Orange Town was a shithole.
Gil stood at the edge of the ruined settlement, hands buried in his pockets, golden eyes scanning the destruction with barely concealed disdain. Seven years. Seven years of chasing shadows, following cold leads, interrogating scum who knew nothing. And here he was, in another backwater town that had been torn apart by another worthless pirate crew.
The intel had been specific this time. Doflamingo had been spotted in Loguetown two weeks ago. Finally, a solid lead on the bastard who'd orchestrated the raid that took Aria. His little sister had been ten years old when those monsters dragged her away. She'd be seventeen now—if she was still alive.
He pushed that thought down. She was alive. She had to be.
The sound of cannon fire echoed from the town center. Gil's eyes narrowed. More chaos. More insects fighting over scraps. He should just walk past, head straight to the docks, commandeer a ship to Loguetown. But something made him pause—a flash of orange hair, a girl's scream, and then...
Laughter?
Gil moved through the ruined streets with measured steps, his coat billowing behind him. The scene that greeted him would have been comical if it wasn't so pathetic. A clown—an actual fucking clown with a red nose—was ranting about something while his crew of misfits surrounded three people: a kid in a straw hat who couldn't stop grinning, a green-haired swordsman who looked half-dead, and an orange-haired girl clutching a staff.
"Buggy the Clown," Gil muttered, recognition flickering. He'd heard of this one. A Devil Fruit user. Chop-Chop Fruit. Small-time East Blue pirate with delusions of grandeur.
How fitting.
"You think you can make a fool of the great Captain Buggy?" the clown shrieked, his body separating into floating pieces. "I'll blow this entire town to smithereens! Nobody laughs at my nose!"
The straw hat kid—Luffy, based on the shouting—was laughing his ass off. "But it's so funny! It's like a tomato!"
Gil almost smirked. The kid had balls, at least.
"Kill them!" Buggy screamed. "Kill them all!"
The crew charged forward, at least thirty men with swords, axes, and guns. The orange-haired girl—Nami, he heard someone call her—stumbled backward, fear flashing across her face. Something about that expression, that terror in her eyes, made Gil's chest tighten.
Aria had looked like that the last time he saw her.
He was moving before he consciously decided to, stepping into the town square with his hands still in his pockets. The first pirate to notice him—a ugly bastard with a mohawk—turned with his sword raised.
"Who the hell are—"
Gil didn't let him finish. A golden ripple appeared in the air beside his shoulder, and a spear shot out like a bullet, impaling the man through the chest and pinning him to the wall behind him. The pirate's eyes went wide, blood bubbling from his lips, before he went limp.
The square fell silent.
"How boring," Gil said, his voice flat and cold. "You mongrels are making too much noise."
Every eye turned to him. Buggy's separated head floated closer, his painted face twisted in confusion and rage. "Who the hell are you supposed to be, pretty boy?"
Gil didn't answer. He simply raised his gaze to meet Buggy's, and the sheer contempt in his golden eyes made several pirates take an involuntary step back.
"You're in my way," Gil said simply.
Then all hell broke loose.
Five golden portals opened around Gil in a perfect circle, hovering in the air at different heights and angles. The pirates barely had time to process what they were seeing before weapons began to pour out—swords, spears, axes, maces, all glowing with that same golden light. They shot forward in a devastating barrage, each one finding its mark with surgical precision.
Gil stood perfectly still, arms crossed now, watching with bored eyes as his collection tore through Buggy's crew like they were made of paper. A pirate tried to rush him from behind—a portal opened at Gil's back without him even turning, and a massive warhammer launched out, caving in the man's skull. Two more came from the sides—two portals, two spears, two corpses.
"What the hell is that?" Nami breathed, her eyes wide.
"It's like he's not even trying," Zoro muttered, his hand instinctively going to his swords.
He wasn't. That was the point.
These insects weren't worth the effort of actually fighting. They weren't worth him drawing a weapon himself, weren't worth him moving from this spot. They were beneath him, and he would make sure they understood that in their final moments.
A group of ten pirates charged together, thinking numbers would help. Gil's expression didn't change. Ten portals opened in rapid succession, forming a wall of golden light between him and the charging men. The weapons that emerged—a mix of blades and spears—created a literal wave of steel that crashed into the pirates like a tsunami. Bodies flew backward, blood spraying across the cobblestones.
