The flickering thought, that tantalizing whisper of an accessible pocket dimension, danced at the edges of my infant consciousness like a will-o'-the-wisp. If I can feel it… can I open it? The question hung there, shimmering with potential. Then, the crushing reality of my current form slammed back in.
Ugh, never mind that, my internal monologue sighed, a wave of baby-sized frustration washing over me. I'm still a baby. A drooling, pooping, barely-able-to-lift-my-own-head baby. What am I gonna do, think really hard at it until a trans-dimensional portal opens and sucks in Dadan's entire stash of questionable jerky? Probably best to master rolling over before attempting to manipulate the fabric of spacetime. Priorities, Ann, priorities.
And so, the days bled into weeks, the weeks into months, marked by the changing seasons on Mount Colubo. The scorching summer sun gave way to crisp autumn air that painted the leaves in hues of fire and gold, then to the biting cold of winter, where the bandit hut was constantly filled with the smoky haze of the central fire pit and the snores of hibernating bandits. Spring brought a riot of wildflowers and the incessant buzzing of insects. I grew, as babies do, slowly, incrementally. My world expanded from the confines of my crate-crib to the dusty floor of the hut, then to the small, sun-dappled clearing outside, always under the watchful, if often exasperated, eyes of Dadan or one of her less-than-enthusiastic subordinates. My Frieza-race potential remained a quiet hum beneath the surface, an unplayed symphony. My accelerated learning soaked up the rough dialect, the social dynamics of the bandit family, the rhythms of the mountain, but my physical body was a frustratingly slow vessel.
A year. A whole year had spun by in this strange, chaotic, surprisingly survivable existence.
It was a morning much like any other. The sun, already climbing high, streamed through the open doorway, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. The usual cacophony of bandit life was in full swing: someone was sharpening a rusty blade with a grating screech, two others were arguing loudly over a shared waterskin, and the general aroma of woodsmoke, unwashed bodies, and something vaguely unidentifiable frying over the fire pervaded the air. I was currently engaged in the highly intellectual pursuit of trying to stuff a particularly shiny pebble into my mouth, a feat Dadan usually thwarted with a surprisingly swift hand and a growl of "Don't eat rocks, brat!"
Then, Dadan's voice, a foghorn cutting through the morning mist, bellowed, "OI! GATHER UP, YOU LAZY MEN! DOGRA! MAGRA! GORDO! SCALZO! PIP! GET YOUR WORTHLESS HIDES OVER HERE!"
My head, now capable of a somewhat wobbly but independent swivel, turned towards the commotion. Gordo? Scalzo? Pip? My internal database whirred. More names. So, the Dadan family has more than just the two main stooges. Oda-sensei never bothered to name them in the manga, but here they are, actual individuals. Interesting. This world, my world now, has layers the source material only hinted at.
The assorted bandits, a motley crew of grizzled, scarred, and generally unkempt individuals, grumbled but shuffled towards their fearsome leader, who stood with her hands on her hips, looking particularly imperious, if slightly sleep-deprived, as usual.
"Alright, listen up, you good-for-nothings!" Dadan announced, her voice echoing through the hut. "Today… today we're gonna do somethin' a bit different. We're gonna have a… a feast! Yeah, you heard me! A proper feast! For… for Ann!" She jabbed a thumb in my direction, a strange, almost embarrassed expression flickering across her usually stony face. "It's the brat's… uh… first birthday celebration, or somethin'."
A murmur rippled through the assembled bandits. Dogra's eyes widened. "A feast, Boss? For… for little Ann?" Magra just looked confused, as if the concept of celebrating anything other than a successful raid was entirely foreign.
My own baby brain, however, went into overdrive. Wait. My birthday? They're actually going to celebrate my birthday? But… I've sort of taken over Ace's… slot, timeline-wise. When was his birthday again? Oda-sensei put it in one of those Vivre Card databooks… May 5th? No, that's Luffy's… damn it, all these iconic birthdays! Think, Ann, think! January… January 1st! That was it! Gol D. Roger was executed on August 11th, Rouge held Ace for twenty months… so he was born on January 1st. So… if it's my first birthday today… that means today is January 1st!
A small, almost giddy thrill went through me. It was a concrete piece of information, a grounding point in this surreal new life. And the fact that these rough, tough mountain bandits were actually acknowledging it, planning to celebrate it… it was… unexpectedly touching. In a very Dadan-Family sort of way, which probably meant the "feast" would involve a barely cooked, vaguely threatening-looking forest creature.
"And you," Dadan suddenly barked, her gaze fixing on a figure who had been standing quietly near the edge of the group, almost blending into the shadows despite her rather striking appearance. "Minerva! You're in charge of making sure it's at least halfway decent. And try to keep these idiots," she gestured vaguely at the other bandits, "from poisoning themselves or the brat."
