Monkey D. Garp, Hero of the Marines, vice admiral and a handful of other titles and soubriquets (some honorable, others not so much) was hiding from his boss. To be fair, his definition of 'hiding' consisted on moving out of the way, not breaking any walls and making relatively less noise than usual, but it was the principle of the matter. Hearing the man storming over only cemented his resolve.

The fleet admiral was still a bit peeved with him because apparently when preparing a report on the Buster Call fiasco, which all vice admirals had to do even if they went MIA at the time and so did not participate, you couldn't start (and finish) saying that 'it serves them right, the bloody cowards'. Personally, Garp had never quite understood the need to gather so many ships and people in one place. It skewered his shots, was incredibly annoying and served no purpose whatsoever.

So after careful consideration the vice admiral decided to turn around and continue his most recent fit of narcolepsy in peace. However, it seemed that the fleet admiral was too incensed to overlook him this time and finally the spectacled man located him in the supply's room the former looking like he had just swallowed something foul.

Then Sengoku slowly took his glasses off, pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a very long, very drawn out sigh that meant he was too worked up to even be able to properly blow up at the person in front of him. This particular sigh when directed at the oldest Monkey D. also meant that he was seriously considering having Vegapunk develop a time machine to kill or at least castrate Garp before he could spread his evil genes across the world.

Hearing it, the man in question made a very convincing snore, ready to ignore whatever riot either of the two hooligans in his family had orchestrated now. With another humongous sigh, Sengoku prepared himself for a long and no doubt useless but at least immensely gratifying rant; about ten minutes into it, something finally reached the marine hero's consciousness.

"-Two hundred million increase, and that only because we couldn't push for more! They took down the whole of CP9 one after the other!"

"Huh? What did Whitebeard want with the pussycat?"

"Not him! Your granddaughter!"

"Bwahahaha! That's my girl! Whaddayanow, the self-defense training I gave her worked! That damn cat better not have tried anything funny with her," Garp finished with a rather dark glint in his eyes.

It was at times like these when Sengoku wondered if the vice admiral was aware that his granddaughter was as much of a criminal as the rest of the lot, or if he was just in denial. Garp had once, after all, described Portgas' first disposal of an entire marine fleet as 'teenage rebellion' so it wasn't a completely unfounded worry.

"Garp. Your granddaughter has declared war on the World Government." Garp blinked owlishly at him. Sengoku sighed, this time with considerably less aggravation but much more self-pity.

"And if that wasn't enough," he enunciated slowly wondering if he wasn't masochistic, to subject himself to these D-related migraines, "She has on her crew two unidentified men without proper bounty posters, another one who has just turned Supernova and the former holder of the Neptune plans. At this rate she might actually surpass her father and we can't afford that, understood? I know I will regret this but I don't care how, just take care of this mess."

If Sengoku had been able to see his subordinate's evil smile, he might have reconsidered his decision. As it was, he (somewhat affectedly) swept out of the room intent on barricading himself in his office and proceeded to ignore everyone over the rank of sergeant for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, Garp marched over to the docks, and wasted no time in getting his very bewildered crew rounded up and ready to go despite the fact that several of them were technically off-duty. He was in a very important mission after all and if his little girl absolutely had to go and be a… pirate (and for the life of him he couldn't understand what went wrong with her upbringing; maybe it was time to pay Dadan another visit), she should have at the very least gathered a decent crew, like that Sichibukai Hammock had done.

Though the woman was deluded if she thought she could hold a candle to Luffy's beauty, Garp thought nodding furiously to himself and unaware of the widening berth his subordinates were giving him as the ship left Marineford.

Having made his decision to meet with Luffy, the hardened marine's mission was clear: as any responsible family member would do, and he thought this with more than a little smugness since his wayward son was so clearly unreliable, it was his duty to go and scare all the undeserving men from her crew before they could try and hurt her. Maybe even show her what a nice, honest marine man was like, see if with any luck he managed to bring her back from the dark side.

This brought his thought processes to a screeching halt, and he furiously rubbed his forehead, persevering through the pain; being a soldier was all well and good, but really that only was a tiny step-up (definitely above revolutionary, but still below travelling cook) in the List of requirements to Get vice-Admiral Garp's Dating Okay for his Grandchildren's Suitors or list of GAGDOGS for short. Why, he had even been considerate enough to try and show it to Ace and Luffy before-hand so they would know what to expect, but that had been derailed when he made the mistake of actually lending Ace the written list in Sabaody for a closer look and the ungrateful brat had promptly burned it (seriously, that had to be Dadan's doing, he hadn't been such a brat when he was Ace's age).

So, again, the point (damn, thinking was hard, no wonder Sengoku was such a sourpuss) was this; Luffy was seventeen, had rank, fame and was as cute as a button. Obviously one would have to be blind to not see it. Ergo, they would see it and she'd have people trying to woo her left and right. Ergo, he had to go and beat them all up before they got any funny ideas.

Finally content with his reasoning and having a few hours to kill before reaching Enies Lobby, Garp turned around and sauntered towards the ship's kitchen, just to be sure he would be at full strength then. The sailors on deck let out a collective sigh as the heavy waves of Haki he had been unconsciously releasing spiked one last time and then finally dissipated.

(Several miles away, a certain swordsman startled before settling into a decidedly less restful sleep)

TBC