hyperbolicreverie

[hyperbolicreverie]

so, the scene you are so excited is the chess game between Law y Sengoku?

I am very excited for that! Less for the complexity involved in writing a chess game, but more for the interactions. I want them to get to know each other in the most hilariously cerebrally belligerent way possible.

Don't know for sure when the scene will make an appearance, but it will eventually!

[hyperbolicreverie]

for the “I wish you’d write a fic where…” ask

Law Doesn't Leave the Donquixote Family AU

This one really gave me a run for my money, because it's not an AU I'd usually write. I hope it satisfies!

Law walks briskly down the hallway towards the executive suites. The shipment of black-market supplies had come earlier than expected, and Doflamingo would want to know they'd arrived, as several key items the Family had needed for the upcoming Dressrosa operation were included. It probably wouldn't change their timetable, but keeping information from Doflamingo was never a good choice, so Law had volunteered to inform the captain of their arrival.

He's almost to the big double doors when he hears conversation from inside. Well, that explains why none of the executives were around to collect the shipment. They were here, instead.

"...there even a point anymore?" Diamante's voice was asking. "The brat's almost sixteen, and he's smart. Why not have him do what needs to be done now and be done with it?"

"Patience," Doflamingo's voice rumbles back, a familiar low chuckle sitting in the back of his words. "The best pawns don't know that they are one, and as you say, the boy is clever. I want to be absolutely sure he's mentally right where I want him first." There's a clink of glass; it sounds like they're drinking. The senior officers often did at this time of the evening. "Besides, we make our move on Dressrosa next month. Better to make sure that goes off without a hitch and consolidate power beforehand. Splitting focus never works well."

Law's brow furrows. Were they talking about him? Diamante calling him a brat was nothing new; neither he nor Trebol had ever particularly liked him, and Corazon had disappeared over two years ago now, but with all the violence the mute had exhibited Law didn't think he'd fare any better if the captain's brother was still around.

All he knew is that bringing up Corazon in any capacity these days was a one-way trip to one of Doflamingo's bad moods, so the man's memory simply haunted the Family like a silent ghost, unaddressed and unmourned.

"Not afraid he's going to figure it out?" Law hears Trebol chuckle wetly. "His devil fruit is rather infamous, after all. The information is out there."

"Fortunately, few books speak of the procedure, and even less treat it as something more than a faerie tale," Doflamingo says. "It was easy enough to make sure we never happened to have one of the ones which does anywhere near where Law could pick it up."

Law frowns. Doflamingo had been keeping something from him? Something regarding his devil fruit? That made no sense. Doflamingo had been adamant he learn as much about his devil fruit as possible ever since he stole it out from under the Marines. He always talked about how proud Law made him, mastering such a tricky power so quickly and at such a young age.

What was going on?

"He really is quite the impressive specimen," Doflamingo muses. "And I couldn't be prouder of how he's turned out. Not just anyone could handle the power of a devil fruit that grants immortality at such a young age."

Law's mouth drops open, and he hurriedly covers it with his hand to keep from letting out a gasp of shock. He could do what? He knew his devil fruit was sometimes called 'the ultimate devil fruit,' but that was an ability that beggared belief!

"It's a pity that the immortality operation kills the user."

Surprised adrenaline is immediately replaces with horror, and Law feels his blood run cold.

His life? The thing he'd fought tooth and nail to keep, despite all the things that had tried to take it away from him? The thing that Doflamingo himself had helped preserve? It made no sense.

Or had he saved him solely so he could be a tool? Had that been the whole point?

Had Doflamingo lied about his true intentions just as much as the Marines who'd turned guns on the citizens of Flevance had, when they'd promised salvation?

Hand still pressed tight over his mouth to keep from making sounds, he moves as silently as possible back down the corridor towards his room. He needs to think about this. About the implications. About what it means for him and Doflamingo and everyone else who'd apparently known about this thing he could do.

And then he needed to make a plan.

[hyperbolicreverie]

For the Director's Cut ask game, in Losing Time

How was the reaction of mugiwaras when Robin explained about flevance? And in what moment she did?

Robin would have explained during that first night, while Penguin and Shachi and Bepo were off doing their own painful explanations to the rest of the Heart Pirates. And it wouldn't be a terribly detailed explanation, either: one, Robin respects Law's rights to privacy as much as she can in this instance, and two, she herself does not have the whole truth of what happened, which means she can only take her own knowledge and the few other bits that they have (what Penguin and Shachi say, the small anecdotes Sanji remembers) and try to explain that way. She's a good historian; she'd never make concrete assertions without all the facts or the permission of a primary source ie. Law.

