nico is in a strange place called Dress Robes ruled by a flamingo king.

Two

Nico drowned.

Nico reached out in the icy depths unable to summon the strength to push his legs and arms forward. Absolute terror engulfed him. Bianca, help!

He was filled with water.

Black edged Nico's vision. Distantly, his ears rang. He recognized it as the knell of his own death. Small bubbles rose as he descended.

If drowning wasn't already on his list of the suckiest things to currently happen to him, Nico spotted a dark shadow in the water zipping toward him. His eyes widened when he saw a mouthful of large, razor-sharp teeth, and beady bloodthirsty eyes glossed over in terrifying ebony.

A shark!

It lunged toward him.

More air bubbles escaped Nico. There was nowhere to dodge. He crossed his arms in front of him. No! Please don't eat me! he thought frantically just as the shark sank its powerful teeth into his left side.

Pain, unbelievable pain coursed through him. Nico let out a soundless scream. More water rushed inside of him filling him until there was nothing but seawater and pain. The awful ringing in his ears grew louder. He wanted to escape and go where there was no more pain.

Nico knew only darkness, and then nothing.

Nothing didn't last long.

In what felt like the next moment, Nico inhaled once and shot up. He twisted in half circles to the left and right, expecting to be adrift in the sea and to see his sister's scowling face and her dark wet curls clinging to her forehead. Instead, he was greeted to the sight of a kid. They were a boy or girl, he wasn't too sure, with long blond hair and two ivory, bull horns curving out the sides of their head, they wore small pink hoop earrings. If that wasn't strange enough, their mouth was wide open in what looked like a permanent state of surprise. Nico saw two rows of triangle teeth stained in red. A trail of ruby dripped down their lips drizzling onto their shirt and pink shorts.

Nico swallowed. He looked down. Part of his shirt and aviator jacket were torn away. Blood gushed from his wound. Gently, he reached down and touched. He winced at the needles of pain pushing through his skin as he traced over each bleeding crescent indentation. He wasn't missing his entire left side so he was grateful for the small miracles.

"You bit me!" Nico accused. He knit his brow. "That's disgusting and rude! Were you raised by wolves?"

"I'm half-fishman and you made a big splash," they said with a dismissive shrug. "How'd you do that thing with the shadows? We were in the ocean. Now, we're on land. How did you do that? Giolla says devil fruit users can't use the powers underwater. They're despised by the sea."

"I don't have any powers. At least, I don't think I have any powers," Nico said. He hadn't been claimed yet. Grover said it would be soon. "What's a fishman? That wasn't in the orientation video."

The blond kid wiped their mouth with the back of their hand. They stood up. Nico raised an eyebrow when he saw their pink mary janes. "I think I better take you to Doflamingo."

Nico blinked and he was still. He realized two things.

He was alone and this was not an attic.

Before being bitten, before the darkness, before the drowning, he had been in an attic and he saw a real treasure chest. Inside the treasure chest, there had been a single fruit and he had taken a bite because he was curious and hungry.

"Bianca isn't going to be happy if I meet a flamingo without her permission."

The kid giggled in a high-pitched fashion. Nico managed a trembling smile of his own.

He tried to get to his feet and he quickly discovered that was a terrible idea. At this moment, his limbs weighed two tons each. There was no chance he would be moving.

"We have to go now. I can't miss dinnertime with the Family. Baby Five is planning to kill Doffy because he killed her fourth boyfriend. I don't understand why she keeps getting boyfriends. She has to know Doffy is just going to kill them. She's so stupid sometimes. "

"Some other time," Nico tried. "I have to meet my sister and Grover. They're waiting for me right now. Please." He wasn't able to run the other direction, but he could scoot. He scooted his boot back. His hands and feet made little depressions on the ground.

"It won't be bad. I think you'll have a real chance to join the Family, unlike the others. It's so funny." The kid covered their mouth with their hand, though it did little good. Nico saw their lips still curled up in a cruel smile. "Doffy doesn't like any of them, especially the new one—Bellamy."

"I can't," Nico rejected. "I already have a family."

The blond just laughed and shot in front of him with a murderous gleam in their eyes. Yelping, Nico flinched back and fell to the soft ground. Sand, he recognized.

"Go away!" Nico shouted. "I don't want to see your homicidal flamingo or Baby Five! I don't want to join your family of villains! You all sound like you belong in an asylum."

