A/N: Ahoy, readers! Genysis here! The more I write for this story, the more excited about it I get. This chapter is a little fast paced with a couple of teasers for future events. That being said, the official introduction between Nevia and our favorite pirate crew that you're all waiting for is coming in Chapter 3, so be sure to follow and favorite to be notified of when the next chapter drops! And feel free to leave a review letting me know of what you think of the story so far. I've gotten a couple of really positive reviews that have left me feeling like I'm heading in the right direction with this story!
Disclaimer: One Piece and its amazing characters are owned by the incredible Oda. I own this particular story line and my own OC's that I've thrown in for good measure!
After an hour or so of flying, Nevia begins to feel the effects of the gunshot wound. The feeling of adrenaline that she relied upon to push her forward has died down, and she's beginning to wonder how much further she'll be able to make it before the pain wins out. Still, she can hardly believe that she managed to escape in the first place. To think that all it took was Houston being decently drunk and Kaiser having a momentary lapse in intelligence. Not to mention Bristol.
Nevia feels a pang in her chest at the thought of the one person she actually cares about leaving behind on that wretched ship. Ever since her abduction, Houston's men had treated her as a pet or a tool. All, save for Bristol. He had treated her as a friend from the very beginning. He had shown her mercy and compassion that no one else had. On the nights when Bristol had watch, he would sit outside of her cell and they would talk for hours, sometimes until the sun came up. He told her all about the life that he had left behind to be a pirate, and how he had come to join Houston's crew. Nevia told him about her childhood back at Water 7 and how she had stolen the Devil Fruit from Houston's ship.
With all of the reminiscing, she can't help but replay that final terrible scene in her head.
"Don't worry about me! JUST GO!"
He had said those words to her seconds before Kaiser ran him down. She wishes so badly that she could go back and save him, but she knows that by doing so she would be wasting his selfless sacrifice. Instead, she flaps her wings even harder and keeps moving forward the way Bristol would want her to.
On Nevia's next downstroke, a familiar stabbing pain shoots through her wing and shoulder where the bullet hit her. She curses under her breath as her wing falters, causing her to fall several feet in the air
"Dammit, not now!"
With all of the strength that she can muster, Nevia forces her injured wing to flap. The pain comes worse this time but she refuses to give in to it.
'Come on, I've made it this far. I just need to find an island. Any island. I don't think I'll be able to hold out for much longer.'
There's a change in the air suddenly, and it's a change that Nevia recognizes. As if the Gods have answered her desperate plea, Nevia can just barely make out what appears to be a land mass in the distance.
'Oh, hell yes! That HAS to be an island!'
Pouring on the speed as much as she can without losing consciousness from the blossoming pain, Nevia rockets towards what she can only hope to be her salvation.
From this altitude, she can start to see the lights of a town or city. Weighing her options, she decides that her best bet is to land, find some food and shelter and rest for the night. Tomorrow she can worry about finding a ship to stow away on and, with any luck, be out of Duke Houston's reach for good.
A few long minutes later, Nevia begins her descent to the island. With her right wing damaged, her landing is a little rougher than she prefers. She lands hard and fast in an empty back alley, one ankle rolling the moment it hits the ground. She stifles a cry and braces an arm against a stone wall.
Forcing herself to walk despite her newly twisted ankle, Nevia makes her way down the alley and into an empty street. With no one around to see her, she limps along until she comes to a closed restaurant with a storehouse behind it. "Please be unlocked, please be unlocked," she pleads as she grips the door handle of the storehouse. With bated breath, she turns the door handle…
And the door swings open.
"Success!" Nevia shouts, pumping her fist in the air. She hurries into the storeroom, shutting the door behind her. She pulls a thin string by the door and a light flicker to life inside of the one-room building. To her relief, she is met by shelves lined with bread, meat and other foods. Wasting no time, the girl begins stuffing her face. Despite the pain that she's in, Nevia is filled with joy by her stolen feast. She can't remember the last time she was able to eat like this. With the Black Rose Corsairs, Nevia was given one small meal per day at most. Sometimes she was denied a meal at all, depending on how Houston was feeling. So, she eats and eats until she couldn't possibly swallow another bite.
With her hunger well sated, Nevia fashions a makeshift bed out of wooden crates and potato sacks. She carefully pulls her wings in against her back, and lays down. It's not the most comfortable bed that she's ever slept in, but it certainly beats the wooden deck and sea-prism stone prison bars that she's slept on and against for the past four years.
