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Whew! Caught up after the somewhat later Pokemon Adventure release! It did help that this month's Halfway Broken was split more evenly between the release on the first and this one, each of them being roughly 8,300 and 8,500 words respectively. That actually brings the total between them up well above the normal 15k target, but it was divided almost evenly between the releases this time, instead of the bulk being in the mid-month release.

Anyway! I've been dying a little inside to release this one, since the speculation about who would be the new Fleet Admiral had me really wanting to say things, but anything I said would have been a spoiler T-T. I kept having to do the keyboard equivalent of biting my tongue! It was almost physically painful! Maybe psychically painful instead? Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's the first thing off the line in this update ;-).

As you might expect with me saying that, there will be commentary in Author's Note once I get the chance to write them. First and foremost, though, is the usual spiel. You know, that the new bits of story are attached here in various formats, and I'll be updating the Master Files containing the entire story in the Pinned Post shortly.

Enjoy more of Halfway Broken!

As usual, the art isn't mine! Vivi is by danieltorresmen, Nami by bnmayamaba, and Robin by bubu2432!

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Novus's Fanfiction Works

This comment is for author's notes! Beware spoilers! And if you want to comment on one of them, please do so in a separate comment NOT nested here, in order to keep these orderly!

Novus's Fanfiction Works

Chapter 77: A/N 1: *Gassssppppp* Whew! I can finally talk about the Fleet Admiral thing! A bunch of you thought of Garp...and then dismissed him because he'd laugh in their face! You were right! But, of course, also wrong! What you all forgot is that the WG in One Piece are right bastards who don't know the meaning of playing fair. They don't like Garp, not really, but that only made it MORE appealing to finally have a means to at least partially force him to comply in a way that was useful to them. Specifically, by blackmailing him with Luffy. Let's face it. Garp was SERIOUSLY conflicted over Ace. How much more true would that be over Luffy, who he's shown MUCH more attachment to even in canon, let alone in this story where he spent quite a lot more time with Luffy. He's also high enough up the chain to understand just how deep Luffy stepped in it, and that Luffy isn't ready to have the Gods Knights coming for him and his crew. Yet, at the same time, he has faith that his grandson WILL be ready if given some time and space to grow. So, on the one hand, you've got the WG who have the chance to turn the screws on Garp. To force him to work for them properly, and even fight his son's forces for a couple of years. On the other, you have Garp, who despite acting like an idiot most of the time, is smart enough to know that they are handing him a chance to but his brand of justice into the Marines...while also giving his grandson a chance to survive the bullshit the WG started with him in the first place. Of course Garp took the chance...with full intention of making them regret it by the time he's done. They know that, he knows that, and now it's a game to see who wins out. Garp's ideals or the WG's manipulations. Either way, the WG gets a couple of years of recovery for the Marines under someone who had hold off the sharks and give the people faith in them. So they see it as a win in the short term, no matter who comes out as the long-term winner of their little gambit... A/N 2: RIP Mihawk's hopes and dreams. I actually always liked him as a character, but I also always believed if it came down to a true fight between him and Shanks something like this would be the result. For all the reasons I outlined. Shanks is a monster, even in canon. Managing to become a Yonko without a DF and missing an arm...and fully capable of bouncing Kaidou and forcing and end to the events of Marineford just by showing up. Here, with never having lost that arm? He's even more dangerous. A/N 3: So, my opinion on why the Whitebeard crew couldn't hold together after Marineford? Marco's not a leader. He's a badass who probably WAS strong enough to hold everything together, but there's very little sign he actually tried to in canon. Here, with Ace still alive and far more of a...if you'll forgive the terrible joke...firebrand than Marco? The core of Whitebeard's fleet will have a very good chance of holding together and remaining a major player. Ace might not quite pull off holding onto a Yonko title, but he and the Division Commanders can at least protect most of Whitebeard's old territory... A/N 4: Cobra's no idiot and is taking every step he can. As for what Fruit he ate...well, you'll just have to wait and see ;-). I will say that there's going to be a bit of humor value in it...

Novus's Fanfiction Works

Chapter 78: A/N 1: This chapter is mostly getting the crew caught up on events and setting the stage for the next arc. Not a lot to say about it, honestly.

