They were running or rather she was being carried while he ran, the girl was tucked under his arm out of sight, his huge heavy foot steps thundered over the ground. Papi's face daunt, his deep wrinkles were making his eyes seem much deeper set then usual, teeth bared and drawn in a line of hard concentration.
The old giant had a tall lanky frame, his muscles were still present though they lacked the same definition as when he was young, still maintained from the constant work he did fixing ships. His long grey hair still had some black streaks, it was thick and heavy, much stragglier than it used to be, but still nice to Alexandra anyway. His beard hung low, tickling the blonde girls face as he ran.
A large open ravine was gaping dead in their path, however Papi did not slow, picking up surprising speed instead. No hesitation, she could hear his aged joints creaking as he launched himself forwards, Alex could feel the air whistling past her as she was forcefully clutched to his heaving chest. When they hit the mossy grass once more, a loud audible grunt escaped the old giants lips, while the sound of his leather boots smashing into the forest dirt made a loud boom, scattering various green shrubbery into the sky.
"Papi are you okay?" The young girl whispered, her face was drawn up in a terrified wide-eyed stare, she was very worried over her grandfather. Papi was not a young man, he was nearing his early eighty in human years, he should not of been running around like this, not that they had much of a choice but still...
The obvious exhaustion on his weathered face said it all, his deep blue eyes were tired and pain stricken, it made Alex's heart twist.
He smiled, a soft yet slightly stern expression danced across his features, Papi did not answer. They were carving a brutal path through the trees, bushes and foliage, he knocked over anything that was in his way. His breaths were slowly becoming more and more ruff, but he was not slowing down, they could hear their hunters not that far behind, their loud bellows encroaching on the pair.
Then suddenly the old man burst into a large grin, but most of all there was a look of utter relief. The blonde turned in his grip a little, she could just make out a beach just ahead of them, the sea rumbling as if in greeting, she couldn't help but smile too.
Alexandra had been to this cove many, many times, she knew every nook and crevice, how deep the water was and in which parts. Where the two twin intertwining cliffs went, the child had climbed them enough. This was where Papi spent his days building ships, or repairing shipwrecks, it was one of his passions.
Papi's old long boat 'Vætta' bobbed in the waves, it's old rugged wood well maintained, the sails tucked up neatly underneath their pins. But then Papi made a beeline away from his ship, towards the low cave under the chalky white cliffs covering it, where some of the much smaller boats were kept.
"Papi what you doing? We went past Vætta"
Her grandfather closed his eyes, nodding, ducking under the low cave ceiling, finally coming to a stop. The little family were out of sight for the moment, however this little shelter of theirs wasn't hard to find, this place only went out one way and that was out to sea.
The old giant slowly lowered his granddaughter to the cold wet ground, his gaze far off, pain was dug deep into his features, his breathing coming out in sharp deep pants. He knelt down low, leaning over her, his finger gently cupping the little girls chin, drawing her eyes up to meet his.
"Alexandra... Listen, this is very important. I need you to really listen carefully, do you understand?" She was nodding cautiously, Alex did not like where this was going, but she listened never the less. "I want you to sail out as far as possibl-" Her gaze widened, as the painful realisation dawned on her, she cut him off in a panic "Papi you want me to go without you?"
His face was painfully dark, his long sliver hair falling over his face as he bowed his head, a grimace forming at the corners of his mouth. "Yes. I'm going to hold them off, this should give you enough time to sail out of here..." The girl was shaking her head; her heart was beating so fast and so painfully heavy. "Why can't we go together?" She whimpered, the tears were falling, pooling at the edge of her chin, dripping off quickly becoming a waterfall. Her face swollen into an ugly mess.
The old giant sighed, shutting his eyes tightly, he turned his head away a little, before finally sucking in a deep breath and focused on his young granddaughter's crying, wailing face. When he opened his old watering stare, it was firm, a familiar grin sparked to life on his lips. He delicately swept away a tear, giving her a reassuring smile, it made the child's panic and fear waver, Papi always made her feel safe...
