Angel of Death Fruit
Book One: Deadline
By Dixxy Mouri
Chapter 7 – March 3, 7:00 pm
Sanji stood outside the storage room, a serious look on his face as he stood face to face with Elizabeth Stoker. He'd been found, but he wasn't afraid. To that, Elizabeth sneered. "Cute trick, trying to escape," she said. She smirked. "You're not the first one to try it – believe me. You're not the first. And I'm sure you won't be the last. The human will to survive is amazing, isn't it?"
Sanji didn't move; he just continued to stare at her as she roughly grabbed his shoulder. She looked him over. "Why aren't you saying anything? Hmm?"she demanded. Sanji continued to give her the silent treatment, staring ahead as she began to drag him back towards the room he'd been held in. "Well, if you want to keep quiet for the last hours of your life, I don't care – but it's awfully creepy."
Her captive turned to look at her as if to say she was the creepy one, but Stoker ignored him, rolling her eyes. Sometimes they got a little weird when they knew their time was up. One girl started singing children's songs for hours on end, laughing hysterically as she died, and another young man had started talking to the wall like it was his mother. Apparently, this one was going to be quiet.
Unless. . . she stopped and looked at him, but Sanji just continued to give her the cold stare. Elizabeth turned up her nose, sneering. "I don't like you. I'll be glad when your corpse begins to cool tomorrow night. And I'd certainly like to bring about an end to the lives of those women, hmm?"
Sanji's expression seemed to falter, but he still refused to talk. Growing frustrated, Elizabeth began to walk faster, dragging her captive along. But as she focused on getting him back to that little room and bound with tighter bonds, she missed the smile that crawled across his face.
Elizabeth Stoker was not going to take down Black Leg Sanji that easily.
March 4, 1:00 pm
With time running out and still no sign of Sanji, the women were beginning to get discouraged. They only had eleven hours left – time was running out. Nami felt herself getting frustrated and decided to splash her face with some water and maybe get a drink – she needed to calm her nerves, and the water might do the trick.
Nami veered away from Robin long enough to look for some water. The canteens they had brought were long since dry, and she was getting thirsty – not to mention tired. They hadn't slept the previous night at all, and she was starting to feel the lack of sleep. Some cold water might help her stay awake for just a little longer. . . I need to help myself before I can help Sanji-kun.
There was a small spring near their current location, and Nami knealt down at the edge of the water and dipped her hands in. The water was chilly and clear – exactly what she needed. She began to drink, opened her eyes, and looked around. It was largely what she had expected – trees, the sun, the sounds of birds and the babbling of the water. Much to her surprise, however, the navigator did see something else of interest.
Nearby, on the other side of the spring, was a young woman – probably a little younger than she was. She wore a black hat over blond hair and a turtle-necked, sleeveless shirt with no midriff. On the small of her back, just above the line of her black mini-skirt, a very intricate butterfly was tattooed. The knees of her grey tights and the fishnet tights over them were beginning to break at the knees, just above where her black boots ended.
She was standing with her back to Nami, a circular metal ring in one hand. She looked a little lost and was scratching her head. Is she one of Stoker's minions? she wondered. The metal thing sure looked like a weapon, and it wouldn't be unlikely to assume Stoker had her people all over the island trying to stop her and Robin or keep Luffy and the others from even finding out until it was too late.
The girl turned around, two sections of blond hair framing her face. The girl's dark eyes noticed Nami, and she froze. Nami opened to her mouth to say something, but the girl took off first, disappearing into the woods. "Hey!" Nami yelled. The girl didn't respond, and Nami considered chasing her – what if this was one of Stoker's minions? Maybe she would lead her to Sanji! But before Nami could get very far Robin placed a hand firmly on her shoulder.
"Don't," she said.
Nami looked up. "Why?"
