The Eight Flames

Former
V (Deceased)
Valentine (Deceased)
Blake (Formerly)
Bullet (Deceased)
Gravy (Formerly)
Cleo (Deceased)
Tako (Deceased)
Little Timmy (Deceased)

The **Eight Flames** are currently a mercenary group stationed in both the South Blue and the Grand Line, their main base being in the Paradise. Originally led as an assassin group by V, a former Aeon Brother, they could be hired to kill a target for a high price. It seems under hemlocks leadership they do purely mercenary work, and according to Tempest, the marines pay a lot of money for off the books mercenary jobs.

The Eight Flames can be identified by a small plastic candle that each member carries. These candles are only shown to other members and those that they intend to kill. Each candle is numbered from *1* to *8* denoting the rank of the member that holds it. The candle marked *8* is held by the leader and most powerful member of the Eight Flames, while the candle marked *1* is held by the weakest member of the Eight Flames. These candles also function as radars to detect other nearby flames, showing their numbers and if they are within a surrounding radius and a lower number then the user's own.

## Base of Operations

Following the Devil's Luck Pirates' raid on their main base the organization as an independent entity was all but wiped out, save for three members who betrayed their leader and joined the raid force. After travelling with the pirates for a time, two of these members went off on their own in order to re-establish and reform the organization in accordance with their own shared ideals. Joining them were three former members of the Trojan Pirates as well as an infamous independent mercenary. As such, the organization is currently in the process of re-establishing itself as a functional force in the first half of the Grand Line. The Eight Flames can be currently considered an extension of the Devil's Luck Pirates, with the Devil's Luck Pirates being friends and close allies with the flames.

Under Hemlocks Leadership, the Eight Flames gained a new floating home base, with a giant tower in the shape of a candle statue in the middle with a giant burning flame on top, with eight smaller candle towers around the sides. Functioning like a floating naval base, there are ports. Inside is a terrarium with candles lining the walls for light and a lot of plant life. This new base contains a library run by Humphrey as well as an orphanage designed to raise, protect, and instill survival skills as well as basic education to children with nowhere else to go.

## Members of the Eight Flames

The members of the Eight Flames are all dedicated and skilled mercenaries. Most have been trained since childhood. Some of the members possess Devil Fruit powers, and all of them have their own distinct fighting styles and techniques of assassination that they specialize in. With this being the case, the members are all professional infiltrators, manipulators and assassins, being capable of carrying out hits on powerful and well-protected targets, such as a Marine Captain located inside an active government military facility.

Under V's leadership, every member of the organization also possessed an animal companion that they could empower, turning the animal into a larger and more dangerous version of themselves. The exact mechanics behind this as well as the reason why they had pets to begin with are currently unknown, but these animals were apparently created and issued to them by the leader of the organization. However, during the conflict between the Eight Flames and the Devil's Luck Pirates the transformation capabilities of these animals were canceled by V through some unknown method. As such, it is currently unknown exactly what kind of role they will play in the newly reformed Eight Flames.

After V's death and the events of the Space Empire Saga, Hemlock and Blake set out to reform the Eight Flames under new leadership. Although Blake eventually left. Despite being the highest flame, it is acknowledged that flames 7 and 6 are stronger than Hemlock. They are now mercenaries, which means they can take a wider range of jobs that do not have to include killing. It is also currently unknown if the pets of Hemlocks Eight Flames are capable of transforming, or if that ability was lost with V's death.

Throughout, V's leadership, there was some kind of initiation process that is necessary for becoming a true Flame. All that is known about the initiation is that Ragnar would fail it and it is necessary to become a true Flame. Seeing as both Hemlock and Blake seem to have disliked the ritual, it is likely that the practice will be discontinued under their leadership.

## Gallery

The ranking of the Eight Flames increases with the number.The logo of the Eight FlamesThe Eight Flames (under V's leadership)
## Contracts

The Eight Flames take on contracts and are hired to do various missions. Under V's leadership, this was entirely focused on assassinations and contract killing, but was expanded to include bodyguarding and other general mercenary missions when Hemlock came into power.

