I feel so bolstered. Recent manga chapters have really, really been making me smile and love the fact I am a One Piece fan even more. Please to the infinite degree tell me anything at all you guys think I can do better with this fanfiction. I would super appreciate as much input as possible. I do not own One Piece. Reviewer thanks go out to Flower-san, Ryo-kun, Butterfly-san and Sakura-chan.
Inherited Will, Destiny of the Age
Chapter Six
Paulie: What a Life I Lead
I've been told since I was young that I was a fucking cursed screw-up. My parents died when I was a teenager and I had been taken in by Iceburg-san only because of my promising talent as a shipwright. Since that moment, I have always been in some sort of debt, whether morally or money-wise. Some have called it fate that I have turned out the way I have. Wanna know what I say?
Fuck fate. Fuck fate and discard it like a goddamn piece of fucking scrap ship.
If fate existed, it would have made it such those bastards would not have shown their ugly faces around here ever again. I would not have to be married to a woman I have yet to love as a husband should a wife and would not be raising a child that was never mine to begin with. Sometimes I wonder what one person fucking screwed up to make all of this crash and burn. Who was it that did or didn't do something? Was his choice to fuck up the world a conscious one? If I ever get my hands on him, he's a dead man.
I can't though. Right now, I have to worry about protecting Chimney and Thomas. They're the kind of family I had never wanted, but I am still obliged to protect them. I promised that I would. Both Kokoro and Iceburg-san would haunt me if I ever did anything to let them get into harm's way as long as I could prevent it.
So I ran. I ran as fast as I could with those shit kids trailing behind me. They had hunted me down and tried to convince me to build a ship. No fucking way. Those days are dead. No more master ships are born in this day and age to those such as us. We, the former generation of everything, are no longer in power, nor should we have hope to regain it. Our day of power is lost forever.
We ran towards the shipyard under the bridge, Tom's Workers, as quick as we could. It was deep within the slums, almost underwater. It was the most likely place those fucking bastards would have gone, thinking it as being "poetic" and shit like that. I wanted to beat in Lucci's face for letting his lackeys touch my wife and son. They might as well be my true wife and son, because now there is no one else left for me to protect. Still, facing the slums was going to be no picnic. The further towards the sea you get, the rougher the city becomes. Get underwater and any normal human being is toast.
"Listen, I'm not going to protect you brats," I yelled over my shoulder. "If you fall behind, I'm leaving you behind!"
"Sounds fair enough," replied the guy who was loading a pistol as he ran. I was never properly introduced to any of these kids really. This was the one who yelled at me because I wouldn't build his ship. Piiman I think it was? As if it really matters. I think I'll take Chimney and Thomas and leave this wretched city for someplace safer. I hear the South Blue's fairly peaceful compared to the rest of the world.
Turning on a dime, I ducked into a building to my right. The door was wide open and the usual abandoned appearance was set apart from the others by a large red X painted over the graying paint.
"What are you doing!?" one of the kids yelled at me. They shouldn't question me, fuckers.
"This is the easiest way to the shipyard under the bridge!" I shouted. I stopped for a moment and waited for the brats to catch up. They all stumbled in behind me, shocked at the condition of what was once a bookshop. I kicked down the door that was behind me and a passageway opened up to the underworld, dark, dank and smelling of the deceitful rats that occupied it.
"Is this the entrance to the tunnel system you were talking about?" asked the one with glasses.
"Yeah," I said. "Before we go down, you all need to know that there's no coming in without the total resolution to come out with those girls of yours. If you go in there without resolve, then you will not come out. I can guarantee it."
"I cannot imagine being enough of a dickhead to abandon the girls," one of the guys said. I waited for one of them to wimp out, but when none of them did, I turned on my heel and entered Hell.
If Water 7 was a shit-hole on the surface, then there were no words that could describe the underground. The first few levels are generally sane. Many fairly normal people live in houses where the living quarters are blocked off from the rest of the underground as I did with my family. If you enter the tunnel system through a shop front or go beyond those residential areas of safety, you're fucked. Dirty trade takes place down there. The big thing right now is injections. A couple of years ago, it was assassinations and before that it had been human beings. Every twist and turn, every bend in your path, can potentially bring you to your doom. Normal people, the weaklings of average citizenship, are nothing to a dealer's burly bodyguard. A pesky neck is quickly snapped. Even in the years before the Sea Train was built, Water 7 has never been this shitty. Desperate and destitute, yes... but never willingly reeking of crime as it was now.
Fortunately, I knew more than the average person about the underground tunnels. Mainly it was because I had traveled many of them when I was younger, back when they were only the hiding places for bums and children playing hooky from their duties at home and school. Also, it is now one of the few places these days to get fresh produce and medicine. Once the dealers were separated from the ones who actually had some sort of shady clue about them, all I ever needed to worry about were the thugs. Some of them remembered me from the days before the city's downfall, others didn't. Sometimes, I wasn't even picked up on their radar, simply moving along without being noticed by anyone. Fucking ingrates.
After about fifteen minutes of running, we came across our first pack of flunkies, smelling like shit and bred only to fight. It was simple to take them out. Even the girl could sack a couple of K.O.'s in the fight, though I think they were on accident. We rushed past them quickly, not even bothering to take the spoils of the boss they were protecting.
We're coming. Don't worry. We're coming for you guys, even if it kills us.
Author's Notes
Paulie's character was so much fun to play with. Since his age was never mentioned, as far as I know, my guess is that during the Water 7 arc in the series he is around twenty to twenty-four years old. This makes him a good eleven to sixteen years older than Chimney and the oldest character with narration privileges by far. If anyone does know his official age, it would be of great help to me. He was originally a fairly pessimistic person in my opinion and I also find his current marital situation ironic. Over the years, life has screwed him over so much that he's a real coarse and gruff man inside and out by the time Rika approaches him to build a ship. Tamanegi's physical description of him is a testimony to that. An interesting concept though, is his level of attachment to Chimney and Thomas, being as they are the closest thing to a family that he is ever going to have. He is also a great link to the real series, being as he could have been in Luffy's crew, at least age-wise.
