Author's note: if you're confused you likely missed chapter 66. Go back and have a look.
– Bellamy –
"How does your arm feel?" Muret asked, packing away the plethora of medical instruments she'd used to examine my arm. It hadn't been the first time she'd asked me that question and it likely wouldn't be the last time either. Seriously, you lost your arm once and they never let it go.
"As good as new." I told her reassuringly, showing her the full range of motion with my reattached left arm. "It barely even left a scar."
"Don't overexert yourself now. That arm still requires a lot of rest and rehabilitation." Muret chided me, reapplying some salve and bandages to the wound. Honestly, bringing her along on this trip had been a stroke of genius, though I hadn't known it at the time. How had I been supposed to know I would run into Moria or that I'd need surgery afterwards? Even weeks after the incident I shuddered to think of what might have happened if my doctor hadn't been there with me.
Dr. Hogdback had grumbled a bit about what a waste it was that I refused to let him add a few, tiny, insignificant modifications to my body, such as transplanting a bit of extra muscle or replacing my skeleton with a metal construct…but for some reason, he had acquiesced to acting as Muret's assistant during the surgery. As I barely trusted the man at all, beyond the belief that the pride in his own work would prevent him from intentionally botching a surgery, I elected to forgo being completely put under and had them only apply regional anaesthesia. In hindsight, it wasn't something I would recommend to anybody, but at the time it had seemed like the right choice.
To be honest, I might not have even needed surgery in the first place, because I had been using my coil chassis at the time and the separation from my main body hadn't caused the transformation on my arm to wear off. And as I could unlink my springs, it stood to reason that I could re-link them as well, in effect fusing the arm back unto my stump. However, when I had pitched my idea to Muret, she had immediately and vocally vetoed it, forbidding me from ever attempting something like this in the future without expert supervision. Apparently, while it was theoretically possible that I could re-attach my arm that way, chances were I'd do so wrong. For one, the angles could be slightly off, which would have had dire consequences the moment I undid my transformation.
I might still have to resort to my version of a field treatment in a pinch, but I was glad I left medicine to the experts. Like I had told Muret, my arm felt as good as new.
Contrary to what one might expect, Moria hadn't tried anything while Muret and Hogdback were working on my arm. Part of that would have been because he was bedridden as well, but I think the far more relevant reason had been his inner turmoil. One the one hand, he'd been beaten - again - by a rookie in straight up one on one. As such, his remaining pride demanded he keep his word and cooperate with me against Doflamingo. On the other hand, he could be cooperating against Doflamingo with a pirate who was capable of beating him, Moria, in a straight one on one. Thus, true to his nature, the former Warlord had postponed making a decision and focused on massaging his wounded pride.
Which led to the words, "I don't like you." being the first words he uttered in my direction when I went to visit him in the sickbay. Naturally, in the face of such blunt honesty, I could only answer in kind.
"The feeling is mutual, I assure you."
"I'd go as far as to say that I hate you. You came to my little refuge, insulted me and goaded me into a fight." Moria accused me, crossing his arms with a huff. I snorted in response and leaned back into my chair.
"You tried to flatten me into a bloody paste while I did nothing except talk. I'd say that makes us even."
"You probably fractured my spine. My back hurts." He whined, or maybe he didn't. It was a little difficult to tell, with how flat his voice had gone.
"I lost an arm." I retorted, but this time, it was Moria who snorted and pointed a clawed finger at my very much attached left arm.
"You got it back." was his riposte, which I easily parried.
"No thanks to you."
"But thanks to my doctor."
"Hodgback only assisted. Muret did the heavy lifting." Having launched our opening volleys, we both glared at each other in silence across the bed's banister. If there had been any observers, I'm certain that most people would have had difficulty breathing. The tension in the air was stifling.
"…"
"…"
However, I hadn't come here to glare at him all day and unlike him, I was a busy man.
"You might hate me, but you hate Doflamingo more." I stated to which Moria nodded in agreement.
"I loathe him."
