One Piece Fic: Hot Seat
I've spent the last two days watching the % bar on a product build and its attendant resource consumption, waiting for a bug to obligingly reproduce itself. But at least I had the time to write. Not anything downright intelligent - the % bar killed my brain by inches - but at least I had time to write something.



Title:: Hot Seat
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Warning: Some spoilers for Water 7 and Enies Lobby arcs. And humor - even the morbid kind - should not mix with CP9, yet I can't seem to resist.



Summary: "POSITION AVAILABLE. To head important Cipher Pol agency. Qualifications: firm attitude, leadership skills. No references required. Excellent salary and full benefits include health, dental and life insurance. Start date: Immediate. Refer all résumés to the new provisional government in Mariejoie."





Disclaimer: I do NOT endorse CP9's view of government, I just write using their POV. Also, I don't own the characters, though I would love to borrow Hattori in his little coat (awww)



Timeline: Some time after Enies Lobby and very shortly after the inevitable 'Straw Hat effect' has left Mariejoie in chaos (you just know it's gonna happen).





Hot Seat



1.

Director T-Bone straightened his helmet before entering his new office. Too bad he no longer had his cape...but he did not regret giving it away in the least. He could make do without.

He walked solemnly to the front of the room, drawing short of the desk positioned before the elegant bay window, and turned to face the assembled agents, his new unit. His new - dare he say it? - his new family.

"Greetings! I've met some of you before, but I will introduce myself for those who do not know me. My name is Captain T-Bone. Or rather, Director T-Bone. Though if you don't mind, I'd prefer Captain T-Bone. I don't think of you as my employees, but as fellow soldiers in my troops."

Silence followed that declaration. Ah well, a certain reticence on their part was to be expected. He knew it wouldn't be easy to be accepted into such a tight-knit group. This was often the case when he took command of a new squad. The men would gape and whisper behind his back and look at him oddly, but he always won them over eventually once they realized that he would die for their safety.

"I've been charged with leading this agency through the changes that are to come, now that the new provisional government has voted to pardon CP9 for it's past- oh, but that's history, let's not talk about it." This bureau had been badly managed up until now, that much was obvious. T-Bone was sure these sterling agents would never have committed those, ah, indiscretions if they'd had proper guidance. Those incidents had been grossly misreported, too; he'd stopped reading the confidential files on CP9's past missions once he'd realized that there had to be some misunderstanding and that nobody in their sane mind could ever have done these things.

"I don't have much to offer, I'm afraid; only my life, to protect the innocent. Our government asked me to bring my sense of ethics and determination to the job, and though they overestimate me, I'll do my best! Together, we will show the whole world that Cipher Pol and in particular CP9 can be the flag-bearers of the new, more humane and righteous justice our citizens have asked for."

This failed to enthuse, but T-Bone was a persistent man. He rested a cadaverous hand on the hilt of his sword. Here, this would surely be an icebreaker. "Our superiors also thought that, as a fellow warrior and long-time defender of justice, I might have more in common with you than your previous director."

"Really? How many douriki you got then?"

"Jyabura, your pitiful need to prove yourself stronger than everyone tires me."

"You want a piece of me, pussycat?"

"There they go again," said the pretty lady (who was going to be assigned the lightest duties, it was unheard of to put such a delicate creature in the line of fire).

"This is where I miss Kaku, chapa-" The young man who'd spoken caught the looks from his three nearest colleagues and hastily zipped his own mouth shut.

"Oh, yes, your friend!" exclaimed their new director, happy to change the subject and defuse the sudden, unexplainable tension that had blossomed in the room. "I visited him in the infirmary this morning, right after I arrived. The doctors say he's coming along swimmingly."

All eyes were suddenly on him. He had the odd feeling this was the first time they were actually paying attention to what he was saying.

"Why'd you go see him?" the one named Jyabura asked, voice aggressive. "You lot declared he was permanently unfit for duty and busted him from the corps."

"Ah yes, tragic. Of course I visited him, if only to express my heartfelt sorrow that I could not have stopped Roronoa Zoro before that scoundrel pirate could strike your friend down. Then I gave him my cape to keep him warm. Brave boy. He knows he'll never walk again-"

"He will," said the one he'd been told to watch out for. Rob Lucci. He'd not spoken with the faith and warmth one would expect, but with faint scorn, some of which seemed to spill over onto the injured man and his condition. Though surely that wasn't the case. Nobody who'd seen that young soldier's struggles to recover from his injuries could be that heartless.

