Firstly- apologies for taking so long on this chapter but I had college orientation to deal with (had to stay overnight .) and this chapter was also a real pain for me to write. Somewhat of a filler. And that makes it difficult.

Irenia: . As I said, I don't really know how many chapters it might take but you already know I know how it'll end. How I'll get from point A to point Z is another story. Hahahaha... anywho, thank you for reviewing! (And whipping my butt back into writing)

Wolfsmond: Yeah, my summer'll end in a month and somewhat earlier than that because I have to move into my dorm. And well, as I said to Irenia, I can't make any guarantees on the length of the story because I actually have the last chapter written but... not the ones in between sooo.... anywho, thank you for reviewing again!

Lizzy: Why thank you. . I try not to make my story boring because that makes it boring for me to write. It's really hard when said chapter is mostly filler... like this one... anywho... thank you for dropping a comment!

xXDeadly .RoseXx: Yep- and it only gets better, the dream thing. Lol, yeah, Killer- shoved into a room and locked in for no good reason. Thanks for the review as always!

Dancing Nightmare: Yay! I did that? Yes! *pumps fist*

Sonya: Thanks! I'm glad it interested you. ^^

Faye317: Romance, romance. Perhaps. Thanks for the comment!

Chapter Thirteen

The Dreamer, a Pirate

All those months ago, another boy had given her those exact same words in the same odd melancholic tone, and then proceeded to heap the duty of breaking them up upon her shoulders. It was a strange burden to bear and at times, it never even left an impression, until recently. Sylvia's 'betrayal' had hit hard, now that she was finally allowing it to sink in. How… terrible lonely reality was.

Her mother didn't care. Kyle cared too much. And Saber…

She didn't want to think on him any longer. Maybe she could forgive him, but he had made it abundantly clear that their worlds had no room for each other. And of course, now, she had an entire new world open its doors to her. And she had accepted.

For now, she would merely allow herself to dream. And awaken.

--

Pirate. A pirate.

The entire day had been spend brooding on this fact. Finally, and only when it was nine at night, Demetra stood in front of her mirror, glaring daggers at her reflection. Sure, she had finally began eating healthily again, even without Kyle's help and she had been out in the sun more thanks to her dream world. Even so, she was still unattractively thin. Her arms were like twigs that could be easily snapped to pieces. Even her complexion looked like a porcelain Halloween doll.

How the hell was this… gothic doll in the mirror… a pirate?

Distastefully rubbing at her eyes, she wished she could make the dark circles vanish as easily as mascara did. Then she scowled at her reflection before her mind unhelpfully supplied the thought that she looked more like a vengeful spirit than a pirate.

"And then again, at first sight, you'd think that crew was a traveling band of heavy metal musicians." She grumbled, wondering if she should rouse herself to dress the part of a Kidd Pirate. She cringed, deciding that she would dress however the hell she wanted as long as it wasn't as outrageous and outlandish as the rest of them. "Who can blame me? I'm just a normal girl who barely exists. Okay, sure, that makes me not normal at all, but hey…" Letting the verbal thoughts drift off, Demetra smirked grimly at the mirror.

No, the girl in the mirror was no pirate. She was a doll, reduced into being such by a boy who had selfishly cast them all away.

'But, I'm a dangerous doll too.' Demetra added mentally, knowing and feeling the weight of the pocket knife in her pockets. And she had many more where that one came from. Indeed. It was time to take out all her tricks and toys for this purpose.

The closet door slammed open with a bang and Demetra got on her hands and knees, tossing aside shoeboxes, fallen articles of clothing, and other junk she'd never bothered to really look at, until she had cleared the center of the small closet, unearthing a small, loose floorboard. With a screwdriver wedged deeply in the crevice, Demetra pushed and the board gave away.

It was here she kept all her secrets literally crammed into a box. If her parents ever knew, she knew they would do more than pitch a hissy fit. And Kyle… she didn't even want to think about it. But even her nosy little brother had no idea what skeletons lay in her closet. Reaching into the dusty compartment with both hands, Demetra slowly drew out another box, a metal case with a combination on it. Quickly twisting the knob several times, she pried open the box and made a face. It had been Saber's present to her in case it all came down to kill or be killed. Luckily for Demetra, such a situation had never happened and she had never had to use it for its intended purpose.