"You want to kill him." I continued to which he smirked at me.
"Kishishishi. So do you and you want my help to do it."
"That's true." I admitted easily, not seeing a point in denying it. We lapsed into silence again, as having reached the most basic of agreements, we needed to plan how we wanted to hash out the details. However, as neither of us were very inclined to be flowery about it, I went right for the throat from the very beginning.
"You'll release the shadows of the Revolutionaries." I demanded. While Muret and I had been busy, Hewitt had stumbled across a bunch of them hiding out in a little shack at the edge of town. As my primary reason for coming here had been to investigate their disappearances, I really had no other choice but to make this my first condition. Luckily, just because it was important to me, didn't mean it was important to Moria.
"Done. In exchange, you'll provide shadows to replace those I'll release. It can be marines, rival pirates…I'm not picky."
"No." I refused without any hesitation, causing him to puff up in outrage.
"No? What do you mean, no?"
"Because it wouldn't help." I told him, quickly continuing on in order to stop his rant before it could properly get going. "Tell me honestly, unless they were a special zombie like Oars, do you think your zombies would be of any help at all when you are facing someone of Doflamingo's caliber?"
"You mentioned him earlier too. How did you know about Oars anyway?" He asked me, obviously taken slightly aback that I knew of the events at Thriller Bark. As I couldn't tell him that he had been a anime character in my other life, I settled for a half-truth.
"I know Luffy. Look, does it matter how I knew? I'm trying to make a point. You yourself would have been easily capable of bringing down Oars Jr. who by all accounts was his ancestor's equal in size and strength." I told him, adding a bit of flattery at the end to butter him up.
"Kishishishi. That's certainly true." He snickered, the corners of his mouth moving rapidly upwards. Then, they moved just as rapidly downwards when I kept talking.
"What makes you think that Doflamingo wouldn't be able to do the same?" I asked him. "While one could argue that Admiral Aokiji did most of the work, it doesn't change the fact that Doflamingo's strings were capable of turning the big guy into mincemeat, ice and all."
"…ugh." Moria groaned at the reminder, covering his eyes with a clawed hand. "What a waste that was…"
"In my own opinion, I'd say that you would be far better served recovering the peak you had in your youth. To become the Moria you were when you challenged Kaido all those years ago. After all, would Doflamingo have stood a chance if he had fought you back then?"
"No, of course not! I'd have trounced the brat!" Moria boasted. I had no idea if this was true or not. Regardless of whether or not Moria had been able to fight Kaido on a relatively even footing and not die, Doflamingo had been an absolute beast in canon. Additionally, there was no guarantee that he'd remain merely as strong as he'd been in the original Dressrosa Arc. Not least, because there was a massive, glaring difference in circumstances between the story and my current situation.
Namely, I had pulled his proverbial tail at Marineford right and proper. It would be naïve to believe that something like that would have had no impact whatsoever.
"Then, what's stopping you?" I challenged him.
"Nothing!" he claimed, before giving me the stink eye. "And don't think that I can't tell what you're trying to do, Springtrap. Be glad, I decided to close a blind eye to your blatant manipulation attempt."
"How gracious of you." I replied in a dry tone. If it bothered Moria, he didn't show it.
"Kishishishi, I sure am, but in exchange Doflamingo is mine. I will not budge on this."
"Sure, you can have the first crack at him." I answered. If he volunteered to scout out Doffy's abilities, I wasn't going to say no. Plus, it wasn't like I could physically stop him from gunning for the feathered Warlord from the get-go if I refused, so I lost nothing by accepting this condition. "I get to go second."
"I suppose that'll have to do. It's not like you'll get a chance anyway." He claimed, satisfied for now. We weren't friends. We weren't even allies. We were merely using each other instead. Hence, I had no reason to burst his little bubble and chances were that he wouldn't believe my warnings. So, instead of advising him to beware of hubris, I chose to remind him of a hidden danger to our chosen course of action.
"When we bring down Doflamingo, Kaido isn't going to like it at all."