Closing her eyes, Nevia thinks about her plan for tomorrow. Her first order of business should be to find some new clothes, as the dress that Houston forced her to wear is now covered in blood from her gunshot wound. The second is finding a ship to stow away on. Nevia knows full well that she needs to be careful when it comes to sneaking aboard a ship. One wrong move and she could easily end up as someone else's captive. Still, what are the odds of her sneaking on a ship that's captained by someone as bad as Duke Houston?
With that dark though still dancing around her head, Nevia drifts off to sleep.
"Find the bitch! Whatever it takes, she and that Devil Fruit power WILL be mine!"
Water 7 is awash with panic as pirates storm the island. Duke Houston, accompanied by the Black Rose Corsairs, is hell bent on locating his stolen treasure from ten years prior. Adults and children alike run across bridges and walkways screaming in terror as the band of pirates ransack home after home searching for their target: a fourteen-year-old girl by the name of Reno D Nevada.
"Captain!" one man shouts to Houston, emerging from a home with bags of stolen goods in either hand, "I have information on the girl."
"What kind of information?" Houston asks, shortly. He has no tolerance for wasted time at the moment.
His subordinate furrows his eyebrows and flashes a toothy grin when he says, "I know where she lives."
"Well done, Kaiser. Well done, indeed," Houston praises his second-in-command.
"MEN," Houston bellows, grabbing the attention of his scattered crew, "we now know the location of the girl. Follow me, and let us take back what is rightfully mine!"
Houston raises his sword into the air and cheers. The rest of his crew mimic the triumphant gesture before flanking their captain.
Meanwhile, Nevia's mother is shaking her awake and pulling her out of bed.
"Mom?" The sleepy fourteen-year-old rubs her eyes with the back of her free hand while her mother holds tightly onto the other. "What's going on?"
"Nevia, there's no time to explain. We need to hide, quickly," her mother says in a panicked daze.
"Hide? Mom," Nevia protests, pulling her hand free of her mother's grasp, "what the hell is going on? You're scaring me."
Nevia's mother spins on a dime to face her, her aged face twisted in pure fear. "Pirates have come to Water 7, Nevada."
Nevia freezes, her eyes wide. Her mother hasn't called her by her full name since the day her father disappeared. "Pirates? Pirates came here?" Nevia asks in disbelief. "Why? What do they want from Water 7?"
Her mother hesitates, eyes shifting to the front door of their home. For both of their sakes and her daughter's safety, she can't continue to hide the truth from her. Inhaling a deep breath, Nevia's mother puts a firm hand on her shoulder and looks at her carefully.
"You remember how you got your ability, right?"
Nevia nods, confusion painting her face. "Of course I do. I ate a Devil Fruit that I found while exploring."
Nevia's mother shakes her shoulders hard. "Don't lie to me, Nevia! Your father and I both knew that that was never the case. You stole it from a ship that was docked at Rocky Cape, right?"
Nevia falters. The only ones that know where she was that day are the kids she had snuck onto the ship with, and she hasn't spoken to the majority of them for quite some time.
"Nevada!" her mother shouts, causing the scared girl to flinch.
"Okay, yes! I snuck onto a ship along with the other kids and I found the Devil Fruit there," she admits, tears stinging the inside of her eyelids.
Her mother just nods. "That ship that you kids snuck on, that belonged to the Black Rose Corsairs. Pirates, led by a horrible man. That night, after you were fast asleep, the captain came to our door. One of his men saw you in town with it. He saw it fall out of your backpack."
Nevia's mouth hangs agape as she processes this information. How would she have known that the ship she stole from all those years ago was a pirate ship? Sure, it had looked creepy, but the idea that it could have belonged to pirates never crossed her mind.
With no time to let this knowledge fully sink in, Nevia's mother continues.
"The captain demanded that we hand you over to him, but we refused. Your father told the captain that you had sold the fruit for beli, not knowing what it was. He swore up and down that the fruit was no longer in your possession and that you hadn't eaten it. The captain screamed at us, telling us that the money from the Devil Fruit was rightfully his, and that your father would spend the rest of his life as his slave to pay off the debt."
Tears begin streaming down Nevia's face as a sob rips its way through her mother's chest.
"They took him?" Nevia asks weakly.
Her mother nods in confirmation. "I never told you because I never wanted you to think that your father disappearing was your fault," she admits, hanging her head in guilt.
"But it was my fault!" Nevia screams. "He was taken because of me! You let me be mad at him for so long thinking that he abandoned us!"
