_________ POV Narration_________
"Now, let's start with you, Robin..." Dragon was the one to speak first after that awkward stare-down.
Robin simply nodded and Enel took a seat on a nearby chair, crossing his arms and legs while looking at the situation with quite a bit of curiosity.
"As you know, your knowledge is something we need, and we've been looking for someone with a perfect grasp of Poneglyphs for quite a while..."
Dragon said, his usual grin plastered on his face as he looked at the 'Devil's Child' with a warm gaze.
"Your associates had told me something similar in the past... What exactly is your goal here?" Robin asked, tilting her head slightly as her calm gaze scanned over the father of her captain.
Enel didn't say much while looking from the side, he also had no clue what Dragon was truly after. Not having many things to go off of even in his memories of the show.
"My goal is similar to yours. As you probably know already, the goal of the Revolutionary Army is to bring down this authoritarian government that has enslaved and killed so many of us..."
Dragon's grin didn't die down one bit, not even when talking about the Government's crimes. It was to the point where Enel thought the grin was just his poker face.
"In order to do so, we need to find out more about the things that they've been trying to hide... That's where you come in." Dragon looked at Robin with an intense gaze.
"You are the only person that perfectly knows the language, the last survivor of Ohara... We need your help with this."
"I see... From the way you've worded things, I'm guessing you have people capable of transcribing some parts of the Poneglyphs, right?" Robin looked at Enel to the side as she spoke.
'If he was able to learn it by himself, then others must've been able to do the same...'
"Quite perceptive of you... We do have a designated team, all of them knowing the ancient script to some extent...
But mistakes in translation happen quite often, which leads to constant revisions, and we are usually unable to translate more than half of a poneglyph..."
Robin raised an eyebrow at that claim. Even half of it was rather impressive, it meant that the revolutionary army could make out bits and pieces of the world's history even without her.
Still, only having bits and pieces meant that they were missing half of the story, interpreting the other parts of the text would be almost impossible with nothing to go off of.
'I guess not everyone is like Enel... I'm still confused as to how he was able to decypher Poneglyphs by himself...' Robin rubbed her chin once more as she looked to the side.
Enel had been able to decipher the Ancient Language by himself. To Robin, his achievement was the mark of a genius mind at work.
She had no way of knowing that he had some external help in the form of the memories of his previous life, so to her he just reverse-engineered an ancient language from nothing.
Which was a feat many couldn't even dream of, let alone attempt to achieve.
Enel himself was sporting an interesting look in his eyes.
'Didn't expect the revolutionaries to be that far ahead... But I guess it does make sense for them to have accomplished at least this much.'
After all, if they had absolutely no knowledge of Poneglyphs, then they likely would've tracked down Robin a long time ago, not just now when she was 28-year-old woman.
'I guess this team of theirs reached a bottleneck recently, and that's when they started trying to seek her out...'
"I understand, so you want me to help this team of yours with translating texts?" Robin gave Dragon a bored gaze, not really being intimidated by the Revolutionary Leader's overwhelming presence.
"Well... That, and if it's possible... Would you be able to teach a few from our team the rest of the language?" Dragon was looking down at this point, his grin residing into a more serious expression.
After all, he knew that the Ancient Language in general would be a taboo subject for a survivor of Ohara. He wasn't daft(unlike his son).
Robin could be seen mulling over some thoughts, not exactly sure how to answer, so Enel decided to push her a bit.
"I guess the more people know it the better, huh?" Enel couldn't see anything wrong with more people learning how to decipher Poneglyphs.
The world government was certainly incompetent in places, the fact that Nico Robin was still alive was one of the parts that best highlighted their incompetence.
During the time she was free, she was basically able to teach countless people the ancient language, and the World Government was just sitting on its ass while she was roaming the world.
Enel chuckled a bit as that thought reached his mind, he looked at Dragon, then at Robin, who still seemed to be conflicted.
Eventually, though, she sighed. Then her tone seemed to gain a lot of confidence.
"... I can act as a teacher, but I am not really the only person with a near-perfect grasp on this language." Robin gained a mischievous smile as she spoke, and Enel narrowed his eyes a bit.
