A/N: Wow...so, hey! It's been a good long while. Thanks again to those of you who checked up on me. During therapy, I discovered that I've developed a weird dissociation with my writing. I think it stems back to writing about Helena's depression and attempt at suicide. I didn't know I could traumatize myself with my own writing, but here we are. - basically at my lowest point (long before I wrote that scene) I had mild suicidal ideation linked with PPD, enough to scare me into getting medicated, and while I thought I was better, my brain saw me writing about suicide and said "Suicide bad. Writing bad. No more writing for you." ALL my creative writing got shut off by this, not just this story, and I am still struggling to access that part of my brain.

It's super weird for me, because breaking writer's block for me used to just be a matter of "Butt in chair, fingers to keyboard," but in trying to protect me my brain keeps stopping and redirecting me before I can even get that far.

This chapter isn't anything super. Lots of exposition. Hope I haven't lost all of you in the two years my updating has become so spotty - particularly those of you who have cameos in here.

Also, a fun bit of news. DarkSymphony777 has a small youtube channel dedicated to reviewing fanfiction, and he reviewed both Iliad and Odyssey! Head on over, give him a like, and tell me if you agree with his observations and criticisms. (spaces added between the "." and "/")

Iliad: www . youtube watch?v=3hprx_0QZV4&t=2484s
Odyssey: www . youtube watch?v=GDO9imsP3Fc&t=3s
I also made his top 10 of 2021 list: www . youtube watch?v=99WB-uHMVwg
(spoiler alert, he ranked Iliad #1!)

Ch. 35 – Jurisdiction

Calypso Blue eyed his team with disdain while, from a soundproof room nearby, a committee that included at least one Celestial Dragon, Head Admiral Sakasuki, and the Elder Stars all grilled Bags about the recent debacle on Maiden Island. Apparently it had left the higher ups questioning CP4's ability to apprehend Helena de Zoro and her daughter.

Never mind that Calypso and his brutal plan had almost wiped Ilium from the map; a success that Monte Bags and his predecessors had striven for unsuccessfully for centuries. Never mind that they had apprehended the King and all of Ilium's major military leaders. However gratified they'd felt with their successes at first, it had somehow been overshadowed by the monumental failure of allowing Helena and her offspring to escape from Maiden Island to Saobody Archipelago.

From the safety of the large, white marble mezzanine on which they sat, the Cipher Pol agents could still see the aftermath of Helena's little visit to the Celestial Dragons. The fires she and her liberated slaves had started had left several palaces in blackened ruin. Calypso, wearing the white suit of a head agent, tipped his hat over his face to block the sight of all the charred opulence, still being excavated and cleaned by legions of slaves.

Cipher Pol 0 should be taking the heat. After all, it was THEIR job to protect the Celestials directly. Not to mention Navy Headquarters being RIGHT THERE. But no, CP4 had all the blame for letting two little royal pains escape. That meant the Navy could worm their way in and try to take jurisdiction of Helena's case. Infuriating!

Calypso stole a glance at the female members of his team from under the bridge of his hat. Peach, with her long violet-black hair pulled up in girlish pig tails, sat on a nearby chair, feet crossed behind her in a lady-like attempt to hide her stone talon. In her human form, the kestrel zoan looked a child for her petite frame, and definitely dressed that way to keep Calypso from flirting with her. He let the lolita play that game with him, but knew she was definitely older than she appeared.

Not that he felt like flirting with her today.

"Something wrong, Blue-chan?" she asked, cocking her head inquisitively. Despite her cutesy tone, the slits in her golden eyes narrowed at him. She'd been tetchy since losing her foot to Hancock's love pistol. Despite her best efforts, it remained stuck in talon form, even when she transformed into a human.

He didn't dean her with a response.

Beside her, Dmitri sat doodling on the floor with a piece of chalk. Though practically drowning in a baggy black hoody and pajama pants, despite adopting a masculine name, she couldn't hide from Calypso. He could smell a woman from miles away. Likely she hid her true gender, like Peach hid her age, to stave off his flirting. Calypso was starting to suspect both women had been assigned to him specifically for these reasons. Diddy with her obvious age as well.

Speaking of the old bag, he had started to respect her as one of the more competent members of his team, but then she'd allowed her new glamour glamour power to slip, leaving him completely exposed. Even worse, she and Dmitri, the teleporter, had failed to capture Helena despite literally having her in their clutches. Peach, the Kestrel Zoan, had allowed herself to be hit by one of Hancock's love pistols, causing them to drop the Princess.

