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The main deck of the Moby Dick, terror of the seas and symbol of an Emperor’s power, had been requisitioned. Not to prepare an epic naval battle, nor to welcome a cargo of treasures.
It had been requisitioned to enforce Justice. With a capital “J,” at least according to the organizers.
The usual layout of the deck had been completely rearranged. A large banquet table had been set up vertically to serve as the Judge’s perch. On either side of what vaguely resembled a courtroom, crates of rum acted as benches for the jury — a jury made up of pirates from the fleet who had bet money on the outcome of the trial and were eating popcorn.
But the highlight of the show was the protagonists.
Edward Newgate, alias Whitebeard, presided behind the massive table. The strongest man in the world was wearing, over his usual bandana, a ridiculously small British judge’s wig. It looked like it had been hastily made from an old mop and sheep’s wool. In his right hand, as a gavel, he held a giant wooden spoon — the kind Thatch used to stir soup for five hundred people.
Pops was beaming. He hadn’t looked this happy since the last time they sank a Marine ship.
“THE SESSION IS NOW OPEN!” thundered the Emperor.
He slammed the table violently with his giant spoon. BAAAAM! The wood cracked, and half the audience jumped.
On the defendants’ bench, isolated in the middle of the deck, sat Marco the Phoenix.
The commander of the First Division was slumped on a folding chair, legs spread, head tilting dangerously backward. His dark circles were so deep they seemed to suck in the light around them. Both hands were clenched around a huge steaming mug of coffee, which he held against his chest like a lifebuoy in the middle of the Calm Belt. He wore a sign around his neck where someone (probably Ace) had written in black marker: “PRESUMED GUILTY AND POULTRY.”
At the plaintiffs’ bar, Haruta stepped forward, adjusting a fake bow tie. He held a stack of scribbled papers.
“Your Honor, members of the jury, scum of the Moby Dick,” Haruta began with a solemnity worthy of an admiral. “We are gathered here today to judge a heinous crime. A crime against art! A crime against gastronomy! A crime... against friendship!”
“Objection, Your Honor. My colleague is being dramatic to the point of being physically painful to watch.”
The suave, drawling voice dripping with royal contempt came from the defense bench. Izou.
The commander of the Sixteenth Division stood perfectly straight, his violet kimono impeccable. He held a closed fan in one hand and stared at Haruta with the expression of someone who had just stepped in something suspicious.
Pops leaned forward, adjusting his mop wig that was slipping down his forehead.
“Objection overruled, Attorney Izou! I love drama! Continue, Attorney Haruta! Gurararara!”
Haruta gave Izou a triumphant smile, while Izou simply rolled his eyes with lethal elegance.
“As I was saying!” Haruta continued, brandishing a sheet of paper. “The accused here, Marco, known as ‘The Phoenix,’ is formally charged with ‘Theft of Superior Quality Caramelized Apple Pie’ and ‘Premeditated Avian Assault’ on the person of our beloved chef, Thatch!”
Shocked murmurs (and stifled laughter) rippled through the crowd. Marco, for his part, blinked slowly, brought his mug to his lips, discovered it was empty, and sighed in a hoarse voice:
“…I need a refill.”
“Silence in the court!” Haruta yelled. “I call the victim to the stand! Mister Thatch, please step forward!”
Thatch extricated himself from the front row. He had a pristine bandage wrapped around his head, one arm in a sling (completely unnecessary), and he was limping dramatically — though it was his left leg one moment and his right the next. He leaned heavily on the witness stand, wiping away an imaginary tear.
“Tell us about your ordeal, Mister Thatch,” Haruta encouraged him empathetically.
“It was… it was terrible,” sniffled the chef, staring into the void. “I spent four hours making that pie. The apples came from the Autumn Island. The crust was so flaky it melted just looking at it. I had placed it on the kitchen windowsill to cool.”
He paused dramatically, his voice trembling.
“And suddenly… a shadow covered the sun. I heard the flap of wings. A shrill cry… something like ‘CUI CUI MOTHERFUCKER!’… and then! A blue-flamed bird of misfortune dove straight down!”
Thatch pointed a vengeful, trembling finger at Marco.
“HE STOLE MY PIE! I tried to stop him, I shouted ‘No, you stupid pigeon!’ and that’s when he dove at me and… and PECKED my forehead!”
Thatch collapsed into theatrical sobs on the stand. The jury (composed of Jozu, Vista, and a few others) booed Marco. Vista even wiped away a tear, murmuring, “Poor pie.”
Marco scratched his nose, closed his eyes, and muttered:
“I never say ‘cui cui’…”
Haruta turned to Pops. “You heard him, Your Honor! The facts are overwhelming! The floor is yours, Defense. If it dares to defend such a monster!”
Izou sighed. A long sigh, filled with all the weariness in the world toward the stupidity of his brothers. He snapped his fan open with a sharp flick, the sound echoing across the silent deck, and advanced toward Thatch like a predator.
“Mister Thatch,” Izou began in a honeyed voice. “It’s a tragic story. Truly. Worthy of the worst South Blue theater plays.”