"I'm afraid the doctors are rather definitive on that point. But I understand your belief in him. I will share it! He will walk again! And if not, I will carry him! Either way, he will always be on the roster. I would never - ever! - discard a man because of some mishap that befell him in the line of duty. He told me he would like to help out, maybe go through dossiers and such. I'm sure-..." he trailed off, having the obscure feeling he'd lost them again.

"You heard the man. Kaku is back in the ranks," Lucci said as if he didn't give a damn. "But don't worry, Jyabura, if he's walking on crutches, you might actually have a slim chance of beating him."

"That's it! You're going down!"

"What? Wait!" the new director cried, but the two didn't spare him a glance as they stared at each other, dark energy boiling up between them. T-Bone looked around beseechingly for one of their friends and colleagues to say a few words of reason that would-

"Five hundred Berry on Lucci, chapapapa."

"No-one's going to take you up on that bet."

"I heard that, you bastards! I don't care how many douriki he has, he's still injured!"

"Not as much as you, mutt. I hear you still have footprints across your chest."

"That's a filthy lie! I'm going to rip out your guts and play cat's cradle with 'em!"

"Do whatever you want, Jyabura," the lady sighed, rubbing her temple. "Just don't shout. We're all still recovering, you can barely walk yourself."

"I can too! And I can kick this bastard's ass!"

"Yoyoiiii! This is baaaaaaaaad! Without Kaku here to keep them apart, this can only end in tears."

"Or bloodshed," the bearded man with the interesting hairdo added morosely.

The officer responsible for the wellbeing of these people was swept up in waves of alarm. The deadly tension that would soon break into violence...The approach of danger...Train tracks, he was standing on train tracks! Or was he having another one of those flashbacks the doctors had warned him about- but it didn't matter! He had to protect his men!

Only one thing to do! He rushed forward between the two combatants. When they saw their new commander throw himself in the path of their blows, they would stop in their tracks and listen to reason.



2.

Director Smithson opened the door to his new office, relieved he'd finally found the right one. The hallways of the Tower of Justice were a maze in the making, full of dead ends where workers were still busy with the reconstruction. It was a good thing he'd run into that young man who'd kindly directed him here. Damn, he should have gotten the fellow's name. One of the administrative staff, painfully limping along with a bunch of folders under one arm, undoubtedly one of those injured in that costly and inefficient Buster Call affair. Smithson's good Samaritan had mentioned being recently released from the clinic-

All thoughts of his amiable long-nosed helper disappeared from Smithson's mind. He'd arrived half an hour early so he could get settled in and look through the records, but someone was already here. And it was the dangerous one. The really dangerous one, that is.

"Ah, good morning. I'm your new administrator. That is, your director, I am your new director." Director sounded better, though one should never underestimate the powers of order and administration. It was where Smithson had distinguished himself, receiving a commendation straight from Mariejoie; the old-school Mariejoie before this 'republic' silliness had been instated. And now he'd been assigned the position of Director of CP9. Interim, because they'd lost the previous candidate unexpectedly and they desperately needed someone to sort out the paperwork, but he'd been led to understand that the position would be his if he wanted it.

He'd wondered on the train ride over why they hadn't seemed to think he'd want to keep the post, and now, standing in this claustrophobic space with the clock doing slow tick-tocks on the wall in the otherwise dead silence, he was starting to have an inkling.

The man and the pigeon on his shoulder both sat there, looking at him. The silence seemed to pool around them while the light crept away. The look leveled at the director wasn't hostile. It was nothing. He had never seen anything so terrifying as that nothing.

In a mind usually preoccupied with ledgers, documented facts and neatly filed reports, arose a soupcon of gut reaction. There was no way he was staying alone in a room with that coil of blood-soaked silence staring at him like that.

"Oh dear, I forgot my other glasses in my coat pocket, my reading glasses, I'll be right back."

There was a wall between him and the door. A wall with hair.

"Wha- ?! How did you get here?!"

"I followed you in," was the giant hairy thing's unlikely answer - but nothing that big could move that silently. High above the director's head, the painted face was slowly crinkling. "Did you just...run into me?"

Smithson swallowed and took a step back-

"Yoyoiii!" The windows rattled in sympathy. There was also the sound of a kotsuzumi from somewhere. "I am so very sorry to have been in your way! There is only one redemption for me now!"

"Redemp-" the words died in Smithson's throat as the giant produced a massive sword from somewhere in his black suit. Still staring at the weapon, the director stumbled away, tripping over his feet as he made his way around the maniac and towards the door.

It crashed open under a kick and a third man sauntered in. The other really dangerous one, rumored to have put the formidable Captain T-Bone back into the hospital with just one accidental punch. "Hey-up," said the agent, "he's already here? Why don't I get told these things. Kumadori, what did you do now?"

