Title: On the Ocean Blue

Written By: NikoArtagnan

Genre: Fantasy/Friendship/Adventure

Rating: T, will eventually go to M

Summary: An outcast from Earth is flung headfirst into a hostile, unforgiving world, and finds themselves tagging along with a very particular crew of misfit pirates, and the boy who wants to be the King of them all. But this isn't the world of One Piece you thought you knew, and there are terrible things lurking in the shadows...

Chapter-Specific Warnings: Blood, gore, Kelly has Issues, and is also a bit of an idiot at times, trigger-y topics, cannibalism

Chapter Nineteen:

Calm Before the Storm

ROBIN

The strangest thing about it all was that he was so small. So light in her hands that she barely needed to sprout more than six to pull his body from the unforgiving sand. She hadn't expected it. His body was made from rubber, and that wasn't the lightest material in the world, after all.

As her hands placed the boy on the sand by her feet, she looked him over. It was a miracle he was still among the living, in all honesty. But then again, Crocodile had been careless, unforgivably so. He'd assumed the sand would do the trick in finishing off the boy, but if Robin had learned anything in her years on the Grand Line, it was that a person had to make sure their enemy was dead. Certain people had alarming tendencies to come back from wounds that should have killed them when their opponents grew arrogant.

Crocodile had underestimated the boy, she thought idly as her hands tossed his hat to her. He had not figured she would do more than give the last set of orders to the "skeleton crew" of Thralls in Nanohana then go directly to Alubarna.

But she was curious. Unbearably so, about this boy, and his name. Monkey D. Luffy.

-…the woman cackled. "Oh, aye, I knew Roger. Crazy bastard actually took on a maddened deus latêret – that's a Magi with the blood of the Gods in them, Robin-chan – who'd kidnapped his first mate."

"Did he win?" Robin asked, munching on one of the enormous sandwiches her friend had packed for their picnic at the beach.

"He did," the woman said quietly. "Nearly died in the process. But the thing is, Robin-chan, the Magus may not have been a very powerful deus latêret, not very power at all, but a human without even a Devil's Fruit to help him should not have been able to even touch hir, much less defeat hir."

"How did he do it, then?" Robin asked.

Her friend shrugged. "Hell if I know, Robin-chan. All I know is that this crazy ass human comes tearing into my shop, demanding the location of some in anima contrita – that means a Magus who lost their partner and gone mad – and two weeks later he brings his unconscious first mate in, demands I fix him, and then passes out at my feet." Then she sighed. "Perhaps that's the power of those with the will of D. They've always been good at doing the impossible."

"The will of D?"

The woman grinned and ruffled her hair with one enormous hand, startling a laugh from the younger girl.

"Just a little story passed along among us non-humans. Wherever they come, they bring the storm with them…Don't worry your head over it. Gods willing, you'll never have to deal with one of those idiots in your lifetime."

Robin giggled.

"Shesha, you're so weird."…-

Robin pressed her lips together until the burning left her eyes and her composure was firmly in grasp. Of all the things in the world that could still hurt her, despite the walls she'd had erected years ago, memories of Shesha were some of the worst, right alongside the memories of Professor Clover and the archaeologists of Ohara. Not even what she remembered of…of Saulo and her mother could hurt her as badly.

She looked down at the boy, and wondered why, why, why had she saved him? Perhaps he would have actually died, she thought. The desert sand was a treacherously greedy thing, all too willing to snatch up those who were not capable of evading its grasp, and the boy was near death as things stood.

The will of D.

Gol D. Roger. Jaguar D. Saul.

Monkey D. Luffy.

There was something in this almost broken husk of a boy's eyes, something that told her no, this boy would not have died to the sands of Arabasta. There was something she couldn't name, a sort of strength, perhaps determination, she didn't know. It was the something that had been in Saulo's eyes when he carried her away from the burning wreckage of her home and her life, protecting her from gunfire, the cannons, and finally from Kuzan, before Shesha had come.

This boy had Saulo's eyes, she thought.