“Thank you,” sniffled Thatch, flattered.
“You claim you were attacked by a large blue firebird that uttered an insult, stole a pie, and pecked you.”
“Absolutely!”
Izou turned to the audience, his fan hiding the lower half of his face, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
“One question haunts me, dear ‘Chef.’ My client, Marco, has not left the commanders’ lounge since yesterday evening at 6 PM. And we can prove it. Why? Because he fell asleep face-first on the coffee table on top of the Second Division’s financial reports, and drooled all over the stack of documents. A puddle of drool that required a scraper to remove this morning.”
Marco opened one eye. “…You didn’t have to mention the drool detail, Izou.”
“I’m building your alibi, bird. Shut up,” Izou retorted dryly before turning back to Thatch. “Mister Thatch. Isn’t it more likely that you burned the said apple pie, threw it overboard out of shame, and invented this ridiculous story to cover up your culinary incompetence? And that this ‘injury’ on your forehead is nothing more than the result of you walking into the fridge door this morning — an event witnessed by Namur?”
Thatch paled. His bandage suddenly seemed very cumbersome. “I… What? No! That’s not true! It was a giant bird!”
“Oh really?” Izou asked, stepping closer, his gaze sharpening. “And what color was this bird’s beak?”
“Yellow!” Thatch yelled, panicked.
“Marco’s Phoenix has no yellow beak — it is made of immaterial blue and yellow flames,” Izou stated. “And how big was the pie?”
“Thirty centimeters in diameter!”
“A thirty-centimeter pie carried in a bird’s beak? Without breaking? What are the laws of physics in your head, Mister Thatch? Is there a constant wind blowing in there to keep your two lone neurons from bumping into each other?”
“OBJECTION!” Haruta screamed, jumping in place. “The defense is harassing the witness and insulting his intellect!”
“I am not insulting his intellect, Your Honor,” Izou replied with an icy smile. “I am merely stating its non-existence. It’s a legal nuance.”
BAAAAAM! The giant spoon struck the table. “Objection overruled!” laughed Whitebeard, shaking so hard his wig fell onto his shoulder. “I love this legal nuance! One point for Izou!”
Thatch stepped down from the stand, looking defeated, his arm in the sling dragging pitifully.
Marco, who had found a jug of coffee under his chair (thanks to Jozu), was slowly refilling his mug. “Is this almost over?” the defendant asked. “I need to sleep. The sea air tires me.”
“Silence, you fowl!” Haruta barked. “The prosecution has not said its last word! I call our key eyewitness to the stand! Portgas D. Ace!”
Ace stepped forward, puffing out his chest, looking extremely proud of his role. He took his place at the stand, adjusted his hat, and flashed a wide grin.
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and not fall asleep mid-sentence?” asked Haruta.
“I swear!” Ace declared solemnly.
“Perfect. Mister Ace. Tell the court what you saw that morning at exactly eleven o’clock.”
Ace took a deep breath, crossed his arms, and lowered his voice dramatically, as if telling a ghost story around a campfire.
“I was on the upper deck. I was training hard. Very hard. Doing one-finger push-ups. Anyway. Suddenly, I hear sounds of a struggle. I lean over the railing and I see… I see Thatch. He was crying, holding in his arms a magnificent blueberry pie.”
“…Apple,” Thatch muttered from the audience.
“A magnificent apple pie!” Ace corrected without missing a beat. “And then, a winged monster appeared from the sky. It was huge! With bloodshot eyes! And… and a mustache!”
The deck fell into dead silence. Even the wind seemed to stop blowing.
Haruta pinched the bridge of his nose. Vista dropped his popcorn. Marco stopped drinking his coffee and stared at Ace with pure consternation.
“A… mustache?” Izou repeated, his voice vibrating with cruel delight.
“Yes!” Ace exclaimed, digging himself deeper into his lie with the grace of a cannonball. “A small, thin mustache! Like… like a villain in a theater play! It grabbed the strawberry pie with its talons…”
“APPLES!” Thatch screamed.
“Apple pie! And it hit Thatch with… with a rolled-up newspaper! Then it disappeared into the setting sun!”
Izou remained silent for a long, very long second. He let the weight of Ace’s stupidity crush the audience. Then he stepped forward. Slowly. Like a predator.
“Mister Ace,” the defense attorney began in an almost gentle tone.
“Yes?” Ace replied, confident.
“You claim to have seen a giant blue bird with a mustache steal a blueberry… or strawberry… or apple pie at eleven in the morning, and flee toward the setting sun. A setting sun which, I remind the court, occurs in the West at the end of the day, not at eleven in the morning.”
Ace blinked. “It was a very fast bird. It time-traveled.”
Pops let out a muffled “Gurarara,” hand over his mouth so as not to ruin the tribunal’s credibility.
Izou closed his fan with a sharp snap, like a whip.
“Mister Ace. Isn’t it true that you have an incurable weakness for Thatch’s pastries?”
“Objection! That’s a personal attack!” Ace cried.
