The very first female pirate was one Vera, known by the epithet as "The Red Lady" for her cherry lipstick and the blood left in her wake. Vera escaped the marines to a small island in the East Blue, where she settled down and had three daughters. Each daughter in turn became pirates.

Marie, the eldest, became "Miss Fortune" and spread chaos and discord across the seas. Liza, the middle child, was known as "The Nimble Thief" for her distracting acrobatics. Finally, there was the youngest of the three sisters, Anna. She was arguably the most famous and her name has been held on record in the Marine HQ as one of the few epithets to never be given to any pirate again. She was known as "Hell's Illusionist."

Anna evaded the marines through her illusions, and in turn settled down to start a family. She told her children of her adventures, and though her two sons became respectable men who hid their mother's identity, her daughters took up the Jolly Roger as well.

This trend continued through the ascension of such infamous crews as the Rumbar pirates and the actions of the rookie Gol D. Roger. In time, it led down to "The Florist" Flora, who in turn had six daughters. Our story follows the journey of the youngest, one Char, who would continue the family tradition in playing the Ultimate Game.

Chapter 24: The Rules of God and Country.

"So, Mrs. Wednesday is really a princess named Vivi and the leader of Baroque Works, who is one of the Seven War Lords and is called Crocodile, is trying to make her country have a civil war?" She asked once she was pretty sure she had the facts straight.

"T-That's right." Vivi nodded, her voice didn't sound as forced as it did before. "I'm really sorry for dragging you into this."

"Not a problem," Char waited to see what Nami would say. "So long as we get paid those billion berries once we're done."

"I wanna kick Crocodile's ass!" Luffy roared happily. Char beamed at him, wondering if she'd ever meet anyone else who could roar in a happy tone.

"We didn't get a chance to stock up as much as I'd like." Sanji commented. "We're running low on meat for one."

"Gah! Oh no!" Luffy wailed. "Nami, set a course for a meat island!"

"There's no such thing!" She slapped him. "We'll get something at the next island but for the mean time why don't you and Ussop do some fishing?" She suggested, booting them both out of the galley.

"A-Ano, what should I do?" Char looked up at the princess. This required some careful consideration, really. The only rules about princesses usually had to do with holding them for ransom, and warnings about heroes who might try to save them. Char wasn't too sure what to do when the pirates were the heroes.

"Vivi-chan, Nami-san, I'll have special drinks ready for you soon!" Sanji announced. Nami laughed and stood up, one eye on the log pose.

"Come on, let's make sure the idiots don't do something to make the ship sink." She joked.

"When will we reach the next island?" Char asked. She remembered Mrs. All-Sunday saying something about a garden island, and the name rang warning bells in her mind but she couldn't remember exactly what she should be worried about.

"In just a little while, a few hours at most with this breeze behind us." Nami grinned. These were optimal sailing conditions. She wasn't sure how long this calm weather would hold but she intended to be ready for whatever the Grand Line threw at them next.

"I'm gonna go play!" Char announced, zipping up the side of the mast and quickly turning cartwheels and flips along the rigging.

"Why is a little child like that on the Grand Line?" Vivi wondered.

"She wants to be a pirate, apparently everyone in her family's a pirate." Nami explained. "She set out early for some reason, and she's got five older sisters somewhere on the Grand Line. She says being a pirate is the Ultimate Game or something."

"Ultimate Game?" The princess frowns. "Does she think piracy is a game? She could get hurt!"

"When the fighting starts she gets pretty serious." Nami recalled. "And she's got a special power or something that isn't a Devil Fruit, she can make illusions out of thin air."

"Is anyone on this crew normal?" Vivi sweatdropped.

"Nope, better get used to it!" They laughed. Despite her misgivings Vivi had to admit she felt at ease among the Straw Hat crew. The despair she'd been fighting since discovering Crocodile's plans didn't seem as oppressive.

Char finished her stretches and warm ups and landed herself into the crow's nest. It was open water as far as the eyes could see. The sun was shining, the waves were gentle, and it was just an all around perfect day as far as she could figure.

"Hmm, look out Stuffikins, any sign of land yet?" She turned around and gasped. Mister Stuffikins was laying on his side with a handkerchief blanket. "Asleep on the job, eh? I have no other option!"

"First mate Kitty, throw him in the brig until he sobers up!" She ordered seriously. Mister Stuffikins tried to protest that he'd only closed his eyes for a second, a measly second, but she could have none of it. She needed iron hard discipline on her ship. The Grand Line would accept nothing else if they were to survive this treacherous journey.

Mister Stuffikins was so moved by her speech that he cried tears of remorse and was thus given less strict punishment. She made him scrub the crow's nest while Kitty kept watch. Kitty was a much better look out than mister Stuffikins.

"Little Garden." She hummed thoughtfully. That name made visions of giants dance before her eyes. She was certain she'd heard a story about Little Garden before, from the records of an ancestress who'd died.