"I wouldn't have it any other way." Moria said, sticking out a hand. I grasped it.
We had a deal.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
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– Muret –
"Captain, can I ask you a question?"
"You just did, but you may ask another." Bellamy grinned at her, but it quickly fell when Muret glared at him.
"…"
"I'm sorry? You looked uneasy, so I tried to lighten the mood a little…" he mumbled, his voice trailing off when she continued to glare. At times like these, he seemed so much more like an insecure boy than the charismatic pirate captain that he was. However, Muret didn't think that it detracted anything at all, for it made the captain more human. It was reassuring to know that behind the frankly ridiculous confidence, the ambition and the monstrous strength lay an individual with his own fears, worries and faults. That Bellamy had felt comfortable enough around her to show her this side of himself meant a lot to Muret.
"Pfft." Of course, just because it was a relief to see him like this, didn't mean that Muret wouldn't find the dichotomy funny as hell. Especially when she pictured a chibi version of her captain nervously pushing his two index fingers together.
"Hah, so it did work!" he triumphantly exclaimed, pointing a finger in her direction.
"Yes, captain. I suppose it did." Indirectly of course, but technically true. With the mood having been eased significantly, the two of them slowly made their way out of the sick bay and towards the upper deck in a comfortable silence. At least, until Bellamy decided to pick off where they had left off.
"By the way, what did you want to ask me, Muret?"
"Are you sure we need to work with Moria?" she asked somewhat hesitantly. "There's just something about him and his crew which rubs me the wrong way and that goes double for his doctor. I can't put a finger on it precisely, but there is a distinct feeling of wrongness about Dr. Hogdback."
Bellamy didn't say anything for a while, seemingly gathering his thoughts before giving Muret an odd look. "You're closer to the truth than you might think. The man is a monster, not in terms of strength but in terms of his humanity. Or the lack thereof. Hogdback is a vile being and rotten to his very core."
"Then why work with him in the first place?" Muret asked, suitably confused. While the Bellamy pirates had never been saints, they did have standards, which had become even more obvious after Jaya.
"It's less that I'm working with Hogdback but more that he's an accessory to Moria." Bellamy explained. "If it were just Doflamingo we have to worry about, I may not need him. However, Doflamingo has his own backer."
"Kaido." She muttered darkly, causing the captain to give her a grim smile. The name alone was enough to make the weak go faint and cause even the strong to balk at the idea of opposing him. For such was the weight of Kaido's name, one of the four.
"Exactly. And we have no idea of how strong he actually is." Bellamy said. "Whitebeard focused more on quality than quantity, meaning that he only had a few thousand allies he could call upon at Marineford and even then, the Navy gathered a hundred thousand elites to face him. Kaido on the other hand is known to have a far larger crew than Whitebeard, numbering in the tens of thousands."
"...my word. And if he has been buying up the SMILE fruits…"
"Tens of thousands of New World veterans, armed with hundreds of SMILE fruits in addition to whatever else he's got up his sleeve. Whereas we have a couple of dozen fighters at best, even if we count the Harmony and Mad Monk Pirates." the captain grimaced. "They aren't the best odds, are they?"
"..." Muret swallowed nervously, the sheer magnitude of the task before them starting to sink in.
"And that's without even taking into account the strongest ace up their sleeve. Kaido himself."
"If he's anything like Whitebeard, then…" Muret gasped, her mouth open wide.
"If anything, he'll be stronger. Whitebeard, for all his might, was an old man. Kaido, on the other hand is only 57 years old, and hence is in the prime of his life right now."
Whitebeard had been the strongest being Muret had ever seen in action. Even if she knew that Shanks was supposed to be his equal, there was a clear difference between having heard about something and having witnessed it first hand. Merely being in the same vicinity as the late Emperor had been enough to make her break out into a cold sweat when she felt his rage wash over her…and the legendary pirate had been an ally back then. To think that they were hurtling head first towards a confrontation with someone even stronger…it terrified Muret to her very core.
This was what Bellamy had decided to overcome?
