2. Betrayal
Rating: T for profanity
In her years as a fugitive, Nico Robin had no time for hobbies. Certainly she enjoyed reading, but the kinds of people she was often forced to take refuge with were not especially literate. Even ordinary people can adapt in extraordinary ways to extreme situations, and Nico Robin was no ordinary person. In adapting to her extreme boredom, she tried to find a little fun in her daily life, even given the horrors that her daily life was composed of.
"Think about it, Captain," the ragged-looking pirate encouraged. "If we had the frickin' Devil Child of Ohara in our crew, everyone would get right the hell out of our way!"
This guy had to be a new low, even by Robin's standards. The Captain, she hadn't even caught his name, had a messy blonde beard, braided at a number of points and struck through with all sorts of filthy food. She wondered if he had bathed or even changed clothes sometime in the past three weeks. Robin wondered if he had some ape in his heritage somewhere, given his broad lips and monkeyish complexion. Apparently he had a filth-based devil fruit power, and liked to look the part. That power had to be the only thing he had going for him, as she could practically see the stupidity in his gaze as he processed the information his crewmate had just given him.
"Fine. She can stay," the Captain said finally. The crew, that had been surrounding her with their weapons poised, relaxed. Robin relaxed as well, uncrossing her arms. "But just because we got this bitch don't mean we gonna get any more money in our pockets."
Robin did not bat an eyelid at the Captain's rudeness. Though he was a new low in terms of manners, her expectations had hit rock bottom some time before. "Thank you," she said, choking down her disgust, "I'll try to be of some assistance to your crew."
"Yeah yeah," the Captain said dismissively. "Your assistance better mean cash money."
Eight days, Robin thought to herself. This was her impromptu hobby. Robin liked to make bets with herself as to how long she could last with her latest group of so-called "nakama," before they betrayed her. Given that she had gone through almost 16 years of this, she had become quite adept at judging when the loyalties of her erstwhile protectors would run short. Pirates generally never looked clean or proper, but this crew looked shifty and uncertain even by pirate standards.
They had made it clear that they were desperate for cash, and Robin was running a 79 million beli bounty, about 10 times as much as the Captain's. She knew exactly how it would go: they would safely bear her off this island, possibly even with the intent to keep her around for a while. They would make the 7-day passage to the next island, and after being there for one night, she would wake up at whatever inn they stayed in with the entire crew gone and the inn surrounded by marines, or at least that would be their plan. Robin would make sure she was safe, she always did, but recently she had tried to make the process a bit more… fun.
"Oi, oiiiii," the annoying woman said, poking Robin obnoxiously with a grimy fingernail. It seemed that a certain lack of hygiene was a prerequisite for being on this crew, and this woman was no exception, with her dusty brown hair ridden with lice. "Do you do anything? You just sit around all day like a lump."
They had pulled into the next island, almost exactly a week after Robin had joined up. "I was hired merely to add my reputation to this crew," Robin said coolly. "I have not been given instruction as to how I could be of further aid."
"No no no," the woman insisted, "I mean don't you do nothin' for fun?"
"I like to read."
The woman snorted, spraying spittle in the process. "Hah! Reading," she stumped away across the deck. "Stuck-up little whores like you deserve what they get," she muttered.
Robin had been getting such not-so-subtle hints of the crew's discontent with her presence in the past couple of days. Tonight they would make landfall, and tomorrow they would betray her, if her assessment was correct. Robin liked to be a voyeur sometimes, part of the fun of tormenting her soon-to-be betrayers before the fact, so she kept track of where the woman went as she departed from the deck. A quickly muttered "Oreja Fluer," and she had an ear in on the situation.
"I can't stand this bitch!" the woman said emphatically. "She thinks she's so clean and pretty and smart, feh!" she spat.
"Yeah yeah," said a voice Robin had identified as the first mate. "She ain't doin' us no favors, sittin' around like a smartass and eatin' our food and drinkin' our water. Plus she's annoying as fuck." They were silent for a moment, and finally the first mate piped up again. "Can we turn her in tonight, Captain? I'm sick of seein' her and I ain't spendin' one more night with this spoiled whore if I don't got to."
There was a pause, and Robin could imagine the Captain's face as he pondered everything in his slow and stupid way. "Fine fine," the Captain said eventually. "We get our 79 million tonight, then we can get some first-class booze. But how do we do it?"
"We'll go into town, see," the first mate interjected. He was clearly the brains of this outfit, "and tell her to stay on the ship. Since she's lazy as hell anyway, she'll do it. Won't she be surprised when a gang of marines comes by to haul her off?"
Seven days. Robin thought, ticking it off in her head. It was her first loss in a while.