At the bottom of the box lay her semi-auto pistol and several cartridges to go with it. Oddly enough, an almost-out-of-place instruction manual lay at the bottom of the box. But having seen Saber occasionally fiddling with his own toys had shown her how to load the cartridges and fire the thing, but it didn't stop her from sweeping over the instruction manual quickly.

It was pretty absurd, actually, now that she thought about it. The only guns she had seen in her dream world had been old fashioned pistols, rifles, and mortars. And now here she was with a modern semi. It was going to knock the socks off the gun fanatics.

For a solemn moment, Demetra looked at the weapon in the box and wondered what she was going to be using it for. Protection, yes. But from who, or what?

Or… would she be the one to take shots at innocent civilians? What if she were ordered to join in butchering innocents? Steeling her thoughts and misgivings, Demetra fixed the safety on the gun and placed it back in the box, deciding to take the entire box with her to bed. It wouldn't do to accidentally shoot herself in her sleep, would it?

No way in hell was she going to risk it this time. Grimly, and wishing that it wasn't necessary, Demetra locked her door securely before pushing the box onto her bed.

'Don't make me…do anything unnecessary…'

--

It was the first ever welcome she had ever received on the ship, but she would have preferred to skip over it had she had the option. Killer loomed over her form, cursing and glaring menacingly as if it had somehow been her fault she had suddenly appeared in the middle of deck, causing him to stumble face first into the mast.

"S'not my fault." She grumbled inaudibly as she picked herself up, nursing her bruised stomach.

Ignoring her discomfort, Killer looked around cautiously, and decided to speak in low tones. "Every time you reappear, you're to report to me or Kidd, so we don't accidentally decapitate you when you pop out of nowhere. Like you did just now."

"Yes sir." Demetra tried not to glare at him. Or look at him. If she did, she would risk reappearing again in full sight.

Nodding sternly, Killer continued. "We'll be at Fishman Island in another week or so. Until then, keep yourself entertained. From the looks of it, you know nothing about how to work a ship."

Demetra didn't answer, but when he made an impatient noise in his throat, she grumbled out her answer. "No, I don't. Until now, I've never been on a ship before."

Another pause. Then, "I see. That's unfortunate then. Well then, as I said, entertain yourself. And try not to scare the others too much if you start appearing. That's my job."

"R-right." Indeed, who knew her dream world could become this boring as well?

--

"Can this honestly get any more tortuous?" She half ranted, half screamed.

Days later, she was a hundred percent certain that Kidd and Killer aside, no one on the bloody ship would ever be able to notice her, even if she were throwing a temper tantrum right in the middle of the quarterdeck. It was actually something she dearly wanted to try, but she risked Kidd's wrath coming down on her head and decided it wasn't worth throwing one just to see a larger one aimed directly at her.

So she stuck to one-line screams of frustration when she was certain the captain was holed up in his room. Whenever Killer was around, he would simply shoot her an amused 'shut up' and continue on with ignoring her, even though to his eyes, she was clear as the day.

When they were alone though, "Why don't you just go to sleep?" He suggested, actually helpful for once. "You told us that you go to sleep in your world and end up here, and end up getting no sleep whatsoever. That's as good as having insomnia."

Because of her spiriting away and her inability to sleep, Demetra had taken to simply lying down often during the day, not falling asleep but simply letting her body relax. Also increased were the number of relaxing baths and trips to the family massage chair. But sleeping while the ship was boringly drifting underwater? Why hadn't she thought of that?

"Good idea. But where do I sleep?"

Killer shrugged noncommittally but jabbed a thumb down towards the deck. "Use my room." When she didn't move from her spot, he turned his head curiously. "What?"

"Y-your room!" She spluttered, trying to fight down the number of thoughts that were invading her mind telling her how wrong the entire thing sounded.

"Yeah, mine. Is there a problem with that?" He all but growled, suddenly growing very intimidating by sheer presence alone. "I'd put you with the rest of the crew- but even I wouldn't stick a marine down there." Was it just her imagination or did he just shiver? "And Kidd's up in one of those moods again and I have more errands to do around the ship because of that. So I reckon you could probably use my room until you disappear off to wherever else you go."

