Commissioned Omake: The Meeting

Yeah, the commissioner commissioned an omake for their previous commission. It's a comedy AU for a young sailor's swordsmanship. 

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Tanya had no idea what Being X was thinking. Sure, have a dragon kill her mother. That makes sense. But why did he have her father coincidentally be present if he was going to survive? Not only survive, but contribute enough to the defense that he was celebrated as a hero?

Her only explanation was that Being X wasn’t paying close enough attention to ensure that she was properly suffering, and she just had a spot of good luck.

Well… unless the point was just to humiliate her a bit, but it seemed petty, even for Being X. This requires some explanation. While one would assume an adult mentality would make certain parts of maturing, potty training included, simple enough to accomplish far earlier than normal… it was not so simple. Sure, when she was awake, it was fine as long as she was allowed access to the facilities quickly whenever it was needed. At night… Biology mattered more than mentality.

Further, this was a relatively recent change in her circumstances, so when the pre-packed escape bag didn’t reflect her development, and the attack, which was at dawn, precluded changing out of her nightclothes… it was understandable that the other mothers in the shelter chose to simply not bother searching for proper underwear for her. When combined with the literal bowel-loosening terror that a genuine dragon roar provoked…

She decided it was easier to just lie about her age and say she was two when Father asked. An impulsive decision, but one she’s willing to live with. When you had an adult mentality and pretended to be a toddler, the difference between an early toddler and a late one wasn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. She’ll just adapt to whatever educational pace her father sets.

As it turned out, Father’s offhandedly mentioned title that wasn’t on his wanted poster, one of the “Seven Warlords of the Sea”, was because the World Government had a special rehabilitation program where powerful pirates were given conditional pardons and letters of Marque, fighting other pirates at the loose direction of the Marines. It was an institution that could only exist in a world where men that turned into dragons and could punch earthquakes were public enemies, and simple skill with a sword could fight those men on equal footing. So his bounty poster was about two years out of date.

What this meant was that instead of going through significant effort to source the necessary supplies for caring for a two year old while a notorious outlaw… he just went straight towards the only landmass large enough to be called a continent and went to a store. This world’s geography gets even more ridiculous the more she learns about it. They needed to take a cross between an elevator, gondola, and zeppelin to get here, but her new clothes were very high quality, fit for royalty.

It was a good thing that one of the pieces of advice Father was given was to talk to her as much as he could, “explain the world around her, even if she won’t understand”, because she would never have understood why he came here if he was as much of the big silent type as he looked.

“Normally, I’d just ignore the summons. It’s never worth coming, and if I do, there’s usually just Moria who shows up. Moria is depressing.” He explained as the tailor adjusted her new outfit. “But if I’m already on the Red Line, they’re going to be troublesome if I go anywhere but Marineford before the meeting starts. So we get to shop in Mariejois, instead of Sabaody.” From context, Tanya assumed that Sabaody had stores that weren’t the local equivalent to high fashion boutiques exclusively.

Mariejois was… interes-horrible. It was horrible. Slavery was apparently legal here, because there was a ruling class that could ignore all of the laws that they themselves created for the underclass, which included literal Kings and Queens. Although there was a rather large amount of damage to the city, mostly the residential parts, as someone appears to have burnt half of it to the ground. Understandable, given that this was the kind of slavery where the slave owners competed for who could treat their slaves the worst. These manchildren were completely separated from reality.

But this world catered to them, so Tanya got to experience the dubious honor of having the softest, most luxurious and comfortable clothes she has ever worn in any lifetime be baby clothes (although admittedly there wasn’t much competition). She had never imagined that she’d see anyone look so disgusted at clean diapers before, but the tailor exceeded expectations at snootiness; apparently cotton was ‘unworthy’ to be pissed in for the Celestial Dragons. Really, given the degree of discrimination, it was a little surprising they even accepted Father’s money. She supposed that his strength was prized just that highly. Given that he could sword fight a dragon and drive it off alone, this made some amount of sense.

“I assume whatever they want to talk about involves all that fire damage, but if they’re going to make us wait for an entire week for the meeting to start, I’m not going down to Marineford until the last minute.” Father continued to explain. This was a corporate level move. Tanya approved.

“Okay.” Tanya said, as if she was only pretending to understand.

