On a small island drifting somewhere in the sky, inside a sprawling laboratory, a blue-haired figure in a white coat was bent over a workbench, completely absorbed in the compounds spread out before him.
"Boss! The latest paper just came in. Something big happened!" A powerfully built man came striding through the door, newspaper in hand.
The blue-haired man looked up and shot him a sharp glance, then moved his hands in a quick series of gestures.
"Boss, I'm serious this time. It's about the Dragon King Rosinante. He's appeared!"
The large man had learned to read those gestures well enough to understand them. The moment the words were out of his mouth, the blue-haired man snatched the paper and snapped it open.
The entire front page was taken up by a photograph of Rosinante.
The Dragon King Rosinante, missing for ten years, has reappeared and reclaimed the Undying City.
The World Government has announced that Rosinante originally held Celestial Dragon status. The Five Elders and the Celestial Dragon Council of Elders have declared the restoration of that status in full, and have conferred upon him the position of Vice President of the Council of Elders.
Reading it, the blue-haired man began to cry.
"Boss, don't take it too hard." The large man shifted uncomfortably, casting about for something helpful to say. "Even if Rosinante is still alive, Admiral Akainu is more than strong enough to kill him now and avenge Master Shiki."
"Who said anything about being sad?" The blue-haired man looked up, tears still streaming freely down his face. "I'm happy. I thought that when Rosinante disappeared ten years ago, I'd lost my chance to avenge Master Shiki forever. And now he's alive. He's alive and well, which means I still have the chance to do it myself." He wiped his face with his sleeve and straightened up. "Scarlett, where is that lecherous ape?"
...
Dr. Indigo had once served as the right hand of Gold Lion Shiki, the Golden Lion Pirates' captain.
After Shiki was destroyed, Indigo had stumbled upon the Fuwa Fuwa no Mi by chance. He hadn't eaten it himself. He knew his own limitations well enough to understand that he had no real aptitude for combat, and that the fruit's power would be wasted on him. Revenge against the Dragon King required a fighter, not a researcher.
So he had given the fruit to Scarlett, the King of the Rare Beasts, the red ape who had lived at his side.
Scarlett was no ordinary animal. His intelligence had long since reached a level that could stand alongside a human's, and his raw physical constitution was vast enough to sustain the demands of a Devil Fruit without breaking under the strain. Beyond that, he was the King of the Rare Beasts, born with combat instincts that ran deeper than training could ever produce. Given the right fruit, Indigo had believed he could become something genuinely fearsome.
Scarlett hadn't disappointed him. After eating the Fuwa Fuwa no Mi, his strength grew at a pace that exceeded even Indigo's expectations. With training, drawing on the profound combat talent natural to his kind and an intelligence that missed very little, Scarlett had within a few years fully mastered every application of the ability that Shiki himself had once used, and made it entirely his own.
They had been close to ready. Indigo's research was nearly complete, and the moment it was, they would have gone after Rosinante together. Then Rosinante had vanished, and the Navy had announced his death, and all of it had collapsed into nothing.
With the target gone, Indigo had buried himself back in his research. There was nothing else to do. He had given up on the idea of revenge entirely.
And now Rosinante had reappeared. The tears that had come weren't grief. They were the sudden, overwhelming release of years of resignation giving way all at once.
"The big red fellow is out in the back garden," the large man said, grinning. "Entertaining a few of his, ah, companions."
"That degenerate ape," Indigo muttered, already heading for the door. "Spending every day doing nothing but siring offspring. I hope he hasn't let himself go completely soft."
...
That was more or less how the years had gone for both of them after the Navy's announcement. With their purpose stripped away, Indigo had thrown himself into his pharmaceutical research, and Scarlett had thrown himself into considerably less academic pursuits.
The years had been productive in their own way. Scarlett had fathered dozens of sons by now. Several of them, born of human mothers, combined a human's sharpness of mind with the immense physical power of the Rare Beasts, a combination that was, to say the least, unusual.
At this particular moment, Scarlett was in the back garden, occupied with his newest acquisition and entirely unbothered by the outside world.
Indigo's footsteps announced him before he even reached the door, that distinctive shuffling rhythm that couldn't be mistaken for anyone else.
He could already hear Scarlett through the wall, laying on the flattery with tremendous enthusiasm.
"Scarlett! You shameless ape, get out here! It's time to avenge Master Shiki!"
A screech rang out from inside. Then a section of the ground heaved upward, stone blocks flying into a rough wall between Scarlett and Indigo's line of sight, and a moment later Scarlett came bounding out, shrieking and jabbing a finger at Indigo with what appeared to be genuine indignation.
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. I was too hasty." Indigo held up a hand. "But you had better not have gotten so comfortable with this life that you've forgotten everything. We have a job to do, and I need to know that you haven't let your skills rot."
Scarlett shrieked again, beating his chest.
"Fair enough. Then here's the situation. Ten years ago the Navy declared Rosinante dead. It turns out they didn't finish the job. He appeared just recently, right there in the Sabaody Archipelago."
Scarlett went still for a moment. Then a grin spread across his face, wild and sharp, and he beat his chest again with a sound that shook the walls.
"Good. Then we leave immediately. Destination: Sabaody Archipelago." Indigo turned on his heel and headed back toward the laboratory to pack.