"What are you waiting for?! Kill me already!" Ace snarls, from the chains that Teach, Blackbeard, has put him in. The chains he woke up in, after their fight, fire verses darkness.
(After Teach told him he knew. Knew about Gold Roger.)
"Or are you going to hand me over to the Marines, like you said you were going to do to Luffy?"
The man that used to be his brother, his brother in arms, chuckles. "Nah. We're waiting for a special guest, actually. Not Marine. Got any other guesses, Fire Fist?"
"She's here," one of Teach's cronies announces, from where they've been keep watching on the sides of the ship.
"Ah, run out of time. Too bad."
She? Ace works at his lip. Until he can taste blood. A sharper pain than the rest, more recent, though less ongoing.
It can't be-
Then. She's there. Standing on the edge of the deck. In wide brimmed hat and tattered cloak waving in the wind.
The Rainmaker. O'Mallie Magnolia.
Mom.
His birth mother as far as the world knows. But a lie. Always a lie.
"Marshall D. Teach, formerly of the Whitebeard Pirates." Her face has never been so still before, as she marches out the words. Emotionless in a way Ace has never seen before from her.
She speaks. "Ah. So you were lying to me, when I asked you. You are who I knew once. At God Valley."
Something in Teach's Haki flinches at the words 'God Valley.' Ace notes the words for later, for any weakness he can possibly pull at when the time comes.
"Hey, you can't just ask someone about som'thing as serious as that. I wouldn't for you, you know."
"Hm." The butt of her naginata taps against the ship's deck. "I am no longer your Auntie then. Do not call me that any longer."
"Alright," Teach easily agrees. "Discarding the past it is. Except for him, right?" Pointing at Ace. "Your son."
"Stop dragging this out. What do you want." Not a question, not in those storm eyes.
"You for Ace, how about that?"
She would never, she has her cause to follow in hunting World Nobles, she has Shanks who is her real son and so much stronger and-
"Done."
"No-!" Ace surges up, only for Teach to kick him over and place his foot on his back.
"Hey, behave. This how real pirates negotiate, you know."
"And negotiations will happen with you not killing my son before we even finish it," Magnolia says, her fingers clawing into the wooden handle.
Another laugh. "Right, of course. My bad!"
He hauls Ace to upright position once more, like nothing ever happened in the first place.
"Hey, when you think about, Miss Magnolia, you might even make a better trade than Ace here!" The man heavily whacks Ace on the back, jostling his wounds and chains alike.
Ace grits his teeth, refusing to make a sound of hurt. To respond in any way to that. It's hard. But what will he do to Magnolia if Ace doesn't keep his temper for once?
"Marines have the biggest price for you, a Warlord title'll be nothing for that! And anything to get those red haired prisses off their asses, that'll be good too."
Teach grins, exposing blackened and missing teeth in his wide smile. Familiar, but also feels different from before. More of a threat.
"Pops should thank me, you know. Taking out the competition."
"Don't talk about Whitebeard like that!" Ace hisses, twisting about in his chains. "He would never-"
"Don't lie, Fire Fist. You've always known how leery that old man gets about her whenever she comes around." He nods in her direction. "Hates others having claims over who he calls his sons. You know, I heard that-"
"Enough," Magnolia cuts in. She steps forward. "You wanted me here for a reason? Let's trade."
"Hey, I'm no idiot. Put the weapon down first."
The naginata drops onto the deck. Just like that.
"Now, hands forward-"
As Ace watches, one of the crew, Burgess comes up to...lock shackles around those exposed thin wrists. Seastone, seeing how she instantly slumps and how she seems more solid somehow afterwards.
Just like that.
"Tell Shanks I'm sorry." Directed to Ace, of course.
"No, you tell him, I'm sorry, this is my fault, you have to hate me-" I'm not even your real son, and they both know that. She has to regret that she-
Magnolia rests her hand against his shoulder. Chilled, like always, but for once no steam is released, as it usually is between fire and rain. A combination of the seastone he's in and she's in, no doubt.
"I could never regret loving you."
Ace can feel his throat close up. Because even now, even when she's going to be handed over to her worst enemies, even when it's Ace's fault that she's trapped...she...
"Mom," he chokes out, and for once, using the title doesn't feel like a lie, like he's betraying his birth mother.