So what she says more or less boils down to "Flevance was destroyed because of a perceived plague that the government aided and abetted in the exacerbation of, and contributed to the destruction of to hide their own involvement. Law is the last survivor of that genocide."

As for reactions...we know Sanji's and Robin's, since they were there for the initial discussion. The rest?

Nami gets that explanation and I think a lot of things click into place for her. She's very smart, and I think she'd make a lot of connections to how Law acts in the face of certain triggers (loss of control, for example) and see herself in that. And she loves children, so now she has to confront the fact that the quiet little boy from the forest becomes the Law she knows. (Maybe she wonders how different she's become from how she was before her own tragedy).

Franky cries. Of course Franky cries. He probably blubbers something about how impressive it is for Law to have held up in the face of that, and if adult!Law saw that he'd probably threaten to chop his limbs off because he'd be embarrassed.

Chopper, predictably, is absolutely horrified. On like, every level. On the medical misunderstandings, on the abandonment of the government, of the lack of care. Chopper already likes Law, and he knows what it's like to lose something to a medical condition you do not know how to heal.

Zoro's take on it is fairly pragmatic. He's experienced life not being fair. He knows that sometimes people just die and there's nothing you can do about it. Law has proven that he's made of strong stuff before this point, and this only proves that point more. If anything, in addition to sympathizing, Zoro respects him more.

Luffy's reaction is basically what you get in the chapter where he talks to little Law. He makes those possible connections between Law's actions in Marineford and Ace, and later when he learns about Lami about how that adds even more context. However, Luffy is Luffy, and he's not ever going to act differently around Law or poke him for more information. He doesn't share himself, and it's fine that Torao doesn't either. If Law wants to talk, he can talk. If he doesn't, that's fine too. Luffy already likes Law and knows what sort of person he is.

Brook knows death. He's polite enough to not comment on seeing the clear markers of tragedy on others, but I imagine getting the explanation fills in a lot of questions he had about Law.

Jinbei is probably the least surprised. He knows what the World Government does and he knows all the sorts of things that can drive people into piracy. It's just a shame that he has to keep adding to that tally, because he considers Law to be an honorable sort. He saved his life. And now this.

Usopp is freaked. Law is one of the most powerful people he's met personally (and one who doesn't want him dead). It's a reminder that on the Grand Line, no one is immune from bad luck, bad experiences, and you're always just an inch away from the worst day of your life.

[hyperbolicreverie]

for the “I wish you’d write a fic where…” ask:

In the Lami lives AU, I'd like to see Lami meet the strawhats :3

I imagine it would be mostly chaos. More under the cut.

Landing on a new island was always exciting, but Luffy had to say, the speed with which they had made it to their first party here on the giant elephant Torao had led them to was quite the treat.

It wasn't all good, of course. Sanji was still missing, and Nami and the rest of the crew who'd been with him kept giving each other concerned looks and hadn't yet explained what was going on, but it was Sanji. Sanji would always be fine.

And it would definitely be rude not to eat the food that their hosts had provided for them. Sanji would disapprove anyway; wasting food was a bad thing. That was something they could both agree on.

Besides; Torao's crew was here too, and he really needed a break. Luffy wasn't so sure a party was the kind of break he needed, but it was a start. And most of his crew were really funny, and completely aware that their captain did stupid things, even though he was smart.

That made them a great crew, in Luffy's opinion. He did stupid stuff all the time, but his crew stuck by him. It was the same for Torao.

So he's not prepared when, halfway through the party an angry screech rings out.

"Trafalgar LAW."

Torao, who had been grumpily nursing a mug of the local fruit wine, slumped in-between the bear and one of the guys Luffy kind of remembers from Sabaody, sits up ramrod straight. His face looks pinched.

"Oh, hell," he mutters.

A woman comes striding angrily through the doors, making a beeline for Torao. Chopper is on her heels, and he looks like he's trying to calm her down, but it's not working.

Is this going to be another fight? Torao shouldn't fight right now, and they're in the middle of a party! He stands up in case he needs to punch her back to wherever she'd come from. He doesn't know why she's mad at Torao, but he doesn't particularly care.

"Hold on, Luffy," Robin says quietly, a hand on his shoulder. "I don't think this is an enemy. Look closer."

