Warnings: Torture/abuse is mentioned and seen in this chapter. Tread with caution if you are easily triggered. Even if you aren't that easily triggered. Stuff gets dark and bad.
—*—*—*—*—*
Nami has spend the rest of the day on that odd ship with the handless clock on its Jolly Roger. It had seemed that the longer she spent around them, the odder they got. Especially the crew's captain and doctor.
The doctor had surfaced from somewhere under the deck when she had finished helping Maven cook dinner. He seemed nearly emotionless, though occasionally she would catch sparks in his eyes that suggested otherwise. And he had slipped something into the silver-haired girl's meal (Lin, Nami reminded herself. The girl was Rabid Linral) that made the girl's voice turn deep like a man's for almost an hour.
Nami would never admit how hard she had had to keep herself from laughing. The constant glances from the doctor worried her that she might be the next victim of a prank like that if she brought too much attention to herself.
The weird crew, led by their monster of a captain, actually offered the orange haired girl to stay overnight. Overnight, her, someone they had caught trying to steal their obviously important belongings just a few hours earlier! They just confused her more and more, and she couldn't help but wonder how the hell they were Pirates. They didn't seem arrogant or violent like the Fishmen back on Conomi. The Linral girl looked like a classic tomboy, probably the same age or slightly older than Nami herself. And that Katie girl looked far too well mannered and innocent to belong there, surely, despite the knives on her hips and the arrow she had aimed at Nami earlier that day.
The only one who actually looked like a Pirate was Maven, with her surprisingly muscular and tall form with her wild hair and rebellious smile. And the axe, Nami couldn't forget the wicked looking purple battle axe that somehow melded together beauty and horror in its graceful metal curves. But Maven was goofy. She had piled literal pounds of fruit into her mouth at dinner, along with the filling meal of rice, grilled vegetables, and roast meat that Nami had help her make. And the girl trained. Nami has never thought it possible for someone other than a Fishman to lift over two thousand pounds, but had watched Maven finish the three hundred reps with a metal weight of just that size (apparently Nami's appearance had interrupted Maven's routine with them).
So when Nami's sensitive ears had heard the crew members getting up softly in the middle of the night? She snuck out to follow. All four of the Hopeless Pirates (and what kind of crew name was that?!) had gathered in the kitchen around the dinner table and were speaking in soft tones. Nami leaned back against the wall closest the door to eavesdrop.
"Arlong as taken over dozens of islands already," that was the blonde, innocent girl's voice. Katie. Nami twitched instinctually at the sound of Arlong's name.
"He's gotta be forcing them to do something for him. Pay him, work for him— something, there's no way a girl like Nami would be forced to work for a guy like Arlong if he wasn't holding something over her head," Nami heard the shortest of the four, Lin, add with surprising venom in her voice. "It reminds me of what Mayor Puckers did to me, giving me Faldo hope and asking for me to give him treasure so he could cure me. And it was all a lie," the tenseness in Lin's voice caught Nami off guard. So she wasn't the only one to go through a situation like the one Arlong put her in? And what did Lin mean, cure?
Nami heard a hum, something she had quickly learned was a habit Maven did when thinking.
"We might not have a lot of crew members, but we're competent," the bland voice of the doctor rose up. Nami was slightly surprised by his addition to the conversation. "Do you plan on taking him down, Maven? You hate people who force others to do anything against their will more than anyone else in the world."
Was that true, Nami wondered? Maven did seem like a strangely carefree, half-decent person for a pirate. But going against Arlong, that was suicide!
"You know we aren't scared of death," Katie's soft voice suddenly spoke, as if hearing Nami's thoughts. The ginger felt her breath stop.
"... I want to," Maven finally spoke. "I want to beat Arlong into a pulp for thinking he can use people like chess pieces—"
"I can set us on a path for Conomi Islands, I hear that's their headquarters," Lin interrupted. And Nami knew the short girl could, she was a good navigator. Not nearly as good as Nami, but definitely competent.
"You didn't let me finish," Maven's voice was suddenly sharp, and it cut through the air and silenced everyone, even Nami found herself trying to keep her heartbeat down as she strained her ears harder to focus on the older girl's words. "I want to, desperately, but we can't," the regret in Maven's tone was palpable, but it did little to smother the disappointment that Nami felt slam over her. Maven has a higher bounty than Arlong, albeit only slightly, but that meant she could beat him, right? Possibly? And her crew members weren't slouches, either.
"Maven!" Lin hissed, angry and shocked by her captain's statement. Nami heard Maven sigh.