Alex flinched at the shouting behind them it was so loud now, the bad people weren't far, she turned her wide nervous gaze towards the cave entrance. "Alexandra, listen up girl and listen well.You have got to sail out into the sea, sail to the nearest island, I will be right behind you, I will meet you there, so do as I say alright" The blonde's eyes slid back to what her grandfather was saying, he was rummaging around in his old cloak, with a small ah-ha brought out a worn chest, she recognized it as the one normally sat on the top shelf of Papi's workshop. She'd never really even it much of a looking before, he had so many old and interesting trinkets that the chest had never ever crossed her mind.
It was so small to him that he almost dropped it, he offered it to the little girl, without much thought she pried it open. She was so use to handling small things for him that now when he offered stuff to her, Alexandra just automatically did what he couldn't do with his giant hands, be it opening boxes or writing stuff down for him. Inside sat three objects, a funny looking golden glowing fruit that bared a resemblance to a sunflower, but it was a fruit. It was very odd... Next was a rusted metal cylinder and a platinum ornament that looked like it was part of a wolf or a bear. However, on closer inspection the thingy was hollow with a copper coil inside, almost like it was once part of a much bigger piece of machinery.
Papi reached in and pulled out the weird fruit, he was ever so careful not to crush it, dropping it into my palms, a look of expectation pointed at her. "Eat it. Quickly, eat it up" Slightly startled, also sort of confused, but Alex did as she was told, shoving the whole thing into her mouth. She gagged, the thing tasted awful, it was grungy and sour, also rotten, forcing herself to swallow, unsure why she had to eat it now of all times, however the girl trusted Papi without question.
He nodded looking somewhat relieved, he placed his hand on her shoulder, which just engulfed her left side of the child's body entirely and his gaze dropped, there was a hint of sadness behind it. "Right, darling now you've eaten that fruit you cannot swim anymore so be very careful alright-" her jaw dropped, sweat ran down her face in buckets. "WHAT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN!"
Alex felt betrayed, she couldn't swim anymore, she loved swimming, it was her favourite thing to do in the entire world! He winced as the girl bunched up her fists tightly, as new tears formed in the corner of her eyes, lip quivering, but he clamped his hand around her mouth before she could start bawling again. He lifted her up once more and she was kicking, what had he made me her do!
He dropped her roughly into a small boat with a cabin, one that she had some experience with using. He turned back towards the cave entrance, the yelling was undeniably now, the hunters had found the beach, they were searching for them.
"Alexandra! The fruit you ate is a devil fruit, it is called the Neko Neko no mi, Nemean lion model, it allows the user to store items in one's hair or mane, that chest hide it! Nobody can ever get their hands on the items inside! World Government in particular! Do not let anyone see you using it, understand, not unless it's absolutely vital!"
"Wait! Papi!" Papi was already running towards the exit, he didn't turn back, but he did stop briefly, huge double sided war axe ready. "Get sailing! GET OUT OF HERE!" His roared, his voice like thunder. Alex's cheeks were red and flooded with salty tears, her wide wailing mouth was catching all of it.
"YOU'LL BE ON THE NEXT ISLAND RIGHT!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, so desperate for reassurance, she wanted to know that the man who had lovingly raised her would be okay. Alex's grandfather was the most important person in her life, all she wanted was them to live together happily, not this!
"OF COURSE I WILL, I'M NOT THIS ISLAND'S PROTECTOR FOR NOTHING" Her Grandfather boomed, it filled the cave was a powerful energy, his voice filled with such conviction, that Alex had believed him...
Alex was woken with a start as a loud bell tolled making her sensitive ears hurt, blinking blearily, she came to the conclusion that the ship must have arrived on the next island. With a groan the girl sat up rubbing her good eye with the back of her hand. The short haired kid looked around the small room she was in, large crates were stacked on top of one another, there were piles of rope and barrels that smelt like alcohol looming over her head. The alcohol in particular made her nose sting, if it was one thing that she didn't like the smell of it was that.
