Sanji groaned and held his head with one hoof as he sat down at the long table in one of the palace’s many halls. Fluttershy was still fussing around him, telling him not to move while she examined him for any injuries, but the stallion seemed more concerned with the light headache from his contact with the ground than he was concerned about the copious amounts of blood he had lost.
Twilight’s attention, on the other hoof, was completely taken in by the younger of the royal alicorn sisters, who had turned back to her normal appearance. It wasn’t even the Princess’ spell that interested Twilight so much or the creature that it had turned her into and Sanji’s reaction. What really confused her, however, was what the Princess had said right after that.
“Princess Luna,” she decided to try her luck, “what did you mean when you said you were ´Princess Luna from the Lunar Pirates´?”
“Ah, yes,” Luna replied. “I guess there are a lot of things that you wouldn’t know about me.”
“Luna…” Princess Celestia wanted to say something, but Luna cut her off.
“Things that you should know about me, and that you probably deserve to know by now. I have done a bit of research on the stories my sister spread about me, without doubt to protect me, but they couldn’t be much farther from the truth.” She turned towards Rainbow Dash. “Right now, however I’m more curious about your friends interesting wings. If I know how you learned such a technique it might help me to understand how much you do already know.”
“That’s right, I still haven’t given you these!” Rainbow Dash opened her saddlebags and took out a small pouch. “I made some cigarettes. Um, you know…” her eyes darted around the room as she hoofed the pouch over the table to Sanji. “Because you helped us out yesterday…”
“Cigarettes?” Luna was now even more curious about the pouch.
Her sister only scowled as she heard the word. “He brought those with him as well. I knew he couldn’t be trusted,” she muttered to herself, but still loud enough for everypony to hear.
Twilight took another discreet glance towards the Princess, still confused about her mentor’s uncharacteristically cold behavior. In the meantime Luna had levitated one of the cigarettes out of the pouch to inspect it. “That’s interesting. I don’t remember cigarettes using a blue plant. They normally contain tobacco, don’t they?”
“I had to find a substitute –“ Sanji had watched the conversation with interest, but now he felt that he should provide some explanation. “– since I couldn’t find any of that on this island. Miss Twilight called it ´Poison Joke´, I think.”
“It’s amazing,” Twilight cut in. “Burning the Poison Joke to inhale the smoke seems to tamper with the curse on some level, leading to completely different results. Until yesterday, I couldn’t find out anything on how the magic in Poison Joke even works–“ she paused. “Well, I don’t really know more about that, but so far all the changes seemed to be positive and highly temporary, not to mention they were incredibly varied. When Sanji used one of the cigarettes his hooves seemed to turn into rubies, and later they even caught fire. The implications could be–“
She stopped herself again. Fluttershy had mumbled something in her usual way, trying to say something while at the same time not wanting to bother anypony. In the time they had been friends Twilight had trained herself to notice those moments, even if she couldn’t make out what the timid pegasus actually said. “I’m sorry Fluttershy, what did you say?”
Fluttershy let out a small squeak, suddenly finding herself the center of everypony’s attention. “I just thought… I mean…” she stumbled over her own words, “I don’t think that those cigarettes were the reason for that strange fire.”
“Really?” Twilight knew that Fluttershy would never say something without thinking. She probably didn’t say a lot of things even after she thought them over. “But how else would you explain it?”
“I didn’t notice it at first, but when his hooves started glowing even stronger, I know that was weather magic. I could feel it all the way from where he was standing!”
“Is that what it was?” Sanji spoke up again. “It was interesting. I could feel the heat and try to push it.” He folded his front legs and closed his eyes. “I’ve been using that general technique before I got here, though. It uses the friction of my spinning movement to heat up my leg – or legs, I guess.”
“What? But that’s ridiculous!” Twilight blurted out. “Doing something like that is physically impossible. You can’t build that kind of temperatures through the friction of spinning around yourself. Even if it was possible, it would affect all of your body, not just your legs. And even if that wasn’t the case, you would do far more damage to yourself than anything else!”
