Hello! Welcome to my One Piece Holiday one-shot!
For those of you who are new, this story is based off of my One Piece story, "Who Is She?" This is a different take on the story behind the OC. It's not really a Christmas story, but it is based off of the gingerbread poem.
This isn't really a cheerful story (then again, I didn't find the actual poem all that cheerful as well). However, it's not completely dark. Either way, I hope you enjoy this story!
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece. Myka is my OC.
Once there was a gingerbread man,
Baking in a gingerbread pan.
Raisin eyes and a cherry nose,
Trimmed right down to his fingers and toes.
A gingerbread man in a gingerbread pan!
This part of the poem was accurate, except for the fact that the gingerbread man was actually a gingerbread woman. Her name was Myka and she wasn't alone. She shared the pan with a smaller gingerbread man. His name was Connor, and he was Myka's little brother.
Here's the old woman who made him so sweet,
A treat for her and her husband to eat,
She made him with flour and sugar and eggs,
She gave him a face and two arms and two legs.
A gingerbread man in a gingerbread pan!
From here on out, the poem diverged greatly from the story of the gingerbread woman. It was true that the siblings were made by the same woman, but she wasn't that old. The woman was Katie, and while she did give the siblings their bodies, she wasn't intending to make them sweet or for her to eat. She was making them for the world that would inevitably come after them to swallow them whole.
Instead of being made with the same love and care that would have come with a normal childhood and be their flour, sugar, and eggs, they were made with bitterness. Their ingredients included hateful stares and nasty words. They were baked in an oven that used the fire of the hate the world directed at them. It didn't matter that they hadn't done anything. Just because Katie had happened to bake them was apparently enough of an excuse for the world to turn the heat up on the two.
Myka didn't go through this heat unscathed. Katie had made her too thin in some parts, so she started to burn. At first, she had screamed and shouted, but then accepted the fact that the heat wasn't going to go down.
Connor, on the other hand, wasn't troubled by the heat. In fact, he didn't seem to have noticed it. Instead, he smiled in that cheery way of his as he baked evenly throughout their time in the heat. It was probably his happy-go-lucky nature that gave Myka hope and prevented her from being completely burnt.
Now open the oven to see if he's done,
This gingerbread man, he knows how to run.
Out of the oven and onto the floor,
Now run away out the kitchen door.
The gingerbread man, he's out of the pan!
Finally, the time came where they can leave their smoldering oven. They could finally go and explore the world. Jumping out of the oven when the door opened was easy. Katie didn't give chase. No, once they were out of the oven, Katie no longer concerned herself with them. They managed to withstand the fire, so they could face the world without her help. That was her way of thinking.
Myka was just fine with that. She wanted nothing to do with the woman, anyway.
However, tragedy struck as soon as they stepped out of the kitchen. The attack came from nowhere and caught them by surprise. A couple of rats had tried to surround them. Luckily, Myka had managed to charge through the pack. She led with her shoulder and managed to bust through to the other side. The attack only cost a piece of herself, falling off as she ran away. No one was able to outrun a gingerbread man.
As soon as she got far enough away, she looked over her shoulder to see how Connor was faring. She frowned when she failed to see the small gingerbread man following her. Her run soon slowed down to a jog, then a walk. Once realization had set in, she stopped completely. The rats had stopped following her for now, but that was because they went after the other target. The one who was better off than the other. The one who wasn't burnt and bitter from the baking process.
The good, resilient one was the one who got devoured first. Her brother was forever lost, along with that piece of her that broke off.
Myka wasn't given time to mourn. Her enemies were persistent, and didn't waste time trying to catch her when she stopped.
She was forced to run again. She ran and ran and ran from all who tried to devour her. Her enemies ranged from animals to Marines to pirates and even to the ordinary villager. None were able to catch her because no one could catch a gingerbread man.
But, eventually there came a time when Myka was tired. Tired of running away. Tired of acting like a coward. It was this damn world that took away her brother, so why shouldn't she fight back? So she grabbed a small knife from a pirate when he wasn't looking and began to take the offensive.
