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Post-Alabasta
Tashigi frowned at the information in front of her. While Straw Hat and Rornoa were the only two of the pirate crew with bounties on their heads, there were other members of the crew. While they weren’t able to get bounties on them, they would appear one day. It was best to have a file made.
They learned about the reindeer while chasing after Straw Hat’s trail on Drum Island. The blonde was a waiter from the East Blue who worked at the Baratie. Cat Burglar Nami wasn’t a big player, but originally stole from pirates, so she was left alone. No Marine worth their salt was going to focus on someone who was stealing from pirates. They would prefer to go after the pirates instead.
The only one whom she couldn’t find anything on was Drake Timothy, as he introduced himself after checking the now Commodore Smoker’s vitals.
(“I don’t understand,” she said, pointing her sword at him and Roronoa. “Why are you helping him?”
“Captain’s orders,” Roronoa said. “I don’t get it.”
“Luffy’s taken a liking to Captain Smoker,” the pretty boy said. He was checking her captain’s pulse. “He doesn’t care if he’s an enemy or not. Smoker is a good man with a good heart. That matters more.”
“And who are you?!”
“Drake Timothy,” he said, having moved onto peering under the lids of Captain Smoker’s eyes. He made sure to make his movements exaggerated so she could see that he was doing first aid, rather than anything else. Once he was satisfied, he stood up. “Your captain is fine, just knocked out. And you’re Master Chief Petty Officer Tashigi. Hello.”
Something wasn’t right about this Drake Timothy. It wasn’t right in the way that set her hair on
She didn’t like how he said her name as if just by meeting her, he knew everything about her. The stare was intense, inhuman. Some primal part of her raised its hackles at the assessing gaze, even more so than she ever did with Roronoa Zoro.
Intellectually, she knew he was the more dangerous of the pair.
But something in her was saying Drake should not exist here.
“Where did they pick you up?” she asked. He wasn’t with them in Loguetown.
“Before the Reverse Mountain,” Roronoa said. “In the East Blue. Can we go? We have stuff to do and a civil war to get under control.”
“I prefer not to have a death match over your Captain’s unconscious body,” Drake added. “Our captain likes him. I hate for him to get hurt. Besides, I think we can agree there’s a greater enemy here.”
Crocodile.
“He’s one of the Warlords of the Sea.”
“Yes, yes, a privateer who works for the Navy,” the kid sounded impatient. “Been there. Done that. Read the history book. But if you had evidence, then he suddenly becomes touchable, right?”
Roronoa huffed, “He flooded his base.”
“And I took my time before breaking out the others while Sanji was playing a lovely distraction as Mister Prince,” Drake said, pulling out a waterproof bag. Theoretically, only the Navy and some tradesmen were allowed to have those, but pirates got their hands on them. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Master Chief Petty Officer Tashigi.”
She also thought of Captain Smoker’s words and what she could live with.
Tashigi put her katana away and snatched the documents that the man who should exist pulled out from the bag.
“Go,” she said. “But don’t think I’m letting you off the hook, pirates. There is just a bigger fish than you.”
Roronoa rolled his eyes but headed off.
Drake merely smirked and bowed at the waist before following him. She was glad to be rid of that scrutinizing gaze of his.)
“There’s nothing on him, sir,” she said to Commodore Smoker. “No birth record had been submitted to the World Government from what I could tell. He just…appeared in the East Blue one day right before the Straw Hats went up the Reverse Mountain.”
Her superior looked down at the information that she had gathered, taking a thoughtful puff of his cigars.
“You ever hear the old sailing stories, Tashigi?” he asked.
“I’ve heard many, sir. You’ll have to be a little clearer.”
“My Da was a merchant who sailed all around the East Blue, getting goods for those who took port in Loguetown before getting on the Grand Line,” he said. “He’d come home full of stories from all the islands for me, Mama, and Mom. One story was about the Fair Folk. People from the Other World who could stay in this one if you make a deal with them. You felt it, didn’t you? Something about this Drake kid gave me the creeps.”
She answered without even really thinking about it, “His eyes, sir.”
It had to be his eyes. Nothing else made sense otherwise.
