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The Moby Dick was a ship where silence only existed as an abstract concept. Between Whitebeard's seismic snores, the morning training sessions that always ended in a massive brawl, and the thunderous bursts of laughter, tranquility was a rare luxury. But that morning, a precarious calm reigned over the main deck.
A calm that was shattered by a scream of laughter so shrill it sent the seagulls flying three kilometers away.
"BWAHAHAHAHA! BY ALL THE SEAS IN THE WORLD, LOOK AT THIS!"
In the ship's spacious kitchen, Thatch, commander of the Fourth Division, was doubled over, pounding the counter with his fists. Next to him, Haruta was literally crying with laughter, rolling on the floor clutching his stomach. Ace, for his part, was out of breath, his face beet red, desperately trying not to choke on his own laughter.
The object of their hilarity stood in the doorway.
Marco the Phoenix, commander of the First Division, ship’s doctor, and the voice of reason (often ignored) of the crew, had just walked in. Usually, Marco wore a look of chronic exhaustion, accentuated by deep dark circles and a blonde haircut shaped like a pineapple.
This morning, the exhausted expression and the dark circles were still there. But his hair was no longer blonde.
It was a dazzling fluorescent pink, the kind of pink that assaulted the retina and almost glowed in the dim light. Even worse, in his half-asleep state, Marco had partially activated his Devil Fruit to fly from his quarters to the kitchen. His usual majestic blue flame wings were now dotted with... cotton-candy pink feathers.
Marco blinked, his gaze empty. He shuffled forward toward the coffeemaker, completely ignoring the three idiots suffocating on the floor. He grabbed his favorite mug (which read "I'm not a fucking bird"), filled it to the brim with black coffee, and took a long, slow sip.
"You have five seconds," he said in a hoarse, eerily calm voice.
"It... it was Ace’s idea!" Thatch squeaked, pointing a traitorous finger at the Second Division commander. "He said your plumage lacked... lacked pep!"
"I just wanted to test it!" Ace defended himself, wiping away a tear. "I found this dye on the last island. The merchant said it would come out after... after..."
"After?" Marco insisted, his voice getting lower.
"After three weeks," Ace muttered, before bursting into uncontrollable laughter again as Marco’s fluorescent pink lock fell over his forehead.
Suddenly, a gigantic shadow covered the kitchen. Edward Newgate, known as Whitebeard, had just appeared. The colossus looked at his first commander. He looked at the hilarious trio. Then he took a deep breath.
"GURARARARARARA!"
Pops’ laugh made the pots and pans shake.
"Magnificent, my son! That pink really brings out your tired complexion! Gurararara!"
"Thanks, Pops. Very kind," Marco sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Izou, commander of the Sixteenth Division, entered as well. He stopped dead, adjusted his immaculate kimono, and looked Marco up and down with a smirk.
"My dear Marco," Izou began in a slow, sarcastic drawl, "I knew you had questionable taste in hairstyles, but I never thought you’d embrace your flamingo condition so... literally."
"You, shut up," Marco growled.
"Oh, I find it very bold," Izou continued gracefully sitting down. "It screams ‘look at me, I’m a giant piñata.’"
Thatch, Haruta, and Ace howled with laughter again. Marco emptied his coffee cup. He set the mug down on the table with a sharp clink. His half-closed eyes settled on the trio.
"Very well," the Phoenix murmured. "You want to play?"
Pops slammed the floor with the handle of his bisento, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"I OFFICIALLY DECLARE THIS CONFLICT!" roared the Emperor. "THE PRANK WAR HAS BEGUN! AND I WILL BE THE JUDGE!"
Two hours later, the Moby Dick was on a war footing. The rumor had spread: "Team Chaos" (Ace, Thatch, Haruta) was facing off against "Team Cold Vengeance."
However, contrary to what everyone expected, Marco was not chasing the culprits through the rigging.
He was comfortably settled in a huge leather armchair in the commanders’ lounge, a blanket over his knees and a fresh steaming cup of coffee in his hand. Izou sat across from him, meticulously cleaning one of his pistols with a silk cloth.
"I refuse to run," Marco declared, yawning so wide his jaw nearly dislocated. "It burns calories. And I’m too old for this shit."
"You’re thirty, Marco," Izou pointed out without looking up.