"That was probably the Iron Butterfly – a bounty hunter," said Robin. She narrowed her eyes. "From what I know of her, she's a blond with a butterfly tattooed on her back, and that young woman fit the description. She was most likely our intruder from the other night – question is, what is she doing here, and why, if I'm correct, was she on the ship?"
"Iron Butterfly?" asked Nami, raising an eyebrow.
"I would assume the tattoo explains part of her nickname, but who knows where the 'iron' came from. She's made a modest name for herself as a bounty hunter. She hasn't taken down anyone with a particularly high bounty – certainly nothing over fifty million – but she might be going after us for the reward and the reputation – imagine what capturing Luffy, or Swordsman-san, or me would do for her career." Robin sighed and turned around. "Regardless, we can worry about her later – for now she's just going to get in our way. Come, Naviagtor-san – we must find Cook-san before it's too late."
Nami looked in the direction where the Iron Butterfly had run off to for another second before following Robin. As the two began to walk, the navigator let this information spin around her head for a bit. So Elizabeth Stoker wasn't their only enemy. Iron Butterfly. . . what does she want with us?
March 4, 1:05 pm
Sanae watched the exchange between Nico Robin and Cat Burlgar Nami from a safe, unseen distance. She'd lost track of them after finding where Elizabeth Stoker was holding Sanji, but now she'd found them again – or rather, they had found her. That wasn't exactly working into her plan, but at least things were still going smoothly enough. She had a general idea of where everyone was on the island – she knew Luffy and his group were. . . somewhere, and at least she knew where Elizabeth Stoker's base of operations was (so even though she didn't know where her henchmen were, she knew where they'd be likely to return to).
That didn't mean they didn't have information of other interest to her. Apparently, Nico Robin had heard about her – her reputation, it seemed, was preceeding her. The Iron Butterfly grinned a little. Hee, looks like I'm famous! That's kind of cool! Maybe there are some pirates who're scared of little old me – wouldn't that be a riot.
But Sane didn't let her newfound fame get to her head – she had to concentrate! She had a mission! Sanae narrowed her eyes. Just a little longer. . . then she'd make her move. Now was not the time to start fantasizing about fame and power – now was the time to buckle down and focus. This island was full of some very dangerous people, and even if she was gaining notoriety, she needed to be careful.
Once the women had moved a little, Sanae began to follow them.
March 4, 1:15 pm
"I must say, Kenji, your nephew is proving to be a bit of trouble, isn't he?" Elizabeth Stoker asked. She and her second in command were enjoying lunch in their temporary base of operations. After Sanji's escape and suspicious quiet, she decided to ask her current prisoner's uncle about it. "Tell me. . . was he like this as a child? As his uncle I'm sure you would know, wouldn't you?"
Kenji crossed his legs and sipped from his glass of wine. "Well, all three of them were trouble for me at one point or another – Sanji probably got into more trouble than the other two when they were kids, but the other two had their fair of mischief as well – Sanji's pretty smart, but his brother was a freakin' genius – if it had been Akito we were dealing with, we might have not found him. As it is we were lucky we were able to get Sanji as a kid – I would've had the other two little brats if they hadn't run away after their parents died, because apparently they were onto me – I don't think they figured out what was going on, but they did make themselves disappear within a day of the funeral. Had they not figured it out, though, you would have had two more. All I would have had to do is tell the other islanders I was moving them elsewhere, hand them over to you, and be done with it."
Stoker raised an eyebrow. "A ten year old and a five year old outsmarted you?" She chucked. "Kenji, darling. . . I hired you so that you could bring children to me, and certainly some amount of trickery would have to be involved in some cases. I have to say bringing me your nephew was a wonderful gesture of loyalty, but these children getting away from you is not a good sign of competence."
"I told you Akito was a genius. That ten year old had the intelligence of someone more than twice his age, and based on his escape I would say our dear Sanji can't be too far behind where his elder brother was at the time. The little one saw me leading Sanji away from the house – their parents told me this before I pushed them into that gorge," said Kenji. "But he'll have a hard time getting out of the cuffs we have him in now, and I've made it clear to the others that he's not to be left alone for a second. I don't know if he plans on living, but if he's going to die anyways let's at least have his life force be of some use to you."
