Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Mister Dracule? Go right ahead, Blackbeard is expecting you.”

The immediate deference is to be expected. No doubt the on-site staff have been informed of his name, his preference for directness, and his very large bank account. Mihawk strides past the bowing guards, into a waiting room done over with entirely too much tacky gold gilding and black velvet, and through the door a secretary holds open for him.

“Ahh, Hawkeyes Dracule himself,” the portly man waiting on the other side beams. Marshall Teach, or Blackbeard to the underground circuits, dresses in the same ‘fashion’ as both his waiting room and his private office. He rises and comes out from behind a desk large enough to bear a full-sized mattress, and nods deeply upon realizing Mihawk has no intention of accepting a handshake. “Welcome, welcome, such an honor to have so distinguished a guest in our humble halls!”

Humble. Hmph.

“A pleasure,” Mihawk deigns to reply.

“Come, sit! Please help yourself, I had my staff break out the GOOD refreshments for this, not the off-the-shelf wine reserved for our run of the mill customers.” Blackbeard pours two glasses, handing one over before Mihawk can decide whether to accept or not. As to be expected, the merchant promptly swallows a gulp, without any sign of properly tasting the alcohol as it goes down. “Now then, I know you’re not one for niceties, so what can I help you with today? Looking to liven up your decorations for an event? Or possibly some private entertainment?”

“Decorative, strictly.” Hrmph. Against his expectations, the wine is tolerable. Perhaps the only aspect of this grating encounter that will be. “I have begun a landscaping project upon my estate, which will result in quite a bit more room for the watergardens-”

“Ahhh, and you’d like something to put in them!”

It would be the height of counterproductivity to glower at being interrupted. So Mihawk simply nods. “Exoctic is preferable, of course.”

“Of course! Or else you wouldn’t be coming to me, now would you!” Chuckling, Blackbeard downs another gulp, dark eyes gleaming over the rim of his glass. “I’m thinking a dangerous man such as yourself would appreciate that same trait in others, right?” Not... an incorrect assessment. Mihawk inclines his head in another shallow nod. “What’s the time frame on this landscaping project of yours?”

“At least a year or two before anything live can be added. But I prefer to study my options in advance, when possible.”

“Prudent, quite prudent, but in that case: the only real question is, do you want something fully grown from the start, or would you rather start small?”

An unpleasant sensation makes itself known in Mihawk’s gut.

When he offers no reaction beyond the arching of a brow, Blackbeard’s smile grows wider. The man gestures, stepping back and turning. One wall of his office is a large window, looking out over the main floor of the warehouse that serves as his operation’s headquarters; tanks and pools and transport containers of all sizes fill the space, coming and going with their cargo, both living and not, legal or otherwise.

The opposite wall is dominated by a mostly empty aquarium, the bottom filled with black pebbles, a few paltry bits of landscaping and tiny plastic hides scattered around. In front of said tank, however, is a long, narrow table, bearing five artfully made fishbowls of assorted shapes, elegantly etched clear glass, and a single decorative item apiece.

Aside, of course, from the tiny merfolk trapped with.

Or, Mihawk supposes, the tiny mer children.

(Ages fourteen to sixteen, he knows, but that hardly makes them grown in anyone’s eyes.)

“My prized possessions,” Blackbeard purrs, moving to stand on the opposite side of the table, all the mers watching him warily. “Exotic, rare, incredibly valuable, each of them.”

“Small,” Mihawk points out.

This remark simply makes the merchant throw his head back to laugh. “Zehahaha, yes, but! Not naturally small, I assure you. Came across a handy little toy, some years back - secret of my success, you might call it.” He causally pats at the large black stone hanging around his neck; polished, gleaming obsidian, which seems to suck in all the nearby light. “Easiest way to keep a mer hidden is to keep ‘em in your pocket, after all! But it doesn’t last forever, AND, any offspring of one of my specially shrunken items doesn’t stay that way, I promise!”

That unpleasant sensation tightens its grip.

“None of these seem to be old enough for that sort of activity just yet.”

“Ah, they aren’t quite, I admit - but this strapping fellow,” Blackbeard smirks, tapping the lid of the second-to-last bowl, causing the mer inside the bare his teeth and slam his thick tail against the glass, “Well he’s just about old enough to spawn. Probably will have to strap him down for it, but I intend to get at least one viable clutch out of him by the end of the year. Do you recognize the breed?”

“Wano Fighting Fish,” Mihawk says easily. He lets himself look. Decent musculature, no obvious signs of injury or malnutrition or otherwise ill health, but- pale. Sluggish, for all that he’d tried lashing out. Hair grown out longer than it used to be, and almost certainly not by choice. The jagged-edged broadsword decoration sticking up from the bottom of the bowl feels particularly insulting. “A pod of them has regularly migrated past my family’s island since I was a lad.”

“Here in the East Blue? My, what do you want to bet that’s where this fish came from! And here I thought he must have gotten lost and wandered over from the other side of the globe!”

The young mer again bares his teeth.

Shut up Kuina, I don’t get lost!

Yes you do, Zoro, that’s why I’m always sent to find you!

“So,” Blackbeard hums, drawing Mihawk’s mind back to the present. “If you might be interested in raising some tame stock, I could give you a special deal on a few of his first guppies; or if not, we just got in a shipment from the South Blue, including a feisty Junktooth Brawler...”

“On the contrary, I’ve always admired the elegance of Wano Fighters. And this Emerald coloration would work quite well in my gardens - I don’t suppose this one himself is for sale?” Mihawk knows the answer before he asks, but... There is an instinctive need to try, regardless.

Sure enough, Blackbeard laughs again, jovial and unconcerned, despite the way his hand remains possessively placed atop the sealed bowl. “Ah, ‘fraid not my friend, these beauties truly are my prized possessions, and they’ve all got some intense breeding programs waiting for them soon enough.”

He did not come armed. But if there were so much as a gold-handled letter opener visible on Blackbeard’s desk, Mihawk thinks he would snatch it up to drive through the blaggard’s throat. “If you insist. To be quite honest, however, I’m not certain I see the appeal of the others.”

“Ohhh, my dear Hawkeyes, DO allow me to elaborate! This one, for instance,” The merchant moves down to the far end, the bowl with a miniature iceburg, around which the imprisoned mer’s long yellow tail is uncomfortably coiled. “My most recent acquisition; doesn’t look like much, until you realize he’s actually a Northern Germa Hue!”

“Hm.” Surprising. “So far as I am aware, that particular breed only comes in one of five colors.”

“Pink, Red, Blue, Black, and Green, yes, but this rarity here is a mutant, an Inverted Stealth Black!” One single sharp blue eye glares from under long bangs at Blackbeard’s finger where he taps the glass. “The scale pattern matches up exactly, and my geneticist confirmed it.”

“Fascinating.” And new information that explains a few lacks in what he already knows. “Do you expect the mutation to breed true?”

“No idea! But that’s half the fun, getting to find out, zehahaha! Now, this skittish fellow,” the next bowl, the next child, who visibly restrains himself from ducking behind the plastic skull decoration to hide from Blackbeard’s intense gaze. “Just a boring little guppy, right? Except, he’s a mutant too - a Yellow-Bellied Short-tail, until something in the color scheme gets thrown off, and ta-da, fully green scales!”

Not entirely fully green, Mihawk can observe easily enough the iridescent shimmers that highlight where the terrified boy would have borne blue versus yellow scales, but he lets the point stand, moving on to get the ‘show’ over with. “And this? A Common East Blue Betta?”

“A species quickly becoming UN-common, Hawkeyes, or don’t you keep up with environmental reports?” He does, in point of fact, but saying so hardly fits with the image of ‘reclusive, arrogant aristocrat’ that earned him an audience with the biggest name in blackmarket merfolk smuggling on this side of the world. “Rumor started spreading about fifteen years back that eating a Betta’s fins could fix all kinds of health problems, the over-poaching picked up speed, and now, wouldn’t you know, there’s hardly an East Blue Betta to be seen anymore! Makes this little lady quite happy to be nice and safe in here, aren’t you, Sweetness?”

He taps the glass, and the tiny mermaid rises away from her palm tree with clear reluctance, putting on a wide smile that Mihawk could recognize as forced with his eyes closed.

“Got this one pre-owned,” Blackbeard says in an exaggerated whisper. “Bought her from a low-level thug who just used her for burglaring boatyards, of all things, until he got smart and went for the big bucks. But hey, at least he trained her well!”

'Trained', yes, with dire threats and intimidation tactics. Mihawk forces himself to remain calm, or at least the closest he can remain at the moment.

“And this,” they move down the other end of the table, the fifth and final bowl, decorated with the fake stone statue of a rearing lion and containing a blur of yellow and red. “Heh. My first and truly most valuable fish.” Smirking, Blackbeard does not simply tap the glass, but rather, picks up the bowl and gives it a dramatic shake.

Again, only the lack of a sharp blade holds Mihawk back from stabbing him.

When the container falls still, so too does the little mer inside, tumbling to collide against one wall with a furious scowl. “Congratulations, you have a Goa Goldfish.”

“Oh, not just any goldfish, my friend. I hope you won’t take offense to the question, Hawkeyes, but have you ever heard of a Nika Sunfin?”

Well. That certainly proves Blackbeard knows exactly what he has in his possession. “An extreme genetic rarity, I believe. I was not aware it could manifest in such a common species.”