"In bird years, I’m one hundred and fifty."
Izou smiled softly.
"So, what’s the plan, oh great bald tactician? Are you going to drown them in a sea of paperwork?"
"No," Marco replied with a diabolical grin that looked absurd with his cotton-candy pink hair. "We’re going to use their own weaknesses against them. Thatch’s pride in his cooking. Ace’s naivety. And Haruta’s need for attention. I need you to be my arms, Izou. I’m too tired to get up."
"Doing the dirty work while you sleep? Typical. But..." Izou reloaded his gun with a satisfying click, "just to see the look on Thatch’s face when he cries in despair, I’m willing to make an exception. Tell me everything."
Marco smiled, a real predator’s smile.
"Pass me the Den Den Mushi. And call the carpenters. I need strong glue. A lot of strong glue."
Lunchtime was approaching. Thatch was humming cheerfully as he headed toward his kitchen. He felt invincible. He had pranked Marco the Phoenix! This was an achievement worthy of the history books.
He pushed open the double doors of the kitchen, ready to prepare a feast.
He stopped. He blinked.
The kitchen was... empty. Well, not empty. All the countertops were clear.
He looked up.
Absolutely all his cooking equipment, the pans, pots, ladles, chef’s knives, and even the gigantic soup cauldron, was glued to the ceiling. And not with simple duct tape. Marco had used the carpenters’ special resin, the one they used to patch the hull underwater.
"Wh... What the..." Thatch stammered.
A note was floating, attached to a spatula hanging dangerously over the void. Thatch grabbed it with trembling hands.
"To cook with pep, you need to take it to new heights. Kisses from the giant piñata."
"MAAAAAAAARCOOOOOOOO!" Thatch screamed, falling to his knees, arms raised toward the ceiling of his desecrated kitchen. "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO MAKE THE ROAST NOW?!"
On the upper deck, Pops heard the scream. He was holding a huge blackboard with chalk.
"Gurararara!" Whitebeard cackled. "One hundred points to Marco! Low blow on the pots and pans! Excellent!"
At the same time, on the main deck, Ace had just woken up from one of his spontaneous narcoleptic naps. He had fallen asleep on a barrel. He yawned, stretched, and groped around for his precious orange hat beside him.
His hand met a rough, prickly, and strangely wet surface.
Ace frowned. He looked down.
Instead of his hat adorned with its two iconic smiley faces, there sat a perfectly carved pineapple. Izou had spent half an hour sculpting a sad face on one side and a smiling face on the other into the fruit’s flesh. A leather strap had even been crudely attached around it.
"My hat..." Ace murmured, confused. "My hat mutated?"
Haruta, who was passing by with a bucket of water bombs (for the next attack), stopped dead.
"Ace. Why are you wearing a pineapple on your head?"
"It’s not a pineapple, Haruta!" the pyromaniac panicked as he tried to put the fruit on his head, pineapple juice dripping down his forehead. "It’s my hat! It was cursed by Marco’s hair! The pink transformed it!"
"You really are an idiot," Haruta sighed. "It’s Marco and Izou! They’re counterattacking! Come on, let’s go get my swords from my cabin and launch the final assault!"
Haruta ran to his quarters, pushed the door open with gusto, and headed toward his weapon rack.
A high-pitched, almost shrill scream echoed through the corridors of the Moby Dick a few seconds later.
Ace rushed over. Haruta was prostrate in front of his rack. Instead of his precious perfectly sharpened swords, there were two huge yellow and red plastic children’s hammers. The kind that made an unbearable "Squeak-squeak" noise when you hit with them.
"My... my swords..." Haruta almost sobbed.
Izou emerged from the shadows of the cabin, fan in hand, a superior smile on his lips.
"You’ve always had a very... childish fighting style, Haruta. I thought these weapons suited your maturity level better," declared the sharpshooter.
Haruta, mad with rage, grabbed the plastic hammers and charged at Izou.
"SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!"
The pathetic blows rang out on Izou’s arm, who didn’t even move, merely raising a perfect eyebrow.
"Oh, such violence," Izou mocked. "I’m terrified."
"TWO HUNDRED POINTS FOR THE VENGEANCE TEAM!" Whitebeard’s voice roared from the deck, followed by his booming laugh. "TEAM CHAOS IS ON THE ROPES!"