Elizabeth nodded. "Yes, indeed. Now, what's the status with his crew?"
"Straw Hat is with Roronoa Zoro, Candy Cotton Lover, Cyborg Franky, and a man we assume might be Sogeking, Cat Burglar and Nico Robin are currently trying to locate Sanji – I've sent the twins and, as a last resort, Borgat after them. I've also received a report that there's an unidentified woman who might be the Iron Butterfly on the island as well – I haven't seen her myself, but she's apparently spying on the Straw Hats – possibly trying to take their bounties for herself," said Kenji. He grinned. "They should not be an issue once they've been dealt with. We could always strike a deal with the bounty hunter – let her take the other Straw Hats as long as we get Sanji, Nico Robin, and Cat Burglar Nami. Straw Hat alone would fetch her more money than she's probably ever seen before."
"Cocky, aren't we?" said Elizabeth Stoker.
Kenji laughed. "Don't you have a little faith in me?"
"Of course – I'm just warning you. Don't underestimate our enemy – they took down Enies Lobby. We must make sure that the women don't find their captain until after we're done – and don't underestimate the bounty hunter – remember, I also have a price on my head and she might decide to turn on us for the bigger prize – of course we'd have to kill her in that instance, and I really have no other reason or want to dispose of some bounty hunter," she said. "But until then, I don't want to take any chances with a man worth three hundred million."
"Understood," he said. "We'll continue to monitor Straw Hat and make sure that Nico Robin and Cat Burglar Nami are disposed of properly – perhaps we can leave their bodies back on their ship and leave before the others return. They'll never know what happened to their crewmates and we can live another day." Kenji held up his glass. "Cheers?"
March 4, 1:20 pm
It wasn't long before Robin and Nami came upon a small clearing. Nami stepped into the middle of the clearing and looked around. Robin joined her in the clearing. "Well. . . which way should we go, Navigator-san?" Robin asked calmly. Nami crossed her arms and sighed, shaking her head. She had no idea.
"We're running out of time, and I'm running out of ideas," said Nami.
"Keep a cool head – we can still do this," said Robin.
"I don't know if I believe that anymore," said Nami. She started to get angry. "We have less that twelve hours to find Sanji-kun before that bitch kills him! Then what? What are we going to tell Luffy and the others? What are we going to tell Zeff and the other chefs on the Baratie? What about Sanji's family in North Blue – what if they still have hope that he's out there somewhere alive?"
"Actually. . . you won't be telling them anything."
Robin and Nami turned towards the source of the voice. Two blue haired women in red catsuits were standing side by side in the clearing – one carried a whip, and the other had no sleeves and was wearing glasses. From what Nami could tell, they were twins. And they didn't seem too friendly, either. "Who are you?" asked Nami. She started to move her hand towards her weapon, just in case things got a little ugly.
The twins stepped back to back and struck a pose. "We're the Amazing Acrobat Sisters from South Blue, Lee Mai and Mai Lee!" said the one with the whip. She cracked her whip. "I am Mai Lee, Mistress of the Whip, and my sister, Lee Mai, is the Lady of the Mud! We work under the employ of the fabulous Elizabeth Stoker, and we apologize in advance but we're here to kill you."
"Here to kill you!" Lee Mai repeated.
"What!?" asked Nami. FUCK! Why'd we have to run into Stoker's goons NOW!?
"Prepare to DIE!"
"DIE! DIE, DIE, DIE!"
And with that, the twins launched into the attack. Mai Lee made a bee line for Nami, cracking her whip at the navigator as Lee Mai outstretched her hands towards Robin – they weren't kidding about intending to kill them. Unsurprisingly, Nami drew the Perfect ClimaTact and Robin prepared to bloom some limbs.