"Hmm? Have you thought it to others in the past?!" Dragon seemed excited at the notion, after all, having more people in the world know how to read Poneglyphs would really be shitting on the doorstep of the World Government.
Unfortunately, the answer wasn't exactly what he was expecting.
"No, unfortunately, I didn't want to teach it to others... I was afraid of it falling into the wrong hands..."
Dragon deflated a bit, before nodding, accepting her response.
"... Enel also knows it almost perfectly! I've seen some of the texts that he translated, and there weren't all that many improvements to be made to it..."
Robin gazed at Enel as she spoke, her mischievous smile hidden behind her palm as Enel glared at her.
'Is she hoping Dragon will convince me to spend more time here? Not gonna happen sweetheart...'
Dragon looked at Enel with a shocked gaze, he rubbed his chin for a while, thinking about the situation a bit more.
"I see... This is good to know, Enel, would you mind helping us as well?" Dragon asked, this time bowing fully.
It could be said that Robin owed them, as they rescued her from slavery. But it was actually the opposite with Enel, where Dragon owed him for saving Luffy during Marineford.
"Sure. But my help won't be free. I need your help with some things." Enel said as he slowly sat up, circling around the room a bit as he looked at the paintings on the walls with a bored gaze.
"Of course, we will do our best to assist you with anything you require. With both of you helping us, everything should go much smoother than before..." Dragon straightened his back and nodded.
A business transaction was a lot better, at least he would know that Enel had something to gain and what he had to gain by helping them.
If Enel had agreed to help them 'out of the goodness of his heart' then Dragon would've been a bit more cautious around him.
"What do you need information on? The sooner you tell me the faster you'll get what you want..."
"Well, first off, I need information on every single religion in this world. Any you can find, of course. Both past and present." Enel looked at Dragon with a bored smile, his gaze scanning the room a bit more.
"I will also need any information you can find that is related to the soul and how it affects willpower and consciousness..."
Robin looked at Enel with a curious gaze, she wasn't exactly expecting him to ask for that, she figured he'd likely ask for them to find some Poneglyphs or something similar.
'I guess he has his other problems and interests as well?'
"... I see..." Dragon also smiled when hearing Enel's request.
"If that is all then I will put my best men on the job, we should see some results in a few weeks... I'm not sure about the second request, but the first one should be rather straightforward..."
"Don't worry about it, bring any results your men are able to find to me. I'm already assuming that there are plenty of theories on souls and willpower, I want to study them all."
Dragon's smirk widened when hearing that.
Enel's request was a straightforward one, he also didn't request any information that could harm the Revolutionary Army, so Dragon was obviously happy to provide anything he could...
Of course, granted Enel also kept his part of the deal. But that would remain to be seen.
"Good... PERFECT!" Dragon seemed excited that the negotiations went well, Enel sweated a bit when seeing him that excited.
'Should he really celebrate this openly after a deal?' Robin had a similar thought, but neither of them commented on it, chalking it up to Dragon just being somewhat similar to Luffy...
"One last thing... I'm sure your people have heard rumours of Garp going on a vacation... Right?" Enel figured he'd inform Dragon of his father's whereabouts.
"... Yes, I currently have some of my men looking into this... Why?" Dragon's excitement seemed to die down, as his tone became serious.
It seemed that Dragon was still not the type to joke around when it came to family.
"I'm sure you're aware how uncharacteristic this is for him. To just vanish like that..."
Dragon simply nodded at Enel's words, his worry growing as the seconds passed by.
"Garp was imprisoned by the World Government a few weeks back."
Enel decided to just rip the bandaid off quickly. And he received the reaction he hoped for...
Dragon's smile turned upside down, his eyebrows scrunched up as the clouds above Baltigo seemed to be roaring with anger.
Enel squinted a bit, as he felt a powerful conqueror's haki wash over the island, all originating from Dragon.
Enel stepped in front of Robin, shielding her slightly. He was unaffected, although he didn't try to clash with it.
After a few seconds, Dragon seemed to calm down, the veins on his forehead were still visible though.
