Part 7.4

AN: This story is back... Surprise.

XoXoXoX

The nobleman right by the fireplace in the large scholar grunts rudely when I'm done asking my question. I can tell he's a noble cause I've gotten really familiar with the fancy clothes nobles like recently. All the nobles from Diz-Harmony wore nice clothes like that. I figured out you can tell when cloth is fancy because when you wear it for longer than a day it doesn't give you callouses or rope burns like the clothes in prison did.

"Another stray in from the rain. Who are you supposed to be?" The noble said, sounding like he would rather be anywhere else in the world than right here right now. I bet he wouldn't be talking like that if he spent even a single day in Impel Down.

"I'm Ten-Thousand Thirteen." I say, introducing myself to the people in the room. Some people have a brief intake of breath while others seem to either not care or don't recognize my name. Which is expected of course. If I can't read, it's not unfair to assume that there's other people out there that can't read either. It's just that I haven't met any of them yet.

I really hope I'm not the only person who can't read.

"You don't look that old." The nobleman replies casually. "If anything you look like you're in your late twenties."

Do I really look that old? "Ten-Thousand Thirteen is my name. But recently people have been calling me something else." I explain, hopefully clearing up any confusion.

"Recently people have been calling me Tennoh Thirteen."

Now the man seems to recognize me. Sweat begins to bead up on his brow and it looks like he wants to say something. His mouth is moving, but no words are coming out.

"Lack of words? That's okay. I find myself struggling with words too sometimes. Especially when I try to describe something I think is amazing. The first time I saw the sun, a town burning around me, the feeling I get when I squeeze the trigger on my gun, or even when I see other people indulging themselves and I'm the one feeling happy. I don't have any words for when I'm feeling like that."

I was going to continue monologuing about how I'm frustrated by my vocabulary sometimes when a loud sigh comes from one of the other people in the room. A woman wearing some rugged exploration gear and a fancy plinth helmet. I like the helmet. She gets my attention with her loud sigh and when she sees me looking at her she says, "We get it, we get it. You're a big bad scary pirate who's going to be a warlord now. We've heard of you. Good for you Tennoh. But we're in the middle of something here and you interrupted us all. So do you think you can put your ego away long enough for us to start introducing ourselves? You barged in and introduced yourself first, which make the huge argument we were having about who was going to introduce themselves first pointless!"

…I interrupted something? Whoops. That was rude of me. Wait. Was it rude of this lady to sound rude to me? I think I still count as human garbage because I haven't signed that paper that makes me a Warlord yet. In which case I really didn't have the right to interrupt them. I should probably just sit down for now.

I bow my head apologetically and say, "Sorry.", to the whole room. Then I pick up one of Midnight Chow's legs and drag him over to an unoccupied sofa. I toss him on the sofa, ignoring the angry muttering from the noble lady, and sit in an armchair next to the sofa on the opposite side of the room from everybody else.

"Did you really just tell an infamous pirate to shut up and sit down?" A nerdy looking guy sitting next to an old man asks the woman who told me off.

"Yup." The woman says proudly, putting emphasis on the 'p'. "Now that the interruption is over, I believe the guy who actually owns this dump was going to introduce himself."

The nobleman by the fireplace seems to get out of whatever shock he was in before and shoots me a stink eye. Then he sneers at the rest of the people in the room. "If you plebs are going to be spending even a single moment more in my home I demand you call me by my full name and title. I am Prince Rubilous Estrana Duxtrun of Duxtrun! The only reason you plebs are even in my summer home is because the recent invasion of the Whitebeard Pirates cause damage to Marine HQ and the recent… rumors about them moving their base of operations to the New World. I offered my home as a temporary office for the least utilized functions of government as an offer of kindness on my part, but I never suspected that doing so would bring so many ruffians to my home on a single day. At the very worst I suspected only three plebs at a time casting their ill gazes in my direction. The fact that I have to deal with so many of the unwashed masses at the same time is a tragedy unto itself."

When the Prince is done talking he looks to his left at an elderly man in some comfortable yet functional looking robes sitting on a simple stool. The man has a short light green beard and a bald head. He runs his hand over his beard a few times before he introduces himself. "Hmmmm. I'm no one near as grand as his highness here. I'm just a professor from a scholar enclave in North Blue trying to get approval for some paperwork so my apprentice and I can begin cataloguing local species of algae. I'm Professor Bacarat."

The young man was the one who spoke up when the women in the plinth helmet started yelling at me. He wore suspenders and slacks, and had a thick pair of glasses. "Errr... My name is Kiten and I'm Professor Bacarat's apprentice. I'm just a student… Errr… I don't know what else to say."

If Kiten doesn't have anything to say I'll just say what everyone is thinking. "You're awkward as shit." I say aloud to Kiten so everyone in the room can hear. Someone has to obvious, might as well be me.

Kiten looks devastated by the truth and the next person introduces themselves. It's a rather short and fat woman wearing nicer clothing that nobles tend to enjoy and fanning herself. Her dress is an expensive gown with plenty of gems on it I wouldn't mind stealing at all. "Ah am Doochess Taliar. Ah am here tah fahcilitate anah documentsah that ah havh tah in ordah tah finish ah debt that ah owe to mah dear friend Rubilous so he mah havh his home vacahteh as soon as possiblhe."

Is… is this woman having a stroke of some kind? A brain hemorrhage? Is this sohe kind ah coontahgus diseesah? Oh god it's spreading!

As I panic over losing my ability to sound like myself the rest of the people introduce themselves.