"No?" He pauses. No one else in the room seems concerned. In fact, Torao's crew look absolutely delighted. As do a lot of the minks.

The woman is tall like Robin, with long brown hair braided and pinned back up on her head. She has a fun short jacket on, yellow with black accents, with black feathers near the collar.

Nami turns from her spot next to Luffy, and her expression has completely changed from the worry she'd been displaying earlier. "Oh," she says fervently. "But I have been looking forward to this."

"I have to find out you're back from other people, Law? What the hell, you don't even have the common courtesy to let me know you're alive?"

"Shachi said you were busy helping one of the dukes with medical care," Torao offers lamely in the face of the lady's onslaught. "I didn't want to interrupt."

"Oh, bullshit," the lady hisses. "You just didn't want to have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Leaving on your own? I should have dumped your coin collection off of Zunesha's back."

"Who the hell are you?" Luffy interrupts. This confrontation was interrupting the party, and parties were for fun, not angry yelling.

"Who am I?" the woman seethes. "Just his little sister." She whirls around to address Torao. "And I'd be laying into you even worse if you didn't already look like you rolled wholesale through the Tang's infirmary. Seas above and below, Law, what the hell happened?"

"I'm not answering that in public, Lami" Torao responds stubbornly.

The lady--Lami, he guesses--softens a bit. "That bad, huh? This is why you need backup, asshole. None of this 'big brother' bullshit. Most of the crew is older than you, anyways."

"Oh! That was me! Me and my crew, I mean. We're the backup," Luffy chimes in, and the Lami-lady turns to him. She has the same bright eyes as Torao. "I didn't know Torao had a sister." He turns to Torao. "You should have told me!"

"You know far too much about me already, if you ask me," Torao mutters.

"But you know about both of my brothers!" Luffy protests. "You've even met one!"

"Hold up," Nami cuts in. "Time out. Luffy, what do you mean 'both brothers?'"

"Sabo's alive and he was in Dressrosa!" Luffy says cheerfully. "I wish he could have stayed longer, but I guess he works for my dad? The one I haven't met."

"I'll fill you in later, Nami," Robin says calmly, as Nami makes the hand gesture that means she wants to strangle Luffy. "For now, maybe some proper introductions."

"Oh, so they're both idiots," the Lami-lady mutters. "Good to know. Also: what the hell did he just call you, Law? Is that supposed to be our surname?"

"The rest of us have met," Nami says, "but for all of you arriving late to the party, this is Trafalgar Lami, Law's younger sister. She was helping Chopper with the effects of Jack's invasion that we were telling you about. And she has some delightful stories."

The last line is said in the direction of Torao, who just sinks further into his hat.

"Grab a drink of your own, Lami," Nami continues. "After all, I think you deserve to hear the whole story about what happened in Dressrosa, don't you? I know I, for one, am very excited to hear what happened."

"Yes," the Lami-lady says quietly. "I'll want to hear every tiny little, infinitesimal detail. For science, of course." She plops down on an unoccupied cushion nearby. "Starting with 'what the hell were you thinking?'"

Torao groans, as the rest of his crew snicker around him. Luffy laughs along, until Usopp cuts in.

"Dude, I wouldn't be laughing like that in front of the scary lady once she hears how you got separated during your fight."

The Lami-lady turns to stare at him, and Luffy remembers what Torao looked like when he got back to the roof after fighting Bellamy.

Luffy has the sinking feeling that both he and Torao might be in a bit of trouble.

[hyperbolicreverie]

If you still doing the Director's Cut ask game. What was the thoughts of big mom and kaido when the Wild said the full name of Law?

Always!

Kaido...doesn't actually care that much. Law was the one of the three he was least interested in, having had personal investment in Kid and having seen Luffy be...well, Luffy. Finding out Law's full name mostly makes him more interesting than he was before. After all, everyone else with that middle initial has been.

Big Mom is an entirely different story.

Big Mom's whole thing is being able to look at and control souls, and she's looked at Law's before, back at the first party. The idea that something so important as direct fae lineage isn't something she can see is insulting to her. It makes her own abilities seem lesser, when really all it is is that Law has even an iota of reservations about sharing his background--and didn't even know what it meant at that point anyway.

But she's always been very lineage-focused in general, and I imagine she's tried to rope D carriers into her family on several occasions--unsuccessfully--at this point. The fact that there was a secret one also just symbolizes another chance she's lost to do that.