“Any kind of scaled mer, my friend, ANY kind. Hard to keep alive, in most cases, but we’ve unlocked the secrets to that, haven’t we little one?” Another shake of the bowl, albeit more brief, and then Blackbeard sets it back down with a final chuckle. “I’m afraid I haven’t got a fresh batch of the chemical stimulant I use to reveal his true colors, but perhaps the next time you visit! It’s always quite a stunning sight.”

Undoubtedly. One of several reasons the ever elusive Sunfins are so valuable a prize. And also alarming in its own right: it normally takes sustained high emotion or extreme stress to force one of those chameleon merfolk to morph into their pure white scales, hence so many dying in captivity and driving them nigh to extinction centuries ago. If Blackbeard has a chemical form of causing the change, however, then that certainly explains why the boy is still alive, and also bodes extremely ill for his future.

Mihawk has what he came for.

He spends a few more minutes in odorous conversation with Blackbeard, confirming details of a non-existent landscaping timeline, agreeing to a visit in a year’s time to inspect newly hatched merlings that Mihawk will not allow to come to exist, and then-

He leaves.

He must leave, or risk the entire operation.

He steps out of that office acutely feeling the sensation of small, betrayed eyes glaring at his retreating back.

The secretary, guards, and other staff are suitably deferential and accommodating as Mihawk departs the building, retracing his route and confirming the exact sequence of turns, corridors, and stairs required to reach Blackbeard’s private office and the prisoners kept within. He emerges outside. Slides into the waiting limousine. And informs the waiting pair of men, “He has all five of them.”

For once, Shanks is grim rather than cheery, while the Revolutionary Dragon appears ready to commit murder.

Chapter Text

2 years ago

“-and pepperoni pizza, and corn dogs, and cotton candy, aaand a milkshake!”

Sabo snorts, giving his plastic flippers a quick wipe before sticking them into his drawstring backpack. “If you want ALL of that for lunch, Ace is going to have to come with me to carry everything.”

“Aww,” Luffy whines, fingers and chin hooked on the end of the pier. “...two corn dogs?”

“Two corn dogs it is.” Snickering, Sabo pulls on his crocs, then stands and steps back to give Ace room to hoist himself out of the water. The little dock hidden out of sight of the carnival is just long enough for his brother’s full tail, frills and all; a shimmer of magic ripples down the red-orange scales like a line of fire, igniting the transformation to human mode. A few scattered scales linger on Ace’s legs afterward, mimicking his freckles, but once he puts on the shorts and shoes that Sabo tosses over, the mer passes casual inspection just fine.

(Sabo asked once, years ago, why Ace didn’t help Luffy with the same ritual he did as a kid so their little brother can grow legs too; the other boy got really quiet, head bowed, before whispering: not until he’s bigger. When it won’t hurt so bad.)

“You’ll stay under the pier until we get back right?” The twelve year old hums, staring past them at the trees, the topmost bits of the carnival rides visible past them. “Right, Luffy?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll stay under.” He drops, only to pop right back up and demand, “You won’t take too long, will you?”

Sabo shrugs. “Depends on how long the lines are.”

“Hnn.”

Shaking his head with a snort, Ace kneels down to knock Luffy’s straw hat off and scruff at his hair, prompting the kid to lean away with a grumble. “Stay out of sight and we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“Fine.”

Only once Luffy is fully back underwater does Ace stand, and he and Sabo start jogging away from the small beach and up the hill, following a barely visible track carved out of the soil by their own feet over the past decade. This carnival is an annual thing, but there are other traveling businesses that sometimes set up shop in the same big empty field. Dadan has mentioned it used to be an unofficial landfill when she was a kid, a dumping ground for junk and trash, before a friend of hers grew up and started his career as an environmental activist by getting the nearby city to clean it, turn the area into something positive.

(Sabo wonders sometimes if a junkyard would have been more useful to him and his brothers, a place to scrounge supplies for their floating clubhouse and makeshift pirate ship, but such thoughts only last until his next funnel cake.)

It winds up taking almost an hour to gather their spoils of war, all fairly purchased! ...well. Mostly purchased. The line for corn dogs was long enough that Ace nudged him, and they may have done a little bait-and-switch light-fingered pilfering to grab two for Luffy without waiting an extra twenty minutes. At that point, all they had to do was sprint away cackling from the startled shout, trays and cups and cartons balanced in their arms, Sabo’s bag of swimming gear and other supplies thumping against his back with every other step.

“Next time,” he calls to Ace as they duck behind a row of tents and slip past the ferris wheel to head for the trees, “Let’s save ourselves a bit of trouble and bring a wheelbarrow!”

“Only if you’re willing to drag it here up the coast!”

“Aw come on, we’ll steal an inflatable raft and you could tow it just fine-”

The cheerful bickering keeps going as they traipse down the track, pitched loud to deliberately let Luffy know they’re back even before they come into view of-

-the dock.

Sabo stops dead. Ace too. For a few seconds, all either of them can do is stare in shock.

The old wood planks are glistening with recent water splashed across them. Mingled are a scattered handful of blood drips; there’s a bigger smear against one of the far pylons, just in the right spot for someone to have been waiting with their chin and fingers hung on the edge and then been slammed sideways.

And the hat.

Luffy’s hat.

Lying upside down on the planks, in the middle of the blood, cord snapped in two.

Ace moves first. Food scatters as his arms drop, as his body moves, sprinting for the short pier and leaping high into the air. The ragged shorts fall away as he goes, as his legs blur and blend, frilled tail unfurling behind him like a trail of fire until he dives into the water and vanishes from sight. Sabo’s turn to jolt, then, and drop his armful of snacks as well, skidding from bare dirt to weathered wood and crashing to his knees, picking up the hat, inspecting it for damage and checking the amount of blood and making sure there’s nothing else, no skull fragments or brain matter or-

Ace resurfaces, panicked. “He’s not here- Sabo he’s not here-”

Even with his mouth open, Sabo can’t answer. Can’t come up with the words. It hasn’t even been an hour, he was supposed to stay under the dock, he’s only twelve years old-

“LUFFY,” Ace bellows, turning away, ducking into the ocean again to repeat the cry in the musical trilling notes of the merfolk tongue, but this isn’t a trill, it’s a scream, even above water Sabo can tell that much, can tell that Ace is frantic and terrified and Luffy- Luffy is-

-gone.

(“You idiots, don’t you know the difference between a Firefrill and a stupid Goldfish?! We can’t take this little shit to the boss, he’ll skin us alive!”

“Uh, s-sorry, Porchemy- but- he was the only mer hanging around that dock! We waited for, like, half an hour! The air in my diving tank was running out so-”

“Oh just shut up - oi, fishy. Where’s the Firefrill?”

“...not telling...”

“We’ll see about that. Somebody grab my gloves, I’ve got a new punching bag to test out.”)

One year and three months ago

Second inlet, right at the river split.

Seven words. Seven short, simple, easy to remember words. And yet somehow, every time when Zoro swims off ahead of her, he gets lost. FAR too many occasions have seen Kuina drag her dumb younger cousin out of the wrong inlet, or pull him back down the left side of the river, or need to go a mile or three further up the coastline to find him.

Zoro always, always gets lost. It’s become a mainstay fact in the fifteen years of her life: the moon pulls the tides, the sun warms the currents, Zoro always gets lost.

...but she also, always, finds him.

She can’t find him now.

Not until Kuina gives up on checking the tidepools for a third time, and dares approach the human village that her family is usually careful to avoid when they settle for winter in the nearby kelp forest. There aren’t too many boats about; mostly local fisherfolk, who consider it good luck to catch a glimpse of the Shimotsuki Clan when they pass, and always adhere to the ancient pact of trading an undersea treasure for one from the surface when any of the elders invoke it.

(Most often, when Zoro’s grandmother tires of pearl-wine and wants a bottle of human booze.)

Even so, Kuina is careful of her path, drifting with the shadows and keeping out a keen watch for any flicker of bright green-

-there.

But.

It’s not Zoro.

Or at least, not his hair or stripes - but the color matches, carefully mixed and painted by her grandfather, when he crafted a pair of true Water Blades for Zoro on his tenth birthday, the bone handles carved and etched and enchanted over the course of three days in the traditional cave. Their Blades are any Shimotsuki’s prized possession, as much a connection to their homeland as the triangular fins adorning each of their tales.

They would not simply be dropped, to linger on the sandy bottom of a human harbor.

(“What the hell kind of mer is it, anyway? Never seen a fin like that before.”

“Fuck if I know, but the locals think they’re lucky, so don’t go asking around until we’re- OW!”

“What? What happened?!”

“Hurry up with the damn chain, little shit bit me-! Quit thrashing, fish, you’re not getting out of that net any time s- OW!”

“Bite you again?”

“Would you just hurry up!”)

One year ago

Five percent of profits after expenses. That was the deal Nami worked out when she was only ten. Five percent, to be delivered once a month in cash, non-sequential used bills neatly stacked into whatever bag the messenger used. Sometimes a leather folder, if the take is light; usually a small backpack or modest briefcase; once, and only once, a carrying case for golf clubs taller than Nojiko.

(She’d stared at heap the money to pour out of that all night after Genzo brought it home.)

This, though.

This is no mere five percent.

Not unless Nami helped them steal an entire cargo ship, or maybe robbed a cruise-liner.