"But won't the marines take our ship, genius?" the woman asked.
"Not if we take the jolly roger down," the first mate rebutted. "S'long as there's nothing that screams out "Oi, this is a pirate ship!" they'll be too happy that they nabbed the frickin' devil child herself to really care."
"Sounds like a plan to me," the Captain said. "And then we'll be rich as fuck, won't we?"
"I don't think so," Robin said, stepping through the door. Her ear dissolved into flower petals after that.
"Scummy little witch!" the woman yelled. "You was spyin' on us!"
"It was a good idea to betray you," the Captain said.
"You might have betrayed me, but you haven't succeeded," Robin said with a smug smile. "How about we make this interesting?" She pulled out the Captain's wanted poster, a paltry 8 million. "I try to turn you in at the same time. One person wins and walks away with the other's bounty, one person gets executed. Sound fun?"
"Bitch!" the three of them yelled simultaneously.
"Get her!" the Captain roared.
"Treinta Fluer!" Robin responded, ten hands sprouted on each of the three of them. "Grab!"
She turned to leave, then said "try to keep up," smiling sweetly, then she bolted.
"Stop her!" shouted the first mate. "Stop the devil child!" The dirty gang of pirates materialized from all corners of the ship, pursuing her hotly as she ran down the gangplank. When they mounted the gangplank, however…
"Veinte Fluer!" multiple hands emerged from the gangplank, seizing the crewmates by their ankles and pitching them to one side or the other, into the water. More kept coming as she fled, including the Captain who was now in high wrath. He morphed smoothly into a pile of dark-brown muck, with a smell so potent that it fouled the air entering Robin's nostrils even from there. She was shocked, but didn't show it. It only makes the game more interesting.
Robin ran away from the ship, unusually agile in her high-heeled boots as always. She dodged into a back alley, but the Captain and the pirates kept charging down the main street. "Don't worry about catching her! We just gotta beat her to the Marine Office!" the Captain shouted, his voice thick as he was still in his muck form. He had some brains in his head after all. The only advantage she had was that neither she nor the pirates knew where the local office was, and she was disadvantaged because there was only one of her, but any of her former nakama could reach the goal ahead of her.
Well, if she were a normal woman, she would be at a disadvantage, but Nico Robin was better than that. "Ochenta Fluer, Omniscience!" All about the small island town, hands appeared on all kinds of surfaces, hands with eyes on them, causing no small amount of alarm in the townsfolk, but they were significantly dismayed already by the pirate gangs charging about town. More than causing a stir, Robin did not use this ability often because it was an immense sensory strain, to put up with the perceptional input of eighty additional eyes, but then Robin caught it. She headed towards the one hand, the one eye, that had the Marine Office in sight.
She navigated the town streets swiftly, now confident in her direction. Once she finally emerged on the street that housed the Marine Office, she charged forward with more vigor, but saw two of the pirates on the same street, closer than she was. "Ocho fluer!" and the two pirates were down with cracked spines. Robin then coolly proceeded in to the office, pulling out the Captain's Wanted poster. Inside she found a few rough-looking men loitering aimlessly, as well as a Marine petty officer, someone low on the totem pole and endlessly bored with his existence. I can help him with that, at least.
"This town's in a significant uproar," Robin said, tone-neutral as she walked towards the petty officer's desk with just a hint of sway in her step.
"Yeah," the officer said idly. "They're always complaining about something."
"It might have something to do with him," Robin said, indicating the Wanted Poster in her hands.
"Wait, he's in town?" the officer said, finally paying attention to his visitor. He yelped in shock, looking at her. "He's been making trouble around here for months! Do you have information on him?"
"Not much, I'm afraid," Robin replied. "I do know that he is after me, and will arrive here imminently. If you marshal the garrison, you could probably catch him."
"All right!" the man roared, a spark coming into his eyes. "If we pull this off, you can claim the bounty," he said. "I'll be just fine with the promotion!" He blew a whistle and a number of Marines appeared as if from nowhere, and he charged out into the street.
The rough-looking men that had been loitering in the office then approached her. "You seem like you're pretty good at this," one of them said. "Did you ever think of doing this professionally?"
"Professional betrayal?" Robin said, smirking. The men laughed.
"You'll fit in great with that attitude at Baroque Works."
Betrayal filled many voids in the fugitive archaeologist's life. It was a thrilling hobby, a means of support, and could even open doors for her. Robin had adapted well to her horrible life, but deep down, she hoped for the day when she might be free of betrayal entirely.
Author's Note: Mehhh, for part of a 30-theme challenge, this is incredibly long, and I don't think it came out that well, but I put the time into it, and still can't think of a better application for this theme, so there it is. Movin' on.