Chapter 01 - Alpha and Beta
Edited: 11/09/2017
Posted: 4/5/2016
Something woke Riyo.
There was a sluggish beat of space before the surprise set in.
She woke up. She was awake.
Her mind was blank with shock as she stared at the progress of the light across the cracked concrete and stone. A few hours, three or four, had passed. It felt like seconds.
She was losing more and more time.
Her heartbeats stuttered, pumping less and less blood in preparation to shut down completely.
She knew the next time she fell asleep she wouldn't be waking up again. Not unless someone miraculously figured out they needed to dump her in boiling ocean water and then toss her in a banked fire in a giant loop for 24 hours.
Because that was completely logical reasoning for what to do with a six foot dead lizard, which is what she was going to look like in maybe an hour more.
She was running out of time.
Chains schlink'ed across the uneven stone floor as she sat herself straight against the wall; she had slumped over awkwardly in her sleep. It wasn't as if the metal allowed her much movement.
It could have been worse. They could have been seastone chains. She could have lost all of her self-control and spent her last days a drugged out mess and higher than a Grandline gull.
So there was that.
She stretched as much as she could, trying to work out stiff muscles and encourage what blood flow she had. She couldn't feel anything below her knees and elbows and she had a crick in her neck, an annoyance to add to her already full shit list.
"Hello? Anyone here?"
The voice echoed down the hall outside her cell. She cocked her head curiously. The shouting must have been what woke her up.
Whoever it was, they sounded quite young. Male. Lacking the barking edge common with the trained marines. No, the guy sounded lost and bored, of all things.
She would have normally sent out a tendril of haki to prod, but it wasn't worth the effort in her weakened state and she doubted she could get enough focus at this point to manage it. She would have to work with what she had.
"Hello." She winced at the cracked edge of her own voice. It hadn't even been a word, more of a broken sound.
Whoever it was heard. The slap of sandals on stone was easy to pick up as he got closer and shortly the echoing sound crescendoed into-
A skinny, unassuming teenage boy in front of her cell.
That was rather anticlimactic.
She looked up from his sandals to his shorts to his red vest to-
His hat. An old, battered straw hat over his tousled black hair.
That damn hat.
The boy's face morphed into a frown in her peripheral vision the longer she stared at the hat. That seas damned hat.
"What're you doing in there?"
She stared at the boy. Stared at the straw hat that made her hearts stop in a maybe-not-so-good way.
Her mouth moved but no words came out.
She pressed a hand to her lower side. Huh. Her secondary heart had stopped.
She took a stuttering breath when she felt the next sluggish beat of her main heart. It was slightly out of sync. She couldn't expect too much considering she was dying. What was a little arrhythmia?
[Old Alpha's hat. Old Theta's hat. Why does he have Old Theta's hat?]
"I'm trying to ask," she wheezed distractedly to the beast.
Obviously the hat was real if the beast could see it too; she wasn't hallucinating the boy and the hat due to lack of oxygen to the brain as her body shut down.
There was something wrong in that reasoning but it was a fleeting thought.
"Huh?" He tilted his head like a confused puppy. "Ask what?"
It made her head pound, seeing that hat. It ate at her gut more than weeks of starvation. It physically hurt more than any beating, more than feeling her body shut down and give up limb by limb and organ by organ. She sat there, mouth open, and stared at that straw hat.
Red wouldn't have given that hat to just anyone.
The pain was all consuming, and pain meant she was alive and still sane enough to understand what had been and gone and what this boy would be in the years to come. She was staring at a generation's dreams wrapped in this unassuming package. An entire era of dreams in this child.
[Hope.]
No. She couldn't hope.
She hated this boy. She had to.
The familiar well of anger surged; she didn't try to fight it.
It was all encompassing. The Other actually stopped scratching and the beast whimpered at the tidal wave.
The fury manifested for one moment of time in her aura, her body too weak for it to last longer than a second or two. It was enough that it should have made the boy flinch or cower or faint.
The child stood, unaffected and tall, with only a single blink and curious glance down the hall to each side to show he had felt anything at all.
