The Serpent Empress is a One Piece What If? fanfiction by TheSinful
, writer of Vow of the King, on Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction Dot Net. The links to their respective sites can be accessed here and there.
In this story, the circumstances in which Boa Hancock receives her Devil Fruit diverge substantially from canon as she willingly consumes one to save her sisters from slavery. This small incident causes a litany of changes to the timeline as she rises to the top as one of the Emperors instead of becoming a Warlord.
This fic contains examples of:
- Adaptational Badass:
- All three of the Boa sisters receive mythical snake Zoans that turns them into veritable forces of nature in battle, not to mention how Hancock has trained herself to stand toe-to-toe against Emperor-level opponents.
- Marguerite and Kikyo become officers in Hancock's crew before they are promoted to high priestess along with Sandersonia and Marigold.
- Gion eats the Dark-Dark Fruit and is promoted to Admiral by Aokiji.
- Honey Queen is strong enough to be a Warlord, whereas in the movie she was defeated by East Blue era Nami.
- Ace becomes the new captain of the Whitebeard Pirates, implying that he also made time to strengthen himself after Marineford.
- Uta is an active member of Red Hair Pirates as The Siren with Tot Musica as her Sing-Sing Fruit's Awakening than a separate entity.
- Adaptational Context Change: Luffy's battle against Bacura, Sandersonia, and Marigold is changed from an execution attempt into a Hidden Purpose Test to gauge his future potential.
- Adaptation Deviation: Uta is a member of the Red-Haired Pirates here as the crew's musician.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Hancock is less of a misandrist than her canon self thanks to Fisher Tiger helping her liberate her sisters from the World Nobles.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In canon, Hancock had a one-sided crush on Luffy that he never picked up on. Here, Luffy is husband to Hancock, Sandersonia, and Marigold and have many children from their union.
- Adaptational Superpower Change:
- Boa Hancock consumes the Snake-Snake Fruit: Gorgon before she sets out on her quest to rescue her sisters from the World Nobles.
- Sandersonia and Marigold are given the Snake-Snake Fruit: Quetzalcoatl and Snake-Snake Fruit: Yamata no Orochi this time around.
- Marguerite eats the Cat-Cat Fruit: Black Panther while Kikyo eats the Dance-Dance Fruit.
- Gion eats the Dark-Dark Fruit after Blackbeard's death.
- Enishida has eaten the Lick-Lick Fruit after Perospero's death.
- Age Lift: Marguerite is 21 years old rather than 16.
- Almighty Janitor: After his demotion, Sengoku's official authority only extends to the recruits he trains. Unofficially, he holds just as much authority as the admirals.
- Ambiguous Situation: What happened to Sengoku after the Paramount War isn't clear in the initial release. While Kuzan is promoted in his place, it is not clear if Sengoku was killed, fired, or stepped down. The absence of his canon reason for stepping down, an Impel Down mass breakout partially being covered up by the Five Elder Stars to a point of public menace, is not a part of this continuity due to Luffy not causing said breakout, making this unclear. The second chapter, released a while later, would confirm he stepped down out of shame for what a disaster the Paramount War was.
- Animal Motifs: Snakes for the Boa sisters.
- Asshole Victim: Spandam is noticeably absent after Aokiji brings CP9 back into the fold. Given that no one has anything good to say about Spandam, he most likely got a fate that he completely deserved for his massive douchebaggery.
- Atrocious Alias: Sengoku doesn't have the highest opinion on the epithets of the allied captains of Whitebeard, especially with Ninth "the Third".
- Canon Immigrant: Honey Queen from the second One Piece movie shows up at Marineford as Hancock's replacement among the Warlords.
- Celibate Hero: Luffy still retains this trait of his from canon, though he's no longer a Chaste Hero if him marrying the Boa sisters, having kids with them, and impregnating a good amount of Amazon Lily's residents on Hancock's suggestion and knocking up Kalifa in the process is of any indication.
- Dance Battler: Kikyo, thanks to her Dance-Dance Fruit abilities.
- Dating Catwoman: While undercover on Amazon Lily over the timeskip, Kalifa ends up sleeping with Luffy and carrying his child alongside the many Kuja out to bear the next generation of their people. This is, interestingly, a scenario where both sides could probably claim the other is Catwoman considering the antagonism between pirates and the World Government and the specific history between Kalifa's fellow agents and the Straw Hats.
- Death by Adaptation:
- Perospero is killed by Marigold when Big Mom shows up to punish Hancock for refusing her offer of marrying Daifuku.
- Akainu is ripped to pieces by Sandersonia at Marineford.
- It's implied that Magellan managed to kill Blackbeard and his crew after they tried to raid Impel Down.
- Spandam is implicitly dead and gone for his greed and incompetence after Aokiji brings CP9 back into the fold.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: The Serpent Sisters are all too happy to help Luffy save his brother Ace, but not for free. Luffy has to agree to Hancock's marriage proposal first before they go save Ace.