“I think this might be a good opportunity to cut in,” Luna interrupted in a calm voice that could still be heard over everything else. “What you’ll have to consider, Twilight, is that Sanji is a pirate. To pirates nothing is impossible. Or maybe it still is and they just don’t care?” She held a hoof to her mouth to stifle a chuckle. “They never seem to care much for rules. If you want a better explanation, though, I learned that the answers to many questions somehow lead back to Haki.”
Luna paused a moment to wait for questions. She hadn’t expected the only question to come from her sister, though. “Luna, are you sure that we should tell others about that?” Celestia’s face had the same worried look she had worn since they had entered the room to talk, but her worry seemed even more urgent now.
“Yes,” Luna simply replied. “Yes, I do. And I don’t think we will tell them anything, since you never wanted to hear my theories. This will be a good opportunity for all of you to learn something.” She turned back to the other ponies and continued with her speech.
“I assume you want to know what ´Haki´ is in the first place. To make it short, Haki is the driving power in every living creature and probably most other things as well. There are not many people who know about that, though, and even less who can actually use it.
“As far as the general knowledge goes – if you can call it that – there are three types of Haki: ´Observation Haki´, ´Armament Haki´ and the very rare ´Conqueror’s Haki´. Those are the types of Haki that can be taught and learned. However, after all I have seen I can only conclude that there is another kind of Haki. As I said, Haki flows through anything, whether someone is aware of it or not. For that reason, I feel it would only make sense that it can manifest itself through every creature, and your friend is just one example that seems to prove me right. I have seen people who took more damage than they should have been able to take and keep standing. I have seen people fight in ways I never even considered, with whatever they had at hand and sometimes even less. And most of all I have seen people who took fatal blows and kept fighting, simply because they refused to die and abandon their friends. I think you of all ponies know best what a powerful force friendship can be, but the truth is that what it leads to can be even more powerful, and that is determination.” Luna’s eyes got a distant look.
“You’re probably wondering how I saw all this and why, so let’s start at the beginning. 800 years ago, Equestria was under the rule of Discord. In the end, as you know, my sister and I were able to defeat him using the elements of harmony. However, while most of his work was undone by the elements, some of it wasn’t. To this day we don’t know if Equestria has always been inhabited by ponies as it is now, or if it was Discord’s work. We do know that one of his greatest spells was a giant magical sphere that reaches beyond the coasts of Equestria and temporarily transforms every human who enters it into one of the local life forms, usually a pony. It might also be the first of his works that turned out to be positive for us.
“Another part of Discord’s plan that the Elements could not undo was the separation of our island from the solar circle. With the power of the Elements, my sister and I decided to take that responsibility and take the control over day and night to prevent chaos. That decision was also what turned us into the alicorns we are today.
“Equestria has always been a very isolated island due to its coastline that prevents ships from anchoring. Discord’s spell did the rest to ensure that no humans have visited our island in centuries. Ponies were never curious enough to explore beyond the ocean which is the reason why the world was practically unaware of our existence.
“I was not the first pony to cross the borders of our country, though. Ninety-five years ago the first pony in centuries set out to explore the rest of the world. She was an earth pony by the name of Sea Breeze, and sometimes I think that was all the reason she needed. When she came back she told us of her adventures and showed us the amazing new abilities she had obtained on her journey. I was excited and intrigued by her stories and when it seemed that Equestria as a country was at its peak and didn’t even need its protectors anymore, I saw my chance to embark on my own adventure. That was fifteen years ago.”
Luna paused and looked at her sister, hinting for her to continue. Celestia sighed, but began her own part of the story. “I tried to talk her out of it, of course, but Luna was as stubborn as ever. She left Equestria to become one of those pirates.” She spat the word. “She would always send me letters to make sure I didn’t worry, which just made me even more worried about her when the letters stopped after one year.