He didn't even process an aura that had sent grown men screaming and pissing themselves.
The anger passed as quickly as it came. The Other resumed scratching, the beast started thrumming in an attempt to soothe itself, and she was tired.
She felt every one of her centuries in that moment.
It started as a rough, choked sound, gasped air, and only improved marginally in the next few seconds. It broke through her lips without thought.
A laugh.
Either she laughed at the bitter bite of fate or she'd cry until her main heart stopped too. To see this child, that hat, bare minutes before she died...It was both a cruelty and a balm.
Old Alpha's legacy would live.
She laughed. She laughed at the thought of the World Government trying to kill the Pirate Age when there were still Wills like this in the world. She laughed at the chaos this boy would no doubt cause. She laughed at her own shit luck that she wouldn't get to see the World Government brought to their knees by this child in a way she had promised Old Alpha at the end she would not.
"How," she choked between the sounds, "did you get that hat?"
She devolved into a coughing fit after that, her mind a whirl of near manic giddiness at the irony of it all.
"This is my treasure!" He placed a hand on the hat protectively. "Shanks gave it to me."
She smiled so large it hurt her cheeks and made her dry lips crack and burn. She had been right.
"Everyone should have a treasure," she whispered.
[Old Theta's hat! Theta chose him. Want him. Be ours. Be pit. Boyhomehereboyours.]
The beast was like a lost puppy that had finally found its family. Even the frantic scratching had slowed as the Other took notice of the child. She could feel only the faintest disinterested curiosity from the Other; the boy was something to break the monotony and delay the inevitable.
She didn't have the heart to tell the beast it would do no good to want so much now, and the Other was far more intelligent-it already knew it was pointless to hope.
She watched the boy. He stared at her through the cell bars, head cocked like a curious owl.
"Marines," she coughed, her body weakening quickly after the blast of aura, "had me arrested on bullshit charges." That summed it up nicely.
She cleared her throat, trying to smooth over her voice and remove the lingering echo of fraying sanity from her laughter. That may have only been ringing in her ears though. It was hard to say.
"Execution's in a half hour," she added. That was relevant, right?
He stared at her for a few seconds before he proceeded to pick his nose. "Did they do that to you?"
"Do what?"
Her vision was getting blurry. She was positive there weren't supposed to be three of him.
"Your arms and legs. Did the Marines do that?"
She laughed again, a short burst of air at the thought of the blue-white snacks getting through her scales. "No. I did it."
He flicked a booger off his finger. "Why?"
He was awful damn calm for having infiltrated a marine base not to mention having this conversation with her. When someone admits to self-harm most people don't look so relaxed. They generally look repulsed, confused, and slightly panicky- as if the crazy would rub off on them.
Then again, that hat was the calling card of beautiful, reckless fools who didn't have the self-preservation instincts an ant was born with.
"Broken. Don't like being touched. Caged." She shrugged.
He frowned deeper, and it looked wrong on his face for some reason.
[Alpha shouldn't frown. Fix it. Fixitfixitfixitfixitfixitfixitfixit.]
The beast kept up that chant in her mind. It made it hard to focus on the boy's next words.
"Join my crew."
"What?" She honestly hadn't heard. At least, there was no way he said what she thought he had said over the beast's demanding litany.
"Sail with me. Join my crew."
She sputtered on her next exhale. She stared at him when her eyes cleared from the reflexive tears.
His face had split into a massive grin, so large it should be physically impossible.
She couldn't look away. It was like watching a living movie of her past-minus the boogers. It was that same smile decades ago that cajoled her into following a ship that was going to conquer the Grand Line. That same smile that prompted her to follow a human on the adventure that defined her life.
That smile had asked her at the very end of their adventure to take on the world and live when she should have died with it.
"I'm looking for Zoro's katanas and then he's going to join my crew. Join us. I'll get you out of this cage and you can sail with me."
{Fool. Child.}
Scritchscratchshinkscritch faster and faster and faster and faster. The Other growled behind the wall.
[Alpha. New Alpha. Home.]
The conflicting waves of stupidfoolishunworthy and alphahomesafe made her head swim.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!"