"Nevia, please try to calm down," her mother pleads "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I lied to you, my sweet Nevie. I never meant for you to find out this way."
"Are they the ones storming Water 7 now?" Nevia asks as realization sets in. "Did they come back for me after all this time?"
Nevia's mother hesitates again for just a second too long. "I don't know," she says, shaking her head. "But we need to hide before we find out-"
Her mother is interrupted by a heavy knock at the door. Nevia and her mother lock eyes, each one's fear reflected in the other's.
"Go," her mother whispers. "Go now. Hide. I'll take care of this."
Before Nevia is able to utter a word in protest, her mother pushes her towards the back of the house. She does as she's told, hiding in a dark coat closet while her mother unlatches and opens the door.
"It's been a long time," Nevia hears a bemused voice say.
"What do you want?" her mother asks coldly. "Have my husband's services to you over the last ten years not been enough?"
The man at the door chuckles darkly. "Your husband is dead," he says in a low growl.
Nevia can hear her mother gasp. She feels a lump in her own throat. Held prisoner for all that time because of her, and now he's dead.
"Naturally," the man continues uncaringly, "I've come to collect what is rightfully mine."
Her mother growls protectively. "It's as we told you ten years ago, Houston. Our daughter sold the fruit. She was just a child. She didn't know what it-"
"Bullshit!" Houston spits angrily, cutting her mother off. "I've heard rumors, you know. Rumors of a girl in Water 7 with wings black as night. In these rumors, the girl is the same age that your brat would be now."
Nevia's mother grits her teeth. She's silent just long enough that Houston can tell he's correct.
"I told you-"
"ENOUGH!" Houston screams. "I've no time for lies and games. The girl will be coming with us!"
Through a small hole in the closet door, Nevia watches in terror as the pirate captain forces his way past her mother and into the house.
"No!" her mother screams, tackling Houston to the ground. She punches him hard in the face once.
The sound of a gun being fired echoes through the house.
Nevia claps both of her hands tightly over her mouth to stifle the scream that tears through her throat, but she's not fast enough to block out all of the sound.
"There you are," Houston says with a smirk as he pulls himself off of the ground. "Kaiser! Retrieve my possession, please."
Seconds later the closet door swings open and an arm comes through the layer of coats and sweaters that Nevia is standing behind. The hand grabs her shirt and yanks her out of her hiding spot before throwing her to the ground. When she opens her eyes, all she sees is her mother's face covered in blood.
"Mom?" Nevia asks, reaching out to shake her shoulders. "Mommy, say something!" But she does not answer.
"Your mommy couldn't have saved you," Houston says with an evil grin as he hauls the heartbroken girl to her feet by the collar of her night shirt.
"Show them to me," the captain demands.
"Show you what?" Nevia asks between sobs.
"The wings! I want to see them. Show them to me now!"
Nevia clenches her teeth together to suppress another round of sobs and slowly unfurls her long black wings.
Houston tosses his head back with triumphant laughter. "I've done it! After all these years, the Wing Wing Fruit is mine!" He laughs once more, coldly, as he uses a finger to stroke the side of Nevia's face.
"For the rest of your miserable life, your power will be mine and mine alone to use."
Nevia awakens suddenly from the nightmare. She sits up too fast, and her forehead collides with a slab of meat suspended from the ceiling. Cursing under her breath, she stands up slowly from her resting place and cracks the door to the storehouse open.
One peek outside tells her that's it's early morning. A few early risers are strolling the streets, but things seem to be quiet for the most part.
Easing the door shut, Nevia moves to the back of the storehouse where a metal safe is poorly hidden behind a stack of boxes. Extending her wings just enough to not aggravate her bullet wounds, she plucks out two of her covert feathers. She pushes the stack of boxes aside and uses the quills of her feathers to pick the lock.
After a few minutes, the door to the safe swings open. Inside, Nevia can see a couple large sacks of beli. She takes two, leaving the other two behind so that the restaurant she's stealing from isn't left completely broke. She closes the door to the safe and moves to crack the door to the storeroom a second time.
When Nevia can see that the coast is clear, she pulls her wings back in and limps out of her hiding place onto the street. It's too early for any of the shops to be open, so she decides that it's probably best for her to clean the blood from her wounds so as to not alarm the locals.
It doesn't take the girl long to find a nearby stream. Stripping off her dress, she submerges it in the icy cold water. Once it's fully soaked through, she begins cupping water into her hands to pour on her right shoulder.