"Impossible!" Buggy's head shrieked, his body parts floating in agitated circles. "What kind of Devil Fruit is that?"
"It's not," Gil said, his voice carrying across the square despite its quiet tone. "This is simply the privilege of a king. Something a clown like you could never understand."
Buggy's face went purple with rage. "Bara Bara Festival!"
His body parts flew at Gil from every direction, each one holding a knife. It was actually a decent strategy—attacking from multiple angles simultaneously to overwhelm an opponent's defenses.
Too bad Gil didn't need to defend.
Portals opened around him like a golden constellation, at least twenty of them now, pushing his current limit. Weapons poured out in a continuous stream, creating a sphere of flying steel around Gil's position. Buggy's body parts were intercepted mid-flight, each one impaled or battered away. A knife-wielding hand was pinned to the ground by a sword. A foot was sent flying by a mace. An arm was skewered by three spears at once.
"Ow ow ow ow!" Buggy's parts retreated rapidly, reassembling at a safe distance. "That hurt, you bastard!"
Gil tilted his head slightly, the closest thing to acknowledgment Buggy would get. "You're still alive? How tedious."
He raised one hand from his crossed arms, a gesture that looked almost lazy. Five portals arranged themselves in a line above him, angled directly at Buggy. The weapons that emerged this time were different—longer, heavier, more ornate. Spears that looked like they belonged in a museum, each one worth more than this entire pathetic town.
"Wait wait wait—" Buggy started.
Gil's hand fell.
The spears launched as one, moving so fast they were barely visible. Buggy split himself apart desperately, his pieces scattering in every direction. The spears missed his body parts by inches, but the shockwave of their passage sent him tumbling through the air. They impacted the building behind him, and the entire structure exploded, collapsing into rubble.
"Holy shit," Luffy said, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "That's so cool!"
Gil glanced at the straw hat kid, taking in his appearance properly for the first time. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Scrawny. That idiotic grin. But his eyes... there was something in them. Not fear. Not even caution. Just pure, unbridled excitement.
Interesting.
"Are you going to fight, or just stand there gawking?" Gil asked, his tone making it clear which option he expected.
Luffy's grin widened. "Oh yeah! Gomu Gomu no—"
"Captain!" One of Buggy's remaining crew members—there were maybe ten left standing—grabbed a cannon and aimed it at the group. "Die!"
The cannonball launched with a deafening boom, heading straight for Nami. She froze, her staff falling from nerveless fingers, that same terrified expression crossing her face.
Aria's face.
Gil moved.
A portal opened directly in the cannonball's path, and the projectile disappeared into the golden light. A second portal opened behind the pirate who'd fired it, and the cannonball emerged at twice the speed, obliterating him and the cannon both.
Nami stared at Gil, her mouth open in shock. "You... you saved me."
"Don't read into it," Gil said coldly, but something in his chest had twisted at the sight of her fear. She couldn't be more than eighteen or nineteen. Orange hair. Brown eyes. Scared but trying to be brave.
Too much like Aria.
"Enough of this," Buggy snarled, his body reassembling once more. "Buggy Ball!"
A massive red cannonball, easily three times the size of a normal one, launched from a special cannon his crew had wheeled out. It was heading straight for the center of the square—straight for all of them.
Gil sighed. "Mongrels and their toys."
He didn't move from his position. Instead, he simply looked up at the incoming projectile with those cold golden eyes, and twenty portals opened in a dome formation above the square. The weapons that emerged weren't meant to intercept—they were meant to annihilate.
Swords, spears, axes, and maces, all launching upward in a concentrated barrage. They hit the Buggy Ball mid-flight, and the resulting explosion lit up the sky. The shockwave rattled windows and sent dust billowing through the streets, but when it cleared, Gil was still standing in the exact same spot, arms crossed, looking utterly unbothered.
"Impossible," Buggy whispered. "That's my special—"
"Boring," Gil interrupted. "You're boring me. This entire town is boring me. You're all insects, and I'm tired of listening to you buzz."
He raised both hands this time, and the air around him erupted with golden light. Fifty portals—far more than he should be able to maintain, pushing himself to the absolute limit—opened in a massive array that surrounded the entire square. Every weapon in his collection, everything he'd gathered over seven years of hunting, appeared in those portals.