“This will be the final payment,” she hears the messenger say, a cultured, polished accent, worlds away from the rough drawls of Arlong’s usual guys. “Enough to clear the remaining debt, so don’t bother to come asking for more in future.”

What?

“...what about the mermaid,” Genzo asks after a stunned pause. “If she’s worked enough for all this-”

“That little slip of scale is no longer your concern. Her employment has been, shall we say, contracted elsewhere.”

Sold

He means sold elsewhere. He means that Nami has been sold-

Every single one of Nojiko’s fins is quivering, straining, desperate to launch her out of the water and demand what have they done with her sister-!

A car door slams. Headlights flash, turning away. As soon as the engine fades into the distance, Nojiko moves, hurling herself up onto the edge of the cove and clawing her way across the stony ground. Genzo doesn’t react- maybe can’t, from where he’s staring at the line of tall, bulging suitcases.

Nojiko can’t even begin to guess how much money is inside. Enough to pay the remaining half of Bellemere’s hospital bill, almost certainly. Maybe enough to get her more appointments at physical therapy, or more frequent visits from the homecare nurse-

And all of it because of Nami.

Because her little sister isn’t sneaking into private boat clubs or commercial docks or military harbors to sabotage ships for Arlong to hijack at sea anymore.

Because she’s been sold, to whoever sent that man, and all this money is- what? To make them forget about her? At least Arlong used the payments as leverage, as a way to keep Nami under his thumb and doing what he wanted even when she was out of his direct reach. As incentive for Nami to behave, so a few times a year she could come along to the drop-off and see them. THIS is just- taunting!

Nojiko reaches Genzo, and seizes his dangling hand. “Did you get a good look at him? Anything about the car? Genzo, we have to find her-”

Slowly, far too slowly, her guardian kneels, and pulls Nojiko into a tight embrace.

His arms are shaking.

Hers, too.

She hugs him back, and tries not to cry.

(“Well now, see this photo we got, Sweetness? Sure does look incriminating, a sheriff in a poor county collecting all that cash... Would be a shame if it got into the wrong hands, hm? After all, I hear there’s a wounded woman he looks after, gets to doctor appointments and such on account of her being crippled, can’t imagine how she’d manage without that support... Ah, but don’t you worry, Sweetness! Just keep smiling, and doing as good old Blackbeard tells you, and we’ll keep this photo safely out of sight, I promise.”)

Ten months ago

The door is locked.

Kaya stares, hand still on the knob, as this impossible thing stares her directly in the face: the pool house door, is locked.

She bites her lip, glancing up at the overhead windows. Too high, even if she jumped. Nothing for it, then. Back up the path to the main house, slipping in silently through the rear door, and careful tip-toe steps into the office set aside for the head of staff.

Thankfully, the room is unoccupied, which means Kaya can start opening drawers to look for the key.

Less thankfully, she can’t find it before-

“Miss Kaya?”

She jumps with a small squeak. “Ah- Klahadore! Um. I was just, ah-”

“You needn’t try coming up with a fib, Miss Kaya,” the butler sighs, stepping inside. “You’d tried to enter the pool house, didn’t you?”

“Why is it locked?”

“Because the storm yesterday dealt a bit of damage to the exterior grate, and we’re going to keep the whole structure off limits until it’s repaired.”

Kaya can’t help but frown. “...grate?”

Klahadore blinks at her. “Yes, Miss Kaya. It’s not entirely visible from the upper floor, I know, but the tide pool below has a tunnel cut outside to let water in and out, and there’s a metal grate lined with mesh-”

“No there isn’t.” Maybe once, when she was younger, but for years now- “Usopp has a net weighed down with stones over the opening, so he can get in and out.”

The sigh Klahadore lets out as he rubs at his forehead isn’t meant to be disparaging, she knows, but it still has the effect of making Kaya feel all of two inches tall. “My dear. You are fourteen years old. Continuing to indulge in tales of make-believe about this imaginary friend of yours is, well, childish.”

She is not a child, she’s a Young Lady, everyone says so - but at the same time-! “He’s NOT imaginary, Klahadore, and if the door is locked I can’t visit him!”

“Miss Kaya...” Oh, that’s the chiding tone, which she hates. Kaya’s shoulders hunch, but she doesn’t resist the butler curling a hand around her shoulder and guiding her out of his office. “Please. For my sake. Find something else to entertain yourself with, today.”

She accepts the dismissal.

But not the request.

As soon as Klahadore leaves her alone, Kaya runs to get her hiking boots and a heavier raincoat, and perhaps a shoulder bag to load up with snacks. If she can’t visit Usopp in the pool house, then she’ll just have to walk up and down the actual coastline until he finds her instead. And then they can figure out what to do about this ‘grate’ business before it forces Usopp to find somewhere else to live.

(“How much did you pay the butler?”

“Five grand. Told him that’s as high as we could go when he couldn’t even confirm what species of mer he’d found.”

“Heh - joke’s on him, then. I finally figured it out: this little thing’s a mutie, his colors got all mixed up, green instead of yellow and blue.”

“Ah, hell, that gonna make it harder to sell him?”

“Ohhh no, it’ll net us a bigger profit, s’long as we go to the right buyer - there’s folks out there who’ll pay double or triple the going rate for one-of-a-kind mutant mers. Hear that, lil’ fishie? Quit crying, you’re gonna get us a big payday, and land in a nice new home at the same time!”)

Four months ago

“Oi, Carne, where’s the Eggplant?”

“Huh? Didn’t he come back yet from taking out the trash?”

Rolling his eyes, Zeff stomps out of the kitchen and heads for Baratie’s back door. If Sanji is trying to steal ten minutes to give cigarettes another go, he’s going to kick the little shit straight into the ocean and swim laps until the lesson sinks in.

But when he yanks open the door, there’s no Eggplant scrambling to hide a stolen smoke and borrowed lighter on their stoop. Nor sitting over on the stack of delivery pallets. Or out by the trash dumpster and compost bins. Zeff fully steps outside, looking in both directions, but he can’t spot his fool boy anywhere.

...what he does spot is a fresh set of black rubber marks marring his parking lot.

Come to think of it, there had been the muffled squeal of stressed tires about ten minutes ago. Zeff spends a few more seconds staring at marks, before he whirls around and bolts back the way he came.

“PATTY,” he bellows, ducking to cut through the kitchen rather than take the longer route around to his office. “Get to the computer, pull up the security footage from our back camera-”

“It’s still out, boss!”

Biting back a swear, Zeff nonetheless seizes the alarmed man and hauls him along. “Then pull up the front cameras, get a list down of every car that went around the building to staff parking!”

“Can I ask why-?”

“Sanji’s gone.”

To his credit, Patty shuts up, and gets to work as soon as Zeff shoves him first into the double-layered office. Carne unsurprisingly follows, eyebrows raised high as Zeff keeps going to the second room, already shucking his chef’s whites. “Uh. Not to be a downer, boss, but the kid’s sixteen, I’m pretty sure that’s the age normal kids disappear now and then-”

“Not the Eggplant. If a pretty girl invited him to a party, sure, but after we finished clean-up, and he knows better than to leave without saying anything to me.” Not after the time he tried sneaking off for an hour to practice some combat moves further the coast when he was eleven, and came back to find Zeff ready to tear his hair out. Ever since then, Zeff respects the Eggplant’s need for the occasional bit of privacy, and Sanji respects that he’s got someone who’ll worry if he vanishes without a trace.

(At least that first time there hadn’t been freshly burned rubber, or Zeff might have actually called the human cops, risk of exposure be damned.)

The back half of his office looks like plain old storage space, and for the most part it is. But Baratie being built half on land, half over the water not only means guests in the main dining hall can peer down through glass at the live fish and coral reef, but also, there are three hatches strategically placed in locations for a quick change of form.

Once Zeff lifts the rug and opens this one, he finishes stripping, then flips the switch on his prosthetic to have it morph along with his shift, the condensed layers of metal and mesh unfolding from peg to fin. His legs blur, skin quickly covered in a riot of purple and orange scales; frills and gills are fully present by the time he’s fully dropped into the water.

The lower level of his office doesn’t hold much: materials for adjusting his prosthetic and the non-enchanted spares, a couple chests where he keeps scavenged gold and jewels for a stormy day, a few other baubles from his long-finished piracy career. But most importantly, this is where his pair of snails live, safely tucked into their enclosure, ready to be pulled out and used for calls at the splash of a tail.

Zeff sets one up, dials a number he’s had memorized ever since realizing he’d taken on the care and keeping of a traumatized child.

“Hello, you’ve reached Central HQ of the Merfolk Outreach Foundation! How can I direct your call?”

“Emergency services,” Zeff says sharply. “Whoever’s in your East Blue office for missing mers.”

“...understood. Please hold.” At least they don’t offer the indignity of tuneless waiting music. Maybe a minute later, there’s a click, and a significantly less cheerful voice greets him. “E Sector Abductions Office. How can I help?”

“Don’t give me that crap about waiting however long to file a missing person’s report, for starters. My boy disappeared maybe fifteen minutes ago from behind our home, I heard squealing tires and there’s fresh marks on the asphalt.”

“Noted. Particular concerns?”

“Not the first time humans have tried to grab him,” Zeff huffs, remembering grasping, panicked fingers, the pain of his right fin catching the boat’s propeller as he twisted around, tearing the net out of reach. “Kid’s got odd colors. Walked him through the Shift Ritual afterward, so he had better chances of escaping if it happened again, but whoever just took him did it while he had his legs on.”