Unfortunately, both Nami and Robin didn't get too far.
Before Nami could even begin to attack with her weapon, Mai had cracked her whip, binding Nami's arms to her sides and forcing her to drop her weapon. In an unbelievable amount of strength, the twin began to toss Nami around the clearing like a ball on a chain, slamming her into a tree.
As for Robin's fight, the other twin had her arms free because she was clearly a Devil Fruit user – and her fruit allowed her to create lots and lots and lots of mud. Robin was stuck in a giant mud pie from the neck down. She couldn't move, and was unable to use her powers. Lee Mai had defeated her very, very easily, and was smiling at her devilishly.
Nami, who was still a bit dizzy from being slammed into the tree, attempted to stand up. "Why are you helping Elizabeth Stoker!? She takes children away from their families! You're allowing her to do that!?" Nami tried to loosen the whip, only to find it got tighter with each pulled. She cried out and grabbed her arm, glaring at Mai Lee. "We're not going to let you hurt Sanji-kun!"
Mai Lee just laughed and snapped the whip, sending Nami back to the ground – the navigator cried out again and glared at her captor. "Ah, Cat Burglar Nami, you little wench! You're a pirate – you're not much better than we are! We're going to enjoy turning in your bounties – if you'd like, we can even turn in his lifeless corpse next to yours!"
"We're not finished yet!" Nami screamed. "You're not going to kill him! I won't let you!"
"Oh please – Nico Robin's about to be beheaded by my lovely sister, and I've decided I'm going to suffocate you with my whip," said Mai Lee. She pulled the whip tighter, and Nami started having trouble breathing. "I'll make it nice and slow for you, so you just loose air a little at a time. . . you'll suffer. . . oh, you're going to suffer. . . and then it'll all be over."
Nami was loosing the ability to talk and felt herself struggling for air, but the pressure on her body was too great. This. . . this can't be happening! We're really going to loose and Sanji-kun is going to die! Nami wanted to cry – this was bad! This was hopeless! Luffy and the others weren't around. Sanji was kidnapped. Robin was stuck under a giant mud pie. And this whip-wielding bitch was suffocating her.
Mai Lee cackled, pulling the whip tighter and tighter as she stepped closer and closer to Nami – the navigator could almost feel herself loosing consciousness. "So, my pretty kitty – looks like now would be a good time to give up on any funny ideas about rescuing Black Leg, hmm?" She stepped closer, grinning. "My lady tells me you tried to kiss him before he was taken away from you – you don't think you're in love with him, do you?"
Nami shook her head. "He's. . . he's my. . . my friend. . ."
"Oh how precious, but do friends really try to kiss, well, friends, like that?"
But, I was just trying to get him to tell us what was wrong! said Nami.
A little voice inside her perked up. And you could have slapped him, yelled at him. . .
So I tried to kiss him – big deal! It would have gotten his attention!
And out of the millions of ways you could have gotten his attention, why that?
Well, I. . .
Silly Nami. Robin's right – you've been out at sea so long that you ARE looking at your crewmates in a new light. Luffy's too silly and bone headed – he doesn't even look like he'd be that interested. Zoro's too focused and a bit of a muscle-head – he's got a GREAT body, but he doesn't always seem to like you too much. Usopp's a bit too immature for you – remember your fight with Ms. Double Finger? Chopper's not even completely human, and Franky's probably too old for you – and mechanical.
And Sanji is a womanizer!
But you know you're his favorite – if you let him love you and you let yourself love him, you know that he wouldn't be as head-over-heels over other woman anymore, would he? He's always nice to you, and he's gone to some extremes to protect you. Let's count everything he's done for you – he tried to fight Arlong for you, he went with Luffy when you were sick and nearly died and he almost destroyed his back, then he rescued you from Crocodile and defended you from Enel, getting himself electrocuted – twice. Certainly he helped Vivi quite a bit when she was with you and he went after Robin when she was being taken to Enies Lobby, but he didn't ask Vivi if she loved him, and he doesn't leave silly love letters for Robin.
