Tea Party

A Tea Party is a periodic event held by Charlotte Linlin.

Overview
Charlotte Linlin, better known as Big Mom, is famous for holding her tea parties. The candy tribute produced by every one of her protectorate islands would be collected monthly for the tea party; failure to provide would result in said island to be destroyed by the Big Mom Pirates, with neither grace period nor excuses would be permitted.

The tea parties are held with large amounts of extravagant confectionery and pastries for all the guests to enjoy. Big Mom loves to eat sweets above anything else, and she would always look forward to these parties with tremendous enthusiasm. Should anything threaten the party's success, she would ensure such people would be shown hell. Sometimes, these events may include a political wedding for Big Mom to form an alliance with other groups.

All guests are subjected to a full-body search before they enter the rooftop of Whole Cake Chateau, where the parties are held. Any weapons are not allowed, and must be left outside of the gates.

Invitations
Even the demons of Hell will come when called to Mama's tea parties! Big Mom would send invitations to people who interest her to attend her tea parties, many of whom are powerful figures of the underworld. However, it is common knowledge to everyone in the New World that Big Mom's "invitation" to her tea parties is in name only, and that it is an absolute summon order that, if declined, would result the invitee to be choked with regret. It is said that even demons from hell will attend the party when invited by Big Mom. Refusal would result in the invitee being sent a box containing the head of someone they personally know, even if that person is someone of notable strength or in another part of the sea beyond the Calm Belts and Red Line; this demonstrates how far reaching the crew's power is. Excuses of any kind are not accepted, and even if such an invitee is sent such a traumatizing "present", this will not hinder Big Mom from sending any more invitations to them in the upcoming parties.

Mother Carmel's Portrait
Every tea party, Big Mom would place the portrait of Carmel in front of an empty seat in front of Linlin's. The guests, and even the children of the Charlotte Family, knows very little about Carmel, and Linlin does not permit anyone to question about their relationship. However, it is known that Big Mom greatly treasures this mysterious individual, and the portrait placed at the tea party is her only known weakness. Should this picture be damaged in anyway, three seconds after the deed, Big Mom would enter a psychological crisis and scream so loud that would cause all to defensively cover their ears, rendering them open to attacks, and possibly release her Haoshoku Haki simultaneously. However, during this crisis, her body loses its toughness, allowing her to be injured.

Past
Big Mom has contacted with the Vinsmoke Family to form an alliance with them, in which a marriage between her 35th daughter, Charlotte Pudding, and the Vinsmoke's 3rd son, Sanji, would take place during the tea party.

About a year ago, shortly after the Fire Tank Pirates has allied themselves with the Big Mom Pirates, a Tea Party was held where someone nudged the portrait of Mother Carmel causing Big Mom to let out a loud Haki embedded scream that left her vulnerable, and gave Capone Bege an idea for his assassination plot.

Fishmen Island Arc
Big Mom planned a tea party to be held four days after the Straw Hat Pirates arrived at Fishman Island, and send Tamago and Pekoms to retrieve the island monthly candy payment. However due to the events transpired there, they were unable to collect the fee. Luffy took the blame and gave her the treasures of Fishmen Island instead, which Big Mom accepted out of amusement for the Super Rookie. Among the treasure offered was the Tamatebako, which Big Mom later discovered and intended to open it at the tea party as a wedding present.

At the tea party previous to the one where the wedding for Vinsmoke Sanji and Charlotte Pudding is held, Jigra did not attend to the invitation due to having to attend his mother's funeral. He wrote Big Mom a letter in advance, explaining his reason of absence, but she disregarded it and had his hospitalized father decapitated, and the head sent to Jigra as consequence for defying her summon order. During the party, the servant carrying Carmel's portrait accidentally dropped it, which led Big Mom to enter her psychological crisis, causing many guests to fall down from the pain, and in the midst scraped her knee when she fell. Capone Bege, an attendee at the time, saw it and made use of such knowledge for the next party.

Preparations
Once Sanji's identity as a member of the Straw Hat Pirates have been confirmed, Bege and Pekoms were sent to issue him an invitation to the upcoming tea party, in which he is to be the groom for the political wedding. Threatened with the safety of his father figure's, Sanji reluctantly went to the party.