“Hm. Could the abductors have thought he’s an ordinary human?”

“Maybe, but even if that’s the case and I get a ransom call, like hell am I bringing local cops into this.”

“Fair enough. Get me your coordinates, and we’ll send an investigative team.”

It’s a relief to be taken seriously.

But not as much as it will be to get his scrappy little Eggplant back where he belongs.

(“See! I told you, dunk him in a tank and seal the lid, and out comes a tail!”

“Yeaaah, a long tail, look how scrunched up he is! Hell, we’re gonna have a devil of a time moving this guy anywhere-”

“Nope, that’s the beauty of grabbing mers who can shift, dude! Haul ‘em back out of the water, have a go at their scales with a hair blower or two, and poof! Defense mechanism or something, they go back to legs! Then we just tie him up and stick him in the trunk, no problem!”

“Huh. Yeah, alright. Even easier than getting him to come closer for a chance to flirt with your sister.”

“You know it! So the next time you think I’m crazy for swearing I saw somebody jump off a dock and turn into a fish-”

“Yeah yeah yeah, go get a hair blower.”)

Chapter Text

That fucking-

Here. Mihawk was right here, he looked at Zoro and no damn way the bastard didn’t recognize him, but all he did was talk-!

Landscaping project

Expanding the watergardens

Always admired the elegance of Wano Fighters

Not for the first time, Zoro burns to be back at his proper full size, if only to seize Mihawk by his leather coat and demand why, were they only ever decorative to him, did he just let Zoro and Kuina come hang out in the canals between his vegetable beds and vineyard because the bastard liked the way they looked?!

Fuck.

Fuck.

“Get ahold of yourself, mossball.”

Zoro flips around to glare, even going so far as to bare his teeth for good measure. Sanji doesn’t look bothered. He’s frowning, sure, but he’s got that worried look in his eyes, the one that’s supposed to be reserved for Nami when she’s thinking about her family or Usopp when his breathing stutters or Luffy after-

It’s not meant for Zoro. He’s the strongest one in here - and for all that the long-tailed mer is the newest arrival, the two of them have an unspoken agreement to each look out for the others. If fucking Blackbeard is in a mood to be entertained, then they’ll pick a fight with one another, draw his attention. When there’s going to be a client arriving and that damn scooping net enters the aquarium, he and Sanji are the ones to go straight for it, try to tear holes in the mesh so it can’t be used to catch any of the rest.

Sanji shouldn’t be looking at Zoro like- like-

A blur of color, and then weight slams into his chest. Not the cook’s stupid long tail, dealing a blow. Not Sanji at all - Luffy wraps his scrawny arms around Zoro and clings.

So what if he maybe shakes a little as he hugs the smaller mer back.

(The first day they dumped him in this tank, there’d been a clear divider across the middle, keeping Zoro and the original occupant separate so they could get used to each other or whatever. Something he hadn’t minded, at the time, considering how the twerp on the opposite side kept talking and pressing up against the plastic divider and asking all sorts of questions that Zoro didn’t feel like answering.

It took a while to get used to Luffy. To realize the younger mer had been held prisoner for months already, and wanted desperately just to not be alone anymore.

Zoro stopped trying to avoid his hugs after that understanding sank in.)

There aren’t any other client meetings for two days, but that doesn’t mean their group is left alone.

First and foremost, of course, the daily inspection of their hides, the dinky little plastic caves and decorations picked up and turned over to make sure there isn’t anything hidden inside that shouldn’t be. Luffy mentioned, once, that back in his early days, he wouldn’t eat the stupid food, tucked away the tasteless squishy brown cubes more out of spite than an actual plan. But only so many could be left inside a hide before their buoyancy grew too much, and it lifted away off the pebble-covered floor. Since then, there’s a check each morning before fresh food is dropped into the water for them to gather and eat, and if anyone refuses, they’re pulled out of the tank and strapped down to a tray, so Blackbeard can personally use an eyedropper to force a concoction full of nutrients into their mouths.

Nami hates it.

She hates everything about this place.

She’ll take a bite of the soggy cube in her hands, and try to pretend it’s a bright and tangy tangerine, and just feel even worse when she fails miserably. Luffy pressing up close to her side is only partially a comfort, tail entwining with hers the way Nojiko used to, but at least it’s a little better to choke down their tasteless meals together.

(Nami wanted to do nothing but rage and scream her first week trapped in the stupid tank, and could only manage it at night, when her new owner wasn’t around to frown warningly. Zoro did the smart thing and kept his distance; he tried to pull Luffy away too, tried to insist they should give her some space to vent, but the smaller mer always slipped free from his grasp and stayed close, accepted all the shouted insults Nami threw at him, and kept asking if she wanted a hug when the fit finally faded.

That whole first week, she spat back, no.

Until her fury eventually cracked and grief flooded through instead, and Nami answered yes, and Luffy hasn’t let go since.)

Saturday morning is reserved for Cleaning Day, which Usopp despises.

He still gets nightmares of trying to slip out of Kaya’s pool house to go hunting for breakfast, and crashing headfirst into a tension-net, the kind that collapsed and wrapped tight and wouldn’t let go of whatever poor cod swam into its clutches. The scoop used to lift him and his friends out of the aquarium so it can be scrubbed isn’t so bad, by comparison; but the contraption used to hold them down for dousing in a mildly acidic cleaning solution and then rinsed off is awful, two layers of mesh that flatten Usopp and leave him exposed on all sides and he can’t move-

It’s always a relief to be deposited back in the aquarium after, even if all the hides have been rearranged or exchanged for new ones and he’s gotta reorient himself to a new layout - because as soon as they’re all back in the tank, Luffy charges, and the whoop and tackle are great for knocking Usopp out of his mental spiral.

(He did his damned best to constantly stay hidden, at first, which Blackbeard just found funny. Teased him about being a literal yellow-bellied coward, made a game of constantly picking up whichever chunk of plastic Usopp was cowering inside to give it a rattle and shake him out, laughing when the mer darted away to find anywhere else he could seek shelter.

Luffy, though. Luffy called him smart. Said that it was good to know when and where to hide, either to stay out of sight or have a better chance of fighting back. Said that if he’d been better at hiding, he never would have been caught.

The next time after that when Blackbeard messed within him, Usopp darted out of his hide and bit the man’s finger.

He got punished for it, kept alone in a too-small fishbowl for a few days, but Blackbeard stopped picking up hides when Usopp was inside of them after that, and Luffy laughed long and hard.)

There’s an extra portion of Cleaning Day that the others don’t have to go through, for which Sanji is very grateful. They all get washed and returned to the newly scrubbed aquarium; he gets to spend half an hour drying out inside a much less hospitable box, waiting until he loses enough moisture to trigger his scales fading from view and his tail shrinking, separating into a pair of legs. Then the poking and prodding begins, forcing him to go through some stretches and strength exercises, making sure he’s kept healthy and fit.

Never any clothes to be seen, of course. ‘Wild animals’ like merfolk don’t get clothing, unless Blackbeard decides to dress one of them up for a particular customer’s delight, or when he decides to torment Luffy by cramming some miniature hat or other on the kid’s head.

If and when the day arrives when he sees an opportunity to break himself and his friends out of this hellhole, Sanji swears Blackbeard will only live until either he or Zoro reach the man.

(He’d bragged, in the early days, about having gone through the painful, drawn-out process of getting his land legs; insisted that as soon as their captor let down his guard, Sanji would have everyone out and free in no time.

That lasted up until the first client who wanted to witness the transformation.

Until Blackbeard plucked Sanji out of the aquarium, and dropped him into a box lined with sand and turned on a burning hot sunlamp, and left him inside during the whole, hours-long meeting, to the point that Sanji could hardly think straight he was so overheated and dehydrated. It came as a huge relief to be dumped straight back into the tank full of water and hands waiting to catch him, and as he breathed in through his newly returned gills it didn’t even occur to Sanji that he’d utterly failed to so much as look for a potential escape route.)

Cleaning Day sucks, but at least they know what to expect, and once it’s over Luffy can hug all his friends and start checking out how the tank has changed and they can move on to playing or sparring or whatever.

But once in a while there’s something else that follows Cleaning.

Something worse.

(At least it’s just worse for him, and not the others.)

Luffy knows, when he gets put in the stupid little bowl with the lion statue. He always makes a point of swimming too fast to be seen easily, when Blackbeard puts him in it. But he can still hear, muffled and distant, when the door opens and big stupid Blackbeard says “Good morning, Master Nerona, always a delight to be visited by my favorite investor.”

“Acquirer,” ugh, Luffy grits his teeth. “How does the Sunfish fare?”

Luffy swims faster, round and around and around, but that never seems to bother stupid weird Imu. “Feel free to see for yourself, my dear! He’s been a bit hyper, the last couple of days, but then so have the rest of them since a new client dropped by.”

The weird wobbly too-much voice is bad enough. It’s always worse, when black-gloved fingers dip into the bowl, and Luffy can twist and swim away but there’s nowhere to really go. He can never stay out of reach, not long enough.

Imu’s fingers curl around him, and lift him out of the water, always pinching his head just firmly enough to keep him from being able to turn and bite the way he wants to. Arms pinned and tail dangling, he doesn’t bother to squirm, that always just makes stupid Imu start petting him. “Hmm. No noticeable weight loss, this month. But, as always, his coloring could stand to improve.”