Novus's Fanfiction Works

Chapter 79: A/N 1: This chapters isn't QUITE between-arcs-filler. It does some more set up for a few things. Like starting to nudge Vivi gently into the relationship dynamic. As well as simply giving some 'screen time' to a few characters that haven't gotten as much of it. Kaya is, honestly, turning out to be quite entertaining to write. She's a bizarre mix of non-violent healer, quiet badass, and mad scientist...

Orchamus

Poor Shanks having to maim his friend in both mind and body😔 And honestly surprised they made Garp Fleet Admiral, makes sense in thinking on the tasks given but still kinda surprising

Derek Palm

I cought that the alabasta kingdom had upgraded their port guns was that luffy's design they used or dials

Dominique Brassel

Ah wonderful as always....... So I am still wondering what dis last fruit will be but I sadly need to wait for that ...... But speaking of fruits as a defensive one for cobra could be the barrier fruit as I don't know when bartolomeo got his hand on that one ,next he could have somehow gotten his hand on that mafia guys fortress fruit ....... So garp that will be interesting.... now I have several ideas to what he could do as his orders are to not lose more territory and up morale..... So first the marines technically do not own territory the affiliated kingdoms do...... So garp will likely focus on stamping out the more violent pirate crews.... Second we have corruption which is of course bad to for morale of troops so that is something he will likely also focus on..... Next is that as far as I remember slavery is actually outlawed by the world government in all affiliated kingdoms so he will likely crack down on the "illegal" slave trade...... And lastly for now is that he is to hold the "territory" not gain new "territory" so now incursens into not affiliated places or trying to regain back what the revolutionary army already took..... Of course we still have zephyr and his neo-marines that could crop up .... As a split in the Marines is also bad for morale we could even have a marine civil war....... So kaya the mad scientist is incredibly cute let's populate the world with cute but incredibly powerful creatures that protect islands from evil pirates and governments....... Also mh rabbit DNA for Usopp so he can do kaya really good 👍 she should give it all the male crew members... Luffy needs to be able to satisfy and tire out his whole eventual harem and that will include Yamato...... Now I look forward to what the crew will learn in there training and the eventual time skip...... Also consider that if you do a time skip and not show us what all they learn during it you can do partial revels when it's appropriate and omit/not show stuff from the character sheets or don't show those till you want to reveal new stuff ......

J.Rogue

Good stuff! Do we have a solid idea of where they will train or just training while traveling?

Eklis

Holy shit!! This will have so many changes in the future!! Can't wait to see what their training will be like!!

Luke Pitchford

I wonder if Cobra ate Wapol’s fruit. That primarily seems defensive with some offensive utility. But also, in cannon, didn’t he make an extremely strong metal? That could really help both Alabasta and the crew.

Camille

This was great thanks for the update! Garp makes a lot of sense, the WG is going to regret it deeply though 😂 Nice to see Gion as Admiral, is she replacing Akainu? Will he be délires to Vice Admiral after getting fixed by Vegapunk? Garp is probably going to love Fujitora, and hate Greenbull. He might actually influence the recruiting initiative in the next two years! Anyway, Mihawk losing an arm is sad but makes sense. (Btw, it’s speculated that Shanks lost his arm on purpose so that he would lose the mark of the Abyss. If he still has his arm, do you have a plan for how he would have gotten ris of it? Or does he still have it? That seems pretty bad if he can be summoned whenever… ) Looking forward to the training arc!

Robert Lemanski

> Cobra's no idiot and is taking every step he can. As for what Fruit he ate...well, you'll just have to wait and see ;-). I will say that there's going to be a bit of humor value in it. I'mma laugh if it lets him turn into a solid statue or something, because a Solid Snake Cobra would be 10/10.

Robert Lemanski

Luffy already has dat Zoan animal endurance, so he's got his ladies covered.

Robert Lemanski

> Kaidou, Linlin, and even Whitebeard had all possessed powerful Devil Fruits to reach the top. Shanks didn’t have one, tended to outright dismiss them in fact, because he didn’t need one. Haki had always been his edge, just as it had his first Captain’s before him, and Rayliegh’s too for that matter. His first Captain's? This Shanks has had more than one Captain? Also, for Cobra's new defensive Devil Fruit, it's almost certainly not the case, but it'd be hilarious if it was Sengoku's Golden Buddha.