She didn't realize she had said it out loud, let alone yelled it, until the venom in the words echoed back at her from the stone walls.
Her fingers were dug into her scalp and twisted in her hair. The chains hanging from her wrists and pulling at the strands were anchors reminding her she couldn't get out of her own head.
She was so tired.
"Hey, you're okay," the boy said quietly. He had crouched down and wrapped his hands around the bars to lean forward closer to her. "I'll fix it."
She needed to get away from him. Her head cracked against the wall as she threw it back. Again.
Hazy pain. Almost done. Somnum. Rest. Sleep.
She turned her glare from the ceiling to the boy.
A child.
"A child," she spit out. "That's all you are. You can't fix me. You're a baby, a whisper that may become a roar to be heard across the nations or you may sputter and die in the cacophony of the world. A bright spark and pretty to watch while it crackles but you burn out so young and end up nothing but a cold ember in the dirt. I've watched so many of you rise and fall. Live and die over and over and over again. I'm tired. I'm dying. All the Will in the seas can't change that fact."
She had to break her gaze away from his set jaw and stubborn eyes. She focused on a spot over his shoulder.
"I'll be dead before they even come to execute me. Forget me. Live your dream. I've had a piece of mine. Don't repeat my mistakes by breaking your head against the impossible."
She turned her back on the boy, as far as she could in the chains.
Silence hung between them, heavy and choking.
"No."
The word rang with authority.
Immutable. Untouchable. Undeniable.
The Other stopped scratching.
The beast flattened itself in her mind. It stretched its slender neck out in supplication and submission.
Alpha.
She turned to look over her shoulder, numb arms wrapped around the numb legs pulled up to her chin.
The child was gone. In his place was a Captain. A leader. The assurance, laughter, strength, acceptance, love, encouragement, and pure Will of an Alpha.
It was Roger standing before her all over again. Asking her to give an adventure a chance. Demanding she live after the adventure was done and he was dead.
"My name is Monkey D. Luffy, and I'm going to be King of the Pirates. I'm getting you out. And you're joining my crew. And you aren't dying. I'll help you."
She stared at him. For a moment she could not breathe. She thought her primary heart had finally stopped at the worst fucking time possible, but there was another spasm.
Nope, she was only stunned stupid.
Because she believed him. All of it. For the first time in over two decades there was someone she could call pit.
"It's incurable."
She had to push. She always had to push. Life had screwed her over too many times to accept something like this. She didn't deserve the second chance she had already had with Roger. No way she was getting a third.
"It's not. You'd already have accepted it by now if it was and you wouldn't be arguing with me. You think you have to die for whatever dumb reason, and you don't. So tell me what you need to live and you'll live."
That was too stupid and far too perceptive all at once. He was a dichotomy, a puzzle. It had been so long since someone or something had actually caught her attention. Let alone someone as crazy as a D of all things. A D with a dream to rival the world.
She closed her eyes. The Other was blessedly still as it plotted over the potential of Luffy-and having a Monkey as their Alpha if Garp found out she still lived. The beast vibrated in silent anticipation as it waited for her response.
She smiled. It made her face ache. This felt like it was her first true smile since the Break, and she owed the kid a serious answer for that little miracle.
He reminded her far too much of the Before time. Her draw hadn't been this immediate to Roger, but the same thrum of excitement and adventure was there. A chance for purpose. She could be useful again in making sure Luffy actually lived to see his dream through.
She made her decision from one shallow breath to the next.
"I'm Riyo. I won't lie to you; I really am dying. But I'm not human and it can be cured if you can do the work." 24 hours critical care and a couple of months convalescing of work. "You got here in time to say 'hi' and 'bye', really. I don't have more than twenty minutes or so before I'm going to change into my real body, a small version of it anyway. When I change I'm going to shut down completely to try to heal."
"Change how?" Luffy asked, completely serious.