And then, you know, the brat in question went and directly contributed to her dying, so...she's probably not going to like him for at least a while.

[hyperbolicreverie]

for the “I wish you’d write a fic where…” ask

Lami Lives AU bc we unfortunately don’t have enough of them and I think your spin on it would be an interesting and fun read

This one was tricky, because I don't currently have any ideas swimming around in the background for one of these. I hope this satisfies!

Law wakes to the insistent pressure of a finger against his cheek, and he doesn't even need to hear the cheerful humming coming from his assailant to know what to expect.

"It is too early for this," he mutters, though he's aware it will have absolutely no effect. Protests never did with his sister.

"It's two in the afternoon," Lami responds, and then Law is subjected to an uncomfortable rush of cold air as his blankets are thrown off of him.

Law would deny under torture the noise he makes at the sudden discomfort.

"Come on," Lami continues, as unmoved by his annoyance as ever. "We've been docked at Sabaody for two hours, and you've told enough horror stories about the marines in this place that no one was going to step foot off the Tang without your say-so. So come on, Captain. I have an amusement park I want to explore."

"No amusement parks," Law mutters, finally giving in to the inevitable and sitting up. His sister is wearing a jacket in the same colors as the hoodie he's thrown...somewhere...except the Heart's jolly Roger is on her back instead, looking for all intents and purposes like she's ready for adventure.

When Lami makes a noise of protest, despite the fact that Law just had this conversation with her yesterday, he just holds up a hand and gently pushes her out of the way so he can find where that hoodie went.

"We are debarking for two reasons: to get more supplies and to gather information on Doflamingo's operations. Nothing else."

"Bullshit," Lami says, but it's with a smile. "All the other people the papers have been talking about are here, and you'd look weak if you hid on the Tang the entire time. Trafalgar Law's got to pretend to be the big scary bogeyman that he likes pretending to be in public."

"Gathering information about potential rivals is also a legitimate use of my time," Law says stiffly. "Which is why I need you to stay here."

This time, Lami's frustration is much more stark, and Law would feel guilty if he didn't have good reason to ask it of her. "Look; he says. "Most of the crew is going to be gathering supplies as quickly as possible, and you and I both know leaving a skeleton crew on the Tang isn't the best choice. You know her inside and out, which means that if we need to make a hasty exit I need someone who can get her up and running fast on board."

"Then leave Hakugan! Or Bepo! They don't like big crowds, anyway!"

"Hakugan doesn't bully shopkeepers. And people let their guard down around Bepo," Law points out. "You routinely terrify them. And then you get offended and try to fight them. Sabaody is not the place for unnecessary fights, Lami. All it takes is mildly annoying one shopkeeper and then we've got half a battalion of marines coming down on our heads."

Lami groans, but any further protests seem to have been laid to rest for the moment. "I hate when you use logic," she spits. "Fine. I'll watch the Tang. But you better get me a hell of a souvenir."

"I'm sure we can manage something," Law says. "And hey, think of it this way; since we don't need to go through the coating process, we'll probably get to Fishman Island before anyone else who's currently here. Might be able to spend some extra time there, too."

Lami eyes him up and down. "That is an acceptable compromise," she finally says loftily. "Also, your hair is a mess."

"That's what the hat is for," Law mutters, shoving the article in question down over his eyes and grabbing Kikoku from her resting place by the bed. "Now, come on. The sooner I leave the sooner we get what we came for, and the sooner we can make decisions about next steps. I'd like for the next few days to be relatively calm, thanks."

[hyperbolicreverie]

[hyperbolicreverie]

In another universe, another time, things go just a bit differently, and Donquixote Rosinante lives, albeit seriously injured and bedridden. But with his son refusing to speak until he gets news of the boy he'd left behind, Sengoku is forced to locate a child who turns out to be far more trouble than he was expecting before Rosinante's reticence gets him court-martialed, or worse. Hiding a precocious child with a legendary devil fruit is hard enough. Hiding one marked for death by World Government order is another thing entirely. Doing it at Marineford itself? That's just the height of folly. And yet, this is what Sengoku finds himself doing in order to keep the peace. But there are eyes everywhere in Marineford, and not everyone can be put off by a protective Admiral. Politics are well and truly alive in the fortress, and someone is always looking for an angle to exploit. The clock is ticking, and one wrong move might mean the end of a career--or a life.

