redhairedknight | Mission 20 [voice]

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Mission 20 [voice]

[At some point during the night, Erza had been brought back to her normal age, still remembering everything that happened while she was younger. Thankfully, the only long-term change was that her younger self had adopted a cat, which she decided to keep. She had chose to name him Rob, after someone who was a father figure to her when she was young.

Waiting until a much more reasonable hour, she addresses the general public.]

I apologize for how I acted in the past week or so - I didn't think that I was so... excitable at that age.

Anyways, what do you generally do during the summer? Fishing... hasn't worked out too well for me, and I'm running out of books to read.

[Before shutting her journal, she makes one last statement.]

Oh, and Squalo? Don't think I've forgotten about that "old lady" comment.

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I suppose, but in our case, we know that certain people are responsible for just about everything bad that happens here.

What do you mean "treacherous"? It's just weather - it can be predicted, to some extent.

Usually, but even then, how many things get attributed to them that they didn't directly cause? Just that people are here. People will find a way to complain.

Not on the Grand Line. It's a lot more insane there. And some devil fruit users can have an effect. Not to mention illegal substances.

I suppose so. But as long as there are people out there willing to try and do something about the problems that the world faces, everything should turn out all right.

From what I've heard about Devil Fruit users, that seems believable. What kind of substances are you talking about, though? [Aside from magic, she can't think of anything from her world that can change the weather.]

Agreed. Or at least, better than it was before.

Boogie Powder. When burnt the ash and smoke collect moisture in the atmosphere to cause rain to fall early on that spot. Which can cause huge problems and droughts where the rain would have normally carried to. It's outlawed all over the world of course.

...That could be useful in areas where there already droughts, but I could see how that would be problematic if it wound up being abused. Compared to that, the problems of my world sound so simple. Gangs of bandits, rampaging cities, illegal mage guilds...

We have bandits and pirates that rampage cities as well. [Yeah... he didn't catch the meaning of a city going on the rampage....]

Illegal mage guilds?

...Well, they do attack cities, but I mean the actual city being used as a weapon. It doesn't happen often, but I had to deal with one just before I was brought here.

They're guilds that break laws and lose the recognition of the Magic Council, but continue operating regardless. Their numbers range anywhere from thousands of mages to just six. Some use forbidden dark magic to cause chaos and destruction, while others simply have no qualms with murder, but all of them are threats to the stability of the world.

How do you use a city as a weapon? [Too bad Smoker doesn't know of the events in Movie 7 or 10...]

Thousands? Hn. Those do sound troublesome. Like pirate crews or criminal organizations I suppose... Did you often deal with them?

It's a long story. An ancient tribe used magic to make their city mobile by giving it giant legs, and they turned it into a weapon that would turn evil individuals into good ones. All of that negative energy built up over time, and eventually, the city could also reverse the process, turning good people evil if the person controlling it desired that. Anyone who couldn't be converted to whichever side the user wanted would be simply crushed. We managed to destroy the city, thankfully, so nobody should be able to use its power again. [She acts as though destroying a city is normal. Then again, she acted similarly when she said that she would destroy the moon, though thankfully she never intended to literally do that.]

Quite often, yes. Though generally, I've found that the more members a Dark Guild has, the weaker the individual members are, not counting the high-ranking ones. Usually, it's the smaller groups that need to be worried about.

I see... [No he doesn't, but crazyness is all part of the New World, might as well start trying to get used to it.] How does it turn someone evil?

So exactly like pirate crews or criminal organizations then. Baroque Works was completely based around that. The smaller the number, the stronger the member was. The "millions" and "billions" were just the low level flunkies of the group, and then the higher members were code-named things like Mr. 12 or Mr. 3.

I never witnessed the process first-hand, thankfully, but from what I heard, it happens automatically if someone's in the area. It effects people who are wavering in their alignment quicker - if someone who's considered evil has good intentions, for example, then they'll switch sides faster than someone who is pure evil.

Really... So how powerful was Mr. 1, then?

Unnerving.

Daz Bones was pretty strong. He was an infamous pirate hunter in the West Blue known as "The Killer." I'm not sure what level he was put into in Impel Down, but he was with Crocodile when Straw-Hat broke them out. Idiot.

I see... And who's Crocodile?

An ex-shichibukai. A shichibukai is a legalized pirate. Crocodile was the head of Baroque Works; Mr. 0 and running the organization as an attempt to overthrow a country and use Nico Robin to find weapons capable of destroying half of the world.

Legalizing piracy? That seems to be self-contradicting.

That's just... I can't even imagine destruction on that scale.

And it doesn't work well. Crocodile was working against the government, Jinbei turned on them when they wanted him to fight his old friends, Blackbeard just used them to break out prisoners from Impel Down. And Boa Hancock is a bitch who fought marines when she was pretending to be helping them. I can't wait to see who they've got in mind for it now.

Hn... And hopefully it'll never be seen.

If all of them are like that, I can hardly see why they're even needed. Still, you can hardly fault someone for standing by their friends - if you betray your friends in their hour of need, you're less than scum in my eyes.

While I agree, pretending to have new friends for personal gain only to betray them likewise is perhaps only to be expected of pirates.

Yes, that's extremely deplorable as well. Still, if they clearly can't be trusted, why doesn't your government remove the position entirely?

Desperation. It was believed to be the only means of holding the pirate emperors in check. Turn pirates on other pirates. Sometimes they do more good than harm, but they're certainly unreliable and untrustworthy.

Pirate emperors? What are those?

I suppose it all depends on how much each of them obeys orders. Which, from what you said, doesn't sound like it happens often.

4 top class pirate crews. One of them was said to be as strong as Gold Roger himself, and the others are just as powerful.

Definitely not. They don't take orders, they simply pretend to let their interests coincide with the government's, and only so long as that's useful to them.

...I see. The only similar title I can think of from back home would be the Ten Wizard Saints, the ten most powerful mages as recognized by the council, but that title is only given to members of legal guilds, not criminals. [Here, she smiles, filled with pride.] The master of my guild, Makarov, is one of them.

Are there responsibilities to go with the title?

Nothing in particular for the title itself. However, wizards who have that level of power tend to be guild masters, if not members of the council itself, so they must act in a way that provides a good example for the rest of the wizarding community.

...Some wizards, however, let the title go to their head - one waged a war on our guild over a petty grudge, because he believed that the title meant that he was unstoppable. His title was removed shortly after, thankfully, and his guild was disbanded.