“Begging your pardon, Sir Warlord.” The tailor said, noting down a few things on a notepad. “While your patronage is as good as your funds are, there are less expensive options at the Red Port.” Which was the port at the base of the Red Line that they will be passing through to reach Marineford, if Tanya understood the situation correctly. Common-born but non-slave artisans like the tailor had to commute to work daily from there.

Father waved off the concern. “Saint Garling offered to pay for everything to keep me here. He’s a practical man, despite his strong ideology.” The red-haired World Noble was apparently the leader of the Holy Knights, and was the one sent to inform Mihawk of his obligation to attend the meeting. Tanya was initially confused as to why he didn’t send an underling, and then was being so generous, but then all was made clear when they immediately got to scheduling a duel later in the week after it was established that Father would not be leaving until then.

“...Saint Figarland Garling?” The tailor asked with interest, before putting a finger to their shin in thought. “I will need to add something for a sheath, won’t I?” What.

“Yes.” Father said, “Where would I go to order a knife for her, by the way?” Okay, apparently the Figarland family believes in arming toddlers. Father agrees. Well, she knows how to use a knife, it’s fine in this case.  Given Father’s anticipation towards the duel, she thought that Saint Garling probably needn’t have bothered with the bribe. She was descended from two Battle Maniacs, if Father’s story about how Mother died held even a kernel of truth. Honestly, who goes to kick a triceratops in the face when you had the option of sheltering with your child? …Most of the 203rd would probably take that option. Were any of them close enough to the blast to be taken out too? Oh, now she was tearing up. It was human nature to grieve for fallen loved ones, just as it was human nature to love someone who gives you love, like Mother did.

“I’ll send for the blacksmith, Sir Warlord. Enjoy your tea.” The tailor replied, somehow more respectful after the name-drop. Tanya was wondering when the subject of payment for all of these clothes would come up, it seemed rather strange to her that it took so long.

Wait, what was she doing? She was a toddler, she shouldn’t be quiet about this. Letting the floodgates open, Tanya started crying. What for? Was it because she had lost her mother mere days ago? Was it because she had been standing in place for thirty minutes and wanted to move? Was it because she had soiled herself? Tanya was a big fan of multitasking.

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The next week was spent enjoying the hospitality of the Figarland family, as inviting non-outlaw swordsman to duel was apparently a common enough occurrence that there was a dedicated villa, much smaller and less luxurious than all of the mansions around it, to house them while they waited for Saint Garling’s schedule to open up.

Once the day of the duel arrived, Tanya was handed off to a pink-haired slave that was apparently Figarland Boris’ newest “wife”. Ugh. She was still bearing the marks of her latest beating, but her spirit has yet to be broken. Giving a baby to a defiant slave seemed like a horrible idea, but Tanya did have her knife, and seemed to be able to do something similar to a mage blade coating it when she tried.

“Damned Celestial Dragons, damn them all.” Ginny, the slave’s name, muttered darkly. She stroked Tanya’s light hair. “But I can’t blame it on you. They won’t feel it if you die.” While it wasn’t exactly comforting, at least she was rational about how little hurting Tanya would help her. “Why didn’t you marry me, Kuma-chi? We could have had a nice and big little bundle of joy, just like little Tanya here.” She paused for a moment. “...How big was Kuma-chi when he was born? No, he said his mother didn’t have giant blood, and she survived him… Yeah, it would have been fine.”

Tanya stopped paying attention to the scatterbrained slave in order to pay attention to her father’s duel. They were very far from the dueling grounds, about half a mile, but Tanya’s superhuman vision could see them as clearly as the front row at a sumo contest. …does sumo exist here? Thoughts for later.

Tanya, despite some kendo training and extensive experience in close combat in her second life… couldn’t really say much about the specifics of the duel. They both wielded their blades expertly, their deflected and missed swings creating large furrows in the earth around them. Father’s larger sword battered at Saint Garling’s smaller weapon, taking advantage of its superior weight to dominate direct clashes. That wasn’t to say that Father didn’t wield his sword with the precision of a master calligraphy artist, he very much did wield it with speed and precision that was shocking, but when dealing with skill levels so close to each other… little advantages like a sword that’s twice the weight of your enemy’s blade ends up being decisive.

“You can’t even see them move…” Ginny said, in awe. Maybe you can’t. Admittedly, Tanya had to focus in order to track them. Tanya assumed that it was a side effect or echo of her ability to accelerate her thoughts in her second life with magic, much like her experiments with a mage blade.