“You’re the witness, you can’t object, idiot!” Haruta shouted at him, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“I repeat,” Izou continued relentlessly. “Isn’t it true that this morning at ten o’clock, you were seen by Jozu — present here as bailiff — crawling out of the kitchen with your cheeks covered in flaky crumbs and caramel, looking as guilty as a cat that swallowed the canary?”
Jozu, massive in his corner, nodded solemnly. “I confirm. He even had a piece of apple stuck on his nose.”
The court gasped in dramatic shock. Thatch jumped up from his rum crate. “ACE?! YOU ATE MY PIE?!”
Ace panicked. His hands burst into flames from stress. “No! It was the mustached Phoenix! I swear! I was just… just tasting the crumbs the bird dropped! To gather evidence! Yes, that’s it! I was doing my civic duty!”
Izou turned toward the supreme judge, unfurling his fan in a majestic gesture.
“Your Honor. The prosecution’s witness has just confessed, through his unfathomable lack of common sense, to being the true culprit of this theft. He devoured the pie and conspired with the so-called ‘victim’ to frame my client, Commander Marco, whose only crime today is existing in the same space-time as these first-class morons.”
“That’s not true!” Haruta yelled, waving his notes. “This is all smoke and mirrors! Marco’s look is guilty! Look at him! It’s the look of a thief!”
All eyes converged on the defendants’ bench.
Marco was asleep.
Literally. His head hung back, mouth slightly open, and a thin string of drool (irrefutable proof of his earlier alibi) threatened to escape. His empty coffee mug was precariously balanced on his knee. A small snot bubble inflated and deflated at his nostril in time with his breathing.
Izou pointed at him proudly with his fan. “Look at this man, Your Honor. Is this the face of a bloodthirsty criminal? Or is this the face of a man broken by the burden of being the only functional adult on this ship? I plead innocence by mental exhaustion.”
Whitebeard laughed so hard his chair threatened to break. His wig finally landed in a pitcher of water. He rose to his full height, gripping his giant spoon with both hands.
“THE COURT HAS HEARD THE ARGUMENTS!” roared the Emperor. “HAS THE JURY REACHED A VERDICT?”
Vista, choking on his popcorn, raised his thumb. “It’s clear, Pops!”
“GOOD! Here is the sentence!”
Whitebeard pointed the spoon at Ace and Thatch, who were trembling in anticipation.
“Ace! Thatch! Haruta! I declare you GUILTY!”
“But I didn’t do anything!” Haruta whined. “I was just the lawyer!”
“Guilty of inventing a story with plot holes as big as the Moby Dick! And for a mustached Phoenix! Gurararara! The sentence will be harsh!”
The three commanders of Team Chaos swallowed hard.
“You are sentenced… TO CLEAN THE LOWER DECK TOILETS FOR ONE WEEK! WITHOUT USING YOUR POWERS!”
“NOOOOOOO!” the three accused screamed in unison, collapsing onto the deck, defeated by their father’s implacable Justice.
Whitebeard then turned to Izou and Marco. He smiled tenderly.
“Attorney Izou! Congratulations on that spectacular defense! Your sarcasm does you credit! And as for you, my son Marco…”
Marco woke with a start at the sound of his name, nearly dropping his mug. He quickly wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “Huh? What? Is the Marine attacking?”
“No, Marco!” laughed Pops. “YOU ARE ACQUITTED! And as compensation for the stress caused by this fake trial… I order Thatch to prepare you a special reserve of the highest quality coffee!”
Marco blinked. His tired brain processed the information. His eyes landed on Thatch, prostrate on the floor, then on Ace, who was crying over the death of his dignity, and finally on Izou, who was adjusting the folds of his kimono with the air of a job well done.
A very, very faint smile stretched Marco’s lips. He raised his empty mug toward Izou in a silent toast to his friend’s genius.
“I want the beans hand-ground,” Marco ordered in a drawling voice. “By Ace.”
“Objection!” Ace squeaked from the floor. “That’s torture!”
“Objection overruled!” concluded Izou, tucking his fan into his sleeve. “Justice is blind, Portgas, but it has an excellent sense of smell.”
BAAAAAM! The giant spoon struck the table one last time, definitively breaking it in two.
“THE SESSION IS ADJOURNED! GURARARARARARA!”
The improvised tribunal dispersed in the usual joy and good humor of the Moby Dick. Jozu dragged the “condemned” by the collar, Vista complained that there was no more popcorn, and Izou approached Marco.
“You owe me a monumental favor, you cursed bird,” Izou sighed. “I’ve exhausted my monthly quota of interactions with idiots.”
“I’ll pay you in sake,” Marco murmured, sliding a little further down in his chair. “And Izou?”
“What now?”
“Next time Thatch makes an apple pie… make sure to steal a slice for me before Ace eats it.”
Izou let out a rare, genuine laugh — soft and crystalline. “Noted, Commander. Go sleep now. Before I bill you for my fees.”
Marco closed his eyes, a slight smile still on his lips, lulled by Ace’s agonized cries in the distance as he discovered the state of the lower deck toilets. On the Moby Dick, justice might be strange, noisy, and often smelled of gunpowder.
But for Marco, at that precise moment, it mostly smelled like the promise of excellent coffee.