"Cute, but enough of the family reunion," someone else drawls. The chilled touch is dragged away from him, along with the rest of Mom, as Ace in turn is pulled towards the ship railing, no matter how he struggles.
"See you on the front page, Fire Fist. Have fun."
The echoing of Blackbeard's mocking laughter is the last Ace hears, before he's thrown from the ship, and hits the dock by it. Still chained, still weighed down.
Left to fester in his shame, as they leave with one of the few people to really really love him.
~
At the letter she reads, Shakky puts her fist up to her mouth. Bites into it.
Everyone's theorizing about what the Initial D means in One Piece. I think it's rather simple. It's a smile. A joyful grin. Here Look at it sideways.
:D
It looks like someone is smiling doesn't it?
It fit with the overall naming theme going on in One Piece. The Final Island being called, Laugh Tale. Someone called Joyboy. The god of freedom named Nika (ニカsmile) .
Perhaps the Initial D, isn't really anything special. Maybe it's just a simple promise. To smile. To fight for the right to Smile.
It sounds so simple and yet. It is the most difficult thing to do. In that world.
Perhaps it's a tribute. A sign. To Nika. To Joyboy.
Not to mention the story beat repeatedly being hammered in. People living, fighting, searching. For a simple smile in this cruel uncaring world. Smiling despite everything.
Traffy from the latest chapter of East Sea of Monsters au (by the wonderful @whirlybirdwhat ). Not a demon design (I have a couple ideas but nothing concrete just yet) and this scene was in my head since I read the chapter.
⭐ "He's got himself a universe, gone quickly
For the call of thunder threatens everyone" 🌙
Sort of a sequel to that first Resh'an/Aephorul Adventures in the Multiverse comic I did in my old main blog (still not restored yet, but for those not in the known, hi, I'm neoyi, this is my backup account because my main tumblr was accidentally terminated), but bigger and... not necessarily better.
Any who, the first 8 pages out of 15 AKA the Silly Part. The next set will be the serious part. Please enjoy. And thank you to folks who suggested ideas on where Resh'an and Aephourl would be spacetime hopping to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
⭐ bsky / Prince Marine: The Dandy Robot (webcomic) / itch.io / Ko-Fi ⭐
*crawls into inbox hopefully* OP Usopp scheherazade?
OP USOPP SCHEHERAZADE. every time i remember this exists i tell myself i need to finish it and then i get distracted. i have to just embrace that i have no particular plot once it gets to onigashima and go for it, i think.
The warden made them come back out of the cell to argue about paperwork, which was nice of the universe to arrange because it gave Usopp the space to truly panic about that in private.
“God-ya.”
Oh, great, now Law was here, what perfect timing. Usopp flinched at the voice coming from the little barred window of his cell, and then immediately scrambled over as he realized who it was. “Torao! I didn’t tell them anything, I swear—“
“You told them there was a wandering monk who could cure toad boils,” Law’s voice said. “Thank so much for helping me stay undercover. That really made my life much easier.”
“You had your Jolly Roger on your clothes!” Usopp hissed at him.
“Kine’mon did it first,” Law huffed. “No one here reads the outside papers anyway. That’s not the point.”
“You’re damn right that’s not the point,” Usopp said. “Do your hand thingy and get me out of here before I get shipped to Kaido’s dungeon!”
“What?”
Usopp knocked his head against the wall. Carefully. “I’ve been telling stories to distract those Gifters from beating me up and now they want to drag me back to Onigashima so the guard here can’t kick them out. I don’t care if I end up with a wanted poster like Zoro’s, everyone can make fun of me forever, just get me out of here!”
Law hummed. It was not a ‘oh-Usopp-your-life-is-so-hard, we-should-all-have-more-sympathy’ hum, so Usopp hated it already. “Actually, this might be a perfect opportunity. We’ll stage you inside Kaido’s court. You look nothing like your wanted poster, so even the Gifters won’t recognize you.”
“Wh—come on!” Usopp hissed. “Don’t leave me here!”
“You’re not in danger, assuming you can keep talking your way out of injury,” Law said. “They’ll ask more questions if their prisoner vanishes, and it could blow all our cover stories. This way, you’ll be in position when we have to take the battle to Kaido.”
