Threat

Characters: Law. Rating: K. Warnings: None

Law had known that at some point, Doflamingo would not be the worst threat. Not immediately – as a bitter, angry child, Doflamingo had been the be all and end all for him – but after a few years of piracy with his new crew, learning of their own demons and gradually realising that Doflamingo was hardly in a class of his own when it came to monstrous strength and terrifying abilities, Law was hit with the realisation that for as long as he was a pirate, there would always be some threat or other.

He'd hoped that they wouldn't rear their heads until Doflamingo was dealt with. At some point, maybe, they might encounter the crew Penguin and Shachi despised, and upon learning of the existences of the Shichibukai and Yonkou, Law realised that he would either have to follow them or fight them. Law had had enough of following.

In the short term, and even medium term, things went his way. Staying under the radar, in North Blue, kept the attention of the other big names off of him and his crew. Small scale skirmishes happened, but the eyes of the dangerous pirates were all elsewhere.

In the long term, ten years or more since he realised he'd have to consider threats other than Doflamingo, reality came crashing down on them as they became a source of scrutiny. He managed to shield his crew from the worst of it, their anonymity working to their advantage, but any Supernova was going to garner more attention. The Grand Line hadn't been so kind as to let Law stay under the radar, below the threshold of a hundred million beri, and when he arrived at Sabaody he was firmly central within the ranks of the Supernovas.

Of course, that made the other ten his rivals, and it took Law seconds after meeting Eustass Kid to realise that at least some of them took that rivalry seriously. Mugiwara, on the other end of the scale, seemed content to ignore him, but no-one else offered him that courtesy. But in the end, it wasn't one of his fellow Supernovas that posed a threat to rival Doflamingo. Well, not exactly.

The sudden and dramatic rise of one Marshall D. Teach caught Law's attention; of course it did. He didn't think there was a single person in the Grand Line that didn't notice. First killing Whitebeard and indirectly causing Fire Fist's death, and then crushing the vaunted Whitebeard Pirates a year later to slip into the vacant Yonkou throne, Blackbeard was anything but subtle.

Law hadn't been keeping too close a tab on the man, though. At least, nothing beyond the basic tabs he was keeping on the rest of the Yonkou, so he could avoid their influence as much as possible. But Blackbeard had targets that he'd painted on people, targets they didn't know were there until he or one of his commanders suddenly appeared to collect, and the stories of such events were becoming more and more frequent.

He had yet to deal with the pleasure of one such visit, but Law was no fool. Blackbeard was not subtle in his desire to hoard Devil Fruits, and while Logia appeared to be his main interest, Law's fruit was called the 'Ultimate'. No Devil Fruit hoarder would pass up that temptation. He didn't know enough about Blackbeard, didn't know how he got his information, or what the information he had was, but for Law it was better to be safe than sorry.

Punk Hazard, and Zou, while being vital to Law's strategy to finally deal with Doflamingo once and for all, held a separate appeal for him, too. With no log poses capable of finding them, and no Mink known to be in Blackbeard's crew, both islands would be impossible for the man to hide.

Kaido was his target, but that was only because the man had been in a partnership with Doflamingo. Of the Yonkou, the one that concerned Law the most was this unknown man that had risen to his seat of power in only a year and hoarded Devil Fruits. Until he could get more information on the man, he intended to keep avoiding him.

We don't know what Blackbeard's after at the moment, aside from Devil Fruits (mainly logia, I think?), but he was there to see Law rescue Luffy and considering the research we know he's done into Devil Fruits, I'd be surprised if he didn't have at least some idea of what the Ope Ope can do. Whether he ever intends on targetting it, I don't know, but I think Law would be aware of the possibility and responding accordingly.

On a different note, there won't be an update tomorrow as it's my birthday and I won't really be online at all (of all the One Piece characters to share a birthday with... why Blackbeard).

Thanks for reading!
Tsari