Hello! This is my first time submitting a story to FF, though I am not new to this site. I hope you enjoy this little story of an oc with a dream of going to the Grand Line
Job Hunting
"Name?"
"Belinda"
"Age?"
"Seventeen and three quarte-."
"I'm so sorry miss but we don't hire minors." The man interviewing Belinda stamped a large, red word on a paper and handed it to her.
DENIED.
"But three quarters!"
"Don't get mad at me, I'm just doing what I'm told." He said defensively. Belinda sighed, thanked the man, and left the room. So close.
She had already asked nearly half of the businesses on the island for a job, and for some reason none would hire her. I shouldn't have left the academy.
On an island in the East Blue, the weakest ocean in the sea, there is a small marine academy next to a marine base; where little marines train from the age of four till the age of eighteen.
At seventeen and a half, Belinda had six months left before she graduated and became a real marine. Most of her classmates would stay on the island, but Belinda asked to be transferred to the Grand line. Her mother was born there; she had come to the East Blue to settle down and raise Belinda.
After her mother had told her of all the wondrous things she'd seen in the Grand Line, it became Belinda's dream to go there. She requested to her mother to be transferred from her school to the academy. She planned to become strong and go to the Grand Line herself someday. But when the time came for transfer confirmation, Belinda's mother had other plans for her daughter.
"The Grand Line is too dangerous my darling Belinda, it's why I left in the first place," Said her mother.
She, her own mother, had denied Belinda's request for transfer; told her that she couldn't live her dream. Although she knew her mother was only protecting her, she was a little aggravated.
Of course Belinda knew it was dangerous, but that's what made it interesting. That's why she trained so hard; to survive there.
"I'm sorry mother, but if I stay here, then all the years I've spent training will be for nothing."
-Several years earlier-
"I'm gonna be late!" Young Belinda ran as fast as her ten year old legs could carry her. She arrived at her destination, and was greeted by an empty training ground.
"Where the heck is everyone?"
Her class wouldn't start for another two hours. The sky had just began to glow toward the eastern horizon.
Damn it, the little brunette was always so worried about being late, that she came nearly two hours earlier than she was supposed to. Guess I better start training, she decided, no point in wasting time sitting on my knees.
This was Belinda's morning every morning; including weekends. By the time she was twelve, it became her routine. The extra training had made her stronger than her classmates. There only was one activity Belinda utterly hated. Almost so much that she considered failing the class on purpose: body conditioning. Or as Belinda called it, run-until-you-die class.
-Back to the present-
She was going to the Grand Line one way or another, even if it meant becoming a pirate. " I refuse to hide here in the weakest ocean in the world." She said to her mother.
Belinda left the island to make her own way to the Grand Line. So far she has been relying on the kindness of strangers to keep her afloat.
The kindness of strangers however, can only take you so far. Belinda needed money. And she was running out of options.
Belinda crumpled up the paper walking through a room of people waiting to be interviewed and threw her resume in a trash can.
"Hey, little miss." Said a nicely dressed man as she passes him. He had taken her resume out of the trash and was holding her paper in his hand. Ok, that's not creepy or stalkerish or anything. "I hear you're looking for a place that will hire minors. You won't find any on this island, it's against the law."
"Are you serious?" Someone could have told her that a month ago. "Thank you for telling me, though I wish I had known sooner." Now she was going to have to find someone to take her to take her to another island. For free. Haha good luck with that one, she told herself. Belinda opened the door to the outside world, where the scent of fresh baked bread lingered in the air.
"One last thing little miss." Belinda turned to look at the man. "I know a place not far from this island that will hire you, if you're not afraid of pirates. I used to work in it, a restaurant in the middle of the ocean; it's called the Baratie." Where was this guy four weeks ago? She thought. And like she'd be afraid of pirates, well maybe the strong ones like Whitebeard...
"Sounds interesting, how do I get there?" I mean I could always just swim there.
"There are a lot of suppliers on this island, all you have to do is find one that will take you." She thanked him for his advise, and went to go find food. Specifically, the source of the freshly baked bread.
After an hour of asking around, Belinda found no one who supplied a restraint named Baratie, but she did learn about the location of several bakeries. After settling on one by the ocean with a lovely little shaded table, she bought a ravishing loaf of bread. The loaf was hot, and the butter melted almost instantly when it touched it's soft flesh.