“After two months without a single word from my sister I decided to look for her myself. I left Equestria and made my way to the place she had described in her last letter, the Shabondy Archipelago. Alas, I was too late. I was told by a group of bounty hunters, who had tried to capture me, that my sister had been captured and sold as a slave to a place that no one could ever escape from. It was called the home of the World Nobles, Mariejois. I didn’t care what they told me, though, I just wanted to go to that place and burn it to the ground.”
Luna cut in again. “It’s probably good that she didn’t get the opportunity, because it couldn’t have ended well. You see, I was by far not the only one they enslaved and brought to Mariejois. The ´Celestial Dragons´, as those World Nobles call themselves, held slaves simply because they could and because they were bored. Many of those slaves were Fishmen, another race from the Grand Line that most humans saw as inferior just because they were different. One day a single Fishman by the name of Fisher Tiger climbed the several miles high ´Red Line´ to reach Mariejois, free the slaves and burn the city to the ground.
“I was eventually reunited with my sister and agreed to come back to Equestria with her. She was very worried about me, even though I myself considered myself lucky to have been freed after only a few weeks of slavery. Everything seemed well until I found out about a decision Celestia had made after our return.”
“How could you?”
Celestia turned around to her sister who had slammed the door to her quarters open. Luna’s muscles were tensed up and angry tears stood in her eyes.
“How could you make a deal with them? Of all the humans you decided to work with the worst, the ones who protect those monsters.”
Celestia was well aware what her sister was talking about. She had hoped that Luna wouldn’t find out on her own, or at least not so quickly. “I did what was necessary. You are still wanted, Luna, as a pirate as well as a slave. If all they want are permission to build outside of our borders and a few of our country’s more dangerous species, then I will take that opportunity.”
“Don’t try to fool yourself! That prison has been built for decades. I have heard stories about it and I can assure you that you don’t want it anywhere near this island.”
“They would not have to ask permission at all. The prison is far off from our borders, just barely inside Discord’s spell. And I got far more in exchange than just your freedom. They are willing to completely stay out of Equestria unless my assistance is needed.”
“Your assistance? What do you mean by that?”
“They left one of those snails with me, saying that they might need to call on my help from time to time. I don’t expect anything to happen and even if it did, I can look out for myself.”
“No you can’t!” Luna screamed at her. “Your magic may be powerful, more powerful than mine even, but you have no experience with this and you put your trust in them of all people!” she turned around and walked back towards the door. A magic aura appeared around her and shaped itself into a dark blue set of armor. “We cannot just undo what has happened, so I will have to prepare the ponies for what comes next. If it comes to it, we will be prepared to fight.”
“Luna, no!” Celestia was not sure what her sister was planning, but she knew that the consequences could be disastrous.
Luna stopped, but didn’t turn back to look at her sister. “I’ve made my decision. You cannot change my mind.” If Celestia could have seen Luna’s face she would have recognized the fear and desperation in her eyes. It was the same look Celestia had worn when she found out about her sister’s enslavement.
Instead, Celestia was convinced that the trauma had finally driven Luna mad. She had feared that moment ever since they got back, and yet she had no idea how to deal with it. Luna was already at the door to do whatever she deemed right in her twisted state of mind and the armor she had summoned didn’t give Celestia much reason for hope. In her panic, Celestia used the most powerful spell she could think of to stop her sister. It was a binding spell she had designed to use as a last resort. Her horn flared up as she focused all of her magic through it and directed it towards her sister. Magic engulfed Luna in a flash and when the light was gone nothing of the Princess was left.
Celestia opened her eyes again and sighed. After all the years retelling the event was still painful to her. She had panicked and made a mistake, and she knew that.