“Yes, well, I’m not about to risk putting a skylight in here. You understand, of course. Security is my foremost concern when it comes to the safety of my products.”

“Indeed.”

Imu takes a little while to check his scales and fins, to feel along the lines of his arms and spine and tail, always making sure Luffy is still healthy. Ugh. And then the really awful part starts.

It’s a different tank that Blackbeard brings out for this. Bigger than the stupid fishbowl, but nowhere near as large as the one where Luffy can swim around with his friends. The water is always bad, stinky even before Imu lowers him inside, and it tastes worse when that gloved hand lets him go. Swimming fast doesn’t help, in here, it just triggers his scales to change faster, so Luffy sinks down to the bottom and curls up in a corner.

Yellow turns white. Red turns purple. His hair changes too, bleaching and curling up, and Luffy feels his heart pound like a drum, a deep, steady, dum, dum, da-dum!

“Magnificent,” he hears stupid Imu, closer and farther away at the same time. Red eyes peer through the glass, and Luffy snarls, wants to surge forward and start punching, but if he does that the hands will come back and pluck him out of the water and Imu won’t stop touching him until he stops fighting.

They talk about boring stuff, like always, numbers and dates and Luffy never bothers to listen, focuses on his heartbeat and the drum instead. He knows they’re almost done when Imu makes the usual offer: “...would still hold breeding rights, of course, but the Sunfish could flourish so much better, residing at mu’s home.”

Blackbeard laughs, like always. The mean laugh, that says if Imu didn’t have money, Blackbeard would be throwing a punch instead. “Ah, maybe so, Master Nerona, maybe so. But I’d rather not let this little money-maker out of my sight, you understand. On the topic of breeding rights, though, I think we’ve found his first potential mate - one of my men confirmed the sighting of an Alabasta Blue, just this week.”

“Oh?”

Luffy shudders. Imu sounds hungry.

“Young female, should reach spawning age about the same time as our little Nika here, if you’re interested in funding the extraction operation.”

“Very interested, Acquirer.”

They talk some more. Luffy hopes whatever mer that Blackbeard has found knows how to hide better than him, has human legs she can use to get away, or a big enough family that she won’t ever be left alone. Hopes that, whoever she is, he never has to meet her. Not in here. Not at stupid Imu’s house, either.

Eventually, they’re definitely done when Imu reaches for him again, and even though this tank is bigger than the bowl Luffy can’t swim away. The stinky water always does this, makes him so tired if he’s in it for very long, too weak to resist when Imu doesn’t bother to pin him down while he’s held and touched and stroked like a pet, he’s not a pet, stop, he doesn’t like it he doesn’t like it, let him go, he’s not a pet he’s a person-

Clean water.

Imu’s hands let go, finally, and right away his friends are there, grabbing Luffy and pulling him along to one of the hides, the biggest one that looks like a castle, they can’t all fit inside together but it’s good enough, Usopp hugging him from behind with his arms across Luffy’s stomach, Nami hugging him in front with his head tucked under her chin, he can feel Sanji’s tail twining around his and Zoro’s fingers holding onto his hand and- and he-

-he cries.

Quiet. Soft. He isn’t strong enough to be loud about it. Can’t lift his arms to hug anyone back. He’s always so tired after the stinky water, and upset after Imu holds him, but Luffy can’t do anything besides hang limp and drift and wait to go back to normal.

He can’t even twitch when there’s suddenly NOISE.

All of his friends flinch. He thinks maybe Usopp yells, but it’s too loud, and out of the opening of the castle there are bright lights flashing, Luffy whines and tries to turn his head farther to hide against Nami’s shoulder. A shadow goes by; Blackbeard, he thinks, but there’s no scooping net, no grabbing hands.

The awful screeching noise keeps going. Maybe it’s not as bad out in the air, but echoing through the water means it hurts, and it’s everywhere, and Luffy’s head starts to pound. Zoro lets go of his hand. Sanji’s tail suddenly pulls away. Nami and Usopp hug him tighter, but it still hurts-

Movement.

The hide- the castle is moving.

Water swirls, abrupt and scary, and then they’re turning and they’re falling, his friends screaming, clinging tighter, Luffy can’t make his stupid self do anything at all.

They land in different water. In a box, no hides, no pebbles or sand on the floor, no clear walls for stupid awful people to look in at them. Luffy drags his eyes open enough to see the blurs of color when Sanji and Zoro are dropped in too, but then there’s a lid and the whole box goes pitch black, he can’t see anything, he’s alone except for Usopp and Nami’s clinging arms.

He doesn’t know what’s happening.

He hopes it’s something good.

Hope, that if nothing else, he won’t have to see stupid Imu or awful Blackbeard again.

Chapter Text

Dragon first met his son’s brothers when the boys failed rather spectacularly to get into a smuggler’s den.

Intending to slip inside himself unnoticed, it hadn’t been Dragon’s intention to intervene at all - not until one of the snarling teenagers jumped high to drive both boots into a guard’s face, and even the dim light of early evening managed to catch and glint off of scattered red-orange scales.

Maybe the remaining guards noticed. Maybe they didn’t. Regardless, Dragon stepped up behind the pair to take them down with a few precise nerve strikes, and then told the startled boys, “This isn’t a place for young merfolk to be trying to enter.”

“FUCK that-”

“-they took our brother!”

(And the rest, as they say, is history.)

The only person who didn’t help her try to ‘process the grief’ was, ironically enough, the very human Zoro had gotten lost on his way to go visit.

Perhaps that was why. Perhaps shared guilt explained Mihawk setting his dignity aside and wading out into the cold ocean waves to stand hip-deep beside the rock pile Kuina chose to seethe in privacy. Why he curled a callused hand around the back of her neck and made her look him in the eye as he said, “Are you planning to continue moping like a child, or do you want to do something?”

‘Something’ wound up becoming a demand to go through the ritual scarification to gain her land legs. Absolutely none of the Shimotsuki elders would agree - except for Zoro’s grandmother. Lady Furiko took one look at the set expression on Kuina’s face, and huffed the same way as Zoro. The unspoken I don’t like this, but I’m not about to argue with you.

(When the Shimotsuki Clan left their wintering grounds in the kelp forest, Kuina remained behind, with her sword, her human legs, and Mihawk’s full support.)

Nojiko never could recall anything about her merfolk family from when she’d been a guppy. Her earliest memories are of screaming, nets and harpoons cutting through the water, grabbing a single egg that happened to float past her hiding place crammed into a tight reef tunnel.

Orange and pale blue behind a too-thin membrane, and it was a struggle to not hug too tight and crush the baby.

Then hands, big hands, and wide eyes behind a clear mask, and dark reddish-purple hair swirling in the water.

After that, it was her, Nami, and Bellemere, living on a fishing boat, diving for shellfish and lobster and anything else that could be sold at a human market for decent money. Or- maybe not always decent, but enough.

And then they were seen.

And Bellemere got shot.

And Nami- left.

Now Nami is gone, but with all the money they were given, Genzo can pay for more help for Bellemere, a better wheelchair, more access to the specialist she needs.

Which means it’s Nojiko’s turn to leave.

She’s never known another mer besides her sister. But surely, surely, someone out there will be able to at least help point her in the right direction.

(She finds far more than that, after meeting Hack and Koala, who point her towards the Mer Outreach Foundation, and hidden underneath it, the Mer Rights Revolution.)

After two weeks with no sign of Usopp, Kaya turned to the internet.

She waited for a day when Klahadore was busy supervising a crew hired to renovate the house’s tower attachment, and snuck into her father’s office. He and her mother were off visiting Sabaody for Fashion Week, and likely would take their time before coming home, so Kaya didn’t feel the least bit bad about opening up the notebook with his passwords in order to log on.

...well. A little bad, maybe. But it was for a good cause - an important cause!

After some hesitant poking around, she found her way to a website that was all about merfolk, and talking to them as people, and learning about their cultures. Although Kaya wasn’t entirely certain why someone would need to be taught a mer was a person; she’d only needed one day spent playing with Usopp when they were children to understand that.

But, regardless. The website also had a forum for actively chatting with others, and upon scouring the offered threads, Kaya found one that focused on the East Blue types of merfolk.

That seemed the best place to start.

So she wrote a post talking all about Usopp, describing his green scales and wide flat tail and long nose, and how he’d disappeared after a grate was installed for the pool house and her butler- er, ‘family friend’ was insisting on calling him imaginary, which was wrong, and had anyone near the Gecko Islands seen him in the past few weeks?

Kaya was very careful to close out the windows and shut down the computer when she finished. Klahadore never noticed a thing, and she intended to keep it that way until she could prove to him Usopp was real.

(The responses on the forum itself were lackluster, each time she checked, but a month later Kaya got her proof. She came downstairs to the sound of frantic knocking, and even though Klahadore tried to keep out the ‘crowd of riffraff’ who’d shown up on the front porch, one dark-skinned man with curly hair leaned far enough through the door to call out to Kaya, “Hi, kiddo, my name’s Yasopp, I’m-”

“Oh! You’re Usopp’s dad! Please, come in!”

Klahadore got rather pale at that point. And strangely enough, he left a note of resignation and disappeared without saying goodbye, the very next day. Or at least, Yasopp and Shanks and Benn all said so, and considering how kind they all were about telling her stories and helping around the house and jumping straight into the search for Usopp, well- even if she eventually figured out they were lying, Kaya decided she didn’t much care.)