"... Sorry about that..." Dragon said as he rubbed his forehead in frustration.
"Don't worry about i-" Enel's words were interrupted by the door to the room being pushed open, Sabo's figure jumped in almost instantly, he seemed prepared to fight to the death.
"DRAGON! ARE YOU ALLRIG-BLERGH" Dragon proceeded to punch Sabo in the head, sending him flying out of the door.
"Knock before you come in!" Dragon shouted as the doors closed on their own.
'... I guess he felt the need to hit something...' Enel looked at the situation with an empty gaze, while Robin was still shivering from the conqueror's haki that had washed over her before.
It was a miracle she hadn't passed out... Well, she would have had Enel not stood in front of her.
"Enel... Can you please tell me where he is being held?"
"Don't be so worried, Dragon. I rescued him a while back... He's living with me on the Sky Islands for now." Enel said with a small smile.
"... WHY DIDN'T YOU START WITH THAT?!" Dragon shouted, anger in his voice palpable, but Enel could tell that most of his stress seemed to have vanished.
"I was judging your reaction... Call it a small test, Dragon. If you didn't care for your family, then our deals would end the second I got my hands on what I needed..."
Dragon raised an eyebrow at that straightening himself up once again.
Enel had just come into his territory, made a deal with him, and even tested him, to see if they would be able to become allies in the future...
He didn't even bother to hide that fact, despite the fact that it could potentially anger him.
'... This Sky King... He's a lot more shrewd than I expected...'
________________________________________________________________________________
Hope you liked the chapter! Stormy wheater got my electricity going down a few times while writing this... Guess who had to rewrite around 700 words ;) (Kill me)
And yes, in this fic, Robin isn't the only one that knows Poneglyphs. But she is basically the only one that can decipher them perfectly(which is why the rev army still need her)
It's either this, or I have to make the WG incompetent enough to not have been able to catch her while she was a child/teen/young adult. And that would make the last fight in this story a lot less impactful :))
If u want to support me look up VeganMaster(VeganCult) on Patre_on, you'd also get 10 chapters in advance (or 5 depending on tier)
_________ POV Narration_________
"Now, let's start with you, Robin..." Dragon was the one to speak first after that awkward stare-down.
Robin simply nodded and Enel took a seat on a nearby chair, crossing his arms and legs while looking at the situation with quite a bit of curiosity.
"As you know, your knowledge is something we need, and we've been looking for someone with a perfect grasp of Poneglyphs for quite a while..."
Dragon said, his usual grin plastered on his face as he looked at the 'Devil's Child' with a warm gaze.
"Your associates had told me something similar in the past... What exactly is your goal here?" Robin asked, tilting her head slightly as her calm gaze scanned over the father of her captain.
Enel didn't say much while looking from the side, he also had no clue what Dragon was truly after. Not having many things to go off of even in his memories of the show.
"My goal is similar to yours. As you probably know already, the goal of the Revolutionary Army is to bring down this authoritarian government that has enslaved and killed so many of us..."
Dragon's grin didn't die down one bit, not even when talking about the Government's crimes. It was to the point where Enel thought the grin was just his poker face.
"In order to do so, we need to find out more about the things that they've been trying to hide... That's where you come in." Dragon looked at Robin with an intense gaze.
"You are the only person that perfectly knows the language, the last survivor of Ohara... We need your help with this."
"I see... From the way you've worded things, I'm guessing you have people capable of transcribing some parts of the Poneglyphs, right?" Robin looked at Enel to the side as she spoke.
'If he was able to learn it by himself, then others must've been able to do the same...'
"Quite perceptive of you... We do have a designated team, all of them knowing the ancient script to some extent...
But mistakes in translation happen quite often, which leads to constant revisions, and we are usually unable to translate more than half of a poneglyph..."
Robin raised an eyebrow at that claim. Even half of it was rather impressive, it meant that the revolutionary army could make out bits and pieces of the world's history even without her.
Still, only having bits and pieces meant that they were missing half of the story, interpreting the other parts of the text would be almost impossible with nothing to go off of.
'I guess not everyone is like Enel... I'm still confused as to how he was able to decypher Poneglyphs by himself...' Robin rubbed her chin once more as she looked to the side.
