Hawkins Pirates

Basil Hawkins captains this notorious rookie band, which surfaced at Sabaody Archipelago about the same moment the Straw Hats reached it, roughly two years before the present day, a timing that files them among the Worst Generation. Rendered on their primary flag is the captain in his Goma no So state, where two grey nails stand in for the customary crossbones over a white-edged black templar cross. A simpler mark, nothing but a dark cross, is tattooed on his throat and sewn onto the cloaks of several hands. For a vessel they sail the Grudge Dolph, which leans hard into voodoo imagery: a doll figurehead skewered by a huge nail, candle-crowned masts, a mask-decked helm, and a cabin built to resemble a straw-roofed shack.

Founded in the North Blue, the crew reads as an assortment of mystics and religious figures modeled on monks, shamans, and fakirs, most draped in elaborate garments and some behind masks; among their ranks is the cat mink Faust. Their loyalty is fierce. During the captain's clash with Admiral Kizaru they pleaded with him to flee yet refused to abandon him, watching the whole exchange without fleeing themselves, and Hawkins returns that devotion by never using his own people as straw dolls. Strength is inferred from his heavy bounty and from the crew outlasting Kizaru's assault even after their main fighter had fallen. Occult themes run through the whole group, from the captain's West African Vodun and cartomancy roots to Faust, a black cat named for the man who bargained with the Devil.

Hawkins built the crew in the North Blue and carried it to Sabaody, where they watched Zoro challenge a World Noble and then weathered Kizaru's punitive strike, pulling through only because Scratchmen Apoo intervened. They observed the Marineford war from afar, later flattened Brownbeard at Foodvalten, and eventually joined a temporary pact aimed at toppling Shanks. Two other rookie crews rounded out that arrangement, the Kid Pirates and the On Air Pirates. The scheme fell apart once they ran into Kaidou; Apoo had already gone over to him, and following that betrayal Hawkins, foreseeing neither a win nor an escape, submitted to the Beasts Pirates while Kid and Killer chose to keep fighting. Later, throughout Wano, he tangled with Luffy, Zoro, and Trafalgar Law, steered Kaidou toward the heroes' hiding place, and chained himself to Law's crewmates ahead of his own final collapse.