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"Hiya there! Welcome to Emanon's! I'm Candy, and I'll be your waitress today!"

A waitress stood waiting at a restaurant in Clock Town.

"One order of grilled tilapia and a seafood salad? Comin' right up!"

She was waiting, yes... but what was she waiting for?

The girl ran to the pick-up window with surprising speed, easily maneuvering around the hands that attempted to grab at her.

"Papa! A number four and a number twenty-one!" she called into the kitchen.

"Of course. One moment, my precious daughter."

Candy loved her Papa. Bound to a wheelchair, he was always nice to her. She didn't know who her mother was, but she didn't care. She had her Papa.

"Order up!"

The plates were placed on the counter, the girl with the bunny ears and white cotton tail grabbing them, one in each hand, and rushing over to the table that ordered them with high speed.

Yes, she was a girl who was waiting...

"Here you go! Anything else I can get you?" she asked, a bright smile on her face.

"I'd like a refill on my glass of water, please."

"Oh! Of course. Coming right up, sir!"

She was waiting, but not for more customers...

"Here's your water, sir!"

"Thank you, Candy."

She was waiting, but not on tables...

"Hey, Candy! Will you be singing on stage tonight?"

"Oh, I hadn't thought about it." She brought her pen to her chin in thought. "Probably! It's always fun to get up on stage and sing for everyone!"

She had a great life. She lived on a popular vacation island chain where she got to meet new people from all over the world. She waited on tables with her wonderful Papa and got to eat her father's great food every day.

She had a great life.

"Papa! A number two and a number forty-three!"

"Coming right up, Candy."

She was just waiting...

"Check, please!"

"Of course! I'll be right over!"

She was waiting for something exciting to happen...

They were just beginning to wind down for the day. The lunch crowd had mostly left, with only a few loose stragglers. But then... a knock on the door.

"Candy? What is that?" her father called from the kitchen.

"I'm not sure. I think someone's knocking at the front door." she replied.

"But it's open. Strange... Could you answer it for me, sweetie?"

"Sure thing, Papa!"

Candy ran over to the door, opening it and sticking her head out.

"Hello! How can I help... you?"

She looked to see it was a very large man. He was blue... Was he a fishman? He was really big, though... Maybe he was just a really large fishman? Human heights and sizes differed greatly in the One Piece world. Maybe it was the same with fishmen.

Without skipping a beat, she craned her neck to look up at the wotan, smiling brightly and waving her arm high up in the air.

"Hello! How can I help you?" she repeated, properly finishing this time.

Candy bit her lip, crossing her arms and tapping her chin with her pen.

"Well, the catch of the day is pretty cheap. We can make you some, if you'd like. It's grilled elephant tuna. But just so you know, we have a bigger door in the back for our larger customers. Most places on the Seven Star Isles do. It's a resort island, so it has to be prepared for the larger-sized humans, ya know? We have a sign about it, don't we?"

The bunnygirl turned to look at the wall by the door.

"Hm. Guess it must have fallen off, or something. Anyway, all ceilings on buildings in commercial areas of the Seven Star Isles are required to be, at minimum, ten feet tall, with a floor-to-ceiling door in the back to accomodate them. Also helps unload cargo, ya know? It's a very international island. I see fishmen, giants, sky races, even longarm, longleg, and snakeneck tribesmen. The Seven Star Isles Tourism Beureau tries to make sure the islands' facilities are accessible by most people. It's a blast living here, actually!"

Wow, she could talk. She stopped when three people walked up to her, completely ignoring the huge wotan.

"Excuse me, but is this Emanon's?"

Candy turned to look at them.

One was a red-skinned, seven foot tall fishman with bulging muscles, rows of sharp teeth, and a chord sticking out from the top of his head like a qeue and falling back like a ponytail. He had two cutlasses sheathed at either waist, and was only wearing a pair of shorts and sandals, his incredibly muscled upper body on full display. He seemed to be the leader, as he had asked the question.

Next to him was a slightly shorter man, at probably only six feet, middle-aged and wearing faded blue overalls with one strap unbuttoned and hanging loose, brown work boots, a dress shirt with vertical blue and white strips, and what seemed like a train conductor's hat on his head. He had dark brown skin, a brush-like black mustace, and had two flintlock rifles strapped to his back in an X, two flintlock pistols strapped to his hips, and some kind of coin changer-like device at his belt, covering his groin.

The third stood behind them. She looked to be a little girl, probably no older than ten years old and only four and a half feet tall, in a school-girl outfit, complete with a green pleated skirt, white blouse, green tie, round green hat with a ribbon sticking out of the back, and clutching a thick book against her chest. She had large glasses on her face and brown hair tied into a long braid. She just stood there, smiling, behind the two men.

Candy shrugged off the odd feeling she got from the two men, smiling brightly at them.

"Yep! This is Emanon's!" she chirped.

"And is Emanon himself here?" the fishman continued.

"You bet! He's back in the kitchen!"

"Thanks, kid." the fishman replied, rubbing her on the top of her head as he walked in, flanked by the dark-skinned man and the little girl.

Candy straightened her tossled hair, turning back to the large Wotan, smiling at him.