Enel had been able to decipher the Ancient Language by himself. To Robin, his achievement was the mark of a genius mind at work.
She had no way of knowing that he had some external help in the form of the memories of his previous life, so to her he just reverse-engineered an ancient language from nothing.
Which was a feat many couldn't even dream of, let alone attempt to achieve.
Enel himself was sporting an interesting look in his eyes.
'Didn't expect the revolutionaries to be that far ahead... But I guess it does make sense for them to have accomplished at least this much.'
After all, if they had absolutely no knowledge of Poneglyphs, then they likely would've tracked down Robin a long time ago, not just now when she was 28-year-old woman.
'I guess this team of theirs reached a bottleneck recently, and that's when they started trying to seek her out...'
"I understand, so you want me to help this team of yours with translating texts?" Robin gave Dragon a bored gaze, not really being intimidated by the Revolutionary Leader's overwhelming presence.
"Well... That, and if it's possible... Would you be able to teach a few from our team the rest of the language?" Dragon was looking down at this point, his grin residing into a more serious expression.
After all, he knew that the Ancient Language in general would be a taboo subject for a survivor of Ohara. He wasn't daft(unlike his son).
Robin could be seen mulling over some thoughts, not exactly sure how to answer, so Enel decided to push her a bit.
"I guess the more people know it the better, huh?" Enel couldn't see anything wrong with more people learning how to decipher Poneglyphs.
The world government was certainly incompetent in places, the fact that Nico Robin was still alive was one of the parts that best highlighted their incompetence.
During the time she was free, she was basically able to teach countless people the ancient language, and the World Government was just sitting on its ass while she was roaming the world.
Enel chuckled a bit as that thought reached his mind, he looked at Dragon, then at Robin, who still seemed to be conflicted.
Eventually, though, she sighed. Then her tone seemed to gain a lot of confidence.
"... I can act as a teacher, but I am not really the only person with a near-perfect grasp on this language." Robin gained a mischievous smile as she spoke, and Enel narrowed his eyes a bit.
"Hmm? Have you thought it to others in the past?!" Dragon seemed excited at the notion, after all, having more people in the world know how to read Poneglyphs would really be shitting on the doorstep of the World Government.
Unfortunately, the answer wasn't exactly what he was expecting.
"No, unfortunately, I didn't want to teach it to others... I was afraid of it falling into the wrong hands..."
Dragon deflated a bit, before nodding, accepting her response.
"... Enel also knows it almost perfectly! I've seen some of the texts that he translated, and there weren't all that many improvements to be made to it..."
Robin gazed at Enel as she spoke, her mischievous smile hidden behind her palm as Enel glared at her.
'Is she hoping Dragon will convince me to spend more time here? Not gonna happen sweetheart...'
Dragon looked at Enel with a shocked gaze, he rubbed his chin for a while, thinking about the situation a bit more.
"I see... This is good to know, Enel, would you mind helping us as well?" Dragon asked, this time bowing fully.
It could be said that Robin owed them, as they rescued her from slavery. But it was actually the opposite with Enel, where Dragon owed him for saving Luffy during Marineford.
"Sure. But my help won't be free. I need your help with some things." Enel said as he slowly sat up, circling around the room a bit as he looked at the paintings on the walls with a bored gaze.
"Of course, we will do our best to assist you with anything you require. With both of you helping us, everything should go much smoother than before..." Dragon straightened his back and nodded.
A business transaction was a lot better, at least he would know that Enel had something to gain and what he had to gain by helping them.
If Enel had agreed to help them 'out of the goodness of his heart' then Dragon would've been a bit more cautious around him.
"What do you need information on? The sooner you tell me the faster you'll get what you want..."
"Well, first off, I need information on every single religion in this world. Any you can find, of course. Both past and present." Enel looked at Dragon with a bored smile, his gaze scanning the room a bit more.
"I will also need any information you can find that is related to the soul and how it affects willpower and consciousness..."
Robin looked at Enel with a curious gaze, she wasn't exactly expecting him to ask for that, she figured he'd likely ask for them to find some Poneglyphs or something similar.