"Listen. We aren't the right crew for this, we are different than other pirates. You know that. Raz can't get himself overly stressed or excited, what happens if he gets attacked by a Fishman? We don't know about their resistance levels to chemicals and medicines, it's possible Raz's formulas will be ineffective. And he's not a fighter, he uses his medical knowledge to win fights rather than his strength. It isn't like Arlong is going to be the only strong opponent there, either. What about Katie? She's a great fighter, but her endurance is nearly nonexistent. The Fishmen will make it a long fight. That's a fact, and Katie would not fare well at all in a long fight," Maven explained calmly, though Nami could hear a tenseness in her voice that had her surprisingly feeling a little more softly towards the odd pirate captain.
"You and Lin are monsters though," Katie spoke up, sounding desperate in a way Nami never would have expected from the polite, composed girl. "Surely—"
"You know you're grasping at straws there, Katylan," the use of Katie's full name one again forced utter silence. Maven hardly ever deviated from the nicknames she had chosen for her Nakama. "Let me ask you this. First, Lin is a brawler. Fishmen are known to be at least several times stronger physically than normal humans. What would that mean for Lin, who only fights using her body's strength?"
Silence.
"And think about our captain as well," Razdall's voice drifted into the air again, bland but firm. "You all might think that she's invincible. It certainly seems like it sometimes with how she dominates all of our raids on marine ships. But I am the one that gives her her weekly checkups," the doctor let out an uncharacteristic sigh. "Maven is not nearly in as good of a shape as she seems. It's all she can do to stay relatively healthy. Even she would struggle against an opponent like Arlong, most likely it will come down to pure luck and strategy that determines the winner. Neither party would walk away with severe wounds after a fight like that. What would happen if Maven was injured badly enough to become bedridden?"
Nami didn't understand the tense silence at that statement. Why couldn't Maven stay in bed? The girl worked out extremely hard, so maybe it had to do with an exercise addiction? Would she open her wounds because she just had to work out?
Try as Nami might to justify it, that thought just didn't seem like the correct answer.
"That's that, then? We can't do anything?" Lin asked, voice overflowing with frustration. Nami let out a wry smirk; she could relate.
"Nothing that will make much of a difference. Maybe we can sneak an extra couple million into Nami's treasure bag. I don't know why she needs to collect treasure, but it seems important," Maven admitted with a sigh. Nami could imagine the girl taking off her signature purple fedora and running her fingers along the rim in thought. "We need our treasure to pay for the food and other necessities. Wood and nails for emergency repairs, medicine and herbs for Raz's stock in the infirmary, fruit, clothing, juice, new weapons or whatnot, fruit…"
"I think your priorities are skewed," Katie deadpanned, noticing how often Maven had stated fruit even though she had already mentioned food. Nami wondered if the captain considered fruit to be separate from normal food, and realized that it would explain a lot.
Nami forced herself to stand up quietly, tracing her footsteps back into the cabin that she was sharing for the night with the three girls in the crew. She'd milk one more day of staff training out of Maven, and then leave. If they couldn't help with Arlong, then there was no reason to stick around any longer with those weird people.
—*—*—*—*—*
I had woken up only an hour later than my usual five-AM, mostly because of the late night meeting I had had with my Nakama, but went about my morning exercises as usual. I was halfway through my sit-ups when Nami rolled over in the spare hammock we had lent her and opened one sleepy eye to glare at me.
"... Four hundred and eighty-two…"
"Don't just go right back to exercising!" The thief whisper-yelled at me. "I've been trying to sleep through it, but I can't get back to sleep now! What the hell are you doing, training at… six thirty in the morning, anyway?" She had paused only long enough to check the time on the clock we had on the wall. I looked up and sighed at her as I kept doing my crunches, counting in my head as I replied.
"I need to… part of my… morning routine…" I huffed out between crunches. "Almost done… hang on…"
Once I reached five hundred, I slowly relaxed my body and let myself stand up and stretch. Nami had given up on sleep entirely, sitting up in the hammock and wiping her eyes with her fists.
"Are you addicted to exercise or something?" The girl asked, making me whip my head to her with wide eyes. I could feel my lips twitch before I covered my mouth, holding back laughter. Nami's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. "What?! It's a legitimate question!"
I shook my head, nodding towards the door. "Let's talk in the kitchen, Lin and Katie are deep sleepers but not that deep," Nami agreed with a sigh, following me into the kitchen and sitting on the edge of the table as I ducked into the pantry.
"I'm not addicted to exercise," I told her when I came out, basket of fruit over one arm as I went to grab eggs and bacon from the fridge. "I guess you could say it's…" I pursued my lips as I tried to come up with something that wouldn't be an outright lie. I didn't want anyone besides the crew and the crew member's families to know about all of our terminal illnesses. "It's a condition in my body," I finally settled on. "I don't like talking about it so I won't go into specifics. But it requires me to exercise regularly to keep myself as healthy as possible. Resting or lazing around for too long would make me sick," I told her vaguely. She let out a soft 'oh,' in understanding.