"Did she die at Little Garden or after?" She wondered. No matter how she wracked her brain she couldn't remember the answer. As it was she hardly remembered anything of note at all. Nothing worth telling anyone about stuck in her mind. If she told Luffy she thought there might be giants on the next island he'd just get super excited and maybe want to fight one, if she told Nami the navigator would panic, which would cause Ussop and Vivi to panic.

"No helping it, besides they might not even be there anymore." She shrugged. Giants lived a long time but who'd want to stick around a place for over a hundred years? Staying in one place that long sounded boring.

She flipped through the pages of Anna's diary, tipping them over to show the section dedicated to illusions. She could do every day and night illusion listed, and had invented a few herself, and she could do about ¾ of the Hell's illusions.

As she did every time she looked them over she couldn't help feeling a little irritated. She had no clear reason to be, aside from the fact she hadn't yet mastered all the illusions yet, but that's how she felt all the same. Even the first time she'd read the diary cover to cover she'd felt irrationally annoyed at somebody.

It wasn't the illusions causing the feeling. She loved practicing her illusions and making new ones, and some of them were pretty darn creative. No, it wasn't that, but every time she got to the end of the list and saw the back cover she felt a wave of irritation wash over.

"Missing pages." She sighed. What used to be on those pages? What had happened to them? She'd give just about anything to know. It was like the book was sort of lopsided, uneven. Something, deep down, told Char that there was another branch of illusions that should be there but weren't.

"If day is to night then Hell is to…" She paused. Anna had been famous as Hell's Illusionist. The Hell branch was twice as varied as the day and night branches. "Heaven?"

Char groaned, twisting everything she'd ever heard of her family history. There'd never been any mention of a fourth branch, but illusionists weren't that common. There hadn't been an illusionist pirate in the family since Diane the Jeweler, who used her abilities to steal vast amounts of wealth that to this day the Red Lady Line used to fund their various progeny.

"Ooooiiiii! Char! Do you see anything yet?" Luffy called up to her. Char grinned and took a quick look around with the spyglass before sighing in disappointment.

"Nothing yet, captain!" She reported. He groaned even louder than she did and went to bug Zoro, who'd been taking a nap in a shady corner. For a minute Char thought about joining the game of tag that was now under way. It'd be fun, and no doubt she'd get to ride Zoro's shoulders for at least part of the game, but she didn't really feel like playing tag.

Actually, she wanted to eat some cookies. Since there wasn't a cookie jar to steal from though, not yet at any rate, that left seeing Sanji and asking if he'd bake some for her.

Vivi nearly had a litter of kittens right there on deck when Char jumped out of the crow's nest. Luckily for the continued health of the princess of Alabasta, Char landed easily and safely and bounced off to the kitchen. Seeing Luffy stretch and watching Zoro defeat a hundred bounty hunters by himself was awe inspiring to say the least, but they were grown men. She didn't expect the same level of crazy from a ten year old girl.

Nami didn't seem bothered, and no one else looked even moderately surprised. Only Carue looked just as dumbstruck as Vivi felt at that moment. This truly was a crew of monsters.

Very kind monsters who had agreed to help her save her country, but inhuman all the same. And she still wasn't sure how great this "illusion" ability Char was supposed to have was. If it wasn't a Devil Fruit then what gave Char her power? She'd never heard of someone being able to create illusions at a whim, not unless they were a phony magician as some of those men who'd visited the palace.

She sighed and gave her loyal duck a scratch beneath the bill. He didn't always listen to her but at least he was in the same boat as she was, the weirdest one on the Grand Line.

A couple hours later they drew up to the coast of an island out of a story book. It was just the kind of place one would expect to be washed up on after a storm. It looked like the sort of place humans had never set foot on.

"I want to explore it." Luffy announced, to no one's surprise. Char was right behind him in announcing her intentions.

"RROOOAAAAARR!" The head of a huge feline broke through the canopy before collapsing at the edge of the forest, revealing gaping wounds left on its side as it finally succumbed to infection and blood loss.

Char was suddenly much less enthusiastic about leaving the boat.

"Was that a dinosaur?" Nami mumbled faintly, almost too shocked to be scared.

"No, it was a sea monster that grew legs." Char stated firmly. She refused to believe that the ancient monsters her sisters used to scare her with were real. Stella and Isabel didn't know what they were talking about. Dinosaurs were all dead. That was just a sea monster with legs and lungs and the exact look of a long neck dinosaur.

"Oi, Char, let's go!" Luffy cried impatiently, hoisting a pirate lunch box on his back.

"Coming!" She sang, accepting her own smaller lunch box from Sanji. They were also joined by Vivi and Carue, the latter looking very reluctant to disembark.

"This place is awesome!" The ten year old decided. She didn't recognize any of the plants there was some sort of weird octopus shell thing that Luffy found and then Luffy climbed the long neck of a sea-monster-with-legs. Char pretended she didn't hear Vivi call it a dinosaur.

Luffy nearly got swallowed by the supposed plant eater, which was pretty par for the course these days. That was how they met Dorry, the giant.