"Will we be able to grow strong enough to hold off an Emperor's crew in the time we have left?" Muret asked uncertainly but Bellamy held out his hands in a who knows gesture.
"Maybe. Maybe not. Who can know for sure?" When Muret gave Bellamy an astounded look, he raised one eyebrow in response. "What? Just because I'm planning on beating the living daylights out of anyone standing in my way, doesn't mean I'm going to ignore how strong our enemies are. It doesn't really change anything either way."
Muret stared at her captain for a while, before sighing when she didn't find what she was looking for. "We don't have another choice, do we?"
"Not really. If we want to topple an empire, like the one Kaido has built over the course of decades, we're going to have to pull out all stops and use every advantage we can get our hands upon." Bellamy explained. "In the end, this is just an arrangement of convenience and it's highly unlikely that we'll be able to maintain a cooperative relationship indefinitely."
"In that case, I guess…not that I don't trust your judgment or anything, but I just couldn't help but feel uneasy around them. Absalom was creepy too."
"They are a creepy bunch." Bellamy admitted. "However, I'm confident that Moria can keep them under control. Plus, should they be stupid enough to bother my crew, I'm going to explain to them why it would be a very bad idea."
"Alright, captain. I trust you." Muret smiled. "Thank you for indulging me."
"Anytime."
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Slander!
Welcome to Marineford Daily News, your only source of accurate and unbiased truth.
It is often said that those in power universally fear change. This is patently untrue. After all, who could ever accuse the five Elder Stars or the marine command of not supporting scientific innovation and human progress? And the World Nobles abhor stagnation, always seeking out the new and the exciting, always eager to pay good money for novelties.
No, this paper would go as far as to claim that most of the powerful (and respectable) individuals in our society as a rule would rather embrace change than fear it. Sadly, where there is a rule, there is always an exception.
It has recently come to our attention that Big News Morgan, CEO of the world's premier newspaper, has acted in a petty manner unfitting of his position. Perhaps threatened by our recent rise in viewership, he has published a series of scathing and defamatory articles about our work. While most of the insults are unfit to be printed in a civilized newspaper like ours, we will now list a couple of selected statements.
* "The Marineford Daily is a profit driven, unethical, dishonest Newspaper whose sole purpose is to be a propaganda device." We emphatically reject the accusation that we are a profit driven, unethical Newspaper and point out that we serve many functions, not least amongst which is the facilitation of economic growth by dedicating an entire page to job adverts to aid our fellow citizens in finding gainful employment. Something which the CEO of the World Economic Newspaper would know if he weren't such a birdbrain.
* "Their articles are a perversion of the truth and a mockery of what real news should be, clearly showing a complete disregard for journalistic duty and pride." While this may be somewhat difficult for someone like Mr. Morgan to understand, we do in fact take great pride in our civic duty to let the public know what they need to know. All our articles are the result of long hours of dedicated creativity and carefully vetted before ever seeing the light of day. Furthermore, we find the insinuation distasteful and extremely disrespectful when one considers that we recently lost one of our own (RIP Tucker) in the line of duty while pursuing the truth on Sabaody.
* "Especially their coverage of the Summit War and its aftermath was an absolute disgrace, being nothing more than a collection of attention seeking, sensational garbage with misleading titles which should merit no more of the public's time than it takes to use it as toilet paper." We do not know what sort of circumstances Mr. Morgan finds himself in, that he equates the coarse (and recycled) fibers of our newspaper to the soft delight that is toilet paper. But, we humbly suggest that he try out one of the premium brands listed in our complimentary catalog before attempting to send his entire readership to the proctologist* with raw derrières.
The above was our refutation of Mr. Morgan's ridiculous flights of fancy and we demand that the World Economic Newspaper retract said articles and publish an apology. We find that our response is a very measured one and maintain the right to take further steps if the situation is not resolved to our satisfaction.
This was Marineford Daily reporting.
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*A proctologist is a doctor specializing in conditions affecting the lower digestive tract.