"T-thanks." She murmured embarrassedly, slipping by him quickly to look for her way down below deck. Still, she decided to play it safe and lock the doors anyways, even if this meant Killer would most likely either have to hire a lock pick or cut down his own doors. "Just consider it karma." Demetra muttered, hearing the satisfying click of the lock.

But fortunately for Killer and unfortunately for whatever god of karma there was present at the moment, Demetra woke up at last and only scowled when she saw the four walls of Killer's room and hoped that it wasn't late.

Undoing the locks and slowly pushing the door open a crack before promptly remembering that she could go right through it (and with that thought, the door fell through her fingers and slammed shut). Several bypassing crewmembers shot hasty looks at the door, and then at each other, before chuckling nervously and walking off as fast as their legs could take them.

"I thought I told you days ago not to make too much of a scene." Whirling around, Demetra wasn't completely surprised to see Killer rounding the bend.

Opting not to make a snappy retort, she asked instead, "What time is it?"

"5" He answered smoothly, striding past her without even gracing her a single glance. "If the currents keep up, we'll be at Fishman Island tomorrow."

"And how's Ki- err… captain… holding up?" She tried, straining to make her voice as serious as possible so that he would not mistaken her question as an insult.

"I am at least ten years too old to be babysitting anyone." Came his ever-swift and sharp response. "Let alone my own captain. If he finds it fit to throw a temper tantrum in his room simply because the sea is finally driving him mad, I will not interfere."

Translation, her mind supplied, Killer had obviously been the 'happy' recipient of Kidd's infamous and newfound temper recently and did not feel like admitting so. Wisely deciding not to press it any further, Demetra almost cried with elation when she felt the familiar sensation of being displaced from the world before the ship spiraled out of existence and she was blinking at the ceiling of her real room.

--

"We're only staying long enough for the log pose to set. Then we're outta here, got that men?"

At their collective nods, Kidd dismissed the entire crew with a mere wave of his hand before wondering to himself what he was going to do on an island completely immersed beneath the ocean.

Well, at the moment, drinking himself senseless didn't seem to be such a bad idea. Killer, who almost seemed to be able to read his captain's mind, sighed as Kidd predictably started to wander off on his own.

Apparently he had been louder than intended, since Kidd returned the noise with a slight glare. "If you don't wanna come, you don't have to."

Killer rolled his eyes from behind his mask but faithfully trailed after his captain anyways. Even though he had only yesterday evening claimed that he was not his captain's babysitter, he still couldn't dispute that he was technically supposed to look out for his captain anyways. There was a lot to look out for too, being the first mate of such a reckless, stubborn man and such an occupation had its quirks.

Speaking of quirks… the quirk of the crew was on their tail as well.

It wasn't like he didn't trust her- okay, he really wasn't exactly sure of what he was supposed to feel toward her at all. There was distrust- obviously, since she had been mysteriously tailing them for over a month. And there was curiosity, at how she managed to end up deserving her fate in being transported from between worlds in her dreams. The third was definitely fascination.

There were a variety of things to be fascinated about. And most recently was her newfound weapon she had brought back from her world. It was currently hanging around her belt, bouncing with each step against her thigh. He could only assume that her world was perhaps, more technologically advanced than theirs, and imagined that even the great marine scientist Vegapunk would kill to study the mechanisms of her gun.

"Hey, she's following us." He finally decided to announce, lest she ended up surprising Kidd and causing even more trouble.

"Ignore her." Kidd growled back, stomping into the bar. A hush fell over the entire building, so instead of continuing, he merely found his way to a back table. Once they were all segregated from the rest of the customers, he finally deigned to give her the deadliest glare his foul temper could summon and it did do him justice.

'Ignore me?' She knew better than to snap this out loud but now that she could finally be detected by people who weren't automatically going to bite her head off, it was a little more than depressing that he was just going to ignore her. A nervous bartender skittered by her and placed two glasses on the table before taking off.

Blandly staring at the offered amber-colored drink, Killer shoved the entire thing at the invisible girl, who stared back dumbly, as if asking 'what am I supposed to do with it?' And wasn't he supposed to be ignoring her?

Seeing her taking no action, he asked "Do you drink?"

Offended by the seemingly innocuous question, she shook her head back and forth rapidly. "Hell no! I'm not 21 yet!"