But then the reality of what Commodore Smoker was suggesting hit her. Tashigi’s ancestors came from the New World, people who left Wano for whatever reason to settle as far from the New World as their ships could carry them. But they had brought the stories with them of the yokai, ranging from the frightening to the adorable, of the supernatural world.
Even in the world of Devil Fruits, where one could, theoretically, get the power of a yokai, it didn’t mean that they were real. Same with Smoker’s Fair Folk. There was probably a Devil Fruit; there was always a Devil Fruit.
But…
Drake Timothy could swim.
“You don’t think that this kid is human or humanoid?” she asked instead. “He was bleeding. He has no Devil Fruit powers. I saw him get out of the water under his own power, sir.”
“Doesn’t mean much, but you said it yourself, Ensign. There are no records of him anywhere,” he sighed, blowing out a stream of smoke. “But he bleeds red. So he’s probably human. But all I can think about is that feeling that he shouldn’t be here. You and I won’t say shit. No reason to get those higher than us interested in the kid. Pirate or no, I wouldn’t wish that shit on anyone.”
Tashigi swallowed and nodded. The Commodore was always serious, but this seriousness made her more scared than anything else.
Commodore Smoker, however, wasn’t the only Marine to grow up on such tales of the Fair Folk.
The rumor spread like wildfire.
Pre-Thriller Bark
“I’m telling you that kid is the Devil himself,” a Lieutenant Commander who was escorting Kuma said to an Ensign walking alongside them. “Or, well, a devil anyway.”
Most of the Marines pretended that he didn’t exist. They found him unnerving and for good reason, he supposed. It no longer bothered him. People could think whatever they want of him. He would wear the shackles of the World Government like a dog.
So long as Bonney was safe. It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered outside of his little girl.
However, it did mean that he heard a fair amount of gossip. Iva-chan and Ginny would have loved such things.
But he couldn’t think about them. He couldn’t.
Not when he would be gone soon.
It would hurt too much.
“Drake?” the Ensign bunched her brows.
“I was at Enies Lobby,” the Lieutenant Commander said, shuddering at the memory of something other than a tragedy of an accidental buster call. Kuma doesn’t question such things, but he was still surprised that former CP-9 chief Spandam was alive. If you could call his condition truly living. He was pretty sure he was only allowed to remain in the Marines because most people hated desk work.
At least, his doctors believed he could hold a pen once his hands healed up.
The Lieutenant Commander continued, pulling Kuma out of his thoughts.
“I know he’s only seventeen, but I have never been more scared of anyone in my life. And I had to escort Doflamingo once. You know, they said that Spamdam of CP-9 can never speak right again because of what he did. Or hold a sword. Straw Hat had to have made a deal with the Devil.”
Kuma gripped his Bible tighter.
He had, of course, heard about what had happened at Enies Lobby. A group barely out of childhood declared war against the World Government to save a friend. So many of them were still so young, yet they knew the horrors of this world so intimately, and it would only get worse for them in the New World.
And yet, they persisted. The Straw Hats were a powerful crew, but a cheerful one. They loved each other.
The part of him that would always be a Revolutionary until that died as well was fascinated by such a spirit.
However, he could not condone it.
He had other duties.
Including the Most Important One.
To Ginny.
To Bonney.
The Ensign laughed at that.
“The Devil, really? That’s what you’re going with, sir?”
“Well, you heard the rumors,” the Lieutenant Commander said. “They say that this kid is otherworldly. They’re still trying to find his birth records or any island that would claim him or remember him growing up there. Nothing.”
Hm.
That is odd.
If there was one thing that the World Government stayed on top of, it was birth records. After all, those in…
Well.
Better to know how much chattel is out there. Births and deaths were meticulously tracked as a result. Kuma hated it with what was left of his humanity, but he swallowed it all in order to protect that which was most dear.
Bonney.
Oh, Ginny, you would have hated what I have become, he thought.
“I’m telling you. The kid had something about it that made it clear he didn’t really belong here,” the Lieutenant Commander said. “Seventy million beri isn’t high enough for him. He’s a demon. Straw Hat made a deal with the Devil, and we are all going to suffer. Especially if you earned his full attention as Spandam did.”
Drake Timothy, Kuma would have to remember that name.
(“Will the Kingmaker not do anything?” he would ask on Thriller Bark.
