A/N. Here's a new chapter, hope you enjoy it! For those of you who haven't been reading this as of lately, I suggest going back and re-reading the first chapter, because I just re-did the prologue. Also, just so you guys know, I can't promise regular-ish updates, because I'm trying to catch up on some of my planned revisions (aka getting them started at the very least…). But I will try.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

EP 1: Something Wicked This Way Comes

She'd been a shadow in the crowds when Lafitte had first noticed her, top hat blocking the sun from his eyes casting his features in such a suspicious shadow that everyone looked at him like he was some sort of criminal. Who was to say that he wasn't, after all it wasn't like he'd ever been squeaky clean in his life.

Morals were a bit of an ambiguous when you were a pirate.

Honestly it shouldn't drawn his attention at all. It was just a girl, a child at that. Probably lost and looking for her parents. Or maybe abandoned. What significance could that possible hold? Nothing at all really.

But insignificant things didn't sing strange songs in such a mumbled, quiet tone that they couldn't be heard clearly, they didn't grin like maniacs and with an aura that would leave any lesser man soiling himself, and they most certainly weren't seemingly innocent, little girls walking the crime ridden streets of a lawless port so frequented by pirates that the actual denizens might as well have just forked over whatever meager goods they had to offer as soon as a knock was heard at the door.

They definitely didn't go drop kicking men into the ocean for shits and giggles, but that had been what he'd found the supposedly insignificant girl doing. Though little wouldn't have been something he'd have used to describe her.

A skinny, flat little thing that could've easily been mistaken for a boy, save for the obvious feminine features and higher pitched voice, with long black hair that fell down to her scrawny rear end and curled in all sorts of directions, and a surprisingly soothing smile marring her expression as she watched said men flounder in the salty waters before they managed to pull themselves up to relative, shark free safety.

Relative, because they probably weren't any safer on land than they were in the water with said carnivorous fish.

"Really though, what is the world coming to? I get pulled out of the loop, and there's a town like this with rude brutes like you lot. Didn't your mothers teach you better than to manhandle women? No?"And she kicked one of the men in the face again, breaking a nose from the blood that came spurting out and knocking him back into the water he'd just pulled himself out of. "Well then it's a good thing I showed up now isn't it. Now I know your mothers taught you the answer to what I'm about to ask next… what do we say after offending a lady?" She instructed as she voluntarily hefted the man from the salty brink and tossed him ashore as if he weighed nothing more than a sopping blanket. The nameless girl, or maybe woman, Lafitte still couldn't tell, stepped to the side, and suddenly he knew why she was beating these men black and blue.

There was a slightly older, much more clearly developed teenager behind her, dressed in quite the odd garbs, though he couldn't really call her clothing unusual to any extent without sounding like a right hypocrite, long pink hair pulled into two curling pigtails and a rightfully outraged expression marring black painted features.

"B-BITC-GACK!" And apparently the brutes weren't getting any smarter. And from the way the man gagged and chocked, clawing at his own throat as if that would somehow assuage the pain after she'd kicked him so brutally.

"Now, I know that's not what your mother said! Don't call me any of your family's nicknames, I've got enough of my own, starting with Dumbass and ending with Son. Of. A. Bitch." She'd barked, stepping on the chocking man's hands and breaking four of his fingers as she enunciated the last of her response. "I'll give you one last chance before I feed you to something far worse than any shark." She motioned then to the young lady behind her, seeming to be rightly pleased with the torment the younger girl was bestowing upon her assaulters. "What do you say to the lady?"

"W-We're sorry ma'am…" The men finally concented, heads bowed low to the ground and bodies curled tightly into balls as they whimpered and plead for mercy. Something that they weren't liable to get based off of what Lafitte had seen so far, but who knew?

"Well? Are they forgiven?" The pinkette made a show of contemplating the question, face twisting up in some demented farce of a thoughtful expression, grinning slightly as her protector slammed a foot rather brutally onto one of the men's back.

"Hell no!" Was the condemning sentence. And the younger girl actually smiled, malicious and unforgiving before she'd chucked them all rather bodily some kilometers out into the ocean, turning around and leaving them to either drown, be eaten by sea monsters, or swim to shore.

The pinkette huffed slightly, crossing her arms and pouting as she followed the younger girl, before finally speaking. "Thanks, I guess… I mean, I could have handled that myself but…"

"…"

"Anyways, thanks!"

"You're welcome, but I must say that I don't think I've ever had an audience before… So why don't you come out of hiding over there?" She'd suddenly turned to face the direction Lafitte had been hiding, and the man couldn't help but grin as he leapt down from his perch, bowing low in such a grand sweeping motion that he'd be hard pressed to not believe that the girl had rolled her eyes at his entrance. "So, how can I help you? You need some dicks that need being put into their place or what?"

"Oh, no, nothing of the sort I promise you. I was just watching your handling of the situation, I must say that you did so rather… splendidly." The girl seemed to approve at his own choice of words, tipping his hat before replacing it on his head.

"Why thank you. So what's your name?"

"My name is Lafitte, and may I inquire as to what yours are?"

"Monkey D. Luccia. To my understanding this lady here is Perona. And we," At this she motioned to the both of them, Perona pouting at him and looking rightfully angered at being ignored until her friend, and he used the term rather loosely, "are pirates."

"Well, how interesting indeed. For two ladies at such young age to be pirates? Oh, what is the world coming to? I must ask though, pirates you may be, but do either of you know how to navigate?"

"No. Or at least not very well. I'm better than Lady Captain here, but I'm not the best."

"I see…"

"Unfortunately true… Though I have to ask, why would you be interested in such a thing?"

"Simple, I may be able to help, and my gentleman's pride wouldn't be able to let me rest if I let the two of you wander off on your own." They were being facetious and they all knew it.

There was nothing kind in their smiles, or polite in their demeanors. They were a bunch of cruel, little monsters wearing human skin and pretending to be polite and nice. Oh, he had no doubt that the apparent captain between the two could be gentle and kind, had probably been so at what point, without a mean bone in her body.

But something had corrupted that, taken and swallowed a gentle nature down into the murky depths and spat out something for more twisted and unkind. None of them knew how to play nice anymore.

But they knew how to play their games, and maybe that could help them all in their goals.

"Well then, I guess it couldn't hurt. Certainly beats letting Perona Dear get us lost again." She'd sneered at the pinkette at that, and Perona had sneered right back, but he could tell that there was little actually meant malice in the gestures. It was probably the most friendly either had been in a long time.

He'd try not to ruin that, but he made no promises.

"So we've got a navigator, a captain, and a sharpshooter. Now all we need is a doctor, a mechanic and a first mate."

"A bigger boat wouldn't go amiss either, I'm certain."

"I think I can get us that bigger boat… But first, there's a few favors we'll need to do…"

A/N. So Luccia has turned into the most sadistic character I've ever written. How deliciously horrifying…