[hyperbolicreverie]

is there an insanely popular food you hate? (ei. pizza, ice cream, chicken nuggets, peanut butter, apples, rice, bread)

Yes!

Not that I can think of

I like every single food i have ever tried in my life.

I'm bald/Nuance option

[hyperbolicreverie]

What’s a food from your culture that u HATE #hatersonly

[hyperbolicreverie]

I would love a snippet fic with some Seas!Language. Maybe Zoro being more proficient than expected because of his bounty hunting? Or Cora being silent because he can't get rid of his accent.

I'm writing a lot of Rosinante lately, so have some Zoro confusing others with his language prowess:

If Water Seven hadn't been stressful enough, Usopp was thankful to see the end of it for no other reason than that he'd felt lost the entire time.

Navigating the language hadn't been nearly as difficult when they went to Alabasta; they'd had Vivi with them and Usopp could just let one of the crew members who knew Grand better take the lead whenever they ran into that being used instead of Government Standard. And Skypeia hadn't been any easier, but no one knew what was going on in Skypeia most of the time aside from Robin.

But in Water Seven, it had become abundantly clear that in a place where people from all over the world came to do business, he was a very little fish swimming in very strange linguistic waters.

The rest of the crew hadn't had nearly as much trouble. Sanji was weirdly good at languages, and Nami had learned Grand Line dialects from the fishmen. Chopper had been born out here, and Robin was...Robin. Luffy was apparently related to one of the most terrifying men in existence, but one who had also apparently taken the time to make sure his grandson could communicate with actual words instead of just his fists.

(Though both of them seemed notably fond of that particular tactic).

At least Usopp could rely on Zoro to be in his comrade in confusion. He didn't know much about his background, but he knew he came from a similarly small island, and he'd only left to pursue this whole insanity with Mihawk. Zoro had probably been just as confused by the all the foreign languages as he had.

He says as much, as Water Seven retreats past the horizon, but is brought up short when Zoro makes a confused sound.

"What do you mean, hard? That shit wasn't hard."

Usopp blinks, and turns to the swordsman, who is just giving him a blank look.

"The signs. The way people there speak. I can barely understand Franky half the time, are you saying you can?"

"'Course I can," Zoro says flatly. "It's not that hard. Sure, the words are a little mixed around from what I'm used to, but it's close enough."

Usopp stands there, his mouth hanging slightly ajar. There is no way on any of the Blue Seas that this is possible. There is no way that Zoro--Zoro!--is better with languages than he is. Usopp loves the guy, but he's got five thoughts running around his head at any given time, and three of them are his swords.

"You got lost!" he sputters, instead of any of the many other cogent arguments fighting for supremacy in his brain right now.

Zoro's face turns red. "No I did not," he stresses. "The canals just moved around. They weren't going where the signs said they were going."

"But you could read the signs?"

"Of course I could read the--could you not?" Zoro looks at him. "Usopp, were you fucking around the city blind? You went off on your own when you couldn't read anything that was out there for shit?"

Usopp bristles. "I'll have you know that I am a perfectly respectable navigator, able to find my way to whatever my target is no matter the obstacle. I will not be--"

"Yeah, yeah, you're amazing," Zoro interrupts, and grabs him by the arm. "Robin! Project for you!"

"Hey!"

"Eh, you're smart," Zoro says, as implacable as ever, and Usopp allows himself to be a little mollified. "And it's not like we're imminently about to run into any other problems."

[hyperbolicreverie]

Sometimes you leave work early to go to the doctor, have an amazing line of dialogue hit you totally out of the blue while you're absently staring at the mountains on the drive back that is nevertheless totally disconnected from anyone and anything you are currently working on, and then go back to your work-from-home job with it so stuck in your head that you can't even work on the fic that you normally work on during slow times at work.

And you also forget to eat anything but a bran muffin all day.

[hyperbolicreverie]

an au of It's on the tip of his tongue where sanji recognizes law's accent 

Interesting! This diverges from the point in the fic where Robin originally realizes what Law's saying.

As Law stomps off, Sanji finds himself rooted to the deck where he's standing, memory tripping back through time to a point in his life he does his best not to linger on.

He's heard those same words before, said not in anger but in desperation, in the voice of a parent so driven to the edge that they'd sought help for their family's plight at the hands of the North Blue's old enemy. Because while Germa was anathema to any good citizen of the sea, their scientific prowess was undeniable, and medicine and society both had failed them so far. A deal with the devil was all they had left.