Information was what he lacked, he realized. Oh, the boy was brilliant, gathering the pirates under Charlotte Lola, getting his group together quicker, running over the island, and sneaking away from Moria.
He was a masterclass of stealth and thought.
“I don’t like being tested, Warlord Kuma,” he said politely. “Especially since the lesson has been made clear.”
He could see why people thought Drake Timothy was so unsettling. It was the same reason that he was unsettling. Neither of them was supposed to exist here. He wasn’t sure why he thought that about Drake, just that he did. And he knew about things that shouldn’t exist, after all.
After all, a Buccaneer’s existence was a sin itself.
However, he was certain that the boy was human. But he was too steady for someone whose life was being threatened. What sort of life did he live before coming here?
“And what lesson is that?”
It was rare that someone saw through the act he put up.
He was an obedient lapdog to the World Government.
But not quite.
Not yet.
“We are not ready for the New World yet.”
And yet, he would still need to drive it home in Sabaody.
But he did give Drake that moment of compassion to say his goodbyes to his captain because he figured out that there was a lesson in what Kuma was doing to them.
And he could see a child who still longed for a father.
He was, after all, a father who longed for his child.
He could show him this mercy.)
Day Of The Straw Hats’ Reunion
Koron knew that he shouldn’t’ve joined Demalo’s Fake Straw Hat crew. Sure, it was a sweet gig at first. But as time passed and the Straw Hats didn’t emerge, he couldn’t help but become more and more tense. Yeah, they were probably dead. And yeah, they probably weren’t coming back.
But everyone else had an easy gig, and he was impersonating a fucking spirit. Yeah, those stories were probably bunk, but now?
Now, he wasn’t so sure about that anymore.
“It really is rude to impersonate someone,” Drake Timothy, the real Drake Timothy, said to Koron, who was bound and gagged in a basement somewhere. “Identity is important, you know? Names have power, Mister Koron.”
He whimpered.
He knew his name.
The Spirit knew his name.
Koron was a fucking dead man. His body didn’t know it yet.
“Of course,” Drake continued, bright blue eyes pinning him. “If you truly want to be my doppelganger, then you’ll need to break in my name properly. After all, you seemed to have lived it up for those two years that we were gone. While my captain grieved the loss of his older brother, and while his crew was furious that we couldn’t be there to help him.”
His voice was pleasantly light, a smile as he spoke.
The eyes didn’t lie, however.
The pirate had never seen such a frosty expression on another person’s face before.
He had to be a spirit, like in those old stories from his shitty little village on a shitty little island in the middle of nowhere part of the South Blue. He just didn’t feel like he was part of this world. Koron was warned about spirits, who were from the Other World and possessive over memories, titles, and their names. He provoked one by using his name. They provoked him by being people who were His.
If Straw Hat made a contract with such a being, then there was nothing in the world that would stop him from taking vengeance on them. And he had to have something. Birds went quiet at his whistle. Shadow bent to give him safe passage. Even with Observation Haki, he was too good at knowing Koron’s next move, knowing who was in the immediate vicinity.
Like he had on his Observation Haki all the fucking time.
Koron didn’t have it himself. He wasn’t that powerful.
But, still.
No one could do that, right?
He tried to speak, forgetting about the gag, trying to explain himself. They didn’t know. The Straw Hats never emerged. Everyone thought that Marineford was Straw Hat Luffy’s last stand before the World Government. They thought his appearance in the days after was the last time he would have been seen on the world stage. He was just a cautionary tale of a rookie who got in over his head too quickly, who the Grand Line had spat out before crossing over to the New World.
But the Spirit that was Drake Timothy, the Kingmaker, already seemed to know his excuses and was not interested in what Koron had to say. Spirits, after all, were inhuman with inhuman desires. They only cared about their contractors.
“So,” Drake continued as if his hostage didn’t attempt to speak. “If you want to be me so much, Koron. Then you will get to be me.”
He laughed a little, and his grin was disconcerting, like a knife on the face of someone trying to be human.
“You poor bastard.”
And it did sound like he pitied him for using Drake’s name. What kind of life did the Spirit live?
“But you wanted to be me,” and all sympathy was gone for the voice. “So you’re going to really get to be me, Koron. Weren’t you curious?”
He leaned in further.
