While Alclara was a place no major crime syndicates called home, the five families of the west each vied for control of its underworld with puppet gangs that worked on their behalf, fostering their influences and allowing them to do their business smoothly.
These puppet gangs were a continuous problem that the Alclara military and the Marines tried to deal with... or, well, they would if they weren't so busy being paid off by the lot of them using the money these gangs got from their "sponsors" among the five families.
Moria and his friends, for his part, was no friend of any of these gangs and actually despised pretty much all of them as a matter of principle.
He spent much of his time growing up since he ate his devil fruit at 4 years old tussling with these gangs, winning the ensuing fights, and extorting their leaders into giving him a bunch of shares of these gang's profits by holding these leader's shadows hostage.
Of the 12 shadows, the strength of 12 men, that he possessed by the time he started sailing as a pirate: 8 were from members of these gangs and 4 were from criminals who had popped up around the territory, all of whom were sitting in their rightful cells, deprived of Vitamin D.
On a different note, on the southwestern shore of Alclara was a small port town, named Fostrum, which was nonetheless home to the second largest shipyard in the nation, owned by the Fostrum Shipwrights Company.
The ship Gecko Moria had commissioned from the Fostrum Shipwrights Company was done and Moria was speaking with one of the shipwrights to finalize the exchange and get all the details in order.
As for the ship itself, it was a decent sized caravel, probably too big to be manned by just 3 normal people but Stoker was experienced in sailing and Moria and Elaina were hardly normal. A normal ship by all means, made of teak wood with black accents and a dragon figurehead with its wings splayed.
Elaina's eyes were somewhat puffy from the night before but she was pushing through to be here, studying Stoker's movements as he showed her the process of tying a mooring knot.
If they didn't know about it before, it might surprise most to know how quickly Elaina was absorbing basics of mooring and unmooring a ship which Stoker was attempting to tutor her in, so much so that on multiple occasions she succeed in tying some unorthodox or complex knots on her first try after watching Stoker do the same.
"I swear," Stoker said exasperatedly, "no matter how many times it happens I can't wrap my head around how you learn to do this stuff so well first try."
"Do you need me to spell it out for you again?" Elaina asked in response.
"Go ahead," he responded, "I didn't get it the first twenty times, but hey, maybe if I hear you explain it enough times I'll absorb enough of it to do it too, or at least start learning stuff faster."
"It's like...," she began, "when I look at the way a muscle moves, I can try focusing myself on thinking about it over and over, and then I try it. Sometimes it works and if it doesn't, I try again and optimize it for my intended effect. Sometimes it comes out the other end a bit different because I'm not just copying the movement, just trying to imitate an effect."
"Yeah, it still doesn't make much sense to me. I mean, your presupposing that you're capable of perfectly recalling information. No human is capable of that."
"I don't know man, I'm human as far as I know, but I still manage it," Elaina concluded before turning her head to look at the street the shipyard was built on the side of to see something.
As Moria split with the shipwright he was talking to, Elaina got his attention without much urgency and pointed out, "Oi captain, looks like we got company."
Moria looked at her and then followed her gaze to meet a group of young men and women walking close together.
They all had red jackets with a -T- overlaying the line through a Capital -A- on the back and were all led by a tall (by human standards; 6'3") man with long black hair, earrings with dangling red tassels on them, and a longer version of the jacket.
The leader turned to the shipyard dock as the group was about to pass by it, his eyes meeting Moria's with an unmotivated stare before proceeding to walk towards him while the rest of his gang stayed on the street and all exchanged waves with Elaina and Stoker.
The man stopped a few meters from Moria, still looking up to meet the eyes of the abnormality who towered over the man at more than 10 feet tall.
"How's it Tassel?" Moria asked, a smirk playing on his face, "Come to send us off? Sadly it seems you're the only one who did."
"Yes," he responded tiredly, "Matthew's still mad at you for taking his shadow and you know how Miriam is."
"Fair enough," Tassel's hair and earrings swayed as he turned his head to meet the eyes of Stoker, leaning against the ship's side railing while Elaina sat on top of the the railing looking away, when he interjected, "Considering the rumors about the Giuseppe Family and the Miriam we know, apples don't seem to fall far from that particular tree."
"Having met her family...," Tassel responded as his brows scrunched in annoyance to the memory "...I can say it indeed does not."
"Then I'll have to leave it to you," Moria said, ignoring the small talk his crewmate had made as he turned and walked to the edge of the docks and laid his hand gently on the ship
"Leave what now?"
"Alclara,"
"No, like, What do you mean?"
"I mean that when we're gone you better not let this place descend into all out war." Moria said, before turning to look at Tassel with a stern look in his eyes and his smirk gone, "I don't care how much the other gangs hate me or you. If you all are fighting in the streets, it's ordinary people who'll suffer the most."