In the end, it was Saint Garling that made the first mistake. He misjudged a block, and the overwhelming power of Father’s swing jarred the man’s grip on his blade. Within two more exchanges, the man’s sword was thrown out of the man’s hand by Father’s bladework, and his clothing was slashed, a thin line of red on the man’s chest.

Fearful whispers erupted as everyone saw Saint Garling lose. The man looked to be in his fifties, so it wasn’t surprising that he lost to a much younger swordsman, but the exchanges were still impressive.

Fortunately, it seemed like the Holy Knight Commander was gracious in defeat, as he promptly invited them both to dine with him at his personal estate.

“It’s shameful, the state of the Royal Knights these days.” Groused Saint Garling as he ate what appeared to be filet mignon. From context, it was apparently a ruinously expensive cut of meat that he ate every day. “That damned Fishman should have been cut down in seconds, instead the damned fish escaped!”

“If it’s not too bold, Saint Garling, what were you doing when the events occurred?” Father asked. Ginny, who was the one feeding Tanya a bottle of milk that tasted more like vanilla ice cream than anything that came from a living creature, tensed in nervousness at the question. She did get a tiny, bite-sized portion of the meat, and it was the most deliciously tender meat that she ever ate; her teeth were decidedly not involved.

“I was attending the birth of my twelfth grandson.” Saint Garling grumbled. “No one fetched me until it was almost over. Sure, I killed about a hundred escaping slaves, but there shouldn’t have been that many left by the time I got there. Disgraceful.” His hand twitched in anger, and he lashed out with it at one of the butler slaves. Apparently, the man didn’t need a sword to create a flying slash, as the slave in question was promptly decapitated. The slave’s collar immediately exploded, which damaged the wall. “Get that fixed!” He ordered the surviving slaves. “Now we give them all bomb collars. They’re messy, and it’s a monument to the Holy Knight’s decline… but they are effective.”

Tanya was shocked at the explosion. Was this man… worse than Being X? Tanya didn’t think it was possible. What hellscape did Being X put her in, where a man like this stood amongst the rulers of the world?

Tanya decided that now was a good time to cry.

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After that harrowing week, it was finally time to attend the meeting. The meeting that was definitely about the slave revolt that Saint Garling was complaining about.

Things started inauspiciously, as Father was apparently the third Warlord to arrive, and the Marines at the dock were amazed that “so many” Warlords decided to attend the meeting. They were led to a waiting room, where the other two were.

Sir Crocodile was a man that looked at old American gangster movies and thought ‘do you know what this aesthetic needs? A giant golden hook.’. He had a scar across the bridge of his nose, and beyond one raised eyebrow didn’t seem to care much about her presence.

Gekko Moria, on the other hand, was a massive man, seven meters or so tall, with corpse-pale skin and purple hair. He did care about her presence. “She’s adorable!” Moria said in a stage-whisper, giggling with a distinctively keening noise. “It makes me regret leaving little Perona on the ship, she loves cute things.” He dug into his pockets, taking out what appeared to be several lollipops. “Have some candy.” he said, giving her one of them and putting another in his mouth before putting the rest back.

Tanya quickly, before Father could object, replaced her pacifier with the lollipop. Sweet, sweet candy… It was even chocolate flavored. She needn’t have bothered, as he allowed the exchange without comment. The pacifier was pinned to her outfit by a strip of silk anyway. She adjusted her stuffed dog, which she named Akainu because it was red, in her arms to tuck the spit-covered soother away. She still had one or two teeth taking their sweet time growing in, and suckling things helped with the pain.

Before they could get fully settled in, a Marine came into the room and instructed everyone to go into the meeting room. Instead of leaving her on the couch, Father picked her back up and walked into the meeting room.

The meeting table was huge and round, appearing to seat about a dozen people, although you could easily double that with more chairs.  Already seated were about seven important-looking Marines, including one with notably fancier epaulets. Tanya immediately assumed he was in charge. “Mihawk, why do you have a baby?” Fancy-man asked, “This is a serious meeting.”

Tanya really thought he didn’t have room to speak, given… wait. Inane observations would be in character. “You have birdy on head.” Tanya said, pointing at the man as she put the lollipop back in her mouth.