But even that wonderful piece of heaven couldn't improve her mood. She wasted a whole month of her life looking for a job. If the Baratie won't hire me, I'm so going be done with playing nice. She thought, and bitterly picked up the last crumb on her plate, growling at it.
"More bread miss?" the Baker asked, noticing her foul mood.
"What for? Nothing helps." She said pessimistically. The more bread she ate the less money she had.
"If you change your mind, just ask." He said and started for the back of the store. Belinda stared at the ocean. You know, she thought, the weather's not bad today compared to how its been the past few days. She considered swimming again, though navigating with a soggy map and becoming sea king lunch is just as appealing as it sounds. She sat there in that little bakery for another hour until...
"Pirates! Pirates are attacking the town!" A man was running through the crowded shops, calling for help.
Belinda's marine like instincts kicked in, and she ran to help leaving money at the table before she left. Weaponless and without backup, she ran unfaltering. This island has only a small marine base on the other side of the island. It will take the marines at least an hour to get here, someone has to help in the mean time. She thought. Finally something interesting is happening on his island.
Following the sounds of the screaming and maniacal laughter to a residential area, she stumbled onto a rather peculiar scene. People were floating in the air, much in the same way that islands don't. Or so Belinda thought at the time, later she'd learn otherwise.
"Are you a fruit user? The um…floaty floaty fruit?" She guessed. The pirate captain was not very pleased by Belinda's choice of diction.
"No! I ate a levitation fruit!" He raised his hand in her direction, and she found herself joining the other not-islands. "Who are you?"
"The name's Belinda, and I'm gonna kick your ass." She said. He laughed at her.
"You? With what army?"
"I don't need an army to beat you." She said rather confidently.
Belinda scrunched up, and then launched off of the wall behind her, catching him of guard, and punched him in the gut. The punch sent him stumbling back a few steps.
He recovered faster than Belinda would have liked him to, and immediately returned the favor. She was sent flying back toward the wall, which she used to her advantage to kick off again to go for another hit. He leaned to the side, easily dodging her, and sent his leg through her torso. While levitating, she was unable to go flying upwards, so all of the energy from his kick went strait into her stomach, and she felt herself nearly loose her bread; that could have been a terrible waste.
He hit her again and she was sent bombarding through the wall like a cannon ball; the force of the impact knocked her out. The captain approached her, ready to finish the job, when one of his crew members came out of a near by house announcing some sort of find.
"I found it!" A burly crewman said, "It was right where that coward said it would be!" The captain took the thing the man was holding and held it up the air, inspiring cheers from his subordinates.
"Behold!" Said the captain, "Our ticket to the Grand Line!" His inspiring speech managed to reach all the way to Belinda subconscious mind, she woke up, sitting up slowly and painfully in the rubble of what used to be a wall. In the captain's hand was…that's a devil fruit! Belinda thought.
Although the thought of having super human powers was a very appealing, she wouldn't eat a devil fruit. Because first, she loved swimming; and secondly, she had no idea which fruit it was. It could be the burn all-toast-you-ever-make fruit, and no amount of scraping could ever remove all of the burnt parts. She shuttered at the horrifying thought of burnt bread. But even a bread-burning devil fruit could make her a lot of money. No more job hunting! She thought. I have to get my hands on that thing.
"Hey you!" A woman bust out from the house the crewman came out of earlier; blood running down the side of her head and armed. She pointed het weapon at the captain. "That's mine! Give it back to me, or I'll kill you where you stand!"
"I don't think you have the guts or the power to hurt a single hair on my head," was the captain's response.
"Last chance" she said, and cocked her shotgun. He laughed at her. At least in his last moments he's happy. Belinda thought.
The sound of a gunshot rang air, but there was no blood. Instead, there were floating dots in the air. The woman now joined them as the pirates laughed at her. They, of course, had know their captain would be fine all along. The captain pulled out a gun, devil fruit still in hand, and aimed it at the woman's bloody head. This got Belinda's attention.
"No!" she cried out and leaped out at him, going for the fruit hoping it would get his attention.
She snatched it easily out of his sweaty hands, and made a break for it with the now moist fruit in her clutches. That's disgusting, she thought, I'm definitely never eating this disgusting thing. A shot grazed her as she turned a corner.
"After her!" the captain commanded, and his troops roared behind her. Belinda screamed with them.