As for the wedding cake, Big Mom sent her powerful subordinates to various islands to robbed the ingredients as she usually did for every tea party she held and massacring many civilians, workers, and guards while achieveing this goal.

Conspiracies
This party is steeped with conspiracies! While the wedding was to appear as cement an alliance between the Big Mom Pirates and the Germa Kingdom, in truth Big Mom had no intention of lending her powers to the Vinsmoke family; instead, she intended to obliterate the ruling family of the Germa Kingdom so she could take their cloning technology for herself. The plot is for Pudding to use her usually hidden third eye to shock Sanji into an opening, and then shoot him with a Walker pistol, which would signal her siblings to slaughter the remainder of the Vinsmoke family while they are distracted. While Pudding was mocking Vinsmoke Reiju with details of this plan and then covering up her memories afterwards, she was unaware that Sanji overheard everything.

However, one of Big Mom's subordinates, Capone Bege, has only joined her ranks in order to assassinate her from within. Using his knowledge of the previous tea party's incident, he and his crew intends to destroy Carmel's portrait and attack her with lethal force during her weakness, with her scream debilitating the rest of the Big Mom Pirates and guests to prevent them from interfering (Bege and his crew would be wearing earplugs to block out the sound). Having earned his rise through the ranks, Bege was named as a "Rook" of the crew, and was assigned the responsibilities for security for the tea party, which would allow him a larger opening to strike down Big Mom. As Luffy and a part of his crew arrived to Whole Cake Island to bring Sanji back, and Sanji reuniting with Luffy after listening to Pudding's mockery, they were told of Bege's plan by Jinbe, who intends to leave the Big Mom Pirates to become a member of the Straw Hat crew. Jinbe suggested that they ally with Bege for this assassination attempt to increase their chances of saving Sanji's family, which they reluctantly do as they do have a fierce rivalry. To provide the lethal weapon possibly of killing Big Mom, Bege recruited the captive Caesar Clown to participate as well.

Arrival of the Guests
Many powerful figures were invited to the Tea Party, including the Emperors of the Underworld: Du Feld, Morgans, Stussy, Drug Peclo, Giberson and Umit. The Vinsmoke Family has also been invited as honored guests (and unsuspecting targets for the assassination plot) for Sanji's marriage: Vinsmoke Judge, Vinsmoke Reiju, Vinsmoke Ichiji, Vinsmoke Niji, and Vinsmoke Yonji. Many of the Charlotte Family also attended.

Jigra was given another invitation despite his trauma from missing the previous one, and his grudge against Big Mom made him to use this as an attempt to assassinate her in revenge. In his rage-fueled recklessness, he tried to force his way past Bege and the Fire Tank Pirates, refusing to submit himself to the full-body check, and would have shot his way in had Charlotte Katakuri not foresaw what would happen and shot him down first. Bege used his Devil Fruit ability to shelter his crew and allies in preparation of assassinating Linlin.

The Tea Party Begins
The Tea Party began at 10:00 A.M., where the many guests enjoyed themselves, having animated conversations and happily eating sweets. Big Mom revealed the Tamatebako, intending to open it at the wedding ceremony, while also using her Haoshoku Haki to knock out a guest for asking her about Mother Carmel. After a while of festivities, the Chess Soldiers trumpeted for the main event of the party: Sanji and Pudding's wedding.

As the ceremony began, the Charlotte siblings also situated themselves around the Vinsmoke Family, preparing to shoot them down when Pudding fires her gun. The actual wedding ceremony is to take place on top of a gigantic wedding cake, which Big Mom gluttonously desired to eat. As Pudding showed her third eye to Sanji when he lifted her veil, however, Sanji expressed his admiration of how beautiful it looked up close, which surprised her to tears of joy (as she has been mocked since childhood for how unsightly it looked), and she could not bring herself to shoot Sanji. Seeing this unexpected delay, Big Mom signaled the reverend to kill Sanji instead, but when Katakuri sensed that Sanji would avoid it, he aimed to shoot him instead, only for Sanji to also dodge that and the projectile hit the reverend instead. Judge expressed his shock at this unexpected attack, and Luffy jumped out of Bege to attack the wedding cake, alongside a group of animals that have been duplicated into his image via Charlotte Brûlée's ability.