"Come and eat with me, guests!" He invited them.

Char could now proudly state that she'd shared dinner with a giant. She only wished she had a camera to commemorate the event. Now she needed to meet a mermaid, a zombie, a vampire, a dragon, and claim the bubble hat of a celestial dragon in order to die happy.

"So you've been fighting for one hundred years? That's ridiculous! Do you even remember why you're fighting?" Vivi gaped in amazement. Well, Char chose to interpret it as amazement. It looked more like she was stupefied.

"HAHAHaHA!" Dorry laughed. "Of course not!" He boasted as one of the six volcanoes on the island erupted.

"Ah, there's the signal!" He declared, claiming his battle axe and standing at his full height. It was an impressive stature. Char made a mental note to ask him how tall he was later.

"FOR ELBAF!" Char watched as another giant emerged from the other side of the island bearing a longsword nearly as long as he was. The two giants met in a clash that sent reptilian birds (NOT dinosaurs) fleeing from terror. The earth they stood on trembled from their might, nearly knocking Char off her feet.

"Sugoi! A duel for honor and pride, huh?" Luffy watched with rapt eyes. Very few people had ever seen the likes of this before, or ever would again.

"Hey captain," Char spoke up hesitantly. "Should we be this close?" As if to emphasize her question a stray giant's foot landed only a few yards from where they stood, nearly squashing them.

"It'll be fine!" Luffy reassured her. "I want to watch this." Char shrugged her shoulders and pulled out mister Stuffikins and Kitty. They should be able to enjoy this just as much as anyone else, she figured.

"They keep going for fatal strikes." Vivi nearly whimpered, though most of the shock had instead faded to resignation. "They've been fighting like this every day for one hundred years?"

"I think so. My sister Germaine said that giants never lie because they think it's dishonorable." Char informed the princess. She guessed it was like a rule for them or something. Anna's diary always told her to lie to her enemies if it would benefit her, but never lie to her captain.

"Giants would rather die than dishonor themselves." She finished with a sense of gravity to her words. It wasn't an idea she was familiar with. From the cradle her mother and sisters had taught her to trick and deceive everyone else, because that was how the Red Lady Line survived. Theirs was the last branch left and the World Government still hunted them as fiercely now as they did since the time of the Red Lady Vera herself.

They had pride. How could they not? Theirs was a line of infamy that stretched hundreds of years from mother to daughter, with records of nearly every island in the four Blues and the Grand Line and more than a few from the New World. They had amassed treasures unlike any other. They had flouted the World Government and its precious nobles since its conception. Even though she was young and hadn't read all the records Char still knew enough that if her existence was discovered would be more than enough to motivate the World Government to destroy her.

Their pride had never been in question, but their honor?

Char wondered what sort of honor a pirate had.

That didn't matter though. What mattered was the awe inspiring battle that she was watching, blow for blow they met each other and neither gained nor lost ground. Two fists clashed against their opponents' cheeks, and the giants laughed.

"That was the 73,567th draw." Dorry noticed as both took a step back to inspect their wounds.

"HA!" The rounder giant guffawed. "Next time I'll take your head for the God of Elbaf!"

"Not if I take it first!" Dorry called over his shoulder as he returned to his home where his three human guests were waiting.

"My guests gave me some rum, want a drink?" The second giant asked.

"HA, now that sounds like it! Hand it over, Broggy!" Dorry cheered as a barrel passed hands.

"That the coolest thing I've ever seen." Char decided as soon as he'd sat back down. It was also the most humbling.

"This fight will continue until the God of Elbaf decides the winner." Dorry sighed as he downed the strong drink. "The God of Elbaf will decide who is right, and let him live."

BANG!

For a moment Char thought the volcano had erupted again. Black smoke emerged from the opening, but it wasn't a mountain and the red that came gushing out was blood, not lava.

"Mr. Giant!" Vivi screamed in concern.

"The rum exploded!" Luffy deduced. Char packed away her toys and stood up before realizing she didn't know what to do. She could try using pressure points but she wasn't strong enough to make them work on a giant, and that only worked for pain she couldn't heal with them!

"Did the other giant do this?" Vivi asked, looking in the direction of the other giant's home.

"T-There's cough no way Broggy would do something so dishonorable." Dorry heaved. He turned red shot eyes on them. "That means it must've been you humans!"

"No way! My friends would never do that!" Luffy protested.

"Yeah! You're really cool and nice!" Char agreed.

"There's no other explanation!" He panted as he again took up his weapon to charge at them with. "In the name of Elbaf!"

Char screamed and threw her hood up, vanishing from view as Luffy rushed to meet his charge and Vivi fell back to a defensible location.

"Hell's Illusion: Devil's Vine!" She summoned vines from the earth to entangle Dorry's legs, hoping to keep him immobilized. The vines only slowed him down for a minute before they were ripped out of the earth in his rage.

"Gum-Gum ROCKET!" She'd stalled him long enough though. Luffy took care of the rest.

And he only ended up a little squished.