"Fine," he responded as he turned to walk back to the street, "Just don't get yourselves killed by something stupid like a storm."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Moria called back, before he looked up at his crewmates to address them, "Alright we're good to go, let's get this thing unmoored and circle the island to get the hang of sailing it."
---
"They should be fine," Vik assured Diantha who leaned against her husband, himself indulging in smoking from an ornate, decorated pipe, the both of them sitting on the porch while Vik sat behind them on his rocking chair, "Moria's shadow sharing and Elaina's adaptability make for a combination few and far between. As a matter of my experience, I'd say a well used devil fruit ability with a dash of ingenuity and adaptability are without question the most important qualities that contribute to the survivability and potential of a pirate crew."
"We both know that's not quite what I'm worried about," Diantha responded dispiritedly, "You and I know better than most what kind of challenges await them if they're going. I've gone along with not saying a word about Haki to them until now, but it's always been on my mind... whether or not that was a mistake, I mean."
"And by their combination I meant that it would be the solution to that exact problem, don't worry," Vik responded, "Moria's smart, Elaina's quick and analytical, they won't exactly be kicking hornets nests they aren't sure they can escape the consequences of."
"Besides...," Vik continued, closing his eyes to sigh and shivering a bit, "the elements won't be their biggest problems."
Iasus took his pipe from his mouth and blew a stream of smoke away from Vik and his wife before asking, "Is that also you speaking from experience? This about the guy you met again, which none of your crew met?"
"You don't get it..."
"I feel like I would if you explained it better."
Vik paused a moment before staring into space and finishing, "When you stare death in the face, you don't seek to conquer it, you just accept it."
"He's dead. He can't hurt you brother."
"I know," Vik conceded, "But I don't think that'll stop him from haunting my dreams."
"Then," Diantha changed the subject, "How are their chances? What's the forecast for their journey?"
"Well, you know. As much as the seas seem to change, not much really does. 13 years after the fracturing of the strongest pirates on the sea, the rabble of pirate island has been wrangled while the rest continue fighting over territory in the new world. Roger's off somewhere, doing as Roger does, causing chaos and having fun on an adventure. Shiki's probably the only one to worry about but as I understand he's busy for the moment, mobilizing his armada for... something, but he's the sort that makes it fair to predict a disaster at the most inopportune moment."
"So that means," Diantha trailed, "smooth sailing as long as they stay off the marine radar."
"And Moria probably won't let that happen," Vik concluded, "not with what he's been through."
Diantha quirk her brow before asking, "I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure. What exactly are you referring to?"
"Being different. Keeping your head down. He only started growing abnormally large after he ate his devil fruit. Before then, he couldn't just fight off bullies if they decided to gang up on him."
"Are you telling me the devil fruit itself is responsible for his abnormal features?"
"No, actually," Iasus interjected, "it was just the trigger."
"How do you know?"
"Because I've seen it before."
"Where?"
"One of our sisters," Vik responded, "When she went out to sea as a pirate they weren't there but when we saw her wanted poster she had grown these tiny pink horns. As I understand she had eaten a devil fruit at some point in the interim."
"You don't see it around all that often," Iasus explained "But what me and Vik have gathered is that there's a bloodline scattered around which can, but doesn't always, react to devil fruit powers by altering the body. Though, the changes can happen to people who don't have devil fruits or not happen to direct relatives who do in some cases, like Vik, facts which respectively make me think that 1: It's not just triggered by devil fruits, and 2: it's recessive."
"So wait this family is like Moria? Is he a distant relative? And did you two always know about this?
"Yup," Vik responded to the first question, "it's thin but that blood run's in our veins, whether or not the kids'll have it depends on whether or not it's in yours."
"As for Moria," Iasus continued, "While Stoker's parents met and discussed their child's future with the orphanage's matron and staff and he could learn about his parents from them, nobody knows who or where Moria's parents are, they left him by the door and were never seen by anyone. They might be related to us but no one can know for sure.
"As for us knowing about this..."
"I'm sure dad told us once upon a time," Vik said, "don't remember though. Do you little bro?"
"Dad died pretty young, before I can remember actually, and mom took over for him in teaching me everything I needed to know. She didn't see fit to tell me, so I didn't know until I looked into it when we saw big sis's poster. There's a section in the family histories about it but it's pretty vague on the details. Basically it boils down to: they met a special people in their travels, mingled with them, and the next generation was born bearing their blood. It doesn't go into at all who these people were or what was special about them."
Diantha hummed in contemplation at these answers before closing her eyes before responding to Vik's musings on her having the blood or heritage, "I wouldn't know about whether we have it, we aren't taught history, only how to make lives for ourselves. Even considering how young I was when I was taken, the women of Amazon Lily don't tend to care much for the past, only the present."