Nico wasn't entirely sure if that was a fair assumption to make, but it felt good to say. With his shout, the ground underneath them shook. The blond paused for a split second. Nico read confusion in their dark eyes.

"Did you do that?" they asked. "I thought only Whitebeard…" he trailed off. "I can't let you slip through my fingers. If I turn you in, Doffy will let me fight in the Colosseum."

They reached to grab him and Nico squeezed his eyes shut.

"Leave him alone!"

Nico opened his eyes to see a toy soldier come out of nowhere and slam headfirst into the blond kid.

The blond kid was knocked sideways. They got up quickly. Their black eyes turned a ruby red. "A Toy!" he hissed. "Sugar says no toy can harm a human and they must obey the Family! I command you to stop!"

In front of Nico, there was a toy soldier about the same height as Nico while sitting on his bottom. The toy soldier wore a large, glossy top hat like Abraham Lincoln and held a long white-painted bayonet in his hands. Nico wanted to touch the giant yellow windup on its back.

"Um." Nico looked between the half-fishman and toy soldier. "What."

"Sit tight," the Toy Soldier said and Nico's eyes nearly popped out his sockets. "You can talk!"

"Of course," Toy Soldier said, his mouth opened and his blue painted eyes did not blink. "I heard your cry of help and I came to save you. I should have known it would come from someone being harassed by the Donquixote Family. It is unfortunate, my opponent is so young."

"You'll pay for that!" the blonde kid growled. They lifted their leg to point their heel at the Toy Soldier. "I'll smash your wooden head in!" They darted forward.

The Toy Soldier met them in the middle.

Surprise quickly turned into awe. In two short moves, Toy Soldier used his bayonet and sent the kid flying through the air into a crumpled heap. Nico winced in sympathy when he saw the kid in a sad, unmoving pile just a few feet away from him.

"Don't worry about the young fishman," Toy Soldier said as he put a cold wooden hand on Nico's shoulder, "I only knocked him out, but he'll wake up soon and go running to his family. We have to go now. I can't fight them and protect you at the same time. "

"He?" Nico asked. "They were a he?"

Toy Soldier opened his mouth and his eyes seemed to widen. "Dellinger is part fishman though I can't be certain of the gender expression Dellinger feels most comfortable with. At any rate, we must go."

Nico nodded, then flushed red. "I can't stand up."

Toy Soldier slipped his bayonet on his back and Nico was gently scooped up off the ground.

"Whoa—hey!" Nico said, flushing further. "You're just a toy. How can you be this strong?"

"You're bleeding." Toy Soldier paid no attention to his surprise, instead he was held closer. "Don't move so much."

Nico listened. Arguing took energy. Nico had only enough energy to not fall asleep in the Toy Soldier's cold arms. He conserved the last bit of energy for the essentials like breathing and not freaking out. The freakout would come later. So, he settled down for the ride.

The ride wasn't the smoothest.

"What happened to your other leg?" Nico asked.

Almost immediately he regretted the question. If Bianca were here, he knew she would have jabbed him in the ribs for being so rude.

Toy Soldier hopped up and down on a yellow-brick road. For a whole minute, Nico accepted that Toy Soldier didn't want to answer the question.

"I failed to protect those I loved." Toy Soldier's deep voice cracked. He sounded like

e he was on the verge of tears.

Nico kept his mouth shut after that. It was a solid hour of mildly uncomfortable hopping. The scenery changed from the beaches to the green hills and acres of tall sunflowers, and then, a brightly colored town. In the far distance, he noticed a tall stone column. If he squinted hard he saw a visage of a tiny building atop the tall column. Toy Soldier didn't bring him into the center of the town where Nico glimpsed at the people and toys coexisting. He and Toy Soldier kept to the edges of the town twisting into back alleys where the bright colors of the buildings were exchanged for somber greys and blacks.

If this were anyone else Nico might have been scared, but he felt an implicit trust for the Toy Soldier that saved him from the fishman kid.

Toy Soldier brought him to an area that looked half-burnt and mostly empty. There were a few children covered in dirt playing with a ball fashioned out of old rags and twine. They blinked curiously at them but otherwise were focused on their game. Toy Soldier brought him to a small coral colored house. In a feat of strength, Toy Soldier passed him to one arm and opened the door with the other.

"Rebecca, get the whiskey and bring out some rags," Toy Soldier said sternly as he entered the home.