Relishing in the feel of the hot liquid seeping through his body, Kidd slammed the glass back down and reached for the glass Killer had refused. "What does being 21 have to do with drinking?"

"There's a law on that. In my world." Demetra added as she folded her arms stubbornly, not at all missing the drink Killer had forced upon her.

"Two things wrong with that sentence- one, you're not in your world. Two, what are laws to a fucking pirate?" The second glass was empty now. With a small smirk, he shoved the glass back at Demetra, who returned his smile with a strange look of befuddlement. "Refill it." He stated, as if it were supposed to explain everything.

Far be it for her to refuse the order, but at the same time, it made no sense whatsoever. "Aren't people just going to see this floating in mid air?" 'You jerk' she added mentally as the growing dread in the pit of her stomach only grew with his grin.

"Well then. Do your best not to be obvious." And then he had the nerve to sit back and shoot her an even cockier grin. "And make it snappy." Kidd added, as if presenting her with the challenge of trying to get a refill wasn't difficult enough.

Of all the- Demetra cut herself off in mid-mental rant and scowled as she reached for the glass. For two tries, her fingers phased through the glass handle before she gave in to hot rage and demanded that the glass just get into her damned hands so she could get the job done and over with. It worked like a charm. The glass was still cold and slightly wet from condensation but at least she could hold it. Without another word or even bothering to excuse herself, Demetra simply decided that most of the people hanging around the bar would most likely be far too inebriated to notice the random glass hovering around the tables.

Oh how she wished everything were that simple. Of course things could never be simple, and it was about damn time she began to admit it! She was accident-prone, disaster-prone, danger-prone, and everything else-prone!

"Captain, there's someone coming." The polar bear spoke up and Demetra instinctively cursed her disaster-'prone-ness' when she saw that the bear was looking right at her and the glint in his pitch black eyes told her that he wasn't looking through her or at anything else.

The Heart Pirates were gathered at another table, 'coincidentally' right next to the self-serve barrels of beer. Furiously, Demetra whirled on her feet and returned Kidd's earlier favor with her own intense glare, knowing full well that her emotions were probably causing her to completely appear to his eyes but she could have cared less because he was still smirking with amusement written all over his face and it was only causing those emotions to grow. Fine, she'd show him!

With steely determination glinting in her eyes, Demetra proudly squared her shoulders and stepped past the polar bear and Trafalgar Law, who merely waved cheerily at her as if she were some old acquaintance or close friend. Unsure whether he could see her or still only be able to sense her, Demetra returned the wave before sticking the glass under the nozzle and watching with great satisfaction as the amber liquid frothed as it gathered in the glass.

She would admit though, that after going through the trouble of retrieving glass after glass of beer, she really wanted something more than just an acknowledging grunt!

"Stop staring."

"Huh?" Broken from her internal dialogue, Demetra's vision refocused into clarity, and realized with growing anxiety that she had been staring thoughtfully at her captain without actually meaning to.

Sometime during the entire thing, Killer had excused himself to go off somewhere, which left Kidd and Demetra by themselves. But she had been far too busy running back and forth between the refill counter and the table to actually notice all of this. Which left her alone. At a table. With Eustass Kidd. In a bar. Where no one could see her or help her, not like they would have, anyhow. Well there was always the Heart Pirates but… she wasn't anything more to them other than a passing acquaintance.

And to worsen matters, he wasn't drunk yet. Slightly tipsy, but it took a lot more before anyone could fully diagnose him as drunk. So the dagger he was reaching for could, and would hit its mark if he chose to fling it, and if it didn't hit her, it would most likely start a riot in the bar. Although, it was also very likely the dagger wouldn't even be leaving its sheath. Over the month, she had learned much, unintentionally, about the crew, from the newest recruits to the captain himself. Kidd reaching for his dagger only indicated that he was either annoyed, on guard, or in a sadistic mood. And somehow, she doubted it was the second one. And hopefully it wasn't the last one.

When he narrowed his eyes darkly, Demetra quickly averted them as fast as she could, praying that he would not pursue the 'offense'. Another part of her brain screamed at her to dodge through the walls and just get away from the man and run, run, run. The rational part of her mind urged her to take a deep breath and calm down. If she were calm, the dagger wouldn't even be able to touch her and there was nothing he could do to harm her.