WhatAFungi

Great chapter. However, I’ve never wanted to fuck a boat more.

BPellet

Thank you for answering so many of our questions from the last update so quickly. Overall it was a really great update, and I always find the shifting pov's to be really enjoyable as well. Garp getting hit with the position was something I wasn't expecting, but now that he has it it'll be interesting to see how he can piss off the celestial dragons by "doing his job". Also, I'm kind of surprised Borsalino was completely skipped over for future fleet admiral in favor of Gion. With Gion being made an admiral I guess Akainu is officially demoted due to his poor performance and the fact Garp hates him. The fact Akainu was sent to Vegapunk is concerning though, he's either going to get the Kuma treatment or be used to make Akainu pacifistas/seraphims. RIP Mihawk too, I hope he still has the potential to fulfill a teacher role for Zoro or Kuina since he's too cool of a character to be cast aside. Thank you for the update Novus!

Novus's Fanfiction Works

Mostly it will be training while traveling, hitting numerous islands. Though the next Arc will take place back in the East Blue for...reasons that are technically possible to guess but I'm unsure if anyone will manage :-p.

Novus's Fanfiction Works

She is replacing him at least for now. Akainu was badly injured enough that he'll need a lot of time with Vegapunk and won't come back the same. Pushing Gion up to Admiral also provides them another relatively stable and well known individual to immediately fill the slot. One who can work with Garp specifically. They are essentially banking on building her into someone of similar strength as the previous Admirals quickly, while minimizing conflict with Garp who they are intelligence enough to know is going to be trouble. Huh, I didn't actually know about the speculation of Shanks maybe losing his arm on purpose. I just looked the reveal of that up and it only came out on June 23 -_-. So I had no idea about it. The frustrating thing about Oda is he kinda just seems to throw shit in randomly at times, so it's impossible to plan for. There was, so far as I know, no previous hints in the series that Shanks might have been involved with Imu >_<. It may end up being an AU element to the fic that I couldn't have predicted when I started writing it. There will actually be another arc before the training arc really starts. But that's all I will say ;-).

Novus's Fanfiction Works

I have no idea. The 'first' was really more of a hedge against the unknown elements in Shanks' past. There is a two year gap between Roger's death and Shank's first recruit in Yasopp. What he was doing, so far as I know, we currently don't know. That would be humorous :-p. But no, it's a more plebian but useful fruit than that.

Novus's Fanfiction Works

Lol, not a sentence you hear very often ;-). I'd say never, but the Kantai Collection exists. Along with a few ships I can think of with AIs. Like EDI in Mass Effect.

Novus's Fanfiction Works

I thought Garp would throw people for a loop ;-). So far as I can tell, Borsalino was never considered in canon due to having the wrong personality. Essentially treating his position like a 9-5 job where he's just putting the hours in and following orders. In canon, it was going to be either Kuzan or Sakazuki. With them dueling for the position and Kuzan losing. Here, one of them is out of the picture and Kuzan isn't an ideal fit when they just took a major public faith hit with Sengoku biting it. Because of both Garp's previous reputation AND his strong showing at the end of the Marineford battle, they want to use him to at least prop up public faith while they rebuild.

Robert Lemanski

That's fair to hedge your bets for those two years, though imo it's highly unlikely he had another Captain during those two years because in canon he offered Buggy a spot on his crew (the first person he offered as far as we know) literally the day of Roger's execution before their tears had dried. It'd be weird if he went from "Buggy for nakama" to joining under someone else for two years before recruiting Yasopp. Plus he almost certainly recruited Benn Beckmann before Yasopp too.

Novus's Fanfiction Works

I agree, but it only cost a single word to future proof so it didn't really hurt anything. I think he was actually shown sailing in Syrup alone, which would imply Yasopp was the first.