The catastrophe on Maiden Isle had been entirely their fault.

Not that the rest of his crew would have been much help had they been there. Orpheus, the lazy

musician, was too difficult to motivate. Feta the crazed cheese chef had no subtlety. How he'd managed to maintain a cover for all those years in Ilium was anyone's guess. And Nysa…there was something off about Nysa. Calypso didn't trust her (so he hadn't put her on the Maiden Isle mission) but he couldn't put his finger on why. Maybe it was because she never took her sunglasses off, even indoors. Either no one knew her true identity, or it went beyond his personal clearance, which was pretty high, given his head agent status. Besides that, she had the weirdest smile he'd ever seen. It crept up her cheeks way beyond what should be humanly possible.

If Calypso's newly formed team lost him jurisdiction on Helena's case, he'd never forgive them. He'd gone to great personal lengths to take this woman down, not the least of which being visiting his childhood home.

Now that had brought back painful memories. His proposal to lay a trap for Helena there had been done at great personal expense. Not that he'd ever let the others see it, but being among the Kuja had been a living nightmare for him. It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed not to murder each and every last woman on the island.

He couldn't help but remember the way it had felt, as a mere child, having ever single friend and family member he'd ever known suddenly reject him for a concept he hardly understood. Whispers that his mother had done wrong by bringing him into the world, by letting him live. That his very existence could destroy the Kuja way of life. As soon as his secret was discovered, a secret he'd hardly realized he'd been keeping, other Kuja children followed him in the streets to gawk and throw rocks at him.

One such instance, they'd nailed him hard enough in the head to knock him unconscious. His mother barely discovered him in time to rescue him.

His mother.

Calypso Dance wasn't a particularly beautiful woman, but she had been strong and tall. Tall enough and strong enough to knock back the haggle of preteen miscreants who had knocked her kid to the street. She had also been a pirate, one of the famed Kuja ship; her presence alone was enough to send the children scurrying when they'd realized who had spotted their bullying.

When Blue had come to, he was already aboard a small boat in the calm belt, pulled by a medium large constrictor that his mother had stolen from the Kuja pirate crew. It wasn't full grown yet, and hadn't fully trained in navigating the calm belt, but hopefully it would scare some of the sea kings away. His mother had bandaged his head and packed them both a bag.

"There are rumors that the Empress wants you executed," she'd told him in her smooth, dark chocolate voice, bitterness not yet giving way to tears in her tone. "We're leaving. We will find your father. You'll be safe with him."

"I don't want to leave," he'd told his mother. "I can show them I'm strong enough, even if I am a boy."

"They aren't afraid you won't be strong enough," she'd told him.

"Then why don't they like me?"

She didn't seem to have an answer for this. She had assured him one day she would explain it better when he was safe. But then, she never got the chance. She hadn't made it out of the calm belt alive.

Calypso emotionlessly blinked away the image of his mother disappearing into the maw of a sea king. - A distant door drifted open, and out came Akainu and Monte Bags. The former wore a scowl, and walked by the lounging team of agents without a sidelong glance. That was a good sign.

Calypso didn't bother asking Bags how the meeting had gone. Peach didn't hold back her curiosity though: "Well? Did the Elder Stars give us jurisdiction, Monty-Chan?"

Bags smirked at the Lolita. "Did you doubt I could persuade them, like it's my job?" he asked, trimming his bubble pipe and sticking it in his mouth for a puff. "Though the fiasco at Amazon Lily could be perceived as a failure, Akainu didn't exactly fare much better capturing the Sun Queen on the Red Line. Half a block burned down under his watch. The Elder Stars believe he has other assignments to attend to, like it's his job. We succeeded at our main objective, which was bringing down Ilium; it only makes sense to allow us to finish what we started."

"But of course! It's only fashionable to see a project through," Diddy agreed. At the word 'fashionable' she glamoured a powder pink suit and large fuchsia Easter hat onto Bags in thanks. He didn't do more than raise an eyebrow at it in amusement, still quite pleased with himself regardless of the fashionable feathers and flowers now framing his face.

The others murmured their agreement while Nysa just smiled her large creepy smile.

"Something wrong, Blue-chan?" Peach prodded.