“I had no idea where Luna was, even though I had designed the spell myself. It was supposed to temporarily imprison a person, but the prison depended on the target. It took me weeks of concentrated work to figure out what had happened to her and even longer to calculate how long the spell would last. The truth is that she the spell had not only banished her to the moon, but bound her to it as well. Still, once I knew all of those things I could start to plan how to cure her.
I thought that the one thing that was sure to help her would be the Elements of Harmony. However, without Luna’s help I had no way to tap into their power. The next decade I made preparations to help Luna and to make sure nopony would find out the truth. The holiday of Nightmare Night already had a figure called Nightmare Moon that looked similar to my sister as she looked when she was banished.
“To find someone who could bear the element of magic I arranged a special test at my School for Gifted Unicorns. When I actually found a filly that had the potential to I wasted no time to take her in as my personal student.” She paused to give her personal student a warm smile.
“A special test? You mean the entrance exam, when I had to hatch a dragon egg?”
“Hatching a dragon egg has barely anything to do with the entrance exam to the school. Not only are dragon eggs incredibly rare and hard to obtain, your failure at the test was all but expected and would not have had any impact on your score at the exam. After all, there are a lot of students at that school, but Spike is the only known domesticated dragon in Equestria.”
Twilight looked down in thought. How did she miss something obvious like that.
“Anyway,” Celestia continued, “I knew that potential bearers of the other five Elements were spread over Ponyville and that one bearer would automatically be drawn to the others. The spell would wear of at the day of the summer solstice, so I forged a book with a fake legend of “Nightmare Moon”. I also moved the Summer Sun Celebration to Ponyville and spread fake news that it would be the 1000th year of the celebration.”
“When I appeared back in Equestria I was confused,” Luna said. “I had not just been on the moon, I had been the moon. All I remembered was that I needed to protect my sister and that I needed to find powerful ponies to help me with that. I kidnapped my sister and laid out simple traps for the ponies who would chase me. Enough to prove a challenge, but not so much to seriously injure a strong pony. I think you remember the rest.”
The ponies sat around the table in silence for a moment. Sanji decided to wait until later and ask one of the mares about what had happened. Pinkie Pie for example seemed like she would be more than happy to tell him the whole story in detail.
Finally, Twilight spoke up, “Wow. So… what happens now?”
Celestia sighed. “I think that won’t be for me to decide. We are dealing with a human and pirate now, and that is something my sister knows far more about than me. Whatever decision she makes, I will respect it. She can teach you a lot and is far stronger than me.” She gave her sister a sad smile. “I just wish I had realized that earlier.”
Luna reached over with a wing to comfort her sister. She looked back to the other ponies to tell them her plans for them. “Now that you know all this, I would like to teach you how to use Haki. The truth is that ponies already seem to have a stronger connection to Haki, and from what I’ve heard you six have even stronger abilities than most other ponies.” She began to address the ponies personally.
“Pinkie Pie’s ´Pinkie Sense´, as you call it is a form of Observation Haki, as well as Rarity’s gem-locating spell. Armament Haki strengthens Twilight’s magic and makes Rainbow Dash faster. The apple-bucking technique of the Apple family is a combination of both.” She looked at the last member of the group of friends. “Fluttershy is a special case. Her “Stare” indicates a disposition for the Conqueror’s Haki, which is incredibly rare. If you accept my offer I would like to teach you how to learn about and build on all those abilities and more.”
Gaaah! So... much... exposition.
Seriously, keeping all the details straight was hard and trying to split the monologue between Luna and Celestia didn't help. Still, I did my best to make this chapter as not-boring as possible. Only one more chapter before we pick up the pace again.
I probably forgot some detail in there that I'll remember just when it's too late. The part about weather magic was supposed to come up two chapters earlier.
I probably forgot more than one detail that I wanted to put into this comment, too. *sigh*
2924678 personally i think this chapter wasn't bad, exposition is always good for a story, i think though we need some more sanji though.
2926113
The exposition wasn't bad, but writing it was hard.