She pushed herself up, using one of the crates for leverage, she needed to get off this ship as soon as possible. Something the kid had learned the hard way in the last two years was that as soon as a vessel landed on a island, then the crew were bound to be on their way down to the store room to check provisions. And she wasn't really here as a guest, pirates or ordinary sailors for that matter, didn't take well to stowaways.
Picking up her wooden Bo staff, she dusted her dark blue shorts off and then slide her pole into her cloth sash had her waist. The girl quickly pulled out her heart medication she had recently stolen and popped two pills into her mouth. The last thing she needed was a sick day, her sick days were always awful, lots of not being able to breathe and feeling like her heart was going to blow up.
Once finished she made her way over to the door, pressing her ear up close to listen for movement or voices, there was definitely activity going on, but not down here, if she had to guess most of this ship's crew were above readying themselves for the island. That was fine by her. Turning the door handle, she swung open the door and rapidly made her way down the corridor all the while listening for enemies. This was a pirate ship after all.
Alex made her way to the upper deck without any difficulty, avoiding any pirates, they were too busy running back and forth to notice the short girl anyway. She quickly found the railing, they were thankfully docked in the port which made the kid's job much easier, she didn't have to find another way off. That was always a pain. However, all she had to do now was find a quiet place out of view to jump off.
Once she had found a nice hidden spot between the hull and some huge metal containers on the ground, she sprang over the barrier and hit the cobble stone pavement, hurrying away, only glancing over her shoulder to make sure nobody had seen her.
Once she was out of harms way, having tucked herself behind a stone building she finally let her shoulders relax. The next objective was finding some grub, she was starving. That store room didn't have any food in it, well besides salt, flour and other non eatable foods, which was dumb. Couldn't they leave something! She was starving.
Even oranges... and she was sick of those too.
With that Alexandra made her way into the town, it was most definitely a pirate hot spot, they were basically the only people she could see, stealing some food wasn't going to be easy. Then again pirates were so numerous these days, the pirate king had seen to that hadn't he? Telling every stupid greedy person that they could have his treasure, nobody even knew if the One Piece even existed and yet so many had decided to throw away everything for a little bit of treasure. Okay, yeah, the One piece wasn't just a 'bit' of treasure, the half-giant still didn't get it though, the sudden frenzy to find it, wasn't it supposed to be out there before he found it?
The people the girl felt bad for was the average citizen, they honestly had it bad, pirates pillaging their villages, having their lives ruined, torn apart, having their families, their friends tormented all because some evil greedy people got a kick out of scaring people who couldn't fight back. It honestly disgusted her to no end.
Then there was the World Government, the Marines who were supposed to protect those poor people and they did absolutely nothing. They would turn their backs on them, if they couldn't pay the heavenly tribute then the Marines would pretend it wasn't happening to a suffering island.
Then again, she did genuinely hate Marines anyway, they had taken her mother and attacked her Papi, which had resulted in Alex never seeing him again.
She really needed to stop dwelling on the past, she was going to find them both, she would find out what happened to them with out fail! That's what the blonde had promised herself! She just had to keep moving forward!
The shops on the main street were many, though they looked as if they had seen better days, a lot of the wooden buildings lacked their original colour, bits of wood would be missing from walls, or straight up gaping holes were a common theme. Over all this poor town had seen better days, this was the Grand line, from what Alexendra had seen a lot of islands suffered similar problems.
In the past two years since leaving Bambora island she bounced around many places, either being a stowaway or working for fishermen for a free ride. Neither of those two things were pleasant, while being a stowaway carried it's own risks, working for fishermen was worse, they would give her the bad jobs, she wasn't talking about scrubbing the deck bad, she meant gutting the fish for hours on end and trying to scrap the barnacles off the side of the boat in a storm bad. Stupid fishermen! The thought of them made her nose wrinkle.