'I guess he has his other problems and interests as well?'
"... I see..." Dragon also smiled when hearing Enel's request.
"If that is all then I will put my best men on the job, we should see some results in a few weeks... I'm not sure about the second request, but the first one should be rather straightforward..."
"Don't worry about it, bring any results your men are able to find to me. I'm already assuming that there are plenty of theories on souls and willpower, I want to study them all."
Dragon's smirk widened when hearing that.
Enel's request was a straightforward one, he also didn't request any information that could harm the Revolutionary Army, so Dragon was obviously happy to provide anything he could...
Of course, granted Enel also kept his part of the deal. But that would remain to be seen.
"Good... PERFECT!" Dragon seemed excited that the negotiations went well, Enel sweated a bit when seeing him that excited.
'Should he really celebrate this openly after a deal?' Robin had a similar thought, but neither of them commented on it, chalking it up to Dragon just being somewhat similar to Luffy...
"One last thing... I'm sure your people have heard rumours of Garp going on a vacation... Right?" Enel figured he'd inform Dragon of his father's whereabouts.
"... Yes, I currently have some of my men looking into this... Why?" Dragon's excitement seemed to die down, as his tone became serious.
It seemed that Dragon was still not the type to joke around when it came to family.
"I'm sure you're aware how uncharacteristic this is for him. To just vanish like that..."
Dragon simply nodded at Enel's words, his worry growing as the seconds passed by.
"Garp was imprisoned by the World Government a few weeks back."
Enel decided to just rip the bandaid off quickly. And he received the reaction he hoped for...
Dragon's smile turned upside down, his eyebrows scrunched up as the clouds above Baltigo seemed to be roaring with anger.
Enel squinted a bit, as he felt a powerful conqueror's haki wash over the island, all originating from Dragon.
Enel stepped in front of Robin, shielding her slightly. He was unaffected, although he didn't try to clash with it.
After a few seconds, Dragon seemed to calm down, the veins on his forehead were still visible though.
"... Sorry about that..." Dragon said as he rubbed his forehead in frustration.
"Don't worry about i-" Enel's words were interrupted by the door to the room being pushed open, Sabo's figure jumped in almost instantly, he seemed prepared to fight to the death.
"DRAGON! ARE YOU ALLRIG-BLERGH" Dragon proceeded to punch Sabo in the head, sending him flying out of the door.
"Knock before you come in!" Dragon shouted as the doors closed on their own.
'... I guess he felt the need to hit something...' Enel looked at the situation with an empty gaze, while Robin was still shivering from the conqueror's haki that had washed over her before.
It was a miracle she hadn't passed out... Well, she would have had Enel not stood in front of her.
"Enel... Can you please tell me where he is being held?"
"Don't be so worried, Dragon. I rescued him a while back... He's living with me on the Sky Islands for now." Enel said with a small smile.
"... WHY DIDN'T YOU START WITH THAT?!" Dragon shouted, anger in his voice palpable, but Enel could tell that most of his stress seemed to have vanished.
"I was judging your reaction... Call it a small test, Dragon. If you didn't care for your family, then our deals would end the second I got my hands on what I needed..."
Dragon raised an eyebrow at that straightening himself up once again.
Enel had just come into his territory, made a deal with him, and even tested him, to see if they would be able to become allies in the future...
He didn't even bother to hide that fact, despite the fact that it could potentially anger him.
'... This Sky King... He's a lot more shrewd than I expected...'
________________________________________________________________________________
Hope you liked the chapter! Stormy wheater got my electricity going down a few times while writing this... Guess who had to rewrite around 700 words ;) (Kill me)
And yes, in this fic, Robin isn't the only one that knows Poneglyphs. But she is basically the only one that can decipher them perfectly(which is why the rev army still need her)
It's either this, or I have to make the WG incompetent enough to not have been able to catch her while she was a child/teen/young adult. And that would make the last fight in this story a lot less impactful :))
If u want to support me look up VeganMaster(VeganCult) on Patre_on, you'd also get 10 chapters in advance (or 5 depending on tier)