My attention snapped to the woman Dadan had addressed. Minerva?! The name jolted through me with the force of an electric shock. I craned my neck, my one-year-old eyes, sharper now than they had been, focusing intently. I hadn't seen her clearly before, or perhaps my baby brain hadn't fully processed her. She wasn't like the other Dadan family members. Not at all.
And as I looked, a wave of utter disbelief washed over me. No. It can't be. Minerva? As in… Minerva Orland from Fairy Tail?! What in the name of all that is holy and unholy is SHE doing here, in the One Piece world, as a member of the DADAN FAMILY?!
There was no mistaking her, even from my low vantage point. The slim, almost delicate build, a stark contrast to the burly figures around her. The average height that somehow still commanded presence. The distinct, Eastern-inspired features. Her hair, a cascade of glossy, vibrant purple, was styled impeccably with a precise central part, neat bangs framing her forehead, and those signature Dango-style loops on either side of her head, with a long, elegant braid trailing down her back. Even from here, I could see the meticulousness of her makeup, reminiscent of a Japanese geisha – the dark, perfectly applied lipstick, the slanted, dark eyes with their impossibly long lashes, and above them, those elongated, stylized dark spots that served as, or perhaps covered, her eyebrows. Her attire, too, was a world away from the rough furs and patched leather of the other bandits: a strapless dress, elegant and subtly patterned, that evoked the lines of a cheongsam, hugging her figure in a way that was both graceful and subtly alluring.
She was an orchid in a field of thorny weeds. A painted porcelain doll in a mud pit. She was, in a word, anachronistic. Utterly, beautifully, terrifyingly out of place.
And yet, Dadan had called her by name, assigned her a task with a familiarity that suggested she was an established, if unique, part of this bizarre family.
Minerva inclined her head slightly, a gesture of serene acknowledgement. Her voice, when she spoke, was calm, melodious, a stark contrast to Dadan's gravelly tones. "As you wish, Onee-san."
Onee-san?! My baby jaw, if it could, would have dropped. Not 'Boss', like Dogra and Magra and the others. 'Onee-san'. Big sister. That implied a level of intimacy, of respect, of a fundamentally different relationship with the fearsome Curly Dadan. Who was this Minerva in this reality? How did a character from an entirely different fictional universe end up here, on Mount Colubo, in the care of Gol D. Roger's former… acquaintance? The questions piled up, making my brain buzz. That Cosmic Voice and its "relocation protocols" were clearly more chaotic and prone to interdimensional shenanigans than I'd initially given them credit for.
Minerva then turned her gaze towards me. Her dark, slanted eyes, cool and assessing, met mine. There was no overt warmth in them, but no malice either. Just a calm, intelligent scrutiny. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. It wasn't a friendly smile, not exactly. It was more… knowing. As if she could see straight through my infant disguise to the bewildered adult soul cowering within. Or maybe I was just projecting. Being a baby with an adult's paranoia was exhausting.
The rest of the morning dissolved into a flurry of chaotic "feast" preparations, Dadan Family style. "Operation: Ann's First Birthday Annihilation of a Large Forest Creature" seemed to be the general theme. Gordo, a particularly large and hairy bandit with a voice like a broken foghorn, led a hunting party into the deeper woods, their whoops and hollers echoing back. Scalzo, a wiry man with shifty eyes and a disturbing fondness for sharp objects, was put in charge of… "decorations," which seemed to involve stringing up dried animal skulls and sharpening sticks into vaguely festive (and highly dangerous) points. Pip, a younger, nervous-looking bandit who always seemed to be on the verge of tears, was tasked with fetching more firewood, a task he undertook with the grim determination of someone heading to their own execution.
Dogra and Magra, meanwhile, were under Minerva's surprisingly firm direction. She didn't shout like Dadan. She didn't need to. Her quiet, precise instructions, delivered in that calm, melodious voice, somehow carried more weight than Dadan's loudest roars, at least with these two. They were attempting to clean a section of the main room, a task that involved a lot of sweeping dust from one corner to another and looking generally confused.
"No, Magra-san," Minerva said, her voice patient but with an underlying edge of steel as Magra tried to use a tattered fur pelt to wipe down the already filthy table. "Perhaps a damp cloth would be more effective. Dogra-san, that pile of… refuse… goes outside the hut, not merely relocated to a different corner."
I watched all this from my vantage point on a relatively clean patch of fur Dadan had grudgingly laid out for me. I could sit up fairly steadily now, my neck muscles finally strong enough to support my oversized baby head. I could even manage a clumsy, lurching sort of crawl if properly motivated (usually by the sight of something shiny or potentially edible just out of reach). My Frieza-race potential was still a mystery, a locked room in the mansion of my abilities. My attempts to consciously access it had yielded nothing but mild frustration and the occasional gassy spell. My pocket dimension remained an elusive flicker, a door I couldn't quite find the handle to.
