sobered. "Sure; no horseplay during meals." It sounded like a quote.

Fox smiled. "Glad you remember. Help Marco put his papers away please." Ace instantly did so, neatly placing each picture with the associated information sheet and stacking them in date order. Marco joined in after a few seconds, puzzled by his brother's sudden domesticity.

"Scary, scary mood swings," Ace muttered in response to Marco's curious expression. "Mood swings armed with Sea Stone knives, swords and a comprehensive knowledge of pressure points. Even though she always apologises afterwards it still hurts." He sighed. "And it isn't even my kid she's having."

Marco's lips twitched. So maybe he wasn't the only person having a hard time right now.

InsaneScriptist has been asking when Marco would find out about his kids and how many there were exactly, so here it is written. Poor Phoenix!