Team Chaos was gathered in a dark corner of the ship, looking defeated. Thatch held a bent pan he had managed to pry off the ceiling at great cost. Ace still wore the pineapple on his head, refusing to remove it for fear of "losing the memory of his hat," and Haruta was dejectedly tapping the floor with his squeak-squeak hammers.
"We can’t let them win," Thatch growled.
"Marco is a monster," Haruta whined. "Squeak. He didn’t even get out of his armchair. Squeak."
"We need a frontal attack," Ace declared with determination (which would have been cool if he didn’t have pineapple juice in his eye). "We’re gonna drown him. I stole a water cannon from the cleaning supply."
The three looked at each other. A diabolical smile returned to their lips.
They crawled across the deck, silently approaching the lounge where Marco was holding court. They gently pushed open the door.
Marco was still in his armchair. But he had fallen asleep. His head, topped with his bright pink tuft, was gently nodding back and forth.
"This is our chance," Thatch whispered.
They charged forward screaming, water cannon and water bombs ready to be unleashed.
But the moment they crossed the threshold, an invisible rope tightened under their feet.
Snap.
Time seemed to slow down. Ace tripped over the rope. He bumped into Thatch, who dropped the water cannon. Haruta tried to jump over it but slipped on a puddle of oil that Izou had meticulously placed an hour earlier.
The three commanders crashed to the floor in a tangle of arms, legs, plastic hammers, and pineapple juice.
Marco opened one eye. Just one.
He lazily raised his hand. A small blue regeneration flame surrounded his coffee cup to keep it warm, while Izou emerged from behind a screen, a Den Den Mushi camera in hand.
Click.
The flash lit up the trio’s desperate faces sprawled on the floor.
"Beautiful," Izou commented, admiring the photo coming out of the Den Den Mushi. "I’m going to make posters out of this. Maybe hang them in the mess hall. Or send them to Red-Haired Shanks, I’m sure he’ll appreciate it."
"No! Mercy!" Thatch whimpered, his nose crushed against the wooden floor. "Anything but Shanks! He’ll mock me for years!"
Marco sighed, stretched lazily, and stood up. He walked slowly toward the three defeated men, his slippers making a slight shuffling sound. He crouched in front of them, looking down at them with his eternal tired expression.
"You wanted to fly too close to the sun, little birds," Marco said in a drawling voice.
"You’re a fucking evil genius, old man," Ace grumbled. "But I’ll get my hat back."
"Your hat is in the drawer of your desk, idiot," Marco replied, rolling his eyes. "You really thought the dye turned leather into fruit?"
Ace blinked, realized his stupidity, and buried his shame-reddened face in the floor.
Suddenly, the door burst open. Whitebeard entered, towering over the scene. He looked at Marco, still fluorescent pink but victorious, Izou with his Den Den Mushi, and the three idiots on the ground.
"GURARARARARA! MATCH OVER! VICTORY GOES TO TEAM COLD VENGEANCE!"
The colossus approached and placed a massive, heavy but affectionate hand on Marco’s pink head.
"You’re a good strategist, my son! Even if you look like a Grand Line coral!"
"Pops, please," Marco groaned, his cheeks slightly flushed (barely visible under the pink). "Don’t encourage me. I just want to sleep."
"And you three!" Whitebeard thundered, pointing at Thatch, Ace, and Haruta. "As punishment, you will clean the main deck! And Thatch, you will prepare tonight’s dinner with the pots glued to the ceiling!"
"BUT POPS! THAT’S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!" Thatch yelled.
"That’ll teach you to disrespect your brother’s plumage! Gurararara!"
Marco allowed himself a very slight smile. He turned back to his armchair, grabbed his coffee cup, and looked at Izou.
"You know, Izou... I think I’m getting used to this pink. It gives me a... rebellious side."
Izou gracefully rolled his eyes.
"Go to sleep, Marco. You’re starting to hallucinate."
The Phoenix didn’t need to be told twice. He collapsed into his armchair, his coffee cup balanced precariously on his chest, and fell asleep instantly, leaving the three idiots to struggle with the strong glue, the oiled floor, and the squeak-squeak hammers under the thunderous laughter of their father.