Usopp unleashed his secret weapon of their mutually assured destruction. “What’s going to happen when Luffy shows up and finds out I’m gone? He’s already gone chasing after Sanji! Are you going to risk him storming Onigashima early and ruining your plan?”
“Well, he’ll have to get himself out of Udon prison first.”
“…He’s here?”
“Here. Brought Blackleg back. Causing trouble. Getting himself caught by Kaido and locked up in Udon.” Law sounded very annoyed. “Because he couldn’t hold himself back from charging in at the first possible opportunity.”
“It is Luffy,” Usopp pointed out. “You think you’d have learned how he works by now, Torao.”
“The point is,” Law said, ignoring Usopp’s already-made very good point. “that he’ll have to get himself out first. Udon should slow him down for at least a week or two. Try to gather information until then, we should be able to execute a tactical strike to get you out if necessary.”
“So you’re just going to throw me to the king of beasts?” Usopp’s voice squeaked unfortunately.
“Didn’t you already spend two years on an island where everything was trying to kill you? Two weeks is nothing.”
“Torao, don’t leave me here—”
Too late to keep arguing. The cell door was opening and the Gifter standing there looked far too smug to have lost his argument with the warden.
“Who are you talking to?” the Beast Pirate asked, curious.
“Oh, you know. Railing at the cruel, uncaring hand of fate,” Usopp said, raising his voice to make sure the useless eavesdropper outside heard him. He could hear Law’s stupid little heh through the window. Bastard.
Sea of Stars is a really fun game. The characters are amazing, the mechanics aren’t hard to grasp, there’s some crazy lore, beautiful art (even full animations in cutscenes!!), and you get to go every location you see and explore.
But do you know what makes me the MOST unhinged about this game?
The most insane toxic old man yaoi I have ever seen between the main antagonist who is built up to be a pure evil boogyman—who has brought whole worlds and species to ruin and done just a whole bunch of unethical magic science for the hell of it—and a depressed lil man who yearns for their past closeness and spent the last few centuries sulking in a magic tower. Both are immortal by the way and one is handling it Very Badly and the other is handling it Not Well But Not As Bad As The Other Guy.
Like. They had a big confrontation at the end of the second act and Depressed Lil Man literally STOPPED TIME just to talk with Pure Evil Boogyman and it was so tender and full of yearning. PEB expressed genuine awe over DLM’s feats and they had so much good banter that you almost forgot they’d been estranged for actual millennia.
And then PEB literally kills the Sunshine Heart of the Party who the protagonists are probably in a poly relationship with and everyone loves.
Absolutely wild.
They are like the epitome of that “you have gone where I can’t follow and have taken a part of me with you” post and they make me crazy.
They had such a messy break up that PEB stole DLM’s most prized possession and locked it away in a grove with a mural of PEB stepping on DLM’s head and forcing him to kowtow.
PEB also made DLM a fantastical cloak that let DLM turn into a massive eagle and fly, neglecting to mention that he did countless unspeakable things to develop and make it (genociding an entire species and trapping their souls in a personal Torment Nexus—possibly tearing a fair number of them to shreds in the process—and running unknown horrifying experiments on a different unrelated species and setting them up to be an obstacle against the protagonists).
Luffy is just a trickster god that functions on fae hospitality rules. He is obligated to help you if you invite him or one of his into your home or feed him. He WILL claim you under his name if you give him the chance or he finds you interesting. I will not be taking any debate on this.
Other title I considered: Blunt force trauma💥 (When you dine and dash from the wrong restaurant)
Some notes for this time around!! I played around a lot more this time with poses and zooming in and out and I'm honestly super proud of how it turned out :DDD Coloring took a long while so it might not be feasible to continue doing this amount of rendering for every comic I do,,, but we'll see, I'll continue to experiment with it I guess
I tried my best this time around to use the color blue sparingly to show Tage's shift in personality from generally warm and amicable to just cold and ruthless when fighting. You can see that blue thaw out a little with the victory pose he does and when Ace checks if he's injured. Also the colors for Ace's little reminiscing panel are borrowed from the 1015 luffy/roger dream segment because I always think of it when I think about the three of them as kids...... the colors of the sunrise,,,
I also for some reason had Such A Clear Image of how I wanted the beat up marines to look. One of those very nice moments when what you envision lines up well with what you end up drawing haha
I think I forgot to draw sabo's ponytail more often than I forgot to draw his neck scars this time,,,
You know, Player represent the worst of what would happen to the heroes if they have been unlucky. Like Sora, Riku and Kairi.