She fought when she could and she ran when she felt overwhelmed. She didn't care what happened to her opponents after the fights. In fact, she didn't care about the world in general. She was just living to spite its decision to try to eradicate her.
With each fight, another piece of her fell off. At first, they were small. Almost insignificant. But soon, they became larger, like the piece that fell off when Connor was devoured. Her torso and head were worn and torn. Her left arm was shredded to the point it was almost useless. She had even lost one of her eyes to a damn cat.
Then, after that last fight, her right leg couldn't bear her weight anymore and completely broke off. Myka could no longer run. She didn't even feel like fighting now that she couldn't even stand. She considered just lying there, waiting for the end to come. The part of her that cared about living must have broken off already.
Finally, a pirate came along. The one she assumed would be the fox from the poem. The one that would end her. The burnt, broken, bitter cookie that everyone wanted gone.
The pirate, who wore a straw hat, picked her up. He looked very hungry and eager to eat. For some reason, to give up so easily irked her. She guessed she was the kind of person who stayed stubborn to the end. Instead of just letting him devour her, she stabbed him once in the hand with the knife she still held. He cried out as he dropped her. She didn't think this far ahead, for she knew the fall would shatter her into more pieces.
However, the impact never came. Myka's only eye widened in surprise when Straw Hat caught her before she hit the ground.
"You're alive?!" he asked, shocked. She scoffed.
"Depends on what you mean by alive." She was waiting for him to try to finish her off already. She had no patience for idiots.
"COOL!" She stared at him incredulously. For a pirate, he was incredibly childish.
"Hey! You want to join my crew?" he offered. This confused her even more.
"Just why would I do that? Besides, I'm not in any condition to be a part of any crew, so you might as well just finish me already. It's not like I have anything else waiting for me," she said bitterly. She wasn't wrong. She refused to go to Katie for help, and even then, she knew the baker wouldn't do anything. Her brother had been devoured long ago. And no one wanted the battle-worn cookie around.
Straw Hat seemed to have given her words some thought. Then he gently placed her back on the ground and walked away.
"H-Hey!" she shouted after him. He didn't respond. Myka raged from where she lay. That sadistic bastard! He wasn't even going to finish her off. He was going to let her suffer for who knew how long.
You could imagine her surprised when Straw Hat came back and picked her up. She was about to let him have it as she planned on cursing him until her throat was sore. Her plan came to a halt when she saw that he was holding something in his other hand.
It was her battered right leg. The one that couldn't hold her weight anymore.
"This is yours, right?" he asked, "I also found some pieces here and there that must be yours, too. We have a doctor who could fix you up. I'll take you to him."
"H-Hold it!" she shouted once the shock wore off.
"Why would you help me?" Realization had hit as soon as she asked the question out loud.
"Wait. I get it. You're just trying to trick me. Well, I'm not going to fall for it!" Straw Hat gave her a confused stare.
"What are you talking about? You're hurt, so you need a doctor," he stated. She slashed her knife at him again. He dodged it this time.
"Hey! I just said I was taking you to a doctor!" he said.
"Yeah right! You're just going to crush me the first chance you get, so why keep up the charade?" He was infuriating her!
"What's a 'charade?' Is it something I can eat?" he asked. She stopped her attacks to stare at him. He had to be joking. He said that with such a straight face, though. But no one could be that big of an idiot . . .
"Anyway, Chopper's the best! I know he can fix you up!" said Straw Hat. He spoke in that same cheery way Connor used to speak as well. Myka grimaced at the thought.
"You really are an idiot," she stated. Luffy frowned at her.
"I'm not a human like you. My wounds don't heal. I just break apart and crumble until I cease to exist," she said in a hollow tone. It was a disadvantage of being born the way she had. She didn't have the benefits of a long life like the human pirate holding her, taking pity on her. She sighed as she looked down at the ground.
"It's pointless to pity me. I won't accept it. Just either leave me be or fight me to the death. Those are the only two options here." It was silent for a few beats.
". . . You're stupid, aren't you?" This caused Myka to whip her head up at him.