- Gracefully Demoted: Sengoku is demoted to a Marine instructor after Marineford but admits that he feels younger than he had in decades and is decidedly happier.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- Fisher Tiger still dies after his raid on Mary Geoise with Hancock.
- Luffy still has to fight against Bacura, Sandersonia, and Marigold when he lands on Amazon Lily.
- While Luffy doesn't go to Impel Down, Jinbe is still freed (by Whitebeard, who showed up at the prison to demand his release and Magellan complied to avoid the destruction of the prision), and Bon Clay is still spirited away to meet Ivankov.
- The Fake Straw Hats still attempt their fraud in spite of how even more suicidally stupid it is compared to canon.
- Whitebeard still dies even after Hancock indirectly saved him at Marineford since the sickness he has, combined with his advanced age, means that he still doesn't have much longer to live.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: How many kids does Luffy have after the time skip? He can't count that high. As Luffy is an Idiot Hero, this doesn't really clarify how many beyond 'a lot', though the omake would imply at least several dozen. The second chapter would give the number as 71, with twenty-six born and fourty-five yet to be born.
- Orwellian Retcon: The Boa's Lunarian heritage was added later than the story's initial release.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Also called the Red-Haired Pirates, also called Kuzan's favorite type of pirate. He prefers Shanks and his crews being too busy partying to things like the schemes of Big Mom and Kaido's crews or the baby boom on Amazon Lily slowing down their activities.
- Pragmatic Villainy: One of the Five Elders argued against letting Sandersonia and Marigold simply be used for the World Nobles entertainment, not because he was ideologically opposed to it, but because the girls were Lunarians and would have been more useful as Vegapunk's test subjects.
- Race Lift: All three of the Boa Sisters are Lunarians rather than ordinary humans.
- Rank Up:
- Due to Sakazuki's death during the Summit War, Aokiji is able to succeed Sengoku as Fleet Admiral with no contest, thus averting his resignation. Gion is also promoted to Admiral by Aokiji as Akainu's replacement.
- Ace succeeds Whitebeard as captain of the Whitebeard Pirates after the Emperor's death.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Hancock is beyond pissed when her sisters imply that their captors intended to use them as Sex Slaves.
- Red Shirt: Sengoku is well aware that outside of the very highest ranked, everyone in the force at Marineford is basically a Redshirt Army, and he takes no pleasure in knowing the slaughter they will suffer.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Fleet Admiral Kuzan's reaction to dozens of Kuja-Monkey D. daughters being born is the clear intent to retire by the time they start causing trouble and make them the next guy's problem.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Ace survives Marineford thanks to Boa Hancock's intervention.
- Stupid Evil: The World Nobles force feed their slaves Devil Fruits for their personal entertainment, uncaring that the Fruits would be a lot more useful in the hands of the Marines or Cipher Pols. At least one of the Five Elders is disgusted by the wastefulness and stupidity, and is vindicated in his opinion when this habit backfires hard when Sandersonia and Marigold escape with the power of two Mythical Zoans.
- The Talk: Garp isn't sure Luffy ever got it, and he's not going to volunteer to do it.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Aokiji has this reaction when Kalifa informs him of dozens of Kuja-Monkey D. kids being born on Amazon Lily and plans to shunt the responsibility of dealing with them to his successor by the time they start wreaking havoc on the high seas.
- Too Dumb to Live: Demalo Black apparently thought that claiming to be the husband of one of the Emperors is a good idea, but Sentomaru sees it as suicide with extra steps.
- What If?:
- Thanks to Hancock personally rescuing her sisters from slavery under the World Nobles, her antipathy towards the World Government is far stronger than it already was in canon.
- The Boa sisters never have to hide their slave marks since Hancock was around to hear about Fisher Tiger's plan to convert them into the insignia of the Sun Pirates, allowing them to move on from their trauma a lot faster than before.
- Blackbeard and his crew do not survive against Magellan since Shiryu is never released from his cell.
- Aokiji is immediately promoted to Fleet Admiral after Sengoku's retirement due to Akainu's death leaving no competing candidate to be nominated by the Five Elder Stars.
- One of Aokiji's first acts as Fleet Admiral is explicitly not keeping Spandam around as a Government agent, with the implication that he died during the attempt to officially bring CP9 back.
- Because Luffy isn't snuck into Impel Down, the breakout doesn't occur and as a result figures like Crocodile, Mr. 3, and Buggy are not freed.
- Since Ace is still alive, he gets to be promoted as the new captain of the Whitebeard Pirates after Whitebeard dies of his sickness.
- You Have Failed Me: Defied by Aokiji with regards to CP9 and their defeat at Enies Lobby, with the newly-promoted fleet admiral noting that he's not going to let their potential go to waste just because the Straw Hats defeated the WG's premier spy-ops group.