"I am Rear Admiral Vice. Mannigan Vice. I am temporarily assigned to this office until either the old one is repaired or a new one is built." The Rear Admiral who introduced guided me here says, reintroduced himself to the room.

"I am Nalis Ovar. I am serving as a secretary for Rear Admiral Vice." A thin woman wearing a business suit standing by the walls says. She pushes up her glasses when she does, and for a moment I'm reminded of Klahadore. The butler pushes his glasses up in exactly the same way.

"I'm Huegar. Just Huegar. I'm a mercenary for hire. Well, not right now seeing as how I'm on the job. Right now I'm a bodyguard for his highness over here." Huegar is a tall man. Not as tall as me but still tall. He has a hook nose and wears a pair of leather pants, a bright red shirt with a yellow vest on top, and on top of that is a kind of fur cape. On his belt within easy reach is a wicked looking axe with a spike on the opposite side. I think those are called shield spikes or something. Back in Impel Down Fredigar would occasionally begin monologuing about axes and shield spikes were one of the thing she would talk about. They're a spike you attach to the backside of an axe to go through wooden shields, light armor, or to do fancy maneuvers with.

At that moment Midnight Chow begins to wake up and I don't waste any time gently nudging him with my iron boot. Doing it gently doesn't seem to do anything to make him wake up quicker however. Seems I'll have to do this the Impel Down way. I move my boot until it's directly over him, then let my boot down and begin to slowly apply pressure.

It doesn't take long for Chow to wake up and when he does he's clutching his sides and giving me a look. I'm not the best at interpreting looks, but I'll go out on a limb and say it's mainly an annoyed expression. An annoyed expression with a lot of pain.

"Introduce yourself." I tell him. Then I grab the back of his shirt and easily lift him up onto his feet. Chow wipes the dust from the front of the grease stained apron he wears before looking around the room at the unimpressed people around him. I'm not really paying attention but somebody in the room causes his eyes to narrow and for him to clench his teeth. Then his face goes back to normal.

"I'm… Midnight Chow. Just a humble chef working for Warlord Thirteen. I make breakfast for breakfast, breakfast for lunch, and breakfast for dinner. Dessert is breakfast as well in case anyone is curious." Chow says. Personally I like his introduction. It's short and to the point while also mentioning breakfast.

Thinking of breakfast makes me hungry for dinner… I hope its breakfast.

"I'm Wannah Von Ohmore. I'm an explorer who works with my brother who makes maps. Together we make the navigation charts that most of the Marines use on the more manageable parts of the Grand Line." The lady wearing the plinth helmet who was being sassy earlier says.

"Ello. I'm Emara Von Ohmore. I'm a cartographer who works with my younger sister like she said. Once we finish our authorization paperwork we'll be gone in a jiff." Emara is an older man who resembles Wannah wearing a vest with tons of pockets and a plinth helmet just like his sister.

"I'm Uther! I'm here waiting for my Uncle to come here and pick me up! I'm thirteen years old and I go to Bastion Military School. When I grow up I want to be an Admiral in the Marines!" I younger kid sitting in a chair says. He's short, has blond hair, and wears some kind of… school uniform I guess? Uther has this whole innocent look going for him, but I'm not fooled. I can see the dagger he has hidden in his pocket and the knife in his boot. He looks like the kind of kid that would stab a guy in the back. Means I'm going to have to do my best to only show him my front. Sadly it seems everyone else in the room seems to have fallen for Uther's act.

There's a butler in the room who clears his throat. Wait. They have a very feminine voice and on second look the butler is definitely a woman. I think Elizabeth mentioned something like this once. This person is technically a maid, not a butler.

"My name is Beni. I am a butler working this mansion." The female butler says introducing herself without any flourish. Makes sense, seeing as how they're an employee working here and not someone here to do any fancy paperwork like the rest of us.

With that done everyone in the room, including myself look at the last person in the room. The guy standing in the shadow of the staircase. His cigarette is still unlit and he doesn't say anything as he looks around the room.

"I'm Crump, I'm from Pitch City, and I'm nobody important." He says. Several people widen their eyes when he says that he's from Pitch City, including Midnight Chow, but I don't care where he's from. I pay attention to the fact he said he's no one important. I used to think I was nobody important, and he's reminding me of something. Some memory in the back of my head is ringing a very faint bell that just won't stop.

Before anyone else can say anything there's a loud flushing sound from a door nearby. After some muffled cursing followed by a second flush the door opens. Stepping out of what is apparently the bathroom is a fat man, who I instantly hate. He's decked out in a fancy suit and has a large mustache that he's curled up with grease to make extra fancy. He wears a single ring that catches my eye because it isn't gold like I expected from a noble, but is stone instead. He's smiling at everyone in the room and spreads his arms out wide like he wants to give everybody a hug.

"Greetings! I'm Ambassador Timiric from Short-Island. I'm pleased to meet you and hope we can all have a pleasant time together until our fateful parting."

Everybody, except for the fem-butler and Crump, is looking at Tmiric. It's not a nice looking looks either. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the guy either. I only hate the guy because he's fat, I have no idea why everybody else seems to hate him.

Timiric seems to sense all of the hostility in the room and stops smiling. Then he turns to the bathroom before looking back. "Hey, it's not that bad in there. Some industrial bleach, and a new toilet seat, and it will be as good as new."

He then scratches his chin before looking around the room again. "So when's dinner? I don't know about the rest of you but I'm starving over here. A big shit will do that to a man."

Beside me Midnight Chow smiles. It's not a nice smile either. "Dinner today will be breakfast."

Timiric laughs. "Having the first meal of the day for the last meal of the day sounds great."