After serving Nami, the other members of my crew stumbled in at the smell of food. Even a simple eggs and bacon breakfast was greatly appreciated by them. Of course, Lin ate a (small) bowl of fruit with hers, Katie had whipped herself up a salad, and Raz… Raz was munching on flowers. Even for our doctor, the sight was slightly strange. We all wisely decided not to question it though, and sipped our drinks. Milk for everyone else (except Katie, who had tomato juice), and a giant mug of fruit juice for me.
"Alright! Lin, you're on training with me for the next hour," I called out as we all finished our breakfasts. I meant Haki training of course, but wouldn't say it out loud in front of Nami. The ginger had other things to worry about. "Katie, go ahead and relax. Just check our heading every now and then."
Nami was still nibbling on a slice of bacon as she saw me and Lin sitting down on the floor across from each other. It was an Observation Haki day, and we always started out training it with meditation before moving to random poking to try and awaken it more forcefully.
I closed my eyes and took a slow breath as I entered my meditation with Lin across from me. I had felt my awareness heightening more and more as the weeks passed, and I could just tell that I was close to unlocking Observation completely.
I forced myself to focus on everything I could hear. Nami and Lin's breathing. Nami's was measured, calm, and interrupted by the sound of her soft chewing. Lin's was deep and slow, almost sleeplike. Every now and then I would hear the soft scrape of skin on skin as Lin rubbed her thumbs together, a nervous tick she had whenever she sat still for too long. I could hear the wind outside, the waves softly crashing against the side of the Dying Dream. The soft hum of the refrigerator running, the whisper of cloth and rope as Katie adjusted something with the sails outside.
Pain pain, sorrow, fading. The feelings are fading.
My eyes snapped open and I surged to my feet, heart trying to burst from my chest. My sudden movement had snapped Nami and Lin out of their respective actions, pinning me with confused and startled stares.
I ignored them, retrieving Stormfall from where it leaned next to the door.
"Maven?" Lin asked, standing up when she saw me grab my weapon. I could hear the scraping of wood as Nami pushed her chair back to stand as well.
"What? What's going on?" The ginger asked.
"I don't know, Maven doesn't usually do this. But she only grabs Stormfall, her axe, like that when there's danger," I heard Lin answer as I shoved the door open and briskly sped outside, looking at Katie, who had turned turned around from her place at the helm.
"Did we just pass another boat?!" I asked, soon answering my own question as I turned around to see a large white ship just about to finish passing us by as it went in the opposite direction, only a few yards away. I spun to Katie again. "Turn us around! Bring us close to that boat!"
Even Raz had heard the commotion, coming up from where he had disappeared towards the infirmary only a couple minutes earlier. "What is going on?"
"We don't know. Maven and I were meditating when she just bolted up and came out here. Now she's demanding us to pull up to that ship," Lin explained even as Katie spun the wheel to turn us around.
"It's a hospital ship, Maven!" Nami told me, frowning. "You can't seriously be thinking of raiding it! That's low!" I shook my head, ignoring the look of betrayal on the Ginger's face. Not the time.
"Of course not! I'm not that kind of a monster!" I roared back at her, making her flinch back. Guilt swam over her face, but disappeared as quickly as it had come. "I felt something! There's so much pain from that ship—"
"It's a hospital ship, of course there's pain!" Nami yelled back, confused but stubborn. I ran a hand through my hair, removing my fedora and handing it to the ginger, which surprised her. She had probably noticed that I never took the hat off unless it was to sleep or bathe, and even then I kept it near me at all times.
"No no! Like.. it felt like torture!" I yelled, frustrated and trying to get them to understand. "Just pull close enough for me to hop off, then back off but stay where you can see the ship. I'll give a signal when I want you to pick me up again," I told my crew, momentarily ignoring Nami's presence.
"What?! You can't be thinking of going on there alone! What if it's already been taken over my pirates?" Katie asked, turning her head from the wheel to look at me with furrowed brows.
"I'll be going for stealth. Even with Stormfall on my back I'm half decent at sneaking around. Just let me check it out, okay? If there's nothing there, then this will just be a funny story to tell later. If I run into trouble, then you guys will be close enough to bail me out. That's what Nakama are for, right? Helping or each other when they get in sticky situations?" My three crew members (and Nami) stared at me before slowly caving after seeing that I wasn't about to be swayed.
I knew what had happened, mostly. For a brief moment, my Observation had awakened and I had felt the emotions of the people on that boat as they passed. It didn't feel like normal sick people. It felt worse, and I could feel the slippery, oily pleasure of somebody who enjoyed inflicting pain.
"At least take me with you," Lin pleaded, walking forward with determination in her eyes. "We're better together, and none of us want our captain walking into an unknown situation alone. I can take down enemies more quietly than you can, too," The brawler pleaded her case, making me slowly let out a breath and nod.