But my mind… my mind was a sponge. Thanks to Wish Number Two, I was absorbing everything. The nuances of bandit hierarchy. The specific grunts and growls that constituted Dadan's emotional spectrum. The subtle power dynamics at play, especially concerning the enigmatic Minerva. I was learning what plants were safe to chew on (very few) and which bandits were most likely to accidentally step on me (Magra, usually).
Dadan herself seemed to be in a state of high-strung agitation, torn between her natural inclination to bellow orders and a strange, almost shy reluctance regarding the whole birthday affair. She'd occasionally stomp over to me, glare down as if I were personally responsible for this disruption to her normally chaotic routine, then grunt and stomp away again. Once, she even brought me a slightly less grimy wooden toy – a crudely carved, unidentifiable animal that looked like it had lost a fight with a woodchipper. She thrust it at me without a word, her face set in its usual fearsome scowl, but her ears were faintly pink.
She's… trying, I realized with a jolt. In her own terrifying, emotionally constipated, mountain-bandit way, she's actually trying to do something nice. This is… surprisingly complex.
The afternoon sun was beginning to dip towards the jagged peaks of the surrounding mountains, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple, when the hunting party returned, whooping and hollering, dragging behind them a truly enormous, tusked boar, easily the size of a small cart. The air filled with the scent of fresh blood and the excited shouts of the bandits. The "feast" was about to get real.
And just as Gordo was proudly recounting the tale of how he'd personally wrestled the boar into submission (a tale that seemed to grow more heroic with each retelling), a new sound cut through the bandit cacophony.
A familiar, booming laugh. A laugh that could only belong to one man.
"GAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SMELLS LIKE A PARTY! DID I MISS THE CRACKER-EATING CONTEST?!"
My tiny head snapped up. Every bandit in the clearing froze, their boisterousness evaporating like mist in the morning sun. Dadan, who had been supervising the initial, rather brutal, butchering of the boar, went rigid, her face paling several shades under her usual ruddy complexion. Even Minerva, who had been calmly instructing Pip on how to arrange some surprisingly pretty wildflowers in a cracked jug, paused, her head tilting slightly, a flicker of something unreadable in her dark eyes.
Then, he was there. Filling the entrance to the clearing, his massive frame eclipsing the fading sunlight, a familiar white Marine coat draped over his broad shoulders. Vice-Admiral Monkey D. Garp. Looking as cheerfully oblivious and utterly terrifying as ever.
And in one of his huge, scarred hands, he was holding… a present. A small, somewhat lopsided box wrapped in bright, garishly patterned paper, tied with a slightly frayed blue ribbon.
"Yo! Dadan! Still haven't burned the place down, I see! Good work!" Garp boomed, striding into the clearing as if he owned it, which, in a way, he probably felt he did. He beamed at the assembled, suddenly very quiet, bandits. "And look at this! A feast! You shouldn't have! Though I hope there are rice crackers!"
He then spotted me, sitting amongst my furs, no doubt looking like a very small, very surprised potato. His grin widened, if that were even possible.
"ANN-CHAN!" he bellowed, his voice making the leaves on the nearby trees tremble. He strode over, crouching down in front of me, his presence looming like a friendly, cracker-obsessed mountain. "Happy first birthday, little sprout! Look what old Gramps Garp brought for ya!" He thrust the brightly wrapped package towards me. It looked comically tiny in his massive fist.
I stared at the present, then up at Garp's beaming, heavily wrinkled face. Old Gramps Garp? He's actually… celebrating my birthday? With a present? This day is getting more surreal by the minute.
"Go on, take it, take it!" he urged, jiggling the box. "It's a super-duper special toy! Guaranteed to make you strong! GAHAHAHA!"
I reached out a hesitant, chubby baby hand and managed to bat at the box.
Garp chuckled, then his expression turned earnest, almost pleading, in a way that was deeply unsettling on his fearsome face. He leaned in closer, his breath smelling faintly of sea salt and something vaguely fishy. "Come on now, Ann-chan! You're a big girl now! One whole year old! Time you learned to say your first words properly! How about this one? For your favorite old man? Say… 'Oji-chan'! Can you say it? O-JI-CHAN!" He enunciated the syllables slowly, loudly, expectantly, his eyes sparkling with a hopeful, almost desperate light.
The entire Dadan Family, including the enigmatic Minerva, seemed to be holding their collective breath, watching this bizarre interaction with rapt attention. Dadan herself looked like she was torn between wanting to strangle Garp and wanting the earth to open up and swallow her whole.
I stared into Monkey D. Garp's hopeful, expectant face. The Hero of the Marines. The man who had inadvertently saved my soul by dumping me here. The man who was, in a very strange, Garp-like way, my grandfather.
And all he wanted was for me to call him "Oji-chan."
My one-year-old brain, with its adult memories and cosmic wishes, considered the request. The sheer, unadulterated, mind-boggling absurdity of my entire existence crashed down on me in that moment, encapsulated by this simple, ridiculous plea.
What was a Pirate King's reincarnated, wish-powered daughter supposed to say to that?