The equally large man next to him burst out laughing. “She’s got you there, Sengoku!” It was true, the man’s hat had a presumably stuffed seagull on it. The Marine’s symbol/mascot was a seagull, but that didn’t make it less silly. The man brought out a bag of rice crackers and opened it up. “We can stop pretending that the pirates care about decorum.” He added before starting to eat his crackers.

“Garp!” Sengoku said back angrily, stretching out the other man’s name. “You promised to behave!” Huh. Turns out she’s not the only child here. Who would have thought?

As Tanya watched the byplay, Father took out a few toys from her diaper bag, placing them in front of her as she sat on the table. Blocks, a piece of paper, and some crayons. Obligingly, Tanya started stacking the blocks. There weren't that many, so it was easy. They had numbers on them, either 1-5 or 6-0, plus a blank side with a different color.

Sengoku, who was probably… an Admiral? There were three distinct ranks among the people here… he cleared his throat and put a wanted poster on the table. On cue, the assistants passed out a copy to each Warlord. It was of an odd-looking man, red skin, an indistinct nose, thick lips… The poster declared him ‘Fisher Tiger’, and gave him a bounty of 230,000,000 Beri. This was less than a sixth of Father’s old bounty, why did they give him one so small? “Two weeks ago, this fishman and his confederates attacked Mariejois, burning down forty estates, which house and employ about ten thousand.” That was a lot of slaves. “Thousands of employees are unaccounted for, and twenty-six Celestial Dragons lost their lives in the assault. Dozens more were severely injured. This is the worst disaster in the recorded history of the navy.”

Moria laughed. “Keekekekeke! You’ll want us to capture him, then? Is that what you called us up here for?” Tanya understood his incredulity. This had ‘this could have been an email’ written all over it… although in this case she supposed it would have been ‘a letter’. “You ask us up here for a two hundred and thirty million bounty, Fleet Admiral Sengoku?” So that’s his rank. Tanya figured out what she wanted to draw, so took out the crayons and started working on it.

“Political reasons prevent his bounty from going higher.” Sengoku replied, “He is suspected to have formed a crew of fishman pirates, he is very dangerous.”

“You can find someone else to chase them down into the depths around Fishman Island.” Crocodile said, rubbing his hook. “You know as well as I how little the deep sea agrees with me.”

“Asking me to surround myself in saltwater to face fishmen.” Moria added, contemptuous. “I agreed to limit myself to those unprotected by the World Government, I never agreed to any suicide missions.”

“Mihawk?” Sengoku asked, irritated.

“You better have a good reason to refuse.” Said the man on Sengoku’s other side. He had a baseball cap with ‘Marine’ on it just like the one on her stuffed dog, and wore a red suit underneath his official Marine coat. From the fanciness, Tanya estimated it at a rank between Sengoku and Garp. If Sengoku was the Fleet Admiral… was he a regular Admiral? The temperature in the room suddenly spiked.

Garp interrupted the proceedings once more. “Hey, what’s she got there?”

Her drawing finished, Tanya presented the messy scrawls to them. While she did, for a small time, imagine that she could become a mangaka, crayons were not pencils, and she was rather rushed in an attempt to get it finished while it was still relevant. “This is Fishy, and this is Birdy-head.” She announced. It was a drawing of Fisher Tiger having punched out Sengoku, with Garp laughing in the background.

Garp immediately copied his drawing, laughing and pointing at Sengoku, who ran his fingers through his hair. This was a mistake, as it allowed his afro to expand, flinging off his bird-hat and sending it ten feet away.

He has an afro under there? Tanya giggled at the absurdity. She never expected that!

Moria laughed his distinctive laugh again. “What’s Fisher Tiger doing punching out The Bhudda?” He asked, and wasn’t that a title that didn’t fit at all, the Fleet Admiral looked closer to a coronary than nirvana.

Tanya looked at her drawing again. He didn’t really have any motivation, it was true… Well, beyond being a pirate and Sengoku being the top Marine. She’ll just have to add a rescued slave. She immediately grabbed her pink crayon.

Father took the opportunity to answer the red Admiral’s question. “I’ll be much too busy with Tanya for the near future to be doing anything that dangerous.” He said simply. “I think I’m going to spend some time in the East Blue for a few months. Perhaps I’ll suppress those problematic Red Haired pirates, their captain is quite the swordsman, from what I remember of our last meeting in the West Blue.”