"Alright. Just me and Lin though, and try not to be more suspicious than we already seem. We're close enough now, come on," I directed the last part to Lin, who nodded and followed me over to the rowboat at the back of the Dying Dream. Nami and Katie lowered it to the water for us, and we rowed the rest of the way to the hospital ship. I knew there was no way to tie our rowboat to the bigger craft like Nami had tied her small fishing boat to the Dying Dream, which was why I had asked my crew to come closer once I gave a signal to pick us up.
Lin hopped up onto the deck alongside me, both of us instantly couching and flattening ourselves along the wall of the ship as we assessed our surroundings.
It didn't look like pirates, in fact the few people milling around the deck looked like they worked for the World Government. They had the World Government logo on the breast of the work suits they all wore, solid black as if they were trying to remain low on the radar. I shared a glance with Lin, who frowned at me worriedly I response, and we both leapt silently over to flatten ourselves against the wall of the main area of the ship. Waiting for the coast to be clear, we slowly inched around the cabin-like structure, which was probably a common room or kitchen area of some sort until we saw some of the men entering a trap door. Realizing that that probably led to the parts of the ship we were looking for, Lin and I quickly followed.
It didn't take long for us to catch up to the man we had seen enter, Lin fluidly catching the man off guard and knocking him out with a swift fist to the back of his head.
That's when we took the time to look around. We were in a long hallway that seemed to twist throughout most of the below deck area, with doors spaced along it. It looked like a normal hospital ship that took sick or injured patients from islands with poor, full, or just no hospital at all, and took care of them as they took them towards islands that could better care for them.
But the bright hallways lacked the usual doctor or nurse that should have been walking down the hallway every few minutes to check in on the patients, and that raised red flags in my head. The clipboards in little sleeves by each door, when checked, held nothing but a brief description of the patient inside the room. Name, age, and description of appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc), and said nothing about their condition or why they were on the ship to begin with.
I frowned, getting more and more suspicious. Slowly, I opened one heavy door while gesturing for Lin to do the same. When I entered the room, I found it empty. There were a few signs that said that it had recently been occupied— ruffled covers on the bed, an empty tray of food on the bedside table— but the occupant must have been moved not too long ago. I exited and continued checking the rooms with Lin; they were all empty.
Confused, we rounded the corner to see that, at the end of another hallway similar to the last, were large double doors. Me and my Nakama traded glances, knowing that the staff we had yet to run into were probably past those doors.
We went forward, plastering ourselves to the walls on either side of the entrance. After counting down with my fingers to my friend, I kicked the door open.
It was horrific.
They were still pretty much kids, almost all the "patients" aged anywhere from about ten years old to early twenties. They were malnutritioned, I likely would have seen their ribs through their skin if they hadn't all been wearing baggy hospital gowns.
Each one of them was sat on a metal table that had been nailed to the ground so it wouldn't sway or move if the boat hit a harsh wave, some of them were strapped down and being force fed something by the employees in black lab coats and scrubs. A completely black uniform, with charcoal grey medical masks on their faces. The World Government logo was on the back of all their lab coats, right across the shoulder blade area on their upper back.
We had attracted attention with my loud entry, causing the "doctors" to spin around to face us. Some of them held slightly bloody scalpels up towards us, others simply help up their fists or whatever tool they had nearby.
"What are you doing on here?" One of the "doctors" asked harshly. "This vessel is property of the World Government! Trespassing is a crime. Leave now or we will be forced to kill you!"
Kill? Then this must have been a secret project the World Government had going on. It was darker than I could have imagined, seeing all the vials of chemicals and the experiments they were doing. It wasn't humane. It was cruel, and disgusting. I wanted to puke.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO THEM?!" Lin shrieked in outrage. "HOW DARE YOU HURT PEOPLE LIKE THIS! DOES THE WORLD GOVERNMENT REALLY THINK THAT EXPERIMENTING— TORTURING THEIR CITIZENS IS GOOD?!"
"They are no longer citizens," the doctor replied coldly. "They are either hostages from countries that have rebelled against the World Government with help from the Revolutionary Army, or terminally ill individuals who are already good as dead. This is an experimental facility that is in charge of finding cures for diseases and developing important medical formulas for the glory and health of the World Government and all its legitimate members."
I was trembling in anger, Lin right next to me. I had thought it cruel to simply be told repeatedly, about having a disease that guaranteed a short life. Being told that you were hopeless because you were bound to die soon anyway. But this… this was beyond anything I had had to suffer through. It was vile.
"THEY AREN'T DEAD YET!" I shouted back, grabbing Stormfall from my back. "They still have lives to live, no matter how short they are! Dreams that they can work towards! You're torturing them because of things they can't control! And the hostages— really?! They just want a better life than the half-assed the World Government allows them to have, they want to be happy! You're just proving that they were right to rebel!"