"It'll be about a six foot water lizard." Well, a water lizard was close enough for her purposes. She didn't think he'd have the attention span for a lecture on sea queen culture; she didn't have the time for a lecture on sea queen culture. "It'll seem like I don't have a heartbeat or breath. My brain will be deeply asleep. I will look like I'm dead. I'll be like that for 24 hours. That's the critical window. I need constant care or I really will die. It's going to seem weird and counter productive, but I need to stress that I'm not human. There won't be a second chance if you don't follow my instructions exactly."
He nodded, the shade from the hat shadowing his gaze as he stared at her. "Tell me, and I'll do it." Implacable, factual. He spoke and she knew in her bones as the words settled in the air that she was going to live.
She would be free again, for better or worse.
She nodded slowly when the words wouldn't come. Her throat was too thick to speak.
[Alpha. Protect. Pit.]
The Other was finished calculating. {We will test.}
She shuddered. The Other had agreed to give him a trial run. That was practically a parade down center street from it.
Decision made, the scratching started again as the Other ignored them all to wait for somnum.
She didn't even care at this point. It was an almost soothing constant in her suddenly backwards life.
Riyo believed Monkey D. Luffy would do everything in his power to make sure she lived.
And Riyo was going to return the favor.
Luffy had her out in a matter of minutes (somehow finding the key to the chains hanging on the wall, figuring out the creative use of a rock as a hammer for the cell door, and applying an all around astonishing amount of brute force for such a small frame). She assumed most of the brute strength was due to a devil fruit as there wasn't a touch of haki on him and he was entirely human, not a hybrid of any fishman or giant.
Riyo had been unleashed on the world with a pit and a purpose-which would be a lot more badass once she healed. She was as coordinated as a drunk baby giraffe and even less useful than that in a fight right now.
Luffy dragged (tossed over his shoulder) Riyo down hallways and through rooms throughout the base. Good thing she was smaller than Luffy as a human.
The clothes she was wearing weren't helping her pathetic appearance. The black shirt was baggy and hung almost to her knees, the loose pants, more of a tan where they used to be white, were held up precariously by a brown leather belt. She never wore shoes. They were too constricting.
All in all she looked like a teenage kid playing a sad game of dress up and living on the streets.
Which was kind of accurate. She had stolen all of the items at various points and they were all stained and torn. They were also crusted from salt and dried blood due to her unexpected swim in the sea and subsequent arrest.
Her hair kept falling into her eyes in a tangled mess; stupid stuff was almost down to her waist and she had nothing to tie it up with. Then again, all of that would cease to matter as soon as she Changed. The clothes could be burned for all she cared and her hair would disappear.
Time became pointless as she rested on Luffy's shoulder. The rooms all blurred together. There may have been the sound of cracking concrete and angry voices at one point. It was hard to say as she kept falling in and out of consciousness.
The next thing she knew they were in bright sunlight and Luffy was speaking to a man with a deep voice while she leaned against something hard with her ass on the dirt ground.
There was a tickle against her cheek and she realized it was cloth. Her eyes moved up. Dark pants. She took a moment to actually tilt her head back and blink at the man tied to the post she was leaning against.
This must be Zoro.
Her Captain really knew how to pick them. One crewmember was dying, the other was weaponless and trussed up like a pig.
Not an ideal start to this new adventure.
She tilted her head again to look over at Luffy animatedly talking. Glass tinkled to the ground from her hair and clothes in tiny, glittery bursts of rainbow light as she moved.
Pretty. But when had they gone through a window?
Her vision grayed in and out as her way-too-low blood pressure tried to compensate for her brain coordinating her body to move.
They weren't exactly in agreement.
She listed to the side and fell next to the post at the man's feet.
She had meant to sit up further.
She wasn't bleeding much from the lingering punctures and gouges in her arms and legs because her primary heart wasn't pumping fast enough to push blood out. She ignored her almost non-existent heart rate, ignored the beast whimpering in her mind as their blood flow became stagnant, her body finally shutting down to knock her ass out for her own good.
The Other was a distant presence, the scratching rhythmic and anticipatory. She hadn't fallen into somnum since the Break. She had no idea how it would impact her control over the beast or the Other. Or the even worse things that lurked behind the wall with the Other.