Zeff could be a stubborn cuss on the best of days, but with regards to Sanji’s disappearance he managed to particularly out-do himself.

Flat insistence and constant, perfectly reasonable demands to be kept in the loop eventually paid off, when someone higher up the food chain of the Revs came along to ask why, exactly, Zeff was being so hellbent about the whole thing. Phrased it right, not accusing him of being foolish, but digging for the reason underneath the hardline.

“Kid was running away from something when I first picked him up,” he gruffly told the flamboyant Widetail Showfish who turned up. “Took me a few years to get it out of him, and even then I doubt I would have managed if you lot hadn’t gone and cracked open that big Germa Hue breeding ring in the North a while back, gotten it all exposed in the newsreels.”

“Ahh,” Ivankov slowly nodded. “A connection?”

“An escapee. Some kind of color mutation that made his handlers argue whether or not he was valuable or a reject - another kid in his sibling clutch found a way to get him out, and he started swimming and didn’t stop until he wound up out here.”

Swam a quarter of the way across the world, his Eggplant, eventually trailing after a fancy high class passenger ship eating the food careless tourists or harried cooks dumped overboard, until he got chased into an crowded harbor and would’ve been nabbed if Zeff didn’t intervene.

At least the Rev caught on quick. “He won’t just be taken to the common markets, then - you think someone will notice he’s out of place, and turn him into a collector’s item.”

Made acid bile try to claw up out of his stomach to agree, to even think about some slimy human with more money than sense deciding to stick his brat in a tank like a trophy, but- “Yeah. So either we find him fast, or- he’ll-”

Another point in Ivankov’s favor, for not saying a word about Zeff getting choked up in ridiculous fashion.

(Instead, what the Rev did do was bring him along to a meeting place underneath the city of Loguetown, where Zeff got to meet some other folks looking for missing kids.

And at that point, well.

Like they say.

The rest was history.)

It’s pure luck that Rocinante overhears the call.

The phone rings just as he’s rising from his chair in Doffy’s office; without a care, his brother waves him off while answering. “Yes? Ah. Oh, very well, put him through.” Roci takes maybe three steps towards the door, already mulling over how he’s going to handle this evening’s tasks, when: “Blackbeard, my friend, you must be up either tastefully late or dreadfully early to be reaching me on this side of the world.”

Silent as a shadow, Rocinante pauses just outside the office door, heart pounding as he listens.

“Hmm, yes, I suppose I do have a fondness for Northern species, but darling, Germa Hues are so last- oh? ...an Inverted Stealth Black, you say...” There’s a hint of intrigue in Doffy’s voice that cannot mean anything good. “Well. Passingly interested, I suppose, but you of all people should know I’m not inclined to breed my little pets at the drop of a hat, between their delicate constitutions and- you what?” Roci can hear the chair creak alarmingly, can picture his brother bolting upright. “...an actual Nika Sunfin?”

It takes every fiber of his being for Rocinante not to gasp and give himself away.

“Well, my dearest Blackbeard,” Doflamingo purrs, “You should have led with that...”

The conversation continues. Age, timed breeding, exchange of favors, all the sorts of things that can usually be overheard from Doffy's calls, though hardly ever to this degree of seriousness. Minding his step, Roci slips away.

He’s done everything in his power over the years to convince his brother not to subject Law or Lami to the stress of ‘breeding’, with each other or anyone else for that matter, but the allure of the rarest type of mer in all the world is absolutely too much an opportunity for the older man to pass up. And if it happens once and the kids come out in good enough condition for Doffy’s tastes, he’ll force them into it again, and again, and-

No.

No.

Even if Rocinante hadn’t been playing the part of saboteur for over a decade now, he’d put his foot down. He pulled those kids out of sludge-filled waters himself when they were hardly more than guppies, he is not letting Doflamingo inflict a worse cruelty on them than he’s already done across the years.

So Roci skips his usual evening routines, heads straight for the backside of the massive aquarium complex used to house and ‘display’ the last two White Amber Spinefish of Flevance. It’s good luck that his assistants are already there, Penguin and Shachi dueling each other with mop handles while Bepo sits with his feet in the water, tray of specially cooked shrimp and salmon in hand. And yet, somehow, it’s inevitably Law who clocks Roci’s rushed pace across the catwalk, popping up out of the water by Bepo’s knee to warily demand, “What’s wrong?”

“We’re leaving,” Rocinante says upfront, and that’s enough to bring the mock swordplay to a crashing halt. “Grab anything you don’t want to leave behind, I’m getting one of the transport trucks and we’re taking off before Doffy can stop us.”

In the sudden stunned silence, Lami also surges up above the water level, to let out a whoop: “Yes, jailbreak!”

“I’ll grab a clipboard,” Penguin declares, mop dropping as he takes off, “You always look more official with a clipboard!”

“There’s a pallet of frozen fish that just arrived a while ago, I’ll snag some boxes from the kitchen,” Bepo offers, rising and stuffing his wet feet into a pair of boots.

His turn to be taken by surprise, Rocinante can only aim a baffled look at the beaming Shachi. “What color truck do you want us to nab, boss? We’ve got pink, pink, more pink-”

“You’re coming?” The question emerges so weak and baffled it makes Law snort.

“Dude! Like we’d want to work anywhere that doesn’t have you and the Terrible Two!” Even as he says it, Shachi ducks the spurt of water Lami aims for him. “And that’s before knowing your crazy brother is gonna go extra off the deep end after this, so really, we’re just getting out while the getting is good!”

Well.

Roci can’t argue with that.

So he just sighs, and tells Shachi, “Go grab some keys, I need to make a call,” ignoring the young man’s jump and heel click as he goes.

“Call who?” Law demands, braced against the edge of the pool.

“A friend. Someone who can arrange to keep us safe and hidden after we get out of here.” And, also, someone who put word out onto the network about a potential Nika appearing on the blackmarket, who told Rocinante personally about the twelve year old child stolen from his brothers.

(And now, two years later, Roci can tell Dragon his son is still alive.)

A call is made.

A scout, sent in.

And a plan devised.

They have to wait for the weird black-veiled ‘guest’ to leave in a huge limousine, but as soon as Ace gets the signal to move, he moves.

Almost two years of training with Dragon makes getting in and out of places unnoticed a hell of a lot easier, even if it goes against his instincts to avoid a fight. Some things are more important. Luffy is more important.

There’s a scuffed straw hat that’s been hanging against Ace’s shoulder blades for too damn long.

The others stay close on his heels as they shimmy one by one up a drainpipe, cross the warehouse roof, and slide down into the ventilation system. Dragon’s friend Ginny built a whole obstacle course out of metal and plywood to mimic the tight spaces, so they could practice handling the tight turns and sharp drops with as little sound as possible. Ace ran that stupid thing so many times he could do it blindfolded.

Navigating the real deal is much less complicated, but far more nerve-wracking. The long slow shimmy as they cross over the actual warehouse storage floor is maybe the worst, for all that it’s the simplest; if even a single screw gets knocked out of place by their passage, lands on somebody’s head, that could blow the whole operation right there.

And it IS a whole entire operation - Dragon is giving Ace’s team a chance to go in first and get in position, the only ones still young and small enough to fit inside the vents, but once they pull the fire alarm, a lot of pieces and people are going to start moving.

The Revolutionaries have been planning to go after Marshall D. Teach, alias Blackbeard, for too many years to only focus on getting a single group of kids out.

As soon as the five of them slip past the handful of turns and single drop necessary to reach the grate leading into the bastard’s personal office, Ace looks over his shoulder. Sabo, right behind him as always. Kaya, ready with the cooler. Nojiko and Kuina, armed for long and close range combat, if it comes to that.

Ace signals them, two minutes, and gets a set of firm nods in return.

Sabo has been around practically as long as he can remember. A dumb human kid, he’d thought back then, hanging around the tide pools all day, practically begging to be drowned. Then actual begging, for swimming lessons of all things. And once they started spending time together Ace never could think of a reason to stop.

Kuina’s been a kindred spirit from day fucking one, introduced by Dracule Mihawk, with a Water Blade in her grip and scales peeking out from her sleeves and a steel-sharp expression Ace knew all too well: the look of someone who’d lost the kid they were supposed to be looking out for, and would do anything to get back.

Nojiko, too, even if it’s been harder to fall into sync with the other girl, just for her total lack of understanding most things about merfolk. Like, Ace knows he isn’t the most sociable guy, but at least he grew up hearing stories and learning lessons from Dadan and Gramps, figured some things out better by repeating them to Luffy. And yet, he’s never hesitated to work with Nojiko, and not just because of her badass sharpshooting.

Kaya- ugh. Kaya is a whole other kettle of fish. Completely human and untrained and didn’t even know the right way to curl her hand into a fist, Ace couldn't tell WHAT Dragon was thinking, letting her visit their headquarters with the Red Hooligans crew and insisting she be given a chance. Well. Turned out, completely human Kaya had a better knack for mer-based medicine and first aid than Ace and Kuina and Nojiko combined, so. Once they showed her how to properly throw a punch, she got to stay.

And now she’s on the team for their part of the rescue operation.

And Ace is really, really hoping those first aid skills won’t be called for.