"You've said enough," the asshole in scrubs pulled out a den-den mushi, his voice echoing through the speakers placed throughout the ship. "GUARDS! Alert, we have intruders. Detain or kill—"
Lin and I didn't wait for him to finish. I ran forward, ramming the butt of Stormfall's pole straight into his face and taking satisfaction from the way it crunches and the man shrieked before I slammed the pole into his temple to knock him out.
"Lin!" I called, turning my head to look into the girl's bright green eyes, burning with fury. "I'll unlock the captives. You have my permission to go utterly wild."
Lin grinned darkly at me, pleased that she could let loose some of her disgust on these creeps. Not even the pounding of footsteps down the hallway made us pause for a moment. Lin charged at the nearest scientist with insanity in her eyes and rage burning through her every vein.
I ducked around the swipes and jabs that the scientists aimed towards me, letting Lin cover my back as I rushed to unlock the shackles, untie the ropes, or unlatch the straps that held the kids— they really were just kids, even most of the adults still had youthful faces and figures— down in various positions on their metal tables. Some of them couldn't walk, so I left them propped against a wall until I had the chance to carry them out. Some were knocked out, and two were already dead by the time I reached them. I felt tears sting my eyes that I refused to let loose. One of the dead bodies couldn't have been older than twenty, the other was maybe twelve.
Some of the captives had been held up against the wall in shackles, probably to be punished for escape attempts as I saw whip welts and ugly bruises peeking out from their hospital gowns.
The door burst open as guards swarmed in, but I knew Lin was too furious to give them much mercy. They wouldn't last. I had already heard the sound of several painfully crunching bones as I went around freeing and cooing soft words to the victims I freed.
—*—*—*—*—*
It took about twenty minutes to free everyone, beat all the employees, and tie all the bastard workers onto the same tables that they had tied down their poor victims on. The two dead bodies were carefully wrapped in white sheets by me and Lin.
Most of the people we had freed had stared us silently until one, a teenager with greasy and tangled brown hair, inched forward and looked at us cautiously before opening his mouth.
"Are… You revolutionaries?" The boy asked, sore and strained voice hopeful. "My… parents are revolutionaries… they helped free our country," he told us slowly, throat probably hurting. I imagined there must have been a lot of screaming done from the pain of the various tests the scientists had done on them. I knelt down so I could look into his eyes better, he didn't seem to have the energy to stand up.
"No. My name is Maven, and this is Lin. We're peaceful Pirates, we don't pillage and we usually only fight marines, or other pirates who try to attack us," I told them all softly, my eyes locked with the gaze of the boy who had spoken. "We hate things like this, though. We won't just let something so cruel go unpunished."
"So you're… good pirates?" Another voice asked hesitantly, this one belonging to a little girl that couldn't have been older than ten or eleven. I nodded with a lopsided smile.
"Kind of, yeah. We only hurt people who we think are bad," I said gently to the girl. "We'll bring you on our ship," I hoped we had enough space. Not including the two dead people, there were eighteen of them. "We have a really good doctor who can help you guys get better. He might seem a little scary, but I promise he is really secretly nice," I leaned forward with a hand on one side of my mouth, and if I was telling them a secret. The younger ones in the group all leaved forward eagerly to listen to me. "But soft tell him I said that. He likes to prank people when he thinks they are catching onto how sweet he really is. He pulls pranks on my friend Lin, the gray haired girl who helped beat up the scientists. One time he made her skin get covered in green polka dots!" Some of the kids laughed, some of the older ones looked slightly worried.
"He won't hurt us, right?" One of them asked, making my eyes widen as I quickly shook my head.
"Absolutely not! Even his pranks don't hurt, I promise. But he won't prank you in your state, I'm sure of it. He'll take care of you just as well as he'd take care of me, and I'm his captain."
"Woaaah! You're the captain?!" One of the kids gasped in wonder. "You must be really really strong!"
I chuckled, looking back when I heard the doors swing open. Lin came over to me, and nodded.
"I sent the signal to the ship. They're headed over," the short girl told me. I nodded and looked to the group again.
"Okay. We're gonna have to get you guys up on deck so that it's easier to get you all on my ship. Those of you who can walk, start heading up. Lin and I will follow behind," I looked over them. Some started getting up and slowly limping or walking hesitantly towards the door. I waited until most of them were out of the room before turning back around.
There were five left. Three were too weak to walk, two were passed out. Lin picked up one of the ones that was passed out, carrying him out the door after the group of victims. I sighed. Lin would get one of the others, either Katie or Raz, to get the bodies. She knew I'd be too busy getting the other four out to be able to do it myself.