Sanji remembers Judge's interest in the Amber Lead, even before those wayward souls had landed on the Germa flotilla. He'd spoken at length about its potential as a toxin, as a resource to be exploited just like everything else that came under his thumb, and he'd complained at just how hard it was to get his hands on the stuff, now that the World Government had put on embargo on the material.

That family had been his chance.

He'd pulled the stuff out of those people just as he'd promised, but Sanji was pretty sure those afflicted hadn't survived the process. Judge never cared about relieving suffering with his methods, just what he could get from the results. At the very least, Sanji had never seen them again after they'd disappeared into the laboratories.

Eventually, Judge had discarded the idea of working with Amber Lead. It had been too unreliable a resource, and he'd disparaged it as being useless for his purposes. Just a shiny trinket that lesser peoples had used to adorn themselves, to their eventual ruin, and not worthy of Germa attention. He had turned to other endeavors, and the North Blue had driven the rest of the people of Flevance to extinction.

Well, all but one it seemed.

Law's fear was not an unfounded one; Sanji knew with bitter familiarity what fear looked like when it was based on lived experience. The fact that he'd survived was a miracle in itself, but Sanji had no doubt that it had been the rockiest of roads.

The question of how he'd survived wasn't a question at all: if Law could pull body swaps with something as nebulous as a personality, then removing poison from his body would be child's play, wouldn't it?

How old was the other captain, anyway? Older than him, he's pretty sure, but underneath the tired, grumpy old man demeanor, Law has one of those faces that's hard to accurately date. But...Sanji had been five when news of Flevance reached Germa. Unless Law is quite a bit older than he thinks, that brings to mind a whole host of horrors he does not have the bandwidth to entertain right now.

He fixed up the kids at Punk Hazard. He was as prickly as a sea urchin about it, and scared Chopper half to death, but he did.

"Sanji?" Robin's voice cuts through the frenetic pace his brain is going at.

He looks up, and sees the expression on her face. She knows, but of course she must know. If he had finally managed to put the clues together with just an old memory, then their language specialist knowing was no surprise at all. Still, it hurts to see the same fear and hurt he'd seen on Law reflected on her face, when they'd done so much to try to erase it.

Sometimes, things just struck far too close to home.

"I think," he says slowly. "That I am going to go make some onigiri."

Because if he needs to do something with his hands to process the enormity of what he's just learned, then the topic of those thoughts might as well benefit from it.

[hyperbolicreverie]

an au of losing time where law is swapped with the younger version of himself that's already joined doflamingo

Ooh, fun. Snippet below the cut.

Penguin's not going to say it's the first time he's ever heard screaming and cursing coming from Law's room, but it's definitely the first time he's heard it at that pitch, and while Law generally likes to be left alone for most of his moods, it's different enough that Penguin considers the matter to warrant further attention.

So when he opens the door and a tiny ball of rage in a fluffy hat rolls out before he can even get a word of greeting past his lips, he resigns himself to it being more than an average Tuesday.

"Bepo?" he says a few minutes later, as he enters navigation. "When you said our path was going to take us close to Kairos Island today, how close exactly did you mean?"

"Within sight distance," Bepo mumbles, turning away from his charts. "Why--oh."

Penguin knows he must look a sight, standing there with a miniature Law scruffed by his collar, and sporting a few cuts and a black eye where he hadn't been fast enough, but in his defense, their miniature captain had come out swinging with a scalpel he'd found in their Law's bedroom. Only the sturdiness of his coveralls and his own speed had kept him from being hamstrung.

"I will kill you. I will turn you inside out and when my crew finds me, they'll do even worse," his assailant is spitting, swinging like a pendulum from the end of Penguin's arm.

"Oh seas," Bepo whines, staring at the ceiling as if something there could save him. "Doflamingo?"

"Doflamingo," Penguin confirms. There was no mistaking it; he'd been threatened with retribution at the hands of the Heavenly Demon at least a dozen times on the walk here. "Aren't we the lucky ones?"

"I didn't know the island could do that," Bepo mutters, sighing. "We didn't even touch ground."

"Maybe it awakened," Penguin grumbles, dodging a tiny foot aimed at his ribs. "In which case, I vote we never come back to this area of the Grand Line ever again. Tiny Law was at least tolerable, but you remember what he was like in his early teens."

Tiny Law stops squirming for a moment. "The fuck you mean, the Grand Line?" he demands. "I was in Spider Miles!"