Oh my God, he really does love me!
And the question remains. . . do you love him?
Nami wasn't sure how to respond to. . . herself. She didn't THINK she was in love with anything but money and tangerines. But both were just. . . objects, really. Yes, her trees reminded her of Bellemere, but they couldn't hold her or tell her everything was going to be all right. . . maybe she was starving herself for human affection -
FWIP!
Without explanation, the whip was suddenly sliced in the middle and a large metal ring was embedded in a nearby tree – the glistening from the sides told the story of just how sharp it was. The leather around Nami's body fell harmlessly to the ground, leaving both her and her opponent in stunned silence. Nami scooted backwards away from the whip, gasping for the precious air that had she had been denied just seconds earlier. What in the. . . is someone trying to help us?
"Here! Catch!"
Nami looked over towards the sound of the voice and saw the Iron Butterfly was standing on a boulder near their battlefield. The navigator was surprised to see the bounty hunter had returned, and even more surprised when the Perfect ClimaTact was thrown her way. Her jaw dropped as she realized what was going on.
The Iron Butterfly was HELPING them.
"Who the hell are you?! Another pirate!?" shouted Mai Lee.
The Iron Butterfly narrowed her eyes. "I'm no pirate, but I'm no friend of yours!" She revealed a second iron ring and began to twirl it around her wrist. "For now, Mai Lee, let's just say that I'm on their side, and I'm going to help them finish the two of you off and find their friend."
Mai Lee's eyes widened in recognition. "You! You're the Iron Butterfly!"
The bounty hunter shrugged. "Yeah, that's what they call me."
Mai Lee grinned. "Come now, you must be a little interested in money if you're a bounty hunter. My mistress pays very, very well – why don't you abandon these pirates and come work with us? The current prisoner is worth seventy-seven million – even after he's dead he'll still be worth quite a pretty penny."
"No. I'm not working for you or your mistress," said the Iron Butterfly, shaking her head. She jerked her thumb at Nami. "I'm working with them for a little while. Weren't you listening to me? I'm here to stop you and help them. Was there something about that difficult to understand, or is your cat suit cutting off the circulation to your head?"
"Why, you little – I'LL HAVE YOUR HEAD!"
Albeit a bit confused, Nami nodded to the Iron Butterfly and turned back towards her opponent, readying the Perfect ClimaTact before her. She narrowed her eyes at Mai Lee, who was glaring at her in anger. I'll worry about whether or not I like Sanji THAT WAY later – I need to take care of these bimbos and rescue him so we have a later! "I don't know why you're helping us, but I'll take it. Come on – let's finish this."
Author's Notes
Looks like the bounty hunter's choosing sides, doesn't it? Most of your questions about the intrepid little sneak should be answered next chapter.
I also love internal-arguing-with-oneself dialogs. They're fun.
I also wanted to thank the staff of the C2 list "Cooks and Crooks" for adding this story to their archive – yay!
Now, I want some honest opinions on this story. Originally, I planned on making this trilogy of stories with each story focusing on a different group of Straw Hats (which each of the strongest three separated – so Zoro and Luffy would get focuses in the next two stories). Each badguy would have been loosely based on some kind of horror-movie monster archtype – in this case Elizabeth Stoker is a twist on vampires.
Initially, I planned to follow up with zombies and frankenstein. Oda's kind of doing both with Thriller Bark, so now I'm not really sure what to do next. So, in addition to telling me how awesome or not awesome this story is in reviews, I'd really like to know where I should go next.
Finish Deadline and put the trilogy to rest, then write other Sanji/Nami stories.
Continue with the original plan with new monster types – if so, suggestions, please? The current best thought I have is a Medusa type villain.
Continue with the trilogy, only go away from the Angel of Death Fruit theme – this might be more relevant later on.
Any input is appreciated – thanks!
Dixxy