Slowly, I put the remaining passed out kid over one shoulder, getting one of the weak ones over my other shoulder (I had taken Stormfall off my back and let Lin carry it for me, it was what helped signal the Dying Dream to come back) and walking to the deck with both of them easily.
I returned for the last two, Katie and Raz both at my side this time as I had suspected, to grab the last two weak people as my Nakama carefully lifted up the dead bodies. As swiftly as we could, we loaded all twenty of the poor souls onto the Dying Dream and carefully spread them out over the deck. A horrified Nami was staring at it all for a moment before she rushed around to help everyone find a spot and started handing it cups of water.
Raz started examining all of them as soon as he got back on board, moving the worst of them down into the infirmary as Katie and I tied our ship to the fake hospital ship, able to do so now that we were no longer worried about stealth.
The mood was somber, but Lin, Nami and I did our best to cheer everybody up with goofy stories, bickering lightly between ourselves, or simply being as positive as we could be in the given situation. After everyone was treated as best as possible by Raz for the day, we let them relax out on the deck as I met with Nami and he two girls of my crew in the kitchen.
"We can't keep them all on the Dying Dream," was the first thing I said, my mouth in a tight line. "I want to, I really do. But we don't have the space. Our ship is only big enough for fifteen people max, and there's the five of us here already. That's eight people who won't have any room to sleep, not to mention the two bodies."
The girls nodded grimly.
"Not to mention, our food isn't meant for that many people," Katie added. "It might last us a week, max, but only if you limit yourself to five fruit a day, Maven."
I sighed. "I can barely even think of food right now. I still feel sick to my stomach," I admitted. "And we have that ship to worry about. We can't just let it go, they'll go back to doing what they had been doing this whole time. But we can't turn them in, because they're Government workers and can't be punished for doing the jobs the World Government gave them."
"I can help," the three of us spun to the kitchen doorway, where one of the captives we had freed stood. This one was about twenty, one of the oldest in the group, a young man with navy blue hair that hung heavily on his head. His bangs seemed to make little upside down wave shapes against his forehead. "I— I'm a revolutionary. I was captured while helping a country overthrow their monarch," he explained, coming over and sitting near us. He was covered in bruises and looked pale and ashen, but not as bad as when we had rescued him since he looked clean and on his way to recovery after being seen by Raz. "I ate the Message Message fruit," he looked down, biting his lip nervously. "Do you have a pen? I can show you what I can do."
I nodded, looking at Lin. The short girl ran off to fetch a pen from her room.
"My name is Bey. With my devil fruit's powers, I can send messages to anyone whose name I know. I can reach the revolutionaries that way."
I sighed in relief, sitting up straight as I looked into the boy's eyes. "Then you think you can get a group to come here and pick up the ship? If the revolutionaries take the ship and the people on it, then everything just might work out. The World Government might not ever know that we were the ones that disrupted their project."
The boy, Bey, nodded as Lin came back and handed him the pen.
"Here, I can send messages by writing on my skin. Whoever I send it to will receive the message on the same part of their skin," he demonstrated for us by writing;
To: Dragon and Sabo
This is Bey. I was rescued by pirates in East Blue. Please send help to retrieve the scientists who experimented on us. Pirates are safe.
From: Bey
"Is it necessary for you to sign your name? Nobody else can send messages like that," Nami wondered out loud. Bey nodded.
"The message won't appear on the other person until I sign who it's from. And hey can reply when I do this," he brought the pen back down on his hand:
Dragon and Sabo:
"Now they have space to reply, and just have to write under their names on their hands."
"Very convenient ability," I said with a low whistle. Nami seemed skeptical, but interested.
"I thought Devil fruits were a myth," Katie said softly from my side. I grinned at her and shook my head.
"Nope. My little brother has a devil fruit ability too, it's really weird to see it though," I snorted and shook my head in amusement. "Really weird."
"Huh. Oh look! A reply!"
Sure enough, ink faded into view on Bey's hand.
Dragon and Sabo:
This is Dragon. Where are you, and what crew rescued you and the other hostages?
Straight to the point. Just like Dragon. I rolled my eyes. Bey, Nami, and Lin traded a few words about their position, and Bey continued to "speak" to Dragon. I assumed Sabo, too, but as far as I could tell my brother hadn't replied yet.
—*—*—*—*—*
We had reached the island nearest us. Katie was steering the fake hospital ship, keeping it slightly out of sight of the island so we didn't draw too much attention. We bought new clothes for all the hostages, splitting up into smaller groups and treating them to food. Nami left halfway through the day, wishing us luck. It was only after we got back on the Dying Dream that we realized she had left the bag of treasure we had given her behind, leaving a note that told us to use it for the captives we freed instead.