"Take my hand!" she told him, holding up her tiny little hand for him. "I'll take you to the back entrance! Our ceilings are actually fifteen feet high, because some of Papa's best friends and business partners are very large!"

Candy lead the Wotan to the back, where a large door that opened like a hatch from the bottom stood. Candy reached for a cord at the bottom and lifted it up, the hinge mechanism making it go all the way up automatically.

She led the Wotan into the back storage room, pausing when she heard the sound of pots and pans falling to the floor just in the next room.

"Um... Wait here, sir. I'll be right back." she told the new customer, creeping over to the archway that separated the storeroom from the kitchen.

"I swear, I don't know what you're talking about!" a distressed voice pleaded, evident to both Candy and Anshi.

"Cut the act, Emanon." the Fishman growled. "We know you're ol' No Name. You hid your trail pretty well, but luckily our captain is a certified genius. Higher IQ than Kuro of a Thousand Plans, even."

Candy peeked around the corner to see the fishman holding up her father by the throat, his legs dangling over his wheelchair.

"Please, let me go. I left that life behind me. I have a daughter now." he whimpered.

"Look, if you won't come with us to meet our captain, we have permission to just kill you."

"No, you can't! Everyone in town knows me! You'll become wanted by the Militia!"

"Please, Angler, would you just eviscerate the old chap, please? I grow rather exasperated of this settlement." said a very fancy voice. Candy looked to see it came from the tall, thin, mustachioed man.

"Shut up, Black Stache." the fishman growled. He turned back to Emanon. "One more time. Captain Origami has a beef to pick with you. Come with us, and we won't kill your daughter, too."

"Please, you can't do that! I'm not the same man anymore! And I swear I've never heard of Captain Origami!"

"Of course you haven't. Our Captain is new on the high seas. You probably know 'em as a cabin kid on your old rival's crew. The same rival you killed in cold blood, leaving his crew to scatter to the wind. You know how hard that was on a child? To lose their only home?"

"Please, I was just defending my wife and unborn child! Please!"

"Last chance. Goodbye, No Name."

The fishman pulled out his cutlass, and with one clean swing, chopped the restaurant owner's head off.

"NO!!!" Candy cried, her hands clasping over her mouth when she realized what she had said.

A second later, a bullet was in the wall she stood partly in front of. It was the mustached man, Black Stache. His left flintlock pistol was drawn, and she hadn't even seen him move at all.

"Please, step out from there, young lass. We certainly won't harm you." he told her, still oddly proper and polite.

Candy stepped out from the wall and into the kitchen, tears welling up in her eyes.

"And who might you be, young lass?" Black Stache asked her.

"Um... I'm... I'm Emanon's daughter." she explained between sobs.

"Well then... Guess that means you're next, young lass. Cheerio."

Candy closed her eyes tight and clenched her teeth, waiting for the end.

Anshi had watched the goings-on with a degree of concern, having come in for a nice and peaceful meal and instead walked into the middle of some small-time rivalry. Seeing the restaurant owner killed in cold blood made his face darken, quite literally. His body began to shift, turning into a dark-grey milkglass with lead used as the coloration. "Calm yourself, brother," he said to the new arrival, his body and clothing now entirely a uniform opaque grey. "Surely more death is not wholly necessary. The gentlemen would certainly be willing to leave without a fight, I think, now their objective is complete. Yes?"

Black Stache looked at both of the newcomers, pausing before pointing both guns at them.

"Angler, old chap. Would you please dispose of the larger of the two while I take care of the meddlesome justice busboy over here?" he politely requested.

"Fine. We better take care of them and kill the kid soon. I don't want to make Captain Origami angry." the fishman sighed.

Angler drew both his cutlasses, holding them aligned with his forearm. The fishman ran forward, spinning with both swords to strike at Anshi's waist.

Black Stache, on the other hand, just plain disappeared. Really, he vanished in the blink of an eye.

Next thing anyone knew, he was in the corner, and fired two shots at the other half-fishman, then vanished again. He reappeared atop the stove, fired two shots again, and vanished once more.

He continued doing this, seemingly teleporting, but stopping to fire a few shots. But those who were observant could tell. He was moving at such high speeds that he couldn't be seen, much like Captain Kuro's Shakushi.

Question was... Could he see while doing it, or was he blind while moving at such speeds like Kuro was?

He was only firing while halted... So maybe.

When he ran out of bullets, he stopped and lightning-quick dispensed more from the coin changer at his waist, reloading in the blink of an eye.

Candy just ran to hide just outside the kitchen, peeking over the pick-up counter and trembling in fear.

Anshi followed the location of the human each time he reappeared, his right hand twisting and forming into a line that reached from the floor to the ceiling. When the man reappeared again to shoot the line extended into a leaded glass wall two inches thick stretching from Anshi's right wrist to the opposite wall. It would either restrict the man's ability to move or just cause him to smash straight into it when he went into whatever superspeed he had again.

The two swords bit into his body, shattering part of his waist and biting halfway through his torso before simply stopping. His body regrew with a crackling sound, the swords trapped inside with no way to draw them out. "Again, would it not be better to simply leave things as they are and leave? Conflict is not to be sought, after all."