The feeling of wrong screeched in the older man’s brain.
But Drake kept. on. smiling.
Koron didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. He struggled against his bonds more as if he could get out of them.
He held up some sort of device, and even with the gag, he could smell the gunpowder. It was a bomb. They were going to blow something up. A spirit wanted to blow something up.
“Well, we’re going to redo what happened the last time I was in Sabaody, and blow up the human auction house. That sounds like fun, right?”
Koron passed out.
He woke up much later, glad for the mercy of being thrown in prison.
Straw Hat wouldn’t let his Spirit into Impel Down, right?
Right?
Post-Wano
Figarland Shamrock wasn’t one to concern himself with those of the lower world. What use was it to worry about commoners, merely pawns used to keep the world ticking along? The cogs did not think about the machine that they were working in, after all.
They just kept turning things around, keeping things ticking along.
It was the way of the world.
There were those above and those below.
Unfortunately, there were also those who got too far above their stations as well. Or those who long to be amongst the slop of the pigs.
The fool whom he called brother may believe differently, but he had grown soft being raised amongst such lower beings. He didn’t concern himself with chattel. The people of the world were meant to serve him and others like him. That was how the world was, no matter what sort of foolish romantic notion that lived within the heart of a man who looked like but was all the weaker.
However, one had caught his eye.
“It happens,” his father said when he asked about his mother once when he was young. “Sometimes one so very below yourself becomes a bit more interesting than the rest. And then it is a game for yourself to see if you can win them over. Like training a dog. The human believes it loves the animal. But, truly, can an animal love a human? Is the capacity there?”
He understood, perhaps, what his father meant now, looking over the Wanted poster for Drake Timothy of the Straw Hat Pirates.
Bounty is 940,000,000 beris after what happened in Wano. The Gorosei were not happy about the so-called Gomu Gomu no Mi being awakened after centuries, after Joyboy.
And yet, it wasn’t the laughing white-haired Monkey D. Luffy, who wore that prized ratty hat of the man who shared his face, that Shamrock wasn’t drawn to. No, he didn’t want That Man’s leftovers. He was a Saint, not one who got others’ hand-me-downs.
Still, his eyes were drawn to Drake Timothy’s new Wanted poster.
Those bright blue eyes stared back at him, a challenging smile on his pretty face. A man assured of his own brilliance, wrapped in a deep red haori and slightly baggy black pants with grommets punched into the fabric.
An intelligence officer was a rare sight to see on any crew. It was rare that the chattel produced those amongst them who could think and plan. They were little more than beasts, punching and scratching at each other for scraps of what they think is power.
Shamrock and the other Gods Knights could have brought Kaido to heel, should the order be given.
They just didn’t care otherwise.
No, one who had gotten contacts with those who had snuck into Wano before was part of the place. He had gotten things done quicker, moving through the shadows while others boasted and fought.
Drake was interesting.
The rumors around him were fascinating. The file was full of supposition. No island on any of the Blues or the Grand Line would claim him. There were no birth records that could be found, and it was important to keep an eye on the population of the commoners.
Naturally, as lower classes did, they called him Fair Folk, a Demon, a Spirit. They said Straw Hat made some kind of deal with a higher being, and it lowered itself to do so.
Fools.
They don’t know what such Beings look like.
It wasn’t that Shamrock was devoid of his amusements, of course. But he wasn’t as interested in toys as others were. Of course, he kept slaves as was his right. And some were amusements for a time, but they were just passing fancies.
No.
This, perhaps, was what his Father meant when he had asked about his mother all those years ago.
He understood now.
He wanted to Know who Drake was.
He wanted to possess him.
His best guess was that he was someone like his brother. A World Noble who had been hidden away from his true birthright. Whoever had been impregnated committed a very terrible crime indeed.
Shamrock can rectify it. Someone might be willing to claim him if he made his interest known, his theories.
After all, his family name was Drake.
It had to have been a clue.
What was a Drake, after all, but a wingless dragon?
Drake was so young, malleable with enough time and attention. He was smart, too. He would, with time, see the wisdom in being with him. Those otherworldly eyes staring at him, he was told that his presence just commanded attention when not near his idiot captain, who had the misfortune of eating that particular Devil Fruit.