Calypso hadn't responded, his keen blue eyes following Akainu as he slammed the door behind him. The doorknob glowed red hot where he'd grabbed it, the large man's anger seeping through the bronze with molten lividity. "There's a catch, isn't there, mon?" he prodded.

"I wouldn't call it a catch," Bags said, trimming his bubble pipe. "But yes, we do need to prove our worthiness once again. There is someone we need to capture for a particular client."

"That would be myself."

A palanquin ambled into view on the backs of four slaves, a Celestial Dragon reclining led atop it. He didn't don the usual bubble helmet, here in the "pure" air of Marie Jois, but still held an unmistakable air of disdain for all the lower lifeforms before him. The Cipher Pol agents all jumped to attention, Calypso Blue included, as Saint Coppelius Rothbart lifted a hand to halt his slaves.

"While nothing would please me more than to see Helena the Heretic burn," the Dragon went on, blinking at the agents through owlish eyes. Calypso noted that Rothbart grimaced as he spoke, wincing around a wound likely located in his chest area from the way he shifted uncomfortably. "I have bigger plans. I have particular intel that a certain Iliad woman is a descendant of the Sybil and has inherited her powers and responsibilities."

All the agents who had spent time in Ilium audibly gasped at this pronouncement, Bags aside, who casually blew bubbles from his pipe as he eyed the other agents' reactions. He'd clearly already been briefed. Well, and Nysa just got that creepy grin on her face. The one that spread higher and higher on her cheekbones until it looked inhuman.

"How did you find that out, Sweetums?" she asked, not in her usual clipped tone. There was a laugh hidden deep in her throat, but she didn't let it out in more than a rasped undertone to her question. "Not even the royal family knew that."

Rothbart eyed her with a contempt that flinched a bit at the unearthly smile on her face. Even

he, with all his power and disdain, felt unsettled looking at her. Instead of reprimanding her for interrupting him, he answered her question. "Indeed, they do not, or your coup would not have succeeded," he went on, his gaze conspicuously darting away from her to look back toward Bags and the other agents. "It would appear that the previous Sybil had lived for over 900 years. The knowledge of how her powers and responsibilities are relayed had been lost to time."

"I had not heard of this before now either," Bags put in. "But I assure you, his intel is sound. It came from The Oracle."

All of Cipher Pol 4 stared in silence at this revelation. All had heard of the Oracle, some had even acted on his intel from time to time. Also known as The Waking Nightmare, the man had a strange devil fruit power that allowed him to dip into the collective psyche of all humanity as he dreamed. A carefully guarded information resource of Cipher Pol 0, he had never been wrong.

"What is more, we have gained permission to bring The Oracle with us on this recovery mission, like it's our job. As you know, he doesn't necessarily control his dreams and visions, so we can't use him to spy on any of our targets, but he did see the new Sybil and parts of where she is hiding. With his photographic memory, he should be able to identify her and her location by sight."

Rothbart grinned evilly at this. "The Head Admiral is not happy about our taking the Oracle out of his special containment, but I assured him it is absolutely necessary. After all, I should have his head for his failure in protecting my family from Helena de Zoro. The Elder Stars agreed, as did the Head of CP0. You are to take The Waking Nightmare with you on this mission."

The Celestial Dragon tapped his palanquin and the four slaves with him lifted it onto their shoulders. One lagged a bit. - he didn't seem like the type for palanquin carrying. Scrawny, with dark salt and pepper hair combed roughly into the shape of cat ears, the middle aged man let out a bit of a feline yowl as Rothbart smacked him with a riding crop.

"Come, Balanchine. You can do better than that," he simpered.

The disgraced dance master said nothing as he squared his thin shoulders against the burden. Soon the palanquin had disappeared from view out of a distant archway.

Calypso watched them go, expression calculating.

"Right. Our next order of business is to go retrieve the Oracle, like it's our job," Bags said.

"Wait, aren't we going to need the help of the Sybil to get the Oracle?" Peach asked. "So we need to get the Sybil first."

"No, dummy," Orpheus correct her. "We killed the Sybil, and need the Oracle to get the new Sybil." That he managed to retain anything when I dozed through the entire conversation was anyone's guess.

"That's what I said," she replied, "We need to get the Sybil first to get the Oracle so we can...do what again? Wait...which one is on our side?" Her ditzy attitute was not just part of her Lolita facade. Her bird zoan fruit had given her a bit of a feather brain.