Novus's Fanfiction Works

Good Guesses for Cobra's fruit, but not correct ones ;-). So bit of a correction for you...the Marines are the military arm of the World Government. The other groups the WG have like CP-9 or the God's Knights? Those are the equivalent of the CIA or NSA. The Marines ARE the WG's military arm. Meaning that yes, they are responsible for defending all territory of allied nations. Any forces than said nation's have are only the equivalent of National Guard or Police units. Slavery is not outlawed in One Piece, so far as I know.

Robert Lemanski

Actually, it's unclear in the manga Chapter 0 if Shanks was alone as it's just him with the rest of his row boat cut off panel, but in the anime Episode 0 Yasopp sees Shanks rowing in on a row boat from a larger ship, implying Shanks already had the start of a crew. Here's a quick screenshot of it for reference. https://i.imgur.com/Sz2dCQg.jpeg

Dominique Brassel

Well I looked the stuff up on the wiki because it confused me.... The marines are the seaborne military arm of the wg tasked with maritime law enforcement and naval warfare operations only ..... not the actual complete military of the wg as the nations should still have there own military forces like you know alabasta has So the marines are theoretically only responsible for blocking invasion by sea or giving naval fire support or of course pursuing Maritime "law" breakers like pirates or smugglers..... Next officially the WG abolished and prohibits slavery....... Of course the tenriubitu are above all laws and directives so they can do what they want it is also why it is kind of a big deal that they have slaves

Camille

Yeah writing a One Piece Fanfiction before the manga is finished is always going to result in some continuity errors so don’t worry about it too much. It’s great that there might finally be an explanation for the huge plot hole that is Shanks losing an arm to a weak Seaking when he is strong enough at that point to be preparing to head out to the New World with his crew. With your story’s emphasis on spiritual energy though you could work with that concept and make it so that Shanks found another solution to get rid of Imu’s mark instead of cutting his arm off lol. As for being involved with Imu, there were hints in film Red that he was a former Celestial Dragon I think (didn’t watch it), and Oda gave us that panel of ‘Shanks’ chatting with the five elders in chapter 907 (it was revealed recently in chapter 1137 that it wasn’t him though) which also linked Shanks to Mary Geoise. We also still don’t know what exactly Shanks’s tattoo was though, the mark of the abyss is still just speculation I think (not totally up to date with the manga chapters though so that might not be true anymore). He might have visited Mary Geoise in the two years before he recruited Yasopp, where he could have been given the mark to try and control him maybe? Or perhaps it’s just a family crest and he has had it since birth and isn’t actually the same mark that is used to teleport through the pentagrams. Anyway, this is all to say that I have no clue, but that you probably have options to make your story make sense with regards to canon even without making it an AU if you wanted. Looking forward to the arc before the training one then! Take care :)

DB

Wonder if luffy will meet his number one fan girl, Boa Hancock

The Foreign Traveler

GARP AS FLEET FUCKING ADMIRAL!?!?! It’s official now: Pigs have flown. The World is flat. Hell has frozen over. Imu has shaken hands with Nika. …Nami has happily given away ALL of her Belly/Berry along with her backup stash AND hidden stash, of her own free will. Okay, last two MAY be a bit overboard but this is fucking GARP we’re talking about here! …I think the WG has made the biggest damn mistake of its entire EXISTENCE. I can practically HEAR both Dragon and Luffy laughing hysterically once this comes out since they KNOW Garp. …before Luffy hopefully realizes just WHY Garp would have to take it. As…GARP…as he can be, he does love Luffy and doesn’t want him to die. Oh Vivi…won’t be much longer now our lovely little desert princess~. Not before Robin likely gets a taste first though. While Robin’s Canon moment of admitting that she wants to live and stay with the Strawhats at Enies Lobby will never happen here, I wonder if something similarly momentous might happen later down the line? Time will tell and if it doesn’t then that’s fine too. Now then-! I see your serving of mouthwatering food that you’ve prepared for Novus here Sanji! And I raise you this minimal yet tasty morsel of Edits that I’ve prepared in turn! See if you find any mistakes here in my “cooking” you Black-Legged Chef! Edit 1: …that the man would be weeks or months recovering… …that the man would be weeks or months “from” recovering… Edit 2: “We should “defiantly” attend.” “We should “definitely” attend.” Edit 3: …on the act by “insisted” the play… …on the act by “insisting” the play…