I know the title says that this story is about Sanji, and that's what I wanted to write at first, but somehow that's a lot harder than I'd expected; Even in the manga Sanji doesn't get a lot of spotlight unless he's kicking ass (literally) or going crazy over women (or when he's cooking, maybe). After all, he might be the only Straw Hat beside Robin who actually sits down to listen and make plans.
The first four chapters had Sanji at his best, but now more and more other characters will pop up with exposition and or improbable side-plots. I think in the whole remaining story I have only three more chapters that really focus on Sanji.
I can only do what I can to not completely forget about him, and promise you that the other characters that will be introduced will make up for the lack of Sanji.
This... this... is beautiful. Finally the Sanji set adrift story is being continued.
Now if only someone would continue Chopper or Nami.
2928127
Thank you for your praise.
reading this makes me want to try writing a continuation to one of the set adrift stories, i just dont know which one or if i can pull it off.
2928859
Robin and Brook are my favorite Set Adrift chapters. I think Robin's chapter sets the bar quite high, though, so it would be a bit of a challenge.
I suggest that you read through the chapters once more and see if something clicks. This whole story started only because the thought of Sanji without cigarettes drove me to come up with the Poison Smokes idea and think about the consequences and possible applications, as I explain in this blog post (*cough* shameless plug *cough*).
If you decide to write a continuation I'll be glad to offer my help.
2931334
The main reason that Sanji is a pegasus, and not an earth pony or - as in FMP's original chapter - a unicorn, was that he needs his legs to fight. As far as I'm concerned ponies can stand on their hind legs, but without something to balance them (or being Pinkie Pie) they can't do it for very long. As I explained Sanji used his wings to keep his balance even when he didn't know how to fly yet.
Another bonus I realized when writing the second chapter was the weather magic he can control as a pegasus, which fits his Diable Jambe fighting style.
Furthermore: since he won't be stuck in the ´Okama Kingdom´ in this continuity, I figure that having been a pegasus and having been taught how to fly properly is another good basis for learning the Sky Walk.
2931398
Well, I'm not that confident in my writing yet, nor do the characters really have the time for that right now. If nopony else picks up on the idea (*nudge* *nudge*) I might try to make a short story or a bonus chapter out of it at some point.
Well I have the itnernet and downtime durring my vaction...
Either way good chapter.
I found your explanations highly unbelievable. So... Everyone just forgot about Luna in 15 years? Was there a mass brainwashing involved? If not than I have no idea why Luna wasn't known. She's a princess of Equestria, after all. Kind of hard not to notice when one of those go missing. Not to mention the mare in the moon. That appeared, like, 13 years ago or something and no pony apparently noticed. Twilight and her friends were alive at the time, probably older than 15 so they should have noticed some of this, especially a giant unicorn head appearing on the moon. I really think you should have thought of a different way for Luna to have gotten away from nobles other than being rescued by Fisher Tiger and compressing all of Equestrian history into less than 800 years.
4391913
You do have a point. I'll guess it's just suspension of disbelief. There are more than just one plot points that hang on this explanation, though, and I couldn't make some of them work with the 800-year version.
The best explanation I can offer on the spot is that Luna - just like in the show - barely participated in social events and rather stayed back. The ponies who did know her (mostly ponies from Canterlot) didn't notice her absence yet or were told cover stories, and younger ponies like Twilight just never heard about her at all. Even if you're very generous, I wouldn't put Twilight at more than 18 years old in the first episode.
Anyway, if you think about it, the only ponies that really needed to be unaware of Princess Luna for the canon to work are the Mane Six. All of them were rather young, one of them was brought up by Celestia herself and the other five grew up in a rather small town. I don't think it's too unlikely that they just wouldn't have given much thought about if there was a second Princess. Neither of them mentioned the third Princess either, for two whole seasons.
Either way, even at the worst I still don't think it's more unlikely than a devil fruit user covering himself in poison in a place that's filled with sea stone, and getting away with it.