The scent of fresh food filled her nostrils, she was taken towards the town square where the heavenly smell was coming from a small tavern off to the side. Following her nose inside, Alex found herself in a warmly light bar. An elderly lady was rubbing the counter with a rag, her eyes darting up at the sound of the bell on the door going as the kid entered, for a split second she looked fearful, but upon seeing that it was just a small skinny kid, she relaxed and smiled.
"Hello dear... how may I help you?"
Making her way over to the bar, Alex made herself at home on one of the stools, she returned her smile with a nervous grin.
Pausing briefly to think about what she wanted to order, it's not like she had a lot of money, the cash the girl did possess was stolen and it definitely lacked any zeros on the end. She really needed to steal some more, their were plenty of pirates on the island to choose from.
"Can I have a glass of water and the cheapest food you have, please." At this point she was hardly picky about what food she ate; though some day she would love to eat a gourmet dish. But when Alex was hungry anything tasted good, well expect for green beans and tomatoes, those two things she really couldn't stand, green beans in particular were evil.
She gave her a once over, analysing the small scruffy child with her gaze, it felt like an examination. Alex really wanted to squirm under those eyes. Once the lady was satisfied, she nodded, telling her to wait where she was. The girl obeyed, sitting quietly for about two seconds before deciding to wander around.
Alex wasn't very good at sitting still.
The bar was empty of customers, the room felt large, an echoing expanse of tables and chairs, nothing really interesting to focus on, until her single blue eye settled on some bounty posters on a cork board in the corner. That was something to do while she waited.
She ran her gaze over the papers, there was some faces she recognized, of course she didn't know those people personally, but she knew of them, either from the newspaper or from looking over their wanted posters. There were several large rookies, pirates that had been making a name for themselves lately. One was Doflamingo, his arrogant nasty sneer stared back at her, he was the one people had been making an especially big fuss over, apparently something to do with his family lineage, however what that was all about she did not know and honestly didn't want to know.
One poster popped out, a face that mirrored her own, but the name underneath Alex's picture made her face twist in dismay. A familiar feeling of fear and disgust made it's way down to the pit of her stomach. The girl's nervous twitch started up again without her knowledge, hand beginning scratch to her arm in a fast sharp movement, leaving behind long trail of red marks.
"It's Magnhild!" The blonde growled under her breath, so like every one of her bounty posters she came across she decided to correct it. Teeth grinding together angrily, she reached into her messy short hair causing small little golden sparks to fly as she pulled out a pen.
She ferociously scribbled out the name 'Edward', then in a somewhat hot steam of negative emotions sloppily wrote above that, the name ' Magnhild' in angry capital letters. Snorting in a dark grumble she nodded satisfied.
"Excuse me, your food has arrived." The girl jumped as a voice right next to my shoulder appeared, the barmaid was back, Alex's cheeks felt hot from embarrassment, all she got in response was a chuckle. Turning her gaze up to look at the lady's wrinkled face, it crinkled as she grinned, the woman simply gestured to the food on the counter waiting, with that she left the red-faced kid standing there with a startled heart.
Once Alex had collected herself, rubbing away the surprise from her eye she went back to the bar. Clambering onto her stool with a little effort, her short stature not appreciating the height of her seat. Her mouth was drooling almost instantly at the sight of the food, she was pleasantly surprised. There was a good meal, vegetables were piled high, there was even fish! The young girl licked her lips, shouting out a eager "Thanks for the food" and dug in veraciously, making hmmm noises.
Alex stopped with a mouthful of fish as she heard the woman ask "Tell me... are you a pirate?" She was regarding the small girl with seriousness and maybe a hint of worry. She shook her head violently swallowing her bite, after a moment the woman seemed to sigh, her eyes dragging themselves towards the door.