Father had been on him to marry or take a concubine of some sort.
…
Yes.
This would do nicely. Shamrock would know better what to do with Drake’s intelligence.
Now, he just had to wait for a moment to bring a poor, abandoned child of World Nobility home.
He could be patient.
Post The Final Saga
“So what are you anyway?” Wapol asked Tim.
He had to admit: finding the One Piece, destroying Imu, saving the world, and briefly dying? That was fine. The pirate was a bit thrown that Vivi and Wapol seemed to have weirdly bonded after their near-death experiences together. He wasn’t going to think too hard about what it meant or anything, but that did mean he was invited as part of some kind of official banquet thing for the Kingdoms left (mostly) intact while the World Government got itself together.
The Straw Hats were here because Nami and Vivi wanted to see each other again.
Equally as important, they were there as a reminder for people not to get too cute with plots against the Queen of Alabasta. The Pirate King and his crew were, after all, not to be trifled with, especially when it concerned their friends.
Somehow, Tim ended up talking with Wapol.
He still had good odds on the metal-mouthed man and Dalton fighting. Since Nami was off being a good girlfriend to Vivi, he promised her that he would make sure that he’d hold the pot for any bets tonight.
Which meant keeping an eye on the crowd.
“Like spiritually?” he asked. “Because I know you know what I do work, man. And I’m pretty sure everyone knows that Law and I have a Thing.”
Wapol stomped his foot in annoyance and took another bite of food.
“Why would you date the Surgeon of Death?”
Tim could have said something about Wapol’s wife, but his Mother would resurrect herself in an alternate dimension if he dared falter that much on gala training.
And he’d rather not deal with alternate dimension zombies.
“For my sins,” he said instead. “Please enlighten me with your question, King Wapol.”
The blowhard puffed up, pleased at being given his due.
Next time, Sanji was holding the pot instead of being given permission to go visit Terracotta in Alabasta’s kitchens.
“I mean, what are you? Because there are rumors and I want to know if they’re true or not.”
Tim took a deep breath in through his nose and told himself that the Nami-sanctioned bookie couldn’t get into fights.
Because Wapol was talking about The Rumor.
This asshole probably believed The Rumor.
The Straw Hats didn’t really talk about The Rumor.
Apparently, Tim was either a fairy, a devil, a spirit, or a World Noble who, like Shanks, got shoved into a treasure chest and was flipping off his family by becoming a pirate. He would be offended if he weren’t part of a legacy of heroes. Copy-and-paste was sort of the bread and butter of legacies, he guessed.
“Please think about what you know about my captain. Do you really think he would put anyone under some kind of magical contract? Where someone would have to serve him?”
Wapol looked put out.
Did he think that Tim was a fairy or something?
“And please don’t spread the fourth option around? I don’t even know where that came up.”
“It’s because you’re weird, kid,” Wapol said, eating a turkey leg whole. “I mean, people get used to you since your Captain is even weirder, but there’s something about you that gives me the fucking creeps.”
Well.
That had new and horrifying implications.
Is there such a thing as alternate dimensions recognizing someone that shouldn’t be there? Like the Uncanny Valley?
“Unfortunately for everyone,” Tim said. “I’m human from a family of humans who did normal human things.”
“I think you said human way too much.”
“I am regretting it, yes,” he said, leaning back.
He then had an evil little thought.
…
Being the holder of the pot didn’t mean that he couldn’t have his own fun, just no fighting.
“Of course.”
Wapol perked up.
“Spit it out!”
Tim kept his tone the most deadpan as he could muster. He gave nothing, truly the not performance of a lifetime.
“You’re right, Wapol. I am from another world. Where there are continents of land and no Devil Fruits, but we still get people with powers and god complexes. And my adopted father trained my siblings and me to enact vigilante justice until a several hundred year old man with a, frankly, creepy fascination with me pushed me out of a fifteen-story window and used an ancient mystical artefact that sent me here, where I was found by the Straw Hats by sheer dumb luck.”
The king stared at him with squinted eyes.
“You could have just said you didn’t want to answer,” before marching off.
The ear on the back of Wapol’s shoulder disappeared as Robin leaned against Jinbe, giggling slightly helplessly.
Tim chuckled himself.
Yeah.
No one ever wanted to believe the truth.