Luffy Crashes the Party
As the wedding cake collapsed, Sanji took Pudding and landed safely, while Big Mom was utterly furious at the cake falling apart. She demanded the chefs to make another cake, which they deemed impossible, thus leading her to kill them by extracting their souls. A furious Big Mom then remembered the threats Luffy made to her, she searched for the real one who identified himself and she prepared to attack him as Luffy aimed for Carmel's portrait. However, he was caught by Katakuri's ability, and the sweet commander explained to his mother about his reason for intervening. Katakuri then interrogated how Luffy knew of the portrait's significance, when Jinbe freed him with black tea. Jinbe took credit for revealing this to Luffy and announced his intention of leaving the Big Mom Pirates for good, and after Linlin's ability failed to work on him for his lack of fear, she angrily attacked him and Luffy.

While all were focused on Luffy and Jinbe's confrontation with Big Mom, a disguised Brook snuck past them to smash Carmel's portrait, which instantly alerted everyone. Linlin fell into a state of shock at seeing Brook alive, but did not scream as she was conflicted between the portrait and the wedding cake. Judge expressed his rage at how the Straw Hats keep interfering with this political wedding to retrieve Sanji. Meanwhile, Pudding began opening fire at Sanji, who dodged every bullet with ease. When he confronted her about her personality, which brought her off guard again, she was smacked aside by her elder brother Charlotte Daifuku, who decided to deal with Sanji in her place. Also, Charlotte Oven fought against Pedro, and Brook was decapitated (but survives due to ability). At this point, Charlotte Perospero decided that since Pudding did not set off the signal as she was supposed to, they would proceed to assassinate the Vinsmoke Family in another fashion: he bound them to their chairs with his candy, and his siblings surrounded the table in which they were sitting at with their powerful Walker handguns. Shocked and horrified at this betrayal, Judge desperately pleaded Big Mom for answers, only for her to stare off into space from her shock. As he cried and pleaded, he was mocked by the Charlotte Family, the party guests, and even his own emotionless children.

Bege, having pinned down Luffy in order to make their act more convincing, became concerned as Big Mom is not screaming. Brook suggested that they show Big Mom the fragmented portrait in order to get her more focused on what to be angry about, which Luffy agreed. While Bege found that to be too late to make a difference, when Katakuri approached with a pale look, Bege took this as a sign of a threatening future and that their plan will succeed after all, he told Luffy to do so. Bege then revealed his true allegiance when he defied Katakuri's orders to kill Luffy, and put on earplugs in preparation to nullify Big Mom's impending screams. Despite the opposition Katakuri presented in Luffy's attempt, he could not stop the Straw Hat captain from showing the fragments to Big Mom, which caused her to regain enough focus to scream, and releasing her Haoshoku Haki at the same time. The weaker-willed guests started to collapse and foaming at their mouths, while the rest were covering their ears in pain. Even the Charlotte children collapsed from the shriek, dropping their guns aimed at the Vinsmoke family. Big Mom then fell onto her knees, scraping it, which Bege confirmed that she lost her bodily toughness, and sending out Vito and Gotty, prepared to shoot her down with the poison bullet KX Launcher. Meanwhile, Tony Tony Chopper approached the Vinsmokes to place earplugs into them, and Sanji freed their candy bindings with his Diable Jame, and Nami and Carrot approached with their encapsulated Raid Suits. As the Fire Tank Pirates took aim at the vulnerable Big Mom, the rest of the Big Mom Pirates attempted to stop them from shooting down their captain.

Trivia

 * During the events of the crossover Cross Epoch, members from the Straw Hat Pirates and the Dragon Team attended a tea party held by Shenlon in a location that is paved, and have houses made from biscuits, and has large cakes and candy, similar to the Big Mom's venue on Whole Cake Island.