Penguin sighs. "Look, kid," he starts. "We're going to go to the galley and get you some food and water. You are going to behave yourself, because we--" He points Law's face in the direction of the nearest porthole "--are underwater, and I don't know about you, but I don't fancy getting crushed and drowned today, and I know for a fact that I'm a much better swimmer than you. And then," he stresses, when Law makes a motion to argue even further. "We will explain what is going on."

"He's not going to believe it," Bepo points out morosely.

"Of course he won't believe it," Penguin scoffs. "At this point, I am offended that I have no choice but to believe in it. It's stupid. It's a fucking island."

"You two are pretty shitty kidnappers, you know that, right?" the gremlin in Penguin's hand points out.

Penguin sighs again. He hopes their Law is having a better time of it. Or at least not panicking. But given where the kid had clearly come from, Penguin wouldn't bet on it being quiet.

Meanwhile...

The man who had appeared out of nowhere at the Family dinner table, taken one look at where he was and launched into the most terrifying display of devil fruit prowess that Rosinante had ever been privileged to witness looked strangely familiar, but he was having a bit of trouble concentrating on why exactly that was.

He had noticed that every time he tried to do something he found himself turned around, or his bullets redirected somewhere else. All the kids had been neatly stacked in a corner too, though the stranger seems to have managed to tie them to their chairs without using his hands.

The rest of the Family was...not so lucky.

Doflamingo in particular was getting the brunt of it, and Rosinante had lost count of the number of pieces he was in now. It was hard to keep track of them when the air was full of pieces of multiple people. Multiple, somehow still alive people.

Eventually, whatever adrenaline is powering this impressive display wears off, and the man slumps bonelessly into the nearest chair. He takes off his hat and runs one long-fingered hand through dark hair, muttering something about islands and devil fruits and his luck, which he seems to think is poor, despite what he'd just done.

Despite being dismembered in ways Doffy could only dream of replicating so cleanly, his brother is laying into the stranger, promising retribution with a familiar grandiosity that Rosinante can't help but think rings a bit hollow when your head is sitting on a literal silver platter on the dinner table like a side of beef.

The man seems to agree, because he points at Doffy's head, not even bothering to look at him.

"Re:Room. Silent."

The resulting effects are so like Rosinante's own power that he forgets himself, making a choking noise of surprise that's a bit too audible for a purported mute.

The stranger looks up at him, and Rosinante is caught by the look in his eyes. Familiar, and yet not. Angry, but for some reason not at him.

"Sorry, Cora," he says, and it feels almost sheepish. Totally unlike the fury he'd seen before. Now the man just looks tired, and exasperated. "If I promise to explain, do you think you could call Sengoku? Impel Down's feeling a bit empty."

Rosinante feels his mouth open and close. How does this man know him, know Sengoku? Is he another undercover operative? A CP agent? Did Sengoku just get sick of how long this mission was taking and send someone for backup? He'd at least have appreciated a heads up if that were the case.

But from the way Doffy is silently screaming in both their directions now, his cover seems blown anyway, so...maybe he doesn't antagonize the superpowered man with the dangerous hands? Being done with this mission does sound appealing, regardless.

And where did Law sneak off to, anyway?

"Yeah, okay."

[hyperbolicreverie]

I wish you would write a fic where...

Send me an anymous (or not) summary of the fic you wish I would write. (maybe I will write a tidbit)

[hyperbolicreverie]

one thing about being an ao3 author that no one tells you is that yes, stats are a thing, but you'll also invent entirely arbitrary accomplishments for yourself that upon achievement, are more delightful than any number on a screen could be

[hyperbolicreverie]

In another universe, another time, things go just a bit differently, and Donquixote Rosinante lives, albeit seriously injured and bedridden. But with his son refusing to speak until he gets news of the boy he'd left behind, Sengoku is forced to locate a child who turns out to be far more trouble than he was expecting before Rosinante's reticence gets him court-martialed, or worse. Hiding a precocious child with a legendary devil fruit is hard enough. Hiding one marked for death by World Government order is another thing entirely. Doing it at Marineford itself? That's just the height of folly. And yet, this is what Sengoku finds himself doing in order to keep the peace. But there are eyes everywhere in Marineford, and not everyone can be put off by a protective Admiral. Politics are well and truly alive in the fortress, and someone is always looking for an angle to exploit. The clock is ticking, and one wrong move might mean the end of a career--or a life.