"Sepuku! Tekkai!"

"Huh-uh."

The new man in charge of CP9 was slowly backing away from his subordinates. He wished he could head towards the door, but that meant passing within arm's reach of the scarred fiend grinning at him, or that self-mutilating maniac with a sword, or that chilling area of gut-wrenching menace sitting quietly with the bird on his shoulder, and somehow more frightening than the other two put together.

The rumors, the ones he'd tried hard to ignore, were swarming through his mind. Rumors about what had really befallen the previous director, Spandam. Missing, presumed dead after the revolutionaries had stormed Mariejoie in the furor preceding the birth of the new republic last month, but there were rumors- and then there was what had happened to T-Bone- the director stumbled behind the desk, clutching his briefcase like some sort of talisman.

"I wouldn't take that last step, chapapapa, not unless you know Geppou!"

"Yarg!"

There were two people standing in the open bay window right behind him. The director had gotten quite lost in the new Tower of Justice, but one thing he did know was that this room was twenty stories up.

"What are you doing there?!"

"You arranged for a meeting at ten, director." The tall blonde woman pushed up her glasses. "Are you suggesting there is some reason I shouldn't be attending?"

"Wha-...?"

"That'd be sexual harassment."

Heart beating faster than a stressed-out mouse's, Director Smithson backed away. This- this was all a mistake. He'd never wanted to be a director; he was an administrator to the depths of his little grey soul. He was good with ledgers. Give him double-entry books and expenditure columns and he was deadly! Right. Right. He had to get a hold of himself. His back was now to the corner by the desk, no doors or windows behind him, and these unclassified elements had stopped popping up out of nowhere so he should be able to categorize them and file them away.

"If you'd please all sit down, I'll-"

He felt a faint breeze on his neck from the blind corner behind him, an instant before the voice in his ear said, "I apologize for being late, I was busy training."

Administrator Smithson dropped his briefcase and choked.





3.

Director James 'The Axe' Moore slammed open the door. He had the kind of voice that could carry to recalcitrant recruits over the crash of waves. "Right. Heads up, you lot. I'm not going to give you a swanky introduction. If you don't know who I am already, you'll learn. I'm warning you bunch of rebellious rats right off the bat: I don't care if you're 'Government property'. After they told me about your recent attitude problems, I'm this close to having you all keelhauled just for the principle of the thing. You there, the guy with the mile-long hair! Call yourself Louise and then get yourself and your rug out of my way. Next time I enter this room, I expect all of you to be standing at attention. Not sitting - and definitely not lounging against my desk! Move your ass over there! Get used to seeing me in this chair, men, you won't be driving me out. I've shaped up units on the edge of mutiny and hardened criminals conscripted into suicide squads, I'm damn well gonna turn you lot into a force that won't shame our government. From now on, you'll be marching to the step of ironclad rules, and you'll do well to remember that I have no tolerance for insubordination. I have a set of strict routines- speaking of which, don't just stand there, cupcake, go get me some coffee, will you?"

In the sliver of a frozen pause that followed, Lucci stirred and glanced up at the clock. "Thirty seconds. A new record."



4.

Director Midori rubbed her temples, feeling a stress headache creep up on her. It was a pity that the only female agent in the lot was still under house arrest after the latest 'incident'. She'd have been arrested in much more formal circumstances for inflicting grievous injuries on a superior officer, except the brass back at HQ were trying to keep a lid on this situation, and who could blame them...

If Kalifa had been there, it might have given CP9's new director a slim chance of support, a mutual understanding of what it meant to be a woman at this level of Cipher Pol. As it were, the agents under her command hadn't even listened to her introduction. Oh, they'd listened, of course; these people could hear a sparrow drop from the trees twenty floors below, and undoubtedly be responsible for its demise as well. But they hadn’t paid her any heed. She'd known it was hopeless before she'd even stepped off the train, just by looking at the highly classified profile analyses. She'd tried to warn High Command, but they insisted that with her brilliant record in previous cases, she could prevail.

She didn't think she would. Her previous cases of hard-to-handle units had nothing on this lot.

"At least try," had said the old relic back in Mariejoie who'd sent her here. "We'll trust your recommendations, Midori, but please evaluate the situation on the ground. We need to get them under control. We can't go back on the pardons; we need them more than ever now that a new pirate king is bound to come out of the New World sooner or later. We just need to control them. CP9 make good servants, but a bad master."