But when he didn't move to fling the dagger toward her head or anything, she slowly looked back up.

Kidd was regarding her with some form of strange apathy. "You're pretty stupid, aren't you?" he asked with a chuckle.

"Wh-what?" Demetra spluttered, losing all of her composure with those words. Stupid? Stupid??? What the hell did he mean by that? And how could he so abruptly swap personalities like that so quickly? It almost made her envious of him.

With another laugh, he pushed the dagger back into its sheath, causing Demetra to visibly relax to a degree. There was still so much Kidd could do, even without a weapon. "Sitting there like a deer caught in headlights. Doesn't that make you as dumb as they are?"

"…I thought-"

"If that's what you're like when you think, then don't!" He snapped- in such an authoritative tone Demetra felt like she was back in school being scolded by a teacher.

Slowly, she could feel all her anger at his previous statement seeping away and she missed the warmth it had brought her. Maybe she had been mistaken. Maybe he was drunk or something. Well then! That was the warning bell screaming at her to start running soon.

Her discomfort did not go unnoticed by Kidd, who had only begun to raise his hand to do who knew what to her.

That was enough. Demetra shot out of her seat and tried to throw herself through the wall to run like crazy, but instead of phasing through, she felt a crunching pain in her shoulder as she slammed against the solid wall. Panicking urgently, Demetra slid her fingers against the wall, trying to find something, some sort of weakness in the wall she could leap through- but the problem wasn't the wall or anything else. It was her. Once more, fear had successfully encaged her- leaving her stranded with Kidd, and the outstretched hand and eerie grin offered no comfort whatsoever.

Then something on her belt snapped and Demetra fell flat into the cushions, jerking in surprise. Since when had she been pulling against something? Then her eyes narrowed angrily but she did her best not to show it. What had he hoped to accomplish by casting one of his magnetic fields around her?

Of course, that left her captain sitting somewhat bemusedly, as well as confusedly towards what… appeared to be a large black strange looking weapon wrapped in its holster that had leapt into his hands. Demetra gaped in horror, her fingers already patting down her sides, looking for said gun as if the one in his hand was just an illusion. Hopelessness began to set in instantly when her hands brushed through the air. Now she was weaponless, and escape-less.

But when she looked up fearfully, he wasn't even looking at her. Instead, he was tilting the gun in his hands with curious eyes. Obviously the shape was a dead-giveaway as to what it was but still- it was unlike any gun he had ever seen.

"What is…this?"

The atmosphere of fear was slowly dying down and Demetra sat up blinking. "Um… a gun?" Suddenly she was staring down at the wrong end of the weapon, accompanied with another devilish glare of annoyance from the red-haired man. "Eep!"

"I know what it is! But…" He struggled to find the right words.

"It's a gun from my world." She quickly supplied, never taking her eyes off the muzzle. "A semi-automatic. It was a gift…" Fantastic, now she was rambling.

It was heavy in his hands, but not as heavy as his own, which currently dangled from his bandolier. And judging by the offensive looks a group of drunkards were shooting him, he'd soon have the pleasure of trying out the new toy his newest crewmember had brought with her. Hesitantly, Demetra's gaze followed his harsh glare over to where the jeering men sat, guiltily relieved that the gun was no longer pointed at her. At first, the trigger would not budge, and he gave Demetra another demanding look.

"R-remove t-the safety." She whispered quietly, looking down in shame. What he wanted, what he was about to do, it was all too obvious and she was too weak-willed to stop any of it.

Safety, safety… oh. With a flick of his thumb, it was gone and his grin returned with a vengeance. Time to have some fun.

One of them noticed the strange gun in his hands and his lip curled back into a snarl while his hands plunged beneath the table for something. That was all the reason Kidd needed and with a dark sneer on his face, he pointed the weapon and fired once, causing the drunk to jerk violently and collapse. Instantly, his friends were up brandishing knives and other pistols, shooting drunkenly into the crowd and completely missing Kidd by yards.

While the bar was rousing itself into chaos, Kidd merely set up a powerful magnetic field around himself as well as his new charge, tuned out the roars of the inebriated leaping to draw blood among each other, and turned the odd, futuristic gun over several times in his hands, wondering how it reloaded. There seemed to be nothing indicating that he could stick bullets in. Stepping to the side to avoid someone who had foolishly decided to fling themselves at him, he shrugged and pointed the gun down and pulled again, intending more to frighten the idiot before killing him. To his shock, a second loud bang went off and blood began to pool around his feet.