And it terrified her.

"Why do you fight? You people with the will of D?" the words were a faint whisper that scalded her lips as they passed them.

"What?" the exhausted boy asked, trembling from his wounds.

"N-Nothing," she said, cursing her slip. He obviously had no clue what she was even talking about.

She heard a crunch behind her, and an exhausted male voice yelling "I finally found you!"

It was the bird-man, the princess's protector. She turned and raised an eyebrow at the bloodied man staggering towards her. She had overstayed her welcome, she thought, and smiled, amused, at her fellow Devil Fruit user.

"Just in time," she said and crossed over to the speedy, tamed banawani that would carry her to Alubarna, and hopefully - she would have prayed, but she was older and wiser than the naïve child that had learned to pray at Shesha's knee – to the Rio Poneglyph she had been searching for for years.

"You might want to care for that boy's wounds. He was the brave knight who brought your princess back to you, after all," Robin said as she clambered into the seat perched atop the creature's back and took a hold of the reins.

She turned away from the two men and snapped the reins twice, and the animal sped off over the sand dunes towards Alubarna. Would the boy live? Would Princess Vivi succeed? Or would Arabasta be torn in half by this delusional civil war?

Robin closed her eyes and breathed slowly, allowing herself only a few short moments of shaking vulnerability before she coiled her composure – as hard as iron and as serene as the calmest of oceans – back into place.

All that mattered was finding the Poneglyph. It meant happiness, if there could be such a thing in this world for the likes of her. Crocodile would have his Arabasta, and she?

She would have her freedom.

(But even the steel walls around her heart could not stop the tiny stirrings of what felt a lot like hope at the thought that maybe that boy could stop Crocodile.

Maybe. Just maybe.)

Was this what you meant about the "storm", Shesha? she thought, staring into the distance. For one hazy second, she could have sworn she heard thunderclouds on the horizon.

Her hands clenched into fists around the reins they held.

"Preposterous," she whispered, and closed her mind to foolish romanticisms.

CHOPPER

He smelled them long before he saw them. A faint haze that reached his nose, like rotting human flesh. He'd seen a lot of things in his short life, especially as Doctor Hirulik's and then Doctorine's apprentice. The stench of the dead and dying was not something he was liable to forget. He'd seen and cared for people dying of some of the foulest illnesses known across the oceans, who'd come to Kureha for a desperate cure or just to ease their or their loved one's pain in their last days.

But this? This was different.

The air had a faint tinge of scent to it, rotting meat mixed with something sharply floral.

Chopper looked around as a fight broke out between Sanji and Zoro.

"Is something wrong, Chopper-san?" Vivi asked, running her dark fingers over the cuff of her sleeve.

He rubbed his nose and sniffled, and the smell lessened.

"Y-Yeah, I just thought I smelled something bad," he replied, and rubbed his nose again.

"It is probably the smells from Nanohana," she said with a smile. "The first time I visited, they nearly knocked me over, and I didn't even have half the nose you have, Chopper-san."

"Yeah," Chopper tentatively agreed. "Yeah, it's probably just that."

The river came up far too soon, and with Nami's scantily clad body to fuel Scissors (some animals were so weird, Chopper thought to himself, and that was coming from a half-human, half-reindeer hybrid like himself) they made a decent progress over the river before they sank.

The smell simply got worse, though.

Zoro coughed, and looked around. "Do any of you smell that?" he called.

"Ugh, what is that?" Usopp complained, plugging his nose and paddling the water with his other hand.

Nami shrieked as something rose up from the depths of the river, making all of them forget about the smell. The Rare Catfish, or whatever it was – Chopper wasn't afraid to admit he'd been screaming his brains out as he clung to Zoro's head for dear life, so he'd probably missed a few minor pointers somewhere – was promptly knocked out by the kung-fu dugongs that Luffy and Ciel had befriended earlier.