"Both. Preferrably," Nysa clipped.

"The Oracle is on our side, also known as The Waking Nightmare," Bags clarified, "We need to go pick him up so we can get the new Sybil and bring her to St. Rothbart."

"Ohhh," Peach nodded, "Ok, then. Let's get going, Monte-Chan. To pick up the Sybil!"

"Oracle." Diddy corrected.

"Oracle," Peach agreed.

"No, mon," Calypso said, gesturing to the still blackened part of Marie Jois below. "We can't let 'Elena run loose any longer. Who knows what more damage she could cause, especially if she is reunited with her loser husband."

"Are you suggesting we go against a direct assignment from a Celestial Dragon, Blue-chan?" Peach asked, cute face scrunching up into a scowl. "Do you have a death wish?"

"No," he said, "We will split up, mon. The rest of you all slowed me down last time. Capturing Elena will take more finesse than you idiots are capable of."

"ExCUSE ME?" Peach snapped.

"Yeah, that IS pretty rich, coming from a total cheese for brains," Orpheus added with a yawn.

The reference to what had happened to his locks brought Calypso's temper to the fore. He'd had to cut them all off and replace them with extensions. Thankfully Helena hadn't noticed when they'd next met. Calypso didn't think he could bear to give her that victory. "Another example of you all getting in my way!" he bellowed, rounding on Chef Feta, "I would have taken 'Elena down in Ilium proper if it hadn't been for you, mon!"

"Mon dieu! Mes rats did more zan you did taking Ilium down," Chef Feta pointed out, "You sink you can come in to OUR misSION and tell us all what to do? I leeved underground for two years preparing for zat mission while you stayed in a cushy castle, flirting wis ze queen!"

Bags puffed on his bubble pipe pensively as the rest of the team rounded on their Head Agent. He must have seen what Calypso did - mainly that it was a wonder such a dysfunctional group managed to take down a target as difficult as Ilium in the first place. But also...

"That's enough out of all of you!" the team's handler cut in with a tone so decisive it shut the conversation down immediately. "Calypso is right, like it's his job. Helena is too important a target. Allowing her to reunite with her husband could be disastrous. Blue will go on a solo mission to try to keep that from happening while I lead the rest of the team to the Sibyl."

"I thought you were retiring, Monte-chan," Peach said in shock.

"You lot keep me from being able to finally hang up my hat, like it's your job," Bags retorted. "I can't trust you all to capture the Sibyl on your own without SOMEONE's guidance. Dmitri, you will stay here at the Red Line. Once we land our respective targets, we can teleport back using your Poof Poof powers."

Dmitri nodded, her blue fringe of white polka-dotted hair swishing into her eyes from where it poked out under her dark hoodie. She snapped her fingers twice, each time producing a piece of ordinary looking blue chalk in a small blue cloud of white polka dotted smoke. She tossed one to each Bags and Calypso in turn.

"We rendezvous back here when our respective missions are done, like it's our job," Bags said, and the team nodded.

Calypso smirked, pocketed his chalk and turned on his heel. "I'm coming for you, my sweet 'Elena," he thought, striding out of the hall. He passed the door with a magma-melted doorknob, hardly sparing it a glance."This time there will be no one getting in my way."

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A/N: A small poll, to help me get my creative juices flowing. You KNOW, per the standard One Piece rubric, that these CP agents are going to be facing off against the Straw Hats in the Future. Who do you think should fight whom? (This is not including Helena or Kuina in the line up)

To recap, there's

Monte Bags - unknown fighting prowess, Handler (basically this group's Spandem, but much more deadly/lethal/capable)
Calypso - swordsman. Head Agent. (This group's Lucci)
Feta - Chef with Cheese Cheese Fruit
Nysa - Party planner. carries a bag of holding (bag with Hammer Hammer Fruit). Something's off about her.
Diddy - seamstress with Glamour Glamour power
Orpheus - sleepy musician. Fights firing note shaped blades from his guitar strings.
Peach - kestral zoan. Fast. Agile. Ditzy. Adorable.
Dmitri - Teleporter with poof poof fruit. Quiet as a ninja. You might forget she's there.
The Oracle/Waking Nightmare - has realtime visions in his sleep. Those who know him personally gave him the nickname of The Waking Nightmare. More on him to come.