His watch ticks over to the appointed time, and an instant later, fire alarms begin screaming across the entire building. Cautiously leaning forward, Ace peers through the grate at an angle to see the door. Scowls, when sure enough, the bastard he’s been ready to murder for three days goes darting out, not so much as a second wasted for the sake of his prisoners.

Ace gives it three beats before yanking the grate up and out of the way, and dropping through to the carpeted floor below. Just like Mihawk said, to his left is a huge window looking further into the building; to his right is the fucking aquarium.

He wants to rush straight over. Needs to, when he can’t spot any movement, any flicker of yellow and red. Instead, Ace sticks to his assigned Team Lead responsibilities - he goes to the still open door, checks the outer office to be sure it’s clear, then pulls the heavy reinforced panel shut and locks it.

Just as he’s done with that, Sao lets out a sharp, “Ow!”

“Zoro,” Kuina snaps. Ace jogs over, gets to watch her pry a small wriggling tan and green shape off of the finger Sabo is trying very hard to hold still, arm crammed awkwardly over the top of the tank wall. “Stop that, or I swear I’ll flush you down a toilet!”

Next to the pair, Nojiko’s swearing as she tries to grab an electric yellow shape darting around the tank, while Kaya ignores the rest of them to gingerly pry a plastic castle out of the water. Ace goes to her, figuring longer arms will help, except then it’s his turn to yelp when that yellow mer darts up and bites him. “What the hell, we’re trying to help!”

“I don’t think they realize that,” Kaya says, loudly to be heard over the alarm. “The way this noise must be echoing in the water, I doubt they can hear, and we must just look like big blocks of color!”

Fantastic.

Still- Ace grabs the mer biting and clawing at him, keeping the fucker busy while Kaya manhandles the castle. He catches a glimpse of more bright colors when she tips it over, tumbling down into the small watertight cooler, but that’s hardly enough to count as seeing- “Are they all here?”

“Yes,” Kaya promises. “Three, and four-” Ace dumps his squirming mer into the cooler too, followed by Kuina, “-and five! That’s each of them! Oh, they must be so panicked right now-”

“We’ll apologize later,” Kuina says sharply, latching the lid shut. “But we need to focus on getting out, first.”

Right. Ace heads back across the room, eyeing the overhead vent opening as he laces his fingers together. With a boost, Kaya and Nojiko should be able to reach it and get out the way they came in, while he and Kuina and Sabo go add to the chaos elsewhere in the building, as Dragon’s people go to work freeing other imprisoned merfolk, Shanks and his crew getting a headstart on the demolition. Not a single cinderblock of this place is going to be left standing if Ace has anything to say about it-

The door opens.

Chapter Text

Shanks didn’t know.

Not until Yasopp almost had a panic attack, scrolling the Outreach’s East Blue forum and finding a perfect description of his son, missing.

Not until the whole crew high-tailed it back across the world to start looking into things, when they found out Banchina had passed away and Usopp essentially moved into a human family’s pool house and then got caught and sold, at which point Shanks decided to call up an old friend for help.

Not until he went to meet with Dragon in person, and happened to cross paths with a teenager wearing his-Roger’s-Luffy’s hat around his neck.

Shanks didn’t know then.

He knows now.

Which is why he takes particular pleasure in bringing up a side of himself he usually never touches, crouching to brace a hand against the floor of this prison full of suffering and misery, and snarling in the ancient tongue, “Divine Departure.”

The wrath of the seas is never to be underestimated.

Even on solid ground, the power of the ocean swells, cracks, breaks through. All the concrete immediately around Shanks shatters, echoing shrieks spreading outward, tearing at the foundations with all the fury of a thousand year old storm. Not too far, though; Dragon’s people are still evacuating the warehouse, and need time, without guards shooting or otherwise intervening.

Shanks can give them that time.

Panicked humans come racing, and his men unleash their own fury, taking shots and delivering strikes and generally laying waste. Not often they get the chance for open combat anymore, not since Shanks grew up a bit and got smarter with how he went about helping other merfolk. The Red Hooligans are known the world over as partygoers of the highest quality, sometimes showing up to places with invitation in hand, but usually traveling where the wind and tide took them, never worrying about whether or not Shanks would be named on any flimsy guest list. And if the parties they show up to happen to feature ‘live entertainment’, well. Chances are there’s going to be some technical difficulties, maybe even a few malfunctions allowing said entertainment to disappear, and more often than not the host will find themselves with drained bank accounts come morning, thanks to a bit of well-applied hacking.

Subtle, and effective, and with free booze included.

Right now, though? Shanks is only going for effective.

The power he’s channeling continues to reach out, held within a confined space by his will but allowed to do whatever it wants within said space. And what it wants is to tear into stone and wood and flesh, ripping apart the offices where the kin of the sea were bought and sold, destroying the wealth built on blood. Floors and walls and ceilings are torn apart by the rising gale, the water unleashed from broken pipes, sparks flying from snapped electrical lines. There’s still a measure of calm directly around Shanks, giving his lads a safe enough place to stand, but it’s the eye of a hurricane.

Until. He senses something out of place.

Ancient magic is ruthlessly hauled back under his control, packed away, and in the sudden ringing silence Shanks can hear how heavily he’s breathing.

Then-

Footsteps.

One set sharp and precise, the other heavy, dragging. Approaching slowly enough that Shanks has a chance to get himself under control, to stand and turn, flanked by his closest friends as someone who shouldn’t be here approaches.

“Thought you were going to wait with the car,” he calls, not bothering to disguise the raw hatred in his voice. Not that the words and the emotion are aimed at the same person.

“Our culinary friend is capable of handling that portion of the task by himself,” Mihawk drawls back, giving the monster in front of him another deceptively delicate prod of his sword. “I elected to enter the premises to ensure the youths all actually followed their instructions, and just as well, as I found them in the midst of a fight with this waste of oxygen.”

For his part, Teach is smiling, but there’s a panicked slant to his eyes that Shanks takes great satisfaction in seeing.

“Redtail,” the bastard tries to laugh. “It’s been, what, ten years? Gotta say, the scars look good! I bet you get all kinds of ladies hanging off your arm asking about ‘em.”

Credit to the kids, they did some decent damage: Teach’s nose is definitely broken, pouring blood, and he looks to be missing a couple of teeth. One hand clamped down on the opposite arm, staunching some more bloodflow from neat slices through his jacket sleeve, and there’s at least one bullet hole in his trousers.

That said, Shanks is glad Mihawk intervened.

If only because he knows of a couple of parents who deserve to get their pound of flesh as well.

“Yasopp. You’ve got first dibs.”

“I still say we could have beaten him,” Ace is snarling, scrambling into the van with Sabo shoving at his back, Kuina bringing up the rear. Zeff waits just long enough to confirm they and Nojiko are fully inside, Kaya already buckled into the passenger seat next to him, before shifting into Drive and slamming his prosthetic foot against the gas pedal.

Two yelps from the back, followed by matching impacts against the floor. “Sit down and hold tight,” Zeff barks, not particularly concerned with the pair of knucklehead brothers. And he knows they’re the ones who just toppled over, Kuina’s got better balance and Nojiko is already kneeling directly behind the front seats, peering around Kaya at the cooler clutched in the smaller girl’s lap. “Snowpea, they all in there?”

“All five,” Kaya confirms. “Zoro and Sanji put up a fight, I don’t think they knew we were there to help - I had to tip the others out of a plastic castle, it looked like Usopp and Nami were holding onto Luffy.”

Zeff grunts. Slows down just long enough to make a hard turn as they shoot past the facility’s gate (ripped apart by that Hooligan Party Bus crashing through it earlier), then floors the gas a second time. There’s a chance Blackbeard will have backup incoming, if Dragon's people weren't able to cut the phone lines in time, and if that's the case he fully intends to get the kids all out of harm’s way before then.

All ten of them.

(Sanji fought back. His Eggplant still had the energy and wherewithal to do that much. Little shit’s bound to be alright. And Zeff will keep telling himself that until it’s stable enough to open the cooler and see for himself.)

In slightly less than an hour, nearly forty merfolk of varying ages, sizes, and species are liberated from Blackbeard’s clutches. Dragon helps carry as many of them as he can, making himself visible enough to be recognized, to help drive the point home that his brethren are not merely being taken to some new hell, but to freedom.

“We can handle the rest, my friend,” Kuma rumbles after the last mer is safely brought aboard a transport, ready to be driven straight to the ocean and turned over to the small fleet of boats under Iva and Ginny’s command. “Rejoin Redtail, and go see your son.”

From anyone else, Dragon might brush off the encouragement. But waiting with Ginny is a two year old guppy who looks just like her, pink hair and sapphire scales, who is so tiny in Kuma’s massive hands but shrieks with joy and absolute trust whenever he lifts her high into the air. “Call if you encounter trouble.”

“We will.”

With that, Dragon moves quickly back into the devastated building, much of it collapsed and exposed to open air. No spreading fires, thanks to a wealth of holding tanks and water pipes torn asunder, not all of it the handiwork of the Revolutionaries. Indeed, the further Dragon goes, crossing from the true warehouse into the smaller halls and rooms meant for human staff, the more he detects lingering traces of the Mother Storm, something very few individuals are still able to call forth and channel in the modern day and age.

Thankfully, Dragon has known one of them since he was a year-old guppy.

Following the lingering magic, he finds his way to the Hooligans, standing in a tight circle full of jeers and shouts. And little wonder - as soon as Dragon comes close enough to see over shorter shoulders, he growls himself.