The Leader of the Dugongs ("Call me Mike!" he had said cheerfully to Chopper, clearly remembering that the reindeer was the only one who could translate for the humans) led the way across the river, lines of the dugongs pulling the unconscious catfish with the humans sitting ontop it. But after about five minutes, they stopped, the sudden jerk rocking all of the catfish's passengers.

"Hey, what's going on?" Sanji asked, pushing his sunglasses up.

Then, carried on a gust of wind, was the foulest burst of sheer stench Chopper had ever smelled in his life. It was the scent of death and decay, of rotting human flesh and meat gone spoiled, with an overwhelming undernote of dying flowers.

One of the dugongs shrieked as it was yanked away from the group and under the water. As all of the dugongs immediately leapt out of the water and landed on the catfish's back, ringing the pirates. Chopper saw, to his utter horror, a decapitated dugong head float to the top in a pool of blood, only to be yanked under the water by a clawed hand.

"What's going on?" He asked Mike, as the dugong chittered angrily at the water and at forms approaching from the sky, carrying the stench in their wake.

"It's the Soulless, One-Who-Speaks," he replied with fear in his voice. "They came to this country when the Crocodile came. They are hunting."

"What's going on? Chopper, what's happening?" Zoro demanded, drawing his swords. Sanji leapt to his feet.

"I-I don't know! They said something called the Soulless are hunting and that they came to this country with Crocodile-" A feral screech cut off Chopper's words as figures exploded from the water, and the figures in the air got closer. The creatures hovered in air, kept aloft by wings or an unseen force.

"Oh gods," Nami breathed, terror in every word, as Vivi clutched at the other girl's hands. Usopp was trembling so fiercely Chopper could feel the vibrations in the air even from where he sat. Zoro and Sanji were tense, Sanji's cigarette burning to embers where it had been dropped, forgotten.

A fierce, awful cackling reverberated through the air, and Chopper shook. Predators! his human and animal sides were screaming, and he had to force back the hysterical urge to leap off the other side of the catfish and swim for his life. He was a Devil Fruit user. He wouldn't get far before he drowned.

But a thought niggled through his mind, as he looked at those horrific warpings of man, animal, and monster, that perhaps even a death by drowning would be preferable to the death that awaited at the claws and fangs and twisted hands of these creatures.

"A princess and pirates, such a feast!" A creature that looked like a cross between a heron and a lion moaned, and the pirates moved closer to each other, so that they were back to back, Vivi in the middle of their circle.

"Chimera-sama and Ladon-sama promised us a feast! And what a feast it is!" A thing that looked like a crow, human, and horse had been dumped into a blender said with a hoarse giggle. It focused its eyes on Sanji and shrilled a fierce chime. Its beak lunged out, faster than lightning, and jabbed into Sanji's shoulder.

"Sanji-kun!" Nami yelled, catching the blond as he dropped with a pained scream. Chopper could smell something foul that was seeping into his wound and looked back at the creature that had stabbed him. Its beak dripped with a dark liquid, and Chopper knew immediately it was some sort of poison. He had to go help Sanji, he had to make sure they got that poison out of him because who knew what it could do to Sanji's wound, or, gods forbid, his bloodstream if it got that far-

But he couldn't make his legs move.

"We will feast, and it will be on you!" an insect-human hybrid laughed, the chillingly human sound echoed by its companions. Chopper could smell the fear from his friends and the sheer terror from the dugongs.

This is not good. The thought wriggled its way up past the sheer weight of his own mind-numbing fear-

Every one of the abominations jerked their heads to the west, to the far distant shore.

"What?" the heron whispered. Chopper blinked, confused. Was that fear he could hear in its voice?

"Quick, grab the princess-" one of them shrieked, and Vivi was screaming then as she was yanked away from the other pirates.

"Vivi-chan!" Nami yelled, making a desperate grab for the princess as she was lifted into the air by a creature with a moth's wings and cat's head. The blue-haired woman thrashed, tears pouring from her eyes as the thing's prehensile tongue stroked her neck.

"Kill the bitch!" one of the monsters screeched but then a very familiar voice roared and a plume of fire exploded into the sky, sending the Soulless Ones fleeing back.