"Nah ah! I hate pirates!" The blonde stated adamantly, her mind wandered towards some place dark, before shying away, she was not going there.
The lady smiled brightly, a soft glint passing her features. "I'm glad. You seem like a nice boy; I would hate for some young kid like you to be sucked up into this pointless fight for treasure."
I'm a girl Alexandra's brain corrected, though she didn't bother saying anything out loud, she didn't care all that much. In fact, the blonde would be more surprised if somebody got her gender right, it's not like she was especially girly or anything. Alex was short stocky with kind of muscular arms, she had short choppy blonde hair and she didn't have the delicate skin, or the pretty big eyes with luscious lashes most girls her age had. Maybe when her boobs grew in people would finally get her gender right.
"Nope I'm just passin' through." She stuffed a big piece of broccoli into her gob muffling her words. Her eye rolled down to the counter top, not wanting to make to look at the lady.
"How did you get here? It couldn't have been easy"
She shrugged, chugging the water next her plate, washing down the greens. Alex decided not to answer, instead focusing on the meal. The woman tapped her foot, before sighing, giving up her question. "Have you seen all the pirates on this island? You know this used to be a quiet place, but since the execution of Gold Roger a year and a half ago this has become a very rough town..."
She nodded unsurprised carrying on munching away without word, she was enjoying the food filling her belly, though she got the nagging suspicion that this lady was trying to get at something.
Can she just come out with it already?
Alexandra snuck a glance at her, the woman's expression was cloudy and tight, her jaw was locked rigid. She clearly had something to say.
"What are you trying to get at?" The girl finally asked, she tried to make it sound non confrontational, just an average easy going question. The look on the lady's face told Alex that was not how it came across, yet all she did was huff a little, the barmaid almost seemed relieved that she had made this so simple for her.
"How long have you been here?" Though before she could even answer, the woman carried on "Well, I doubt you would be so calm if you knew." This caused Alex to frown slightly as a shiver of nerves run down her spine, she shuffled uncomfortably.
The blonde watched as the lady rummaged behind the bar for a second, then after a second, she brought out a couple of pieces of paper, more specifically wanted posters. Alex was suddenly very aware of her own bounty poster in the corner, maybe she should have ripped it down...
"Listen if you see these people, please keep away from them, they're incredibly dangerous." She slapped three separate posters on the counter, her half-gaze fixed on them instantly, one made her blood freeze up, her whole body was thrown into panic mode. Fear and anxiety were suddenly rushing around the kid's chest, her unsteady heart was sent into a race of terror, she began to tremble. Alex's features went very tense, until her teeth were bared and her forehead creased in horror.
"They arrived a couple of days ago... they're down in the port having their ship fixed, I heard they had a run in with the Big Mom pirates and they're was a full-on war between the two... Rumour has it that the island just north of ours was hit by tsunamis from the battle. Those poor people, there homes must have been ruined-" The woman's voice faded into the background, until it was a low hum in Alex's ears.
The man on the paper grinning up at her was somebody she knew well, while the girl had never met the man, she knew him, she had read about him the newspapers enough, she had heard the tales... Her hand drifted up to her bandanna covered eye, the tremble in her fingers was nothing new, the fear, the panic and anxiety was nothing new to her. But it was suddenly very real, never in a million years would she ever have thought she'd be on the same island as him...
Alex hated that man. She was scared of that man! But out of those two things, fear was what prevailed over everything else.
Edward Newgate. Whitebeard was on the same island as her and he was by far the person that had caused Alexandra the most problems in her life. Be it because of the mean kids on her home island or the fact that she had his name slapped in front of her own for the whole world to see.
After all the Yonko had a lot of enemies. Which meant those stupid enemies' eyes were on her too. It didn't even matter to those people that Alex had never met him, after all you couldn't easily get revenge on the world's strongest man, but they could take it out on a weak little one-eyed girl...