The freezing water stings. Her shoulder and wing are in bad shape, and she knows that even with medical care it will be a while before she can fly again. Not to mention her swollen ankle. Still, the right ship should have a medical room on board where she can try to remove the bullet and patch things up.
With her wounds and dress cleaned as well as they can be, Nevia decides to head back to the town and see where she can get some food.
A few hours later, Nevia is walking around the island town with shopping bags in hand and one bag of beli left. Having ditched her bloodied dress in a dumpster, she now dons black lace-up sandals, black jean shorts, a black tank top and a dark blue jacket with a white faux fur collar. Her hair has been pulled back into its signature chunky navy-blue braid. Carefully attached to one of her belt loops is a small but sharp dagger in case of emergencies.
With her first task completed, Nevia makes for the edge of the island to scout for ships. Unable to hover in the air, she settles for climbing a tall tree. Her ankle throbs, but she simply grits her teeth and powers through.
One Nevia has found a thick branch near the top of the tree, she takes off her jacket and tank top and pulls the knife from its sheath. She cuts two long vertical slits in the back of each piece of clothing before returning them to her body. She's done this to all of her clothes since gaining her Devil Fruit power in order to make it easier to extend her wings. Nevia moves to put the knife back in its sheath when she hears voices on the path below her.
"She couldn't have gotten far. She was injured when she flew away from the ship. She has to be somewhere on this island."
Nevia goes completely rigid. She recognizes that voice. It's Caddis Fisk, one of Houston's lackeys. The last time that she saw Fisk, he was boarding the ship with one of the child captives. If he's here, then that can only mean one thing.
Houston and his men have caught up to her already, and she knows that he'll do whatever it takes to get her back.
Nevia needs to find a ship to stow away on now more than ever. However, she now has the added difficulty of avoiding the Black Rose Corsairs. She waits patiently, quietly for Fisk and whoever else is with him to pass. When she's sure that the coast is clear, she eases herself off of her branch and out of the tree.
Breaking into a limping sprint, Nevia beelines for the coast. Her mind is operating on a single thought, and she's not fully paying attention to where she's going when she runs right into someone. The someone, a boy with black hair, lightly grips Nevia's arms to steady her. She can see a look of concern pass over his face, and she's sure that she's wearing her fear and pain plainly.
"Are you okay?" the boy asks, and Nevia nods fervently. "I'm fine. Sorry for running into you like that. I guess I wasn't really paying attention." She shakes her head in shame. She needs to be more careful.
Much to Nevia's surprise, the boy just smiles. "You don't have to apologize. If you want to make it up to me, you can buy me lunch!"
She falters. Buy him lunch?
"I'm sorry," she says quickly, "but I'm sort of in a hurry."
Seeing his face fall, Nevia digs a couple of coins out of her remaining sack of beli and pushes them into the boy's hands.
"Here. This should cover it," she says, flashing him a lighthearted smile. "I'm sorry again!" she says with a small wave as she tears off towards the coast of the island.
There are only a handful of ships docked at the coast. One of them, Nevia recognizes well. A rowboat big enough for seven men is docked not far away, and it bears the same symbol that she has tattooed on her inner forearm. A black rose with wings. She turns and dashes in the opposite direction of the dinghy.
Her lungs burning and ankle throbbing, Nevia finally happens upon a large ship at the other end of the coast. This ship seems strange, sporting a large cartoonish lion-like figurehead at the front. It seems to be empty for the time being, and so with no better options, Nevia sneaks aboard.
Once on the ship, Nevia looks around carefully. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a flicker of movement and pulls her knife from her belt. She sees a green haired man leaned against the mast of the ship, and he appears to be sleeping soundly. So, it's not empty after all.
Right in front of where the man is sleeping, Nevia can see a hidden hatch. Very slowly, she lifts the hatch open. It creaks a little, and the man stirs but does not wake. Quietly, she makes her way into the hatch and down the ladder, taking care to be as silent as she possibly can.
Once she's successfully in the belly of the ship, Nevia follows a walkway into what appears to be some sort of workshop. She slumps down against a wall and closes her eyes.
Nevia is exhausted with multiple injuries and Houston's men on her tail. To top it off, she's made herself a stowaway on what she can only assume to be another pirate ship. Still, she's a managed to come this far in less than a day and it's something she never thought she would be able to accomplish. A small flicker of pride warms Nevia as she drifts off into a dreamless sleep.