Vivi crashed into Usopp as a humanoid figure yanked the moth creature down, the monster letting out a doomed animal's scream as it disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

The water turned red and the Souless Ones shrieked, screaming in a language that made Chopper's ears ache and blood run from his nose, a foul black pain splitting through his skull. Zoro staggered and went to one knee, and Chopper could see blood run from his nose and eyes.

"Quickly, kill the piratesssarrrrgh!" another one of the creatures was yanked down into the water as a very familiar man on a boat zoomed past, crisping the monsters not quick enough to get out of his way to ash.

Chopper's eyes widened as Luffy's big brother leapt into the air and turned into a rapidly spinning blade of condensed fire, slicing through three of the hybrids before landing on the back of the catfish. Then there were roars of big cats, and Chopper's jaw dropped open as a large, sleek panther and a tiger the size of the horse danced through the air.

They used claws and teeth to break limbs and leave gaping holes in wings, forcing the creatures to crash into the water, before leaping back to the catfish and arrowing for another prey to send to their deaths.

The dugongs jumped to the aid of the cats, driving the Soulless Ones into the water with powerful fists and flicks of their tails.

Usopp screamed as a creature that had evaded the attackers grabbed him from behind and made to drag him into the water.

But then the creature was being pulled off him and Usopp staggered into Vivi, who kept him standing. Ichor blood flew into the air as Ciel Russo tore the thing's arms off with horrific efficiency, before wrapping one black-clawed, vice-like hand around its neck in an implacable grip.

The man's eyes glittered with something like madness and bloodlust as he clambered up onto the catfish's back, holding the twitching hybrid in one vice-like hand. It looked to be a cross between a snake, scorpion, and a woman.

"Why'd you keep that one alive, Ciel?" Ace asked, landing beside Vivi. "And where's my brother?"

"He'll be in Alubarna, where he'll face the Crocodile. I need some answers from you, mèrdik bata," he hissed, the bulging tendons in his arm straining against the sleeve of his robe.

"It can't speak if you're cutting off its air, Ciel," Ace reprimanded the other man gently, and the tendons eased.

"Well? To whose service are you bound?" Ciel demanded, and the Thrall spat blood in the man's face.

Ciel wiped the foul liquid off his face. "Ace, some help if you would. Gin-Aido, Shere Khan, tell the dugongs to keep us moving. There should be no more Thralls left to deal with."

The enormous panther and tiger, both now several shades smaller than they had been when they had taken on the Soulless Ones, let out piping yowls.

"It's time to move out!" They said together, the shock of their voices making Chopper startle (he'd never heard either of them speak before, he realized), and the dugongs leapt into the water.

As the catfish started moving, Ace pressed a palm full of fire directly to one of the thing's – had Ciel called the thing a Thrall? – bleeding stumps. It screamed in a horrifyingly human way, and Chopper shuddered.

"Ciel, what are you doing?" Vivi protested, her voice shaking. "Why are you being so cruel, just kill it-"

The man's eyes snapped up to meet Vivi's and the princess recoiled as Ace removed his hand.

"Must I remind you, that all of five minutes ago, this thing would have gleefully eaten you, Nefertari-hime?" Ciel said, devastatingly polite and calm. "I need answers, and untainted fire is the best way to get answers from these things. If we go to Alubarna without knowing all we can, this thing's masters will kill us. It will kill all of us, and in such terrible ways that not even your worst nightmares could begin to fully comprehend them. Now."

Ciel turned back to the thrashing creature as Ace pressed a hand to its chest once more.

"Must we continue this?" the man asked, in an almost gentle voice. "You irritate me anymore, and I'll have Ace burn off your legs."

The Thrall shook its head frantically, eyes wild with pain. "I, I will…talk!" It slurred.

Ciel's lips curved into a terrifying parody of a smile, and Chopper shuddered.

Meanwhile, in Alubarna…

One Thrall had survived to bring back news of their failure to its master.