The message was clear: I could end all of you without breaking a sweat.
"Wait!" Nami shouted, stepping forward. "The town! If you use all of those, you'll destroy everything!"
Gil's eyes slid to her, and for a moment, his expression softened almost imperceptibly. She was thinking of others, even now. Even terrified and outmatched, she was trying to protect people.
Aria would have done the same.
"Tch." Gil lowered his hands, and the portals vanished. "How irritating. Fine."
He turned his attention back to Buggy, who was slowly backing away, his confidence completely shattered. "You have three seconds to leave this island. One."
"You can't—"
"Two."
Buggy's crew was already running, scrambling toward their ship in a panic. Buggy's body parts flew after them, reassembling as he fled. "This isn't over! The great Captain Buggy will—"
A single spear shot from a portal, passing so close to Buggy's nose that it shaved off a few hairs. The clown's face went white, and he shut up, fleeing at maximum speed.
Silence fell over the square.
Gil stood there for a moment, hands back in his pockets, watching the pirates disappear. Then he turned to face the three people he'd inadvertently saved.
Luffy was practically vibrating with excitement. "That was amazing! Join my crew!"
Gil blinked. "What?"
"Join my crew!" Luffy repeated, his grin somehow getting even wider. "I'm gonna be King of the Pirates, and you're really strong! We could—"
"No."
"Aw, come on!"
"I said no, mongrel." Gil's tone was flat, dismissive. "I have no interest in playing pirate with a child."
Zoro stepped forward, his hand on his sword hilts. "Watch your mouth. That's my captain you're talking to."
Gil's eyes slid to the swordsman, taking in his injuries, his stance, the quality of his blades. "You're half-dead and you want to threaten me? How amusing. Sit down before you fall down."
"Why you—"
"Zoro, don't." Nami put a hand on his arm, her eyes still on Gil. "He saved us. And he's right—you need medical attention."
Gil studied her for a moment longer than necessary. The way she held herself, the intelligence in her eyes, the concern for her companions despite her own fear. "You're the navigator."
It wasn't a question. Nami nodded slowly. "How did you—"
"The way you were looking at the sky earlier. Checking the wind, the clouds. You know the sea." Gil paused, then asked the question that had been nagging at him. "Where are you headed?"
"Loguetown," Luffy said immediately. "We're going to the Grand Line!"
Gil's entire body went still. Loguetown. The exact place he needed to go. The place where Doflamingo had been spotted. The first real lead he'd had in months.
Fate, it seemed, had a sense of humor.
"I'll come with you," Gil said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "Temporarily. I have business in Loguetown."
Luffy's face lit up. "Really? Yes! New crew member!"
"I'm not joining your crew, mongrel. I'm using your ship to get where I need to go. Once we reach Loguetown, we part ways."
"We'll see about that!" Luffy laughed, completely undeterred.
Gil resisted the urge to open a portal and throw something at the kid's head. Instead, he turned and started walking toward the docks. "If you're coming, hurry up. I don't wait for anyone."
As he walked, he felt Nami fall into step beside him. She was quiet for a moment, then asked softly, "Why did you really help us?"
Gil didn't look at her. "I told you. Don't read into it."
"You looked at me like... like you were seeing someone else."
His jaw tightened. Too perceptive. "You remind me of someone. That's all."
"Someone important?"
"Someone I'm going to find." His voice was hard, final. "No matter what it takes."
Nami didn't push further, but he could feel her eyes on him, curious and cautious in equal measure. Behind them, Luffy was already chattering about adventures and meat, while Zoro grumbled about idiots and their death wishes.
Gil tuned them out, his mind already in Loguetown. Doflamingo. The Heavenly Demon. The bastard who'd orchestrated the raid seven years ago. If he was there, if Gil could finally get his hands on him...
Golden light flickered around his fingers, portals threatening to open from sheer force of will.
Soon, Aria. I'm getting closer. Just hold on a little longer.
The sun was setting over Orange Town as they headed for the docks, painting the sky in shades of red and gold. Gil didn't look back at the destruction he'd caused, didn't spare a thought for the pirates he'd killed. They were insects. Obstacles. Nothing more.
All that mattered was the hunt.
And in Loguetown, the hunt would continue.