She had told Luffy what he had to do for somnum, but she didn't know how he would possibly be able to keep track of it all. She could already tell he wasn't the most focused.
No, he wouldn't give up on her.
Would he?
{Weak. Useless human.}
She snarled out loud at the Other. "Sh't up yoo b'stard chil' of ah sea tur'le. You don-don't contr'l me," she muttered. She grabbed a fist full of tangled hair and pulled. Or tried to.
{It is you.}
"Hay-t'yoo."
Herself or not, she really did hate the Other more days than not. It put a whole new spin on self-contempt when you could hold conversations with the part you most despised.
She didn't realize anyone was paying attention to her until she glanced up.
Some pink haired kid was shaking and backing up slowly from her. Luffy was comically paused holding up three katanas to the bandanna wearing man while frowning at her. The trussed up pig was a human man, probably in his late teens and maybe a year or two older than Luffy. He was staring at her with a blank, intense gaze beneath a bandanna that would be terrifying to most.
He looked like a puffed up kitten to her.
The image of a green kitten spitting and hissing at her with tiny claws distracted her enough it took her brain way too long to put three swords together with East Blue and Zoro and realize the man was Roronoa Zoro, Demon of the East Blue. And a bounty hunter.
Luffy had convinced a bounty hunter to become a pirate.
Of course he had.
Wait, was Zoro's hair actually green, or was that the shadow of the bandanna? Was the bandanna dark green or black? It was all kind of dancing together as her vision tunneled in and out.
"Riyo, you still there?"
Really, how did the three sword thing work? Was he overcompensating or something?
She giggled, a puff of air that she didn't have. She was getting giddy. It was disassociation as her brain lost blood flow and oxygen, diverting the last of her energy to slowing and then halting her body's central processes completely.
Words drifted in and out.
"Riyo, say someth…can hear me."
"Lu-Luffy, I don't…breathing."
[Tired. Need to heal.]
Yes, yes. They would heal and they would be free again. They had purpose again.
[Like the green guy. Warm. Feels safe.]
Yeah, he did. He had a nice aura. He was funny with his weird colors and green kitten ears; she liked him.
Or was the kitten in her head? Oh well, they would keep him.
"Oh, she's okay-fake die…care while...gets not not-deaded."
[Beta], the beast added to her thoughts.
Beta sounded nice. They would keep the pit safe together, her green kitten and her. Someone had to watch out for Alpha and his crazy ideas
"The hell-talking 'bout? Is she dead or-?"
"-not human-"
She could only imagine she looked dead. She laughed again, at least she thought she did, and used the last of her energy to roll onto her back from her side and stare up at Alpha and Beta.
Hers. Theirs.
There were more words, but she blacked out for a second and then Luffy was in her face.
"Riyo-happening?" He was shaking her shoulders and making her head bob on her neck like a marionette with the cords cut. It was giving her a migraine as her vision split between starbursts from the sun and too-close focus as Luffy shoved his face worriedly in hers.
"All-phuh, pr'm'se."
Words were hard.
Luffy quietly whispered, "Promise."
She started to fall over when Luffy let go, but he caught her, laying her on the ground gently at Beta's feet.
She sent a half formed thought to the beast and Other to not eat anyone while they were healing.
She wasn't sure they heard her. Or cared.
Riyo blinked up in confusion at the sudden shadow. Beta's crotch?
Her vision tunneled in on itself.
Beta held back a wall of white around them with three swords. There was one sword in each hand and one with a white hilt gripped between his teeth as he stood protectively over her. He shoved, and the marines stumbled back at the force.
Huh, so that's how that worked.
The world turned black.
She knew for a fact after that view the swordsman had nothing to compensate for. All was well in his department.
Her body twitched, jerked, then collapsed in on itself as she simultaneously shrunk and lengthened.
It was slow and painful. Not smooth. Not natural. Not normal.
Her lungs seized in her new body as she exhaled a soft breath.
She didn't inhale.
Her last thought was Luffy. Her faith that he would make sure she lived.
She wanted to live.
Her primary heart stopped.
Seas damned D's and their smiles.
She wanted to live again.
Her brain went offline.