"EXCUSE ME? You're the idiot!" she shouted at him, bewildered and annoyed with him. Her patience had run out quite a while ago, so he was pushing his luck now.
"I told you that I was going to help you. That's what friends do," he stated matter-of-factly. Friends? Since when the hell did he decide that they were friends?
She had questioned and protested his decision on this the entire way back to his ship. He took her to the tiny blue-nosed reindeer who wore a pink hat. She learned from Straw Hat's conversation with him that his name was Chopper. He was the ship's doctor who Straw Hat was so confident in.
Chopper puzzled over what to do when Straw Hat told him to heal her. After all, she was a gingerbread woman. She doesn't regenerate or heal. Myka was about to tell him how useless it was and that they might as well toss her overboard, when the ship's cook, a blonde man with a swirly eyebrow, gave a suggestion.
About an hour later, Myka found herself with her leg and the few other pieces Straw Hat found glued back to her with frosting. They had even replaced her missing violet raisin eye, completely restoring her vision. Chopper instructed her not to move around, despite the fact that she hated to sit still.
"You're still missing a few pieces," noted Straw Hat.
"No shit," said Myka, slightly irritated. Why? Why was he trying to help her? Why was the idiot making her remember what hope felt like? She hated hope!
"Do you know where they are? We'll go get them for you," he offered. She gave him a critical stare. This bastard . . . he was being sincere. She wished he wasn't. It would have made it that much easier to hate him and his crew.
". . . No. I've lost quite a few of them a long time ago. I imagine that most of them aren't salvageable anymore," she muttered.
"Okay, then we'll help you find them!" That's it. She couldn't take it anymore. She glared up at him.
"Will you stop that? I didn't ask for your help! I don't want your help! I just want you to leave me be!" she demanded. Myka didn't want hope. She didn't want friends to open up to. She just wanted to continue the rest of her miserable existence alone, not giving anyone the chance to stab her in the back.
Myka hopped down from the table, intending to run as fast as she could from this place. Unfortunately, the damn frosting hadn't dried yet. As soon as she had hit the ground, her leg came right off again. The pieces that had been carefully glued back flew away from the force of the impact with the wooden floorboards. She'd lay on the ground, as broken and helpless as she was when Straw Hat found her.
Great, now that she made a fool of herself trying to leave, Straw Hat and his friends were probably going to ridicule her, saying she had no chance.
Straw Hat, on the other hand, was not done surprising her, it seemed. He picked her up as gently as before while Chopper gathered her pieces. She was laid on the table, the whole time she was looking up at him, wary and confused.
"You're right. You didn't ask for our help. But if you won't let us help you, who will? Your leg can't carry you anymore, and you keep losing pieces of yourself." Myka gritted her teeth and looked away. She hated the truth. Almost as much as she hated hope.
"I don't care for whatever reason you have for not wanting to trust anyone else, but you can at least trust us to help you now. After you're healed and you still want to leave, you can do so then." Myka looked back up at him. He seriously wasn't going to back down on this. And she was in no position to try to fight her way out. She really had no choice but to accept the offer. At least when she was healed, she could run away should he be lying about letting her leave.
". . . Fine," she agreed, reluctantly. Straw Hat smirked.
"Oh yeah! My name's Luffy. What's yours?" he asked in that childish way of his.
"Myka."
"Then welcome abroad, Myka!"
She allowed them to patch her back together and introduce her to the rest of the crew. A couple of them had scolded Luffy for just inviting another random person to their crew (apparently, that was a habit of his). She watched from her perch on the table, now able to stand on both of her legs. Her left arm was still mangled and her torso was still lacking. She knew that, despite their insurances, she would never be in the condition she was in before setting out from the oven she was baked in. And the rest of her wasn't as replaceable as her eye had been.
However, she supposed it wouldn't hurt to, just once, stop running and fighting. Let someone else do the fighting for her. It wasn't like she had any other place to go.
I hope the ending was okay here. Other than that, I really liked writing this.
Well, that's all there is to this holiday one-shot. Please tell me your thoughts in a review and I wish you all a Merry Christmas!