## Threat Level

#### V's Leadership

Blake claimed he was 'greatest assassin in the entire Grand Line, except for the people who are above me'. While he might be exaggerating, the Flames are a very powerful assassin organization, as all of the Flames ranked 4th and above are about as strong as a marine Captain, with Valentine who consumed a Logia, being even stronger. It's very unlikely that they're better than the best assassins in the New World, but after demonstrating their power they appear to be the strongest in Paradise. Their power mostly comes from their leader V, as he produced their pets which have special abilities and trained most of the Flames from birth. However, after V was overthrown, the Flames have become much weaker, killing off their strongest members. But in return they received the backing of the Devil's Luck Pirates, which is likely a greater boon. Excluding the Devil's Luck Pirates, the Flames are a shadow of their former selves, but now have the chance to reform with new members with new strengths, along with their teamwork skills being vastly improved.

* This could also be reinforced by Mozzarella saying he's 'one of the best hitmen in the Grand Line' and him being about as strong Hemlock.

#### Hemlock's Leadership

Because most of the new Flames haven't been seen in combat, it's hard to determine the organization's power. However, based off the Flames we have seen, the lower Flames, such as Humphrey, Malaise, and Bullet, are much weaker than Little Timmy, Tako, and Gravy. But the trade off is that Humphrey and Malaise focus more on intel gathering which gives them power in an indirect sense. Conversely, Tempest and Olaf seem on the level of the crew.

But most importantly, Hemlock's Flames have the Devil's Luck Pirates as allies which, if they are included, makes them one of the most powerful assassin organizations we've seen in the series.

Overall, the organization seems stronger than before, enough to perform in the New World and be hired by a vice admiral.

## Trivia

* Members of the organization are sometimes unofficially called "Candles" due to their use of candles to signify their status. This might be a play on members literally holding a candle "next" to each other.
* Contrary to most anime, the strongest member of the Eight Flames has the highest number and not the lowest. The reason for this might be a conviction for only 8 members at a given time. Baroque works for example recruits new people all the time, so it would be inconvenient for Crocodile to keep changing his codename for every new recruit.
* Boris is the only animal companion of a Candle to have a Devil Fruit power.
* Valentine is the only member of the original Eight Flames to have eaten a Devil Fruit.
* The names of several original members constitute a pun of some sort
	+ "Little Timmy" is a colloquial term often used in English-speaking countries (specifically the USA) to refer to a small boy.
	+ When combined with the name of his pet octopus, Yaki, Tako's name spells out "takoyaki", which is a popular Japanese dish containing octopus as a primary ingredient.
	+ When combined with the name of her pet cat, Patty, Cleo's name spells out "Cleopatty", a reference to the famous Ancient Egyptian female Pharaoh of the late Ptolemaic Dynasty, Cleopatra VII.
	+ Gravy's name literally means a sauce made by mixing the fat and juices exuded by meat during cooking with stock and other ingredients. This is a fitting name for a cook.
	+ Hemlock's name is also the word used to refer to a certain highly poisonous species of plant (*Conium maculatum*), alluding to her favorite method of assassination as well as her plant-themed attire.
* Out of all known hits taken out by the flames they have a 60% success rate. There is a margin of error of approximately 24.5%
* The words used to describe the organization (candles and flames) have different counters in Japanese (本 and つ). So they would be called 八つの炎 (Yattsu no Honoo) or 八本のローソク(Happon no rousoku). Which are fairly different even down to how the eight is read.
* There might be a relation with each Flame to their number:
	+ Little Timmy was in Episode 1
	+ Tako was the introduction of the candles having fighting animals, had two names, and was one of two people interrogated. Also technically the second candle introduced.
	+ Cleo is associated with cats and :3 is the cat face emoji
	+ 4 Is associated with death, so it is ironic that Gravy left killing behind.
	+ Blake was a couple with Cleo and their numbers make 8.
	+ If you number it day/month, Valentine's day is 14/2, which would be 7 if you treated it as a fraction. 7 is also a traditionally lucky number, which makes it fitting that he is an antagonist to a group centered around gambling.
	+ Eight is also a lucky number. Also, turning it 90° turns it into a lemniscate, the symbol for infinity. Which is also the symbol for the Aeons. 八 also arguably looks a little like a V when flipped upside down.
	+ Olaf number is incorrect on his art, Olaf is the fifth candle of the flames however Rustage misspoke on Episode 61: Broken Clocks, stating him to be the sixth, also when talking to Kaerru about the art, Rustage forgot to say the number of his flame.