Fear. The feeling was old-familiar and new-strange-familiar. It was familiar with fear. Its masters had made sure that all of them knew fear. And it somewhat remembered fear from before. Before, before, before-

It had been shorter, weaker, helpless in the before, when its masters had come for them, come for them all. It darted into an alley as the sun began to rise, hissing angrily. It should have run far, far away, to find dark places and holes to cower in, to hide from its masters who would be so angry, but it did not know.

If it could have run away, if it could have broken out of the fierce obedience-need beaten into it long, long ago, it would have done so eagerly.

It staggered against the wall, desperate with hunger and fatigue. It needed strength. It hadn't expected a Magus that strong to interrupt them.

To kill them, the cursed creature had slaughtered them all-

A sack of rags by the wall shifted, revealing a human with ragged hair and the foul stench of the unwashed.

"Hey, leave me t'fuck alone! Find yer own alley to sleep in!" he yelled and the Thrall drooled. Blood, pumping thickly beneath the taut skin, blood, life, it could smell it.

It emerged from the shadows and tackled the man, biting deep into his neck as the prey, prey, food, gurgled, desperately beating at its back and head until it tore through the blood-vein and the prey's struggles ceased completely.

The Thrall gorged itself on the blood and flesh and organs, feeling power heal its wounds and chase away the fatigue. It moved away from the alley, dancing through the shadows to where its masters were, knowing few people would ever blink twice at the desiccated remains.

Its masters had often told them that the best prey to feast on were ones that would not be missed by humans. Not be noticed.

They were right, of course.

It knelt before its masters as it exited the shadows. They were alone, the humans that they'd been forced to be with nowhere to be seen.

Their names could not be pronounced in the human's tongue, but they were called Ladon and Chimera by the humans and their presence, even while trapped in the bland, fragile human bodies their Contractor demanded they garb themselves in.

"News?" Ladon asked, voice strangely soft in a human's tonal cords.

"We were not successful. I am the only survivor of the raid, mokasa, mokasai," it whispered.

The fear from before returned as Chimera hissed, raspy and hoarse.

"So no one else survived? Did you at least kill anyone?" Ladon asked, real annoyance in that strange too-soft voice. "Why were you unable to kill a bunch of pirates? Their strongest fighter is out of commission, or at the very least shouldn't have been there."

"T-There was a Magus there. A Magus who decimated our r-ranks, with a man made purely of fire who was just as thorough. We, we could do nothing!" The Thrall pleaded.

Ladon leaned forward. "Go on."

"A human with a Devil's Fruit and a Magus whose power was," the Thrall shuddered. "Their power was beyond any we had come in contact with. The Magus had two fully realized Familiars as well."

Chimera cackled, the sound making the Thrall twitch uneasily.

"Interesting," Ladon whispered. "No sign of the other Magus? If I remember correctly, we scented two Magi while on that thōē mōhē island while hunting those two Baroque Works' fools."

"We only felt the first Magus's power. But there was something else. A… anēkśna," the Thrall said, remembering the taste of blood.

It involuntarily gulped as both sets of raging, inhuman eyes locked onto it.

"Is that so? Tell me more," the female Highborn said.

So it did. After it had told its masters everything, Ladon nodded.

"You did well," she said, then turned to Chimera. "My love, if you would clean things up?"

Chimera cackled. "Finally! I've been feeling peckish!"

Ladon looked back at the Thrall. Her lips curved into a smile that held no joy, only a deep, awful hunger.

"You failed us," she said, almost cheerfully. "I do not permit failures."

And the Thrall knew the blinding, animal-bright shock of true, shaking terror for one split second before Chimera was on it, the Daemon's human flesh disguise dissolving in the wake of mottled, writhing skin, enormous pincers, and rows of gnashing teeth that bit greedily into its prey.

The Thrall was permitted one high-pitched shriek before it was consumed.

Ladon leaned against the wall and grinned.

It would be fun, she thought. She had not had the pleasure of the rēkiga, the breaking, of a Magus and their family in a very, very long time.