A beer glass sailed past his head and he pointed the newfound weapon at the offender's head and fired again and a third blast shook the air. A gun that reloaded on its own without him having to do anything? Oh, everything related to that girl was only getting better and better. Said girl was currently pressing herself against the wall as if she wished she were a part of it.

Like hell he was going to give it back, especially since she had been so stupid to keep it hanging by a pin on her belt. He reached for his own gun and frowned. The muzzle of the modernistic gun was far wider and the overall model was larger than what his bandolier could hold.

A full set of kitchen cutlery slammed into his range of magnetism and were all instantly repelled in different angles back at the crowd. Only then did Kidd remember that he was in the middle of yet another bar fight and scoffed, ducking another beer glass- which emptied its amber contents all over him as it sailed by. A squawk from behind and Kidd turned around briefly to see Demetra covered completely in the rest of the beer, her hands in the air with the glass in her hands, indicating that she had just very narrowly missed getting beheaded by a beer glass.

The fear was still evident in her eyes, but now there was something else. Anger. And maybe resentment at being dragged into this entire thing, but Kidd only focused on that sudden hard glint in her eyes.

Suddenly, Demetra was desperately wishing that she had her gun back. Or at least her pole, so she could knock some of these idiots out without having to kill them. The person who had thrown the glass was laughing uproariously and rage suddenly filled her, streaking through each and every vein in her body as she stood, gripping the glass so tightly she thought it would shatter in her hands. Drawing her arm back, she flung it as hard as she could at the man's head, growling with satisfaction as it collided with the side of his head. The drunkard slumped to the floor, blood flowing from a gash on his head.

Already her fury had taken a toll on her but Demetra didn't care. Through a hazy red vision, she looked around at the occupants of the bar. Some were shifty-looking, others were clearly involved with some under the table dealings. Many probably had victims of their own and would probably only have more in the future. Neighbors punched and shot at neighbors. People who shared tables lunged for each others throats. Filth. Scum. Every last one of these people! Something heavy and warm dropped into her hands and unknowingly, she accepted it, embraced the empowerment it seemed to give her.

"Look at us, we've taken to the streets, we've done our share of crimes with our dealings but who have we hurt? No one! The people who buy and sell our stuff hurt themselves and we know it and we can't do anything for them. We're too good for the streets, Demetra."

Saber's words rang strong in her mind but Demetra forcefully batted them away. For far too long she had let Saber's words rule her life. His morals, his behavior, everything of his, she had made into a role model. And where had that got her? Betrayed! Saber was smart and in the end, she would still end up using his knowledge if she needed it but even he manned up and admitted the truth to everything, he would be her leader and idol no more.

"Who have we hurt? 'No one'. But the people who bought our stuff hurt others because of it." Her fingers tightened and Demetra realized that whatever Kidd had pressed into her hands was still there. It was a gun- his gun. "So in the end- we still hurt people. Saber, you ninny. We still helped. There is no being 'too good for' the streets." 'I hurt people too. On Sabaody. I caused an admiral to come… who knows how many futures I've destroyed already. But… that doesn't mean I should embrace it. Or lower myself to their level.' Her gun arm trembled as her inner conflict worsened.

Her captain was lazily weaving through the bar, dodging stray bullets and knives with the grace of a swan while returning shots that did not miss. Perhaps he would never consider her anything more than a burden that appeared on his ship every day- but ultimately, it would always be his ship she appeared on and there was no stopping it.

But…

Even though her hands were trembling, Demetra could feel it happening. That rush, that oh so familiar stirring throwing its head back inside her, bellowing as it was being called upon at last again. For far too long she had snuffed it out, suppressed it and denied it. Raw, unadulterated sensations of flight, power, and exhilaration. For Saber, it was something he had denied and abandoned in the end. For Kidd, it was something he embraced and made a part of himself.

And for Demetra? It was something simply far, far overdue.

So... here's to me, hoping that the next chapter will come out from my head more easily than this one. Took me forever to coax it out.

Reviews, comments, etc are welcome!

-Kagetaka