Shanks catches sight of him from across the circle. Gestures, and the men smoothly step aside to let Dragon in. A mixed crew of humans and merfolk and maybe one or two other things, and yet, they all work together in easy harmony, whether that’s to seek out fun or share some freedom.

This, though.

This is pure, simple vengeance.

Yasopp delivers one more vicious punch, sending Blackbeard collapsing to the ground with a rousing chorus from the men around them. He too has noticed Dragon’s arrival, and takes a step back, face still twisted up with rage but not so far gone he cannot control himself.

“Pff, that- that it?” Blackbeard croaks. “Should- should’ve known, you’d- be too weak- fin’sh me off-”

“Nah,” Shanks cuts in easily. Mihawk is standing just behind him, sword in one hand, eerie obsidian stone in the other. “But now we get to second dibs.”

Blackbeard scoffs. “You- you couldn’t- kill me if you tried, Red- lil’ scaredy guppy, hiding ‘hind Roger’s tail-”

Shanks bares all his teeth in a grin.

Dragon reaches down, to seize the collar of Blackbeard’s tattered coat, and haul him up off his feet. Off the land legs he’s used to hide in plain view, to walk about making deals with the worst sorts of humans, selling his own kind into one miserable existence after another for profit and power.

“I do not know everything you’ve done to Luffy,” Dragon rumbles, as deep and dark as the ocean’s strongest currents. “But you will never lay another finger on my son, or any other mer.”

Blackbeard stares, eyes wide with recognition and horror.

It’s almost as satisfying as the noise his neck makes when it snaps in Dragon’s hands.

There’s a safehouse waiting on the far side of town, garage door open and waiting for the getaway van, a seated figure inside holding the remote to close it as soon as the vehicle scoots through.

Bellemere clutches that little fob with both hands until the kids start jumping out, and Nojiko shouts to her, “We got them!”

The remote clatters to the floor.

Seizing the grips for her wheelchair, Bellemere rolls a few feet closer, better able to watch as Kaya gently steps down from the passenger side with the stupid cooler clutched to her chest. “Verdict, doc?”

“Mixed,” the little wannabe mer-medic replies, offering a strained smile even as she hurries to the stairs at the back of the garage. “But I’m going to do a better check now!”

Zeff stomps after her, Kuina slipping around him to stay on Kaya’s heels. Nojiko looks worried, but not scared, not anymore; a gesture from Bell sends her eldest off too, and then she rolls to where Ace and Sabo are practically vibrating where they wait. “Alright, brats, help me get down there.”

It burns that despite her fancier model of chair, she still needs a hand getting down into this house’s basement. But, no elevator, no ramps, no other options. At home, railings and low benches and a dozen other things Genzo has gotten for her this past year make getting around easier than ever, even with the bullet lodged in her spine - here, she has to grip her wheels and hold still as the pair of seventeen year olds carry the damn chair, taking it one cautious step at a time.

If nothing else, at least these two know how to work as a team, and move in perfect sync with each other.

There’s a specialty pool dominating the house’s lowest floor, hand-carved, with a hidden exit out to the bay. Whether the Revs put it in themselves or bought this place once they found it, Bellemere doesn’t know, doesn’t much care. She’s only got eyes for Kaya, stripped down to her bathing suit, easing down the shallow steps with cooler in hand. Nojiko and Kaya are already in the water with their scales out, Zeff grumbling as he fiddles with his prosthetic to do the same.

As soon as the boys set her down, Ace is yanking off his shorts and diving for the deep end; Sabo is a little more polite, asking Bell if there’s anything else she needs. “I can get myself in the damn water, brat, now go on.”

He throws himself after his brother. Bellemere intends to follow, to lock her brakes and lower herself out of the chair, but-

Kaya opens the cooler.

Three tiny, fucking tiny blobs of color shoot out.

Sabo thinks he’s ready for anything.

Best case scenario is a lot of overjoyed shouting that makes his ears ring; worst case, furious, tearful crying, wailing, demands to know where were they, what took them so long, questions that will carve his heart in half and stomp on the pieces.

This is worse.

This is so much worse.

Kuina snatches her cousin, Nojiko slows down her sister, and one barked “Eggplant!” from Zeff is enough to stop the third attacking mini mer in his tracks. Without the shrieking fire alarm throwing them all into a tizzy, this time the rescuees recognize their rescuers, triggering a round of excited yelling and crying. Inside the cooler, another flicker of color appears, a fourth mer swimming up from the bottom of the container, and Kaya laughs even as tears spill down her cheeks. She’s busy enough with a delighted Usopp that Ace gets impatient, reaches past her, he gets as far as scooping out the blob of tan and yellow and red and lifts Luffy up and-

No. Stop. Let go.

Sanji zooms back over from reuniting with his dad to slap at Ace’s wrist with that long tail, and then the other three also abandon their startled people to pull Luffy away, Zoro snarling, “You can’t hold him, not while he’s still out of it!”

Because the worst case scenario turns out to not be Luffy getting angry at them for not saving him sooner. It’s Luffy not reacting at all, other than whimpering, laying flat in Ace’s cupped hands and lethargically begging him to stop.

Usopp starts talking at top speed about a chemical and a separate tank and an investor who liked to get handsy with their little brother, and Sabo clenches his hands tight enough to bend steel.

“He’s always like this for a while after Imu leaves,” Nami tells them, arms wrapped around Luffy to hug him close. Because he does want to be held, to feel contact that proves he’s not alone, but in his drugged state all he can recognize about Ace is large hands. Unwelcome hands. “Sooner or later he falls asleep, and by morning he’s back to normal.”

Morning. Sabo and Ace need to wait until morning to really get their brother back. And maybe it’ll still be the other bad option, of Luffy getting angry and screaming at them, two years, it’s taken them two years too many, and even then, they still might not get Luffy. Bright and eager and laughing little Luffy. Twelve year old Luffy, who wanted extra snacks and didn’t care about properly hiding and soaked up affection from his brothers like a dry sea sponge.

Fourteen year old Luffy might be someone completely different.

Ace’s tail trembles in the water.

Sabo grabs his hand.

They’ve lasted two years. They can last a handful more hours.

And then they’ll know, one way or the other.

Mihawk takes all of three steps into the safehouse basement when he hears a small voice snarl, “You!”

“Me,” he responds automatically, even as Kuina curses and claps both her hands together, a small green and grey tail wriggling furiously where it emerges from her fingers. “I would say this conduct is unbecoming, but truth be told, I’m glad to see you are still yourself, Zoro.”

Short strands of green hair fling water in all directions as the boy manages to pop his head up between Kuina’s thumbs. “Screw you, Hawkeyes! You’re a damn liar, you-!”

“Yes. I am a liar. I lied quite easily to gain entry to Blackbeard’s inner office, entirely for the chance to confirm your presence and well-being.”

That, at the very least, causes Zoro to fall still in his cousin’s careful grasp. “...what?”

“He went in to scout for us, dummy,” Kuina informs the younger mer, while Mihawk removes his boots and coat but otherwise steps into the water fully dressed. “-weren’t sure if all five of you were there, and- what are you doing.”

Wordlessly, Mihawk arches an eyebrow. His ward huffs, but opens her hands, so that he can fully inspect Zoro at a far closer distance than three days ago. The initial assessment stands, although it’s hard to see the lad as ‘older’ when his poleaxed expression makes him appear painfully young. “You- were helping.”

“Indeed. As I still am.” And with that, Mihawk raises the object he’s not let out of his grasp since seizing it from Blackbeard’s throat.

Zoro outright hisses at the sight of the plain black stone. “Get that thing the hell away from us-”

“You would prefer to remain this size on a permanent basis, then?” Elsewhere around the pool, other conversations fall silent, as the rescued children realize what he’s brought and their relations catch the rise in tension. “An acquaintance gave me a quick assessment and sufficient instructions for operation.”

"Yeah? They also tell you how to keep it from hurting?"

Intention will transfer. But you've got good enough control over yourself not to let any emotions tangle with the magic, and besides- you'll be doing it to help, not harm. "Yes."

Uneasy shifting. Perhaps he broke the boy's trust too badly with his playacting for this - they may need to wait for Shanks to arrive after all. But then, surprisingly, Zoro states, “Luffy first. He’s been stuck like this the longest.”

A brief glance at the huddle of miniaturized mers confirms their agreement across the board, matched nods and determined gazes. “Very well, then.”

In short order, the group embrace disbands, the smallest child whining slightly as he’s left alone upon the flat stone that Mihawk holds at the water’s surface. He centers himself, breathing in and out, and follows the outlined steps from Shanks. Power coils outward from the artifact, dark as ink, wrapping around young Luffy and causing him to twitch, just once.

Then Mihawk thinks of sunlight.

An inverse to the consuming void whose power condensed physical form; by envisioning the opposite, Mihawk triggers a flash of gold across the darkness, a reversal of the prior curse. Water roils with bubbles, energy rippling outward, and within seconds, the figure small enough to curl up within his palm is abruptly a dozen times larger, still thin and scrawny and perhaps undersized for his age, but no longer miniature, grown enough to require two arms to hold him up in the pool.

A pair of shouts. And then Dragon’s two tagalongs appear, taking their brother, expressions ashen and petrified.

Unwarranted, as it stands.

Because the young boy’s eyes peel open, and he blinks- and he smiles.