It took two weeks for the small Revolutionary Army boat to finally reach us I was down in the infirmary with Raz, helping him grind down herb mixtures for medicines for the still healing group. With such a large number of people to care for, he needed help. And I was apparently the only person he trusted enough not to screw anything up, because I was the only one he allowed to help him.
I was notified of our company by the thundering steps of one of the younger kids, Yalla, as the twelve year old jumped down the stairs and threw open the infirmary door with a wide smile on her face. The only reason she didn't end up with tranquilizer to the neck courtesy of Raz was due to her being a kid.
Even Raz had standards.
"The revolutionaries are here! They're here! And the blonde one is cute!" The little girl yelled happily. I raised an eyebrow at her, the corner of my lip twitching up as I put the mortar and pestle in my hands down and followed her up onto the deck.
"Cute? Aren't you too young to think anybody is cute?"
"Nope! See, see?" We had reached the deck, and she excitedly pointed up at someone, tugging at my shirt to try to convince me to look. I rolled my eyes, straightening up and raising my gaze to where she was pointing. I opened my mouth to say something polite, but the words died in my throat and were replaced my an ecstatic smile.
"SABO!" I screamed, shocking everyone on board. I didn't yell like a little kid, not unless the subject was fruit related, and it startled them. Even my crew stared at me with wide eyes as I ran forward and tackled the blonde idiot in a hug. He laughed loudly, hugging me back just as tightly.
"Maven! You've been busy since I left Dawn!" He said with a shit-eating smile. "So many kids on board, do I have to beat a guy up?" I smacked his arm at his lewd joke, glaring at him playfully.
"My navigator is on the fake hospital ship, feeding the prisoners," I said with crossed arms. I might have hated those scientists, but I wasn't amoral. I gave them simple meals three times a day, but they stayed tied up or locked in rooms. Sabo nodded, getting serious again.
"Ah. I already sent some of my men over to take control of it," he nodded his head to the ship next to us, and I walked over to untie it from the Dying Dream as he continued speaking to me. "I can't believe your devil's luck, running into something like this."
I snorted. "Or somehow lucking out and having one of the captives actually being the perfect person to get ahold of you guys," I agreed. "I was practicing my Observation Haki— oh right, you were already gone when Gramps taught us about that," I looked back at him, but he just smiled.
"Don't worry, I've already learned about Haki from Dragon and the other Revolutionaries during my training," he assured me. "So you were practicing, and just happened to sense the captives?" I nodded.
"I unlocked it for a short moment and could feel their suffering. I've been exercising it since, but it hasn't been as strong since then, Armament comes far easier for me," I admitted. My brother nodded, leaning against the rail of my ship as he gazed at me. I understood the feeling; after not seeing each other for years, I didn't want to look away from him, either.
"Ah. Probably because your disease has forced you to focus on your physical strength, so it's become second nature for you to be aware of your body and try to strengthen it," he agreed smoothly. "But you're smart and strategic too, so I'm sure you'll get the hang of Observation eventually. Now let me ask you something," I came over and leaned my back against the railing next to him, tearing my eyes away from my brother to watch most of the freed captives board the revolutionary boat. "I thought you agreed to be Luffy's first mate, so what are you doing as captain of your own crew?" He asked me curiously. I let out a long sigh.
"Agree not to leave until the morning at least, and I'll tell you," I bargained as I glanced over at him. He adopted a mock thinking pose, one hand supporting his opposite elbow while his other hand held his chin and stroked an imaginary beard.
"That's fine. The group on the World Government's ship can head off first, it's not as suspicious for a hospital ship to be traveling alone as it would be if it was accompanied by our boat," he agreed. I smiled.
"Good. Then you go order your men around, Mr. Hotshot revolutionary, and I'll go to my crew."
He squawked in protest, "You make me sound like a tyrant!"
—*—*—*—*—*
"Holy shit, are you serious?" Sabo asked that day at dinner, sitting with me and my crew in the kitchen on the Dying Dream. Two of the previous hostages that had terminal illnesses had decided to join my crew. One was Yalla, the little excitable twelve year old, and the other was the tall brown haired teenager who had been the first to talk to me after I freed him and the other victims, turned out he was nineteen. His name was Kilik. They sat with us around the table as I explained to Sabo about the reason I started the Hopeless Pirates.
"Well, that does explain a lot," my brother admitted as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "I'm proud of you," he said with a soft smile. "You've grown a lot since you were that little girl who refused to get close to us because you didn't want to hurt anyone if you died," his words made all my crewmates stiffen in shock, even Raz. None of them had ever thought that their goofy, determined captain could have been such a depressing little kid. At least, that was my interpretation. I scowled at him, sipping my fruit juice for a second before slamming it on the table in annoyance.