A pink-haired girl, younger than Nico, but around the same age as Dellinger pushed back her wooden chair and jumped down. She ran to them, then narrowly came to a stop before them. Her pink eyebrows rose and her kind brown eyes glanced between him and Toy Soldier.

Nico waved awkwardly. "I'm Nico."

"You look like death." Rebecca turned around and hurried to do as she was bid.

That stung. However, it wasn't the first time someone attributed death to him. Bianca told him he slept like the dead too.

Toy Soldier placed him on the bed and Nico hissed as the roughspun covers brushed against his skin. Toy Soldier flushed red and bent in an awkward way, clapping his hands. "Don't focus on the pain. Focus on me!" Toy Soldier bent this way and that. "Toys are supposed to make children happy not sad."

Nico laughed.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Am I funny?"

Nico nodded at Toy Soldier with a bright grin. To Nico, Toy Soldier was the embodiment of Dad Jokes. Not funny, but he made Nico forget about the tension all the same with his cringey behavior.

Nico watched Toy Soldier bend himself into all types of shapes that would make the world's best gymnast jealous. Rebecca came over with a large jug and multicolored clothes under her arm. Suddenly, all the humor in Nico spilled out. Toy Soldier gestured to the whiskey bottle and left Rebecca to hold the towels.

Rebecca put the towels on the edge of the bed, then helped him undress. There was some blushing involved on Nico's part, because a girl that wasn't his sister was touching him and looking at him in a state of undress. Well, it was close to a state of undress. If his arms weren't so heavy, he would have crossed them over his chest. Rebecca stood aside and let Toy Soldier take her position over. The whiskey bottle in Toy Soldier's hand was thrust in front of him.

Nico swallowed.

"It's going to sting," Toy Soldier warned as he uncorked the bottle. "Be brave."

Wait. What was going to sting?

Then, a bright burning. Nico seized and howled as Toy Soldier poured the brown liquid all over the bite. The sound of his heart was loud in Nico's ears, he gnashed his teeth and he curled his fingers into fists as Toy Soldier kept pouring and pouring for what felt like an eternity.

Finally, Toy Soldier pulled back and Nico was left with fire in his veins.

"I'm going to wipe it clean now," Rebecca said.

As soft as her voice, Rebecca wiped his side down in small sections. It didn't soothe the fire swirling inside of him, but it did calm him down until Nico laid back down on the bed. He reached up and touched the sweat on his brow. "All clean."

"I apologize for putting you through that, Nico," Toy Soldier said as he took his turn inspecting the bite, "but I have known a great many warriors die from a little cut if it wasn't cleaned. I think you'll survive. Good job!"

Nico nodded. He understood, but he wasn't quite ready to accept the apology. It still hurt. At least, Toy Soldier and Rebecca didn't mention anything about stitches.

"Do you need help with dinner?" Toy Soldier turned to Rebecca. He placed a hand on her elbow and Rebecca shook her head.

"All right. I'll change the sheets now before I go." Toy Soldier nodded. He set his bayonet down on the wooden bedpost.

Go where? Nico wondered what Toy Soldier meant by that, but he wasn't about to open his mouth and ask more rude questions. "I'm sorry to bring Nico here without any notification. We'll sort him out tomorrow if you're fine with him staying the night."

Rebecca nodded. "I'm glad to have someone. It won't be so lonely when Toy Soldier leaves."

Toy Soldier bent his head. "Rebecca," he sighed, then perked. "Toys are supposed to make children happy. I shall try to make you two very happy before I leave."

On his one leg, Toy Soldier made several circles and bowed. Nico and Rebecca shared a single glance before they burst into a round of applause.

"Toy Soldier is lucky I did the laundry today," Rebecca playfully chided.

Nico was moved to the small table in the middle of the room. Far from complaining, he was happy to observe Toy Soldier and Rebecca work together. They were a dynamic team. It was clear the two were extremely comfortable together. Nico wondered what their relationship was. Perhaps, Toy Soldier had been given to Rebecca by a parent.

Nico blinked. He had yet to meet an adult. He saw them as Toy Soldier zipped past the bustling city center, but was there no older adult in this home that took responsibility? Toy Soldier acted sort of like a parent to him, and even more so toward Rebecca, but he was certain that Rebecca was human. Where were Rebecca's parents?