As if old saws could really summarize a situation so neatly. Antiquated fool. It was more complicated than that. CP9 weren't trying to be insubordinate. They weren't resisting control. This group was defined by their loyalty (as well as a less savory set of skills that would now have to be put to somewhat better use by the new republic). They were only trying to find the right master to be loyal to. Spandam had been blindly accepted as part of the chain of command and had led them to disaster; these people were way too smart to make the same mistake twice.

If she were allowed to, she thought she'd be able to prove herself, but she doubted she'd have the opportunity. That was the crux of the problem. They weren't going to give anyone a chance; they knew who they wanted, and it wasn't her. No wonder the air in the room was reaching sub-zero temperatures. With one notable exception.

"Agent Fukurou...could you please sit down again?"

"Sure!" came the reply, though the large zippered thing didn't move away from his close-up contemplation of her as he leaned against her new desk.

Director Midori rearranged her folders full of psychological profiles, a nervous gesture she'd thought she'd eliminated ages ago. She'd give herself until Friday. If by then they hadn't shown any signs of some willingness to cooperate, she'd give her advisement to Mariejoie and-...

"...Agent Fukurou?"

"Yes?"

"Please sit down?"

"I am!"

"Not on my desk, please."

"Huh-oh. The kid's in love. This could get messy."

"Who are you to talk?"

"Yoyoi! Blueno is correct, Jyaburaaaaaaa! You should support our young friend in his efforts to win his lady's affections! Besides, he saw her first."

"Huh? What? What are you saying?! I'm faithful to my Gyatharin! I don't care for some big-eyed skinny skirt from Mariejoie!"

There was one man present who hadn't said anything yet. He was sitting there, arms crossed over his chest, the ludicrously out of place pigeon roosting on his shoulder. Head bowed as if he cared not a whit for the growing chaos around him. But she could feel him watching her beneath the black cut of the hat's brim. You're not even trying to be subtle anymore, she thought acidly. The lot of you.

"Jyabura, be polite to our new director," said Blueno ponderously. "She may not be much to look at, but she is our superior officer. And to be honest, your Gyatharin has the face of a horse."

"What was that?!"

...It seemed the next 'incident' to befall this office was unfolding before her very eyes, and she couldn't help but wonder...Just how much of this was carefully choreographed, how much was improvisation born of a tight, complicated and blood-soaked understanding going back years, and how much - this was the truly frightening thought - how much of this was actually the real working dynamics of this group...?

"Chapa- hmmmffmmh!"

"Stop laughing, bowling-ball-head! Kumadori, I swear, if the first word of that declamation leaves your mouth, I'll give you a buzzcut!"

"Oi-yooo!"

The new - and soon to be ex - director of CP9 pressed her fingers into the migraine behind her eyes, ignoring the sudden eruption of thuds and deadly blows ripping the air and shouts of "Tekkai!". Thursday. By Thursday, her report would be in the post and she could get back on the train and the hell away from here.

Something flew over her head, nicking her woven tresses.

Make that Wednesday.





5.

Kaku came in through the side door, the one leading to the room where a secretary would sit once they found one who would put up with this kind of work environment. In the absence of such a paragon of clerical virtue, he'd been sorting through the wreck of files himself, as he had been ever since his release from the infirmary a few weeks ago. Highly sensitive material poking out of charred folders or spilled on the floor would be aggravating to anyone with the faintest notion of what secrecy was supposed to mean.

"Oh, you're all here already? You should have given me a shout."

The clunk of the sheathed sword on carpet sounded loud in the silence as he hobbled slowly to where the others were already seated. One of the doctors had suggested using a cane, but why should he, when the weight and heft of his weapon was infinitely more familiar.

"Kaku," said Lucci as their director passed him.

"Hm?" Kaku followed his partner's pointed glance directed at the desk. "Oh good grief, who wants to sit with their back to a window and make some sniper's day," he said absently and sank down with a measure of relief into the rigid-backed chair that had been aligned with the others. "Right. I've been charged by High Command to tell you guys that they think you're a bunch of uncompromising, manipulative, obstinate and highly dangerous individuals. Sounds to me like a pretty positive assessment of our skills, but I think they meant it as a reprimand, 'cause it came with a note that the brass are going to keep a close eye on us from now on. We'll have to be on our best behavior for a few months." He didn't need to add 'or else'. CP9 knew the score. But his colleagues wouldn't have to worry about that; that was his job now. Kaku flipped through a couple of the folders he'd brought in from the next room, the more urgent matters that needed resolution. "Let's get started. We've got work to do."



End



As some readers might have spotted, this could be a prequel to the Yalta series. It wasn't how I envisioned the start of the 'Yalta-verse' myself, I had in mind something darker, but this piece of crack crept up on me...Blame busy boredom and the % bar.