She laughed with true joy then, the sound carrying above the sounds of flesh tearing and greedy slurping, and looked to the sky.

"Come, oh Magi," she hummed then, the hunting song of her people leaping easily to her lips. "Come oh Bearer of the Blood, let us feast upon your flesh, and drink upon your tears~ My children's children will know strength of a hundred thousand, for your Life is but mine to take~ Fear us, Oh Magi who denied us~ For we shall come for you~"

It had more…mm, panache in their own language, Ladon thought, and licked some of the blood that had splattered her face.

KELLY

Things were tense, though she had expected that, the air full of a buzzing friction that had everything to do with the blood splattering her clothes and how they had gotten in that condition.

She knelt before Sanji, her fingers clamped tightly around the boy's vicious wound as she and Chopper worked to draw the poison from his flesh. Nami sat behind Sanji, letting the trembling cook prop his weight against her side.

"It's good we caught this before it got into your bloodstream." Kelly's voice felt hoarse and strange in her mouth, now that the raging bloodlust and fierce fury that had prompted her decimation of the horde had drained away.

Sanji met her eyes, his face dripping sweat and the pupils of his eyes blown wide from pain, and her heart ached for him. She cupped his cheek in one hand and used an infinitesimal amount of Magic to send Sanji into a light sleep. By the time they got to the other side of the river he would awaken and be much healed.

"Wait, what happened? Sanji-kun?!" Nami asked, feeling Sanji slump against her.

"He's just asleep," Kelly said quietly. "He needs rest before we reach Alubarna." Nami met her eyes for a moment. Then she looked hurriedly away.

Kelly sighed and turned back to the others, who watched her with naked curiosity on their faces, except for Ace, who crouched on his heels by the end of the boat.

She stood and rolled her shoulders. Shere and Gin sat by her feet.

"Ciel?" The Magus looked at Usopp.

"Mm?"

"W-why…" he gulped, and then said, this time a little more determinedly, "Why did you…come back? And how did your cats grow so big?"

She breathed slowly.

"My cats are shifters. They belonged to a sorcerer before I found them-" hopefully that would suffice, and keep any awkward questions away "-and as for why I came back?"

Kelly sighed.

"If I had not, you would have died. And I am tired of death."

It wasn't a lie, Kelly knew that, but it wasn't the whole truth.

She would probably never be ready to give them that.

-…her parents would never understand her love for One Piece. It had so many faults, and it wasn't like she was blind to them, far from it, but...but there was the thing that had drawn her to the series, that she never admitted to anyone, not to any of her friends or even her family.

She sits on her bed, staring at the picture of the Mugiwara no Ichimi that so proudly adorns the wall beside her bed, at the Wanted Posters she had printed out on special paper from the Internet and tacked to the board over her desk.

She picks up the Monkey D. Luffy plushie her sister had gotten her for her tenth birthday and sighs.

"I wish," Kelly whispers, then feels the sting of tears in her eyes.

The dark-haired girl rubs her eyes furiously. No one had believed her when she had told them. Not her parents, not her family. No one. She would have to be strong by herself, she knows this to be a fact. She had, after all, accused a well-liked young man of nearly raping her and beating her senseless. No one would believe her. No one had.

And the sheer injustice of it makes her want to scream.

She wants to get up, to stalk around the room like an angry, caged tiger, but she hurts too much. So instead she lays back against the wall and closes her eyes.

She is lonely, she thinks, as she cradles the plush in her bandaged arms. She is lonely for a family that would be behind her every step of the way, to show her she was important and that she meant something. She wants nakama, she thought with a tiny sob. Not friends who hated her, thought she was crazy, thought she was corrupting them, or whatever bullshit that their parents fed them.

(Her sister would have, but her sister was dead.)

She wants people to not leave her, to believe her, to love her.

"I wish," she whispers and looks back up at the pirates whom she had grown to love.

She hears Luffy's voice in her head, bright and loud and like a hand reaching down into the pit she was sinking into: "Ore no nakama ni aru no!"