That was a question Nico knew not to ask. In Westover, that was the question that always annoyed him the most. Most of the kids in Westover had parents in the military or parents in higher up government positions. Sure, the kids there didn't see their parents often, but their parents sent them letters and presents on their birthdays, called them on the phone, visited on special weekends or dances. It was quickly known that he and Bianca didn't have that. They were the orphans of Westover Academy, only there as a charity case. Never mind that they weren't actually orphans. He and his sister had a father. Sure, their father was an absent father (who was actually a god), but Nico didn't argue with the mean kids at Westover over that point. He preferred being an orphan over being a bastard.

"It's sundown," Rebecca said. She pointed to the only window in the tiny house. It was sundown. Nico was a little surprised by how quickly time passed.

"It is. I have to go." Toy Soldier smoothed the nonexistent creases out of the bedspread and fluffed the pillows once more. He hopped to the door. "We will talk early tomorrow morning before I go to work, Nico. We'll see if we can get you to your parents. Rebecca—"

"Right here." Rebecca was at the door. She opened her arms and gave Toy Soldier a hug. "I'll see you tomorrow too, and I will lock the door behind you."

"Yes, always remember to lock the door after I leave. I'll—"

"Leave a petal—"

"Two petals, one for you and one for Nico, on the windowsill. Goodnight, Rebecca."

Toy Soldier left. The door shut behind him firmly, and Nico heard the sound of his hopping outside of the window. He listened until he could not. Rebecca reached on her tippy toes and locked the door as she said. She turned to him with a bright smile.

"Hungry? We have stew."

Nico's stomach growled.

Rebecca was the most responsible little kid he had ever seen. In quick order, she balanced two full bowls and cups to their little table. She gave him his dinner first, then sat across from him with a wide grin. She dug in. Nico was a little more hesitant.

"You're not from around here," Rebecca said.

Nico raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"

She gave him a dubious look.

"Ok, I'm not from around here."

Rebecca hummed.

"Where is here?" Nico asked, stirring his stew.

"Dressrosa."

"Dress Robes?"

"Dressrosa," Rebecca repeated slowly. "It's an island in the New World. Where are you from? Paradise?"

Nico blinked. Dressrosa was in the New World. He had heard of the New World before in social studies. It was part of the lands and oceans that Christopher Columbus came across when he went the wrong way to get to India.

"Venice. It's in Italy." Nico tried some of the stew. Once he ate one bite, another followed. He pushed some food to the side of his cheek creating a little pouch. "And then, we moved to D.C., but before that, I think we stayed at another place. We came back to D.C. I think. I can't remember..." Nico scrunched his face. It always made his head hurt when he thought about it for too long. "But, I was in Maine for school, then New York City for, um, camp, and now I'm here. In Dressrosa."

"Wow, I can't believe you lived on all of those islands. I thought only marines and pirates traveled that much," Rebecca said. "What sea are you from?"

"The Adriatic and Atlantic."

Rebecca's eye twitched. "There are only four seas in the world." She sounded like she wanted to say duh, you big dummy. "The North Blue, East Blue, West Blue, and South Blue. The New World has the West and North Blue."

"Oh," Nico said in a small voice.

"You really aren't from here."

"Yeah." Nico saw that clear as day, a sinking feeling started in the pit of his stomach.

Rebecca glanced at her bowl. The subject dropped.

"Where did Toy Soldier go?" Nico asked.

If possible Rebecca looked even more uncomfortable.

"All toys have to go to the Toy House before midnight. King Doflamingo's rules."

"A flamingo is king here?" Rebecca giggled with Nico's shock, and then stopped when Nico added, "Dellinger said the same thing."

"Doflamingo is no flamingo though he wears an incredibly ugly coat of pink feathers." Rebecca stuck her tongue out. "He's the King of Dressrosa and the captain of the Donquixote Pirates. Dellinger is part of the Donquixote Pirates."

"Really? I didn't know pirates let babies in."

Rebecca sniffed, "A baby that was strong enough to kick your butt. You're lucky Dellinger is pretty weak compared to the rest of the family. If you ran into Diamante, you'd be dead. He's a real monster."

Nico hummed. "It sounds like you know a lot about the Donquixote Pirates."

Rebecca blinked at him three times, each time, her eyes grew more glossy and her bottom lip wobbled. Nico had really stuck his foot in it, again. She scrubbed her eyes and kept eating. Nico did the same.