“You mean the Red-Haired pirates that supposedly ‘drove you off’ no less than three times in the last two years since you’ve been a Warlord?” Sengoku asked incredulously. “You think you’ll do better with a baby weighing you down?”

“Yes.” Father said with a completely straight face.

A moment of awkward silence proceeded at Father’s bold-faced lie, only the scratching of crayon making a sound. Seeing as how no one was saying anything, Tanya presented her amended picture. “There. Fishy’s saving the slaves now.”

The awkward silence got even more awkward. “Why is he saving slaves?” Moria asked.

Tanya grinned. Cutting through the political bullshit was kind of fun. “Ginny told me all about Fishy.” Tanya pointed to the pink-haired person-scrawl. “He saved the slaves, like Nika!” She pointed to the black splotch surrounded by the sun. “This is Nika.” Specifically, Nika was a savior-figure/god for the slaves of Mariejois. There was a specific associated dance and drumbeat, and he was associated with the sun, but otherwise it was a pretty generic ‘knuckle down and survive until the promised day’ kind of religion that keeps slaves productive, very self serving and beneficial to the masters on the small scale. Apparently, Fisher Tiger was seen as an agent of Nika, and it was quite disheartening for a lot of the slaves on how they missed their chance to be saved.

“Uh huh.” Moria said, unimpressed and glaring at Sengoku. “I take it the politics in question was because you didn’t want that little bit getting out?”

The heat haze surrounding the red Admiral intensified, and he started to stand. “Children do not belong in meetings.” he said dangerously.

Tanya drew her knife, pointing it in his direction. “Stab you.” She said, jabbing it forward.

Garp’s eyes bugged out. “You gave a baby a knife?” He asked Father. “How old is she again?” He put more crackers in his mouth.

“Two.” Father replied, “She hasn’t cut herself yet. Bought it in Mariejois on the way here. Along with the clothes.” He turned to Tanya. “Did you remember what I said about strange men who try to hurt you?”

“Cut them.” Tanya said, shifting her grip on the knife.

“Good. Your grandmother will be proud.” Father said. Supposedly, they were going to meet his parents at Sabaody before the meeting diverted things. He turned to the Admiral and stood up, drawing his giant sword. “No one in the room would lift a finger if you tried.” He said, his voice dead serious.

His threat made the Admiral hesitate. Then he looked at Akainu, Tanya’s stuffed dog. “...Do you know who I am?” He asked Tanya.

She made a show of looking at Sengoku’s clothes, then Garp’s clothes, then his clothes. “...Slow Admiral.” She said, smiling at her pun.

Sengoku seemed to be the only one who got her joke, from the looks of things. He seemed to be the only one pained by it instead of confused. “What’s wrong, Fast Admiral?” Tanya ‘innocently’ asked, which caused all the other marines to understand her pun, if she was reading their sudden tension correctly. “Do you want to hug Akainu?” She added, offering her stuffed dog.

Garp burst out laughing, as he was prone to do. “Yes Sengoku, maybe you should give Sakazuki a hug. He sure looks like he needs one!”

“Usually we get drinks when the comedy act is on.” Crocodile said, amused. Tanya looked around confused. That worked, but not how she expected it to.

Father leaned in and whispered: “That’s Admiral Akainu. Your dog is based on him.” Tanya looked at her stuffed dog in wonder. This world understands merchandising?

She looks at Admiral Akainu, who was smoldering about five feet away from her. Tanya repositioned her stuffed dog in her arms… and pointed her knife’s edge to the dog’s throat. “Don’t get close or I cut Akainu.” She said, in a faux-serious tone.

“Oh, she’s taken a hostage, Admiral. What will you do?” Moria said, intensely amused. “I remember when Perona tried this. I can remember it as if it was yesterday.”

“Fond memory?” Asked one of the other marines, who had previously remained silent.

“Bad memory.” Moria replied with a toothy grin. “It was this morning.”

Akainu, the real one, did not get closer, but lava bubbled on the man’s shoulders. “...This is a waste of time. I’ll hunt down that fucking fish myself.”

Tanya’s eyes widened. This was it! The perfect opportunity. How to use it… Ah. “Good fucking luck!” She shouted after him.

Predictably, things degenerated from there.