"You didn't have to go and say that! My angsty, self-destructive childhood mentality was supposed to remain secret, idiot," I grumbled. "Besides, I'm the oldest of us. If anyone should be proud of any of you, it's me. You're a revolutionary and you're already high up in the ranks! I heard your men in your boat talking about how they think you're bound to get promoted to Chief Of Staff," I grinned at him as he blushed slightly and looked away, shoveling a forkful of the dinner Yalla and Katie had made into his mouth. Yalla was a pretty good cook for a little kid.
Sabo's eyes flicked to Kilik. "Are you sure you don't want to come back with us?" My brother asked him. "Your parents would be happy to see you."
My newest crewmate shook his head, offering my brother a small smile. "No. I didn't even know I was dying until Razdall diagnosed me while he was treating my wounds," he said with a nod to our doctor. "I don't want them to see me withering away. But tell them that I'm part of a good crew, would you? I don't want them to worry."
Sabo smiled gently and nodded. "I can do that. Now then, it's late. I'll head back to my boat," he turned and pointed at me with a smirk. "And tomorrow, you and I are going to talk and catch up before I have to leave. Non negotiable, got it?" I laughed.
"I was gonna tell you that! Go on, get your beauty sleep you idiot. And you are going to tell me how you got that burn scar. Non negotiable."
We shared a grin before he left, and the kitchen fell silent with only the sounds of the six of us eating for long moment. Then Katie spoke up;
"I still can't believe you have a brother in the Revolutionary Army."
"A cute brother," Yalla chimed in, making us all laugh even as I stuck my tongue out at her in an "eww" face that made her giggle.
"We're a family of monsters," I finally said with a shrug. "Oh right, I didn't tell you yet. We'll be meeting my twin at Loguetown in two and a half months. He's gathering his own pirate crew, in fact he even already had a bounty," I smiled. "Not telling you who he is though!" I teased, causing a collective groan from my crew, only Raz and I not joining in. "Yalla, could you grab me a mango from the pantry please?"
"Sure thing, Maven! Ribbon-ribbon: Pretty Grab!" The girl threw her hands out, her fingers expanding into ribbons and shooting towards the pantry, where they grabbed a manga and flowed back into her skin. Once her hands were normal again, she handed it to me with a large smile.
Okay, so maybe I only asked her to do it because her ribbon-ribbon fruit allowed her to do that, which reminded me of Luffy. So what?
—*—*—*—*—*
THIS WAS THE HARDEST CHAPTER FOR ME TO WRITE SO FAR, GAH! I don't know if it is as good as the others, so I'll break it off here and hope I'm writing a bit better for the next chapter, because I want to make a chapter with Sabo really good. After that, we'll have at least one chapter with only my OCs before we get to reunite with Ace. Yay! And wow, so many reviews 0.0 let me reply to all you wonderful people!
Serendipital: Thank you! And nope, none of these are pre-written chapters, and they are actually all first drafts. The only edits I make are when I catch really bad typos after publishing it on here x.x I actually wrote the first chapter on a whim, I didn't even expect the story to go anywhere. But then I published it on here the day after I wrote it, and I just haven't been able to stop writing since! I've spent four or five hours a day writing for this story, which is why I get almost an update a day out, since it only takes 4 or 5 hours to crank out a chapter. I can't bring myself to regret it, even if it has screwed up my sleep cycle a bit lol. I just love this story so much, and I haven't had this much fun writing in a long time!
I'm really glad you like it! I'm definitely planning on Maven at least handing the position of Captain of the Hopeless Pirates off to somebody else when she joins Luffy again, but I'm also toying with some other ideas so we'll see which one I settle on when the time comes, hehe~ And Yes, I am an evil author. A evil author who will have little mercy even for my favorite characters— but sad scenes are fun to write! It sounds horrible, but they are. Don't worry though, because I'll probably be crying as I write them too. I love head characters, damn it! But some things just have to happen.
… you're gonna smile at the next chapter.
The butterfly effects behind her beating Alvida and Kuro won't be as bad as you think, I don't want to stir up Luffy's story in the beginning too much. But we'll see some differences for sure.
And hey! Thank YOU for reading! And reviewing, I love hearing what you think and I am beyond happy that you like it!
Telepath98: You are becoming one of my favorite repeat commenters, omg *squeals*. And yes, we will definitely reach Luffy's arc again, but this story will be long as FUUUUUUCK. Be glad you caught this story early, because I am anticipating it being somewhere in the ballpark of 200,000 or 300,000 words long eventually. It's… it's gonna be a ride, that's for sure. But Maven's arc should end around the 100,000 words mark for the story as whole, give or take a chapter or two. We'll see, things will pick up pace after they get into the Grand Line.
Zafrinel: I have legitimately never written a story this fast, I'm surprising myself too, lol! Keep reading, because I love you too and I'm so happy you like it!