Player waited at the fountain, like Kairi waited, but the person they were waiting for break their promise and never came. Riku deal with the darkness and pretending to be with them but Sora recognized him and brought him back. Player's friends never knew and they die in the dark. Sora tried to save everyone by risking himself. He succeeded and have happy ending. Player did the same and believe the same, but they failed and lost their friends.
That's some cool insight right there.
It's a tragedy that has to happen, for us to have the story we have. The world of Daybreak Town has to burn, for Destiny Islands and Radiant Garden and so many other worlds to rise from its ashes.
But it's a mark of a good story for those mirrorings to still exist and for us to fall in love anyway.
It has come to my attention that not only did Borsalino feed Luffy. But after Saturn got decked by Kuma, Luffy “disappeared” and “showed up” near a food machine. And the theory is that Borsalino did that too.
There are places in the wide seas of the world where said sea lies calmer than the current about it. The biggest examples of this are, of course, the Calm Belts. But there are other spots, smaller and less noticeable except to locals who thank their lucky stars as they sail across.
Why the calmness in those patches of sea? Well, usually due to something bigger sleeping underneath the waves. Enough to keep it still under its weight.
Like, for example, the area of ocean near Foolshout Island. Surprisingly kind for an island on Paradise, of the Grand Line.
It's certainly a noticeable shift, to the ship of Fishmen Pirates that sail through it one day. The Sun Pirates, with the aim of returning a small child to her home.
And it's a shift enough to change the timing of a waiting ambush of Marines. For said ambush to happen before the girl is returned home, rather than after. All an unfortunate accident, under a bright blazing sun.
"Surrender, filthy Fish pirates-"
The Marine leader doesn't have time to finish. Not when a large tentacle smashes him down. A tentacle part of a huge mass, a mass that's just moved between the Sun Pirates and the attacking Marines. Stalling both sides out.
"Enough of this. You are waking me from my sleep."
There is a child. In the center of the mass. Connected to the mass. Wearing something of spines and spikes, of metal, on his head.
The tentacles are much larger than they should be for a merman or Fishman the child's age. More comparative to a Kraken than anything else, a Kraken in kelp bladder yellow.
The eyes the same color as the tentacles move to look them over. The child speaks.
"Ah. Lemurians."
"We're Fishmen," Arlong manages to grind out.
"Is that what you call yourselves now? Hm." The boy turns away from the Sun Pirates, towards the Marines. Unperturbed by the bullets they are shooting at him.
Because the bullets are clearly sinking into something, into that mass of tentacles much larger than the more human-looking portion, but there is no blood.
Nothing more than a sigh and apparent twitch of irritation as the boy's tentacles lash out to knock the attacking humans aside. Leaving them groaning and in some cases, all too still. No longer a threat to the Sun Pirates in any case.
"I," the boy states. "am going back to bed."
Hesitant, Fisher Tiger clears his throat. When yellow-green eyes turn to look at him, slitted as any fish's, he manages to say, "Thank you. For your protection."
"Hm."
Movement is difficult to place, only that it clearly happens within the tentacles mostly alone in a rolling motion, human legs seemingly unnecessary.
The entire crew watches, as the stranger reaches out to touch Koala's hand, his hand barely bigger than her own.
"You'll get home eventually," he says, somewhat nonsensically and also not, because does he know that Koala is a human that came from this island originally?
That seemingly settled in the strange squid-like boy's mind, he heads off towards the sea. Completely unafraid and unaffected as the waves wash up against him, until he vanishes somewhere off the coast.
Leaving the Sun Pirates to simply stare at him. Deciding what to do next.
"Well. I suppose we need to get you home, huh?" Fisher Tiger glances over at Koala, the entire reason they're on this island in the first place.
Jinbei's already over there, ready to get her moving. Before he stops. Pauses.
"Big Brother?"
"What?"
"Uh, I don't know if we can take her back anymore..." Carefully, the whaleshark-man nudges at the girl from the behind.
Who obliges by raising her hands.
Hands that now have webbing between them. To go along with the new gill slits on her neck.