The other Straw Hats' hands all reached down alongside their captain's, calling her name.

"Hai, sencho," she whispers back, reaching up to take the outstretched hands, eyes streaming grateful tears-

But then she wakes from the trance-dream, and of course there is no Luffy. There are no Straw Hats. And she is alone in her room, one hand stretched out uselessly to empty air.

She blinks and stares stupidly at the wall for several moments, then lets out a shaky laugh, covering her eyes with her hands.

"Fuck, I'm such an idiot," she says, giggling helplessly even as tears sneak past her fingers…-

She was still as much a fool now as she had ever been, Kelly thought ruefully as the opposite shore grew closer. Still dreaming of friends, and admiration, and nakama, as though such things were meant for the like of her.

The Magus gritted her teeth and shoved the disappointment down as far as she could. She would be fighting one of the Highborn – and didn't that curdle her blood, considering she hadn't fought one in years – and she needed to keep all of her attention on the fight ahead.

As they all dismounted from the catfish-boat, Kelly felt a small whisper of fear. She couldn't see the Super Spot Billed Duck Squad (or whatever they were called, she couldn't remember exactly).

She wondered if the Daemons or the Thralls had intercepted them, and her blood ran cold at the idea.

No, she couldn't allow herself to be swayed by what-if's and what-could-be's. The Squad would get here in time to get the pirates to Alubarna.

And if they weren't…well.

They would burn that bridge if they needed to.

"All right, Nefertari-hime, are you still planning to intercept the Royal and Rebel armies before they clash?" She asked, making her voice as business-like as she could.

Usopp looked up from where he was rousing Sanji from his nap, and the rest of the pirates turned their eyes to her.

"Well, yes," Vivi said, sounding confused. "The leader of the Rebel army, I know him, and he'll-"

"Do you have a Plan B?" Kelly asked. "Because, Nefertari-hime, trying to stop the war won't be possible."

"What? Why? Kohza's my friend, he wouldn't do anything to me, and he would definitely listen-"

"I'm not talking about Kohza. I'm talking about the hundreds of double agents that Crocodile more than likely has implanted in the Rebel and Royal armies," Kelly said, interrupting the girl.

Dead silence.

She sighed. "Am I the only one who saw that? How do you think this has gone on for so long? How do you think he's been able to control so much from behind the scenes? Crocodile may be batshit insane, but he's certainly no fool. I promise you, Crocodile has agents in both armies, and they'll kill you before you can step foot near Kohza, if the chaos of war doesn't kill you first."

"Then what do we do?" Nami asked, eyes wide.

Kelly sighed. "Luffy will be in Alubarna to take on Crocodile. The rest of you will be dealing with the Baroque Works' officer agents. The Daemons, however…" she looked at Ace, who nodded his consent. "Ace and I will take care of them. As for you, Viv…Nefertari-hime, you will need to get to palace, and rendezvous with whoever is in charge. You'll have to do what you can to halt Crocodile's schemes that way-"

"Hey, what's that?"

In the distance, a cloud of dust was approaching, and Kelly felt her heart lift as seven forms became visible, racing towards them.

"Looks like your ride's here," Kelly said, as Vivi's joyful cry of "Carue!" was taken up by the other pirates.

"You all right?" Ace asked as he stepped to her side.

"As much as I can be," she admitted. "Ace, I apologize for getting you involved in this-"

He shook his head. "I want to help. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. And if my brother's going to be in Alubarna, I'm going to help."

She found a smile to give him and touched his arm. "Thank you. I really appreciate it."

As she clambered back onto Ace's boat – the two of them, with Gin and Shere, would be taking a different route into the city, to hopefully cut off the Daemons and keep them from intercepting Vivi or the other pirates – she felt her hands tremble. With excitement or fear, she wondered?

It didn't matter. She would take it, harness it like she had harnessed the fright of her first time on a stage, and do what needed to be done. She had done it before, and she would do it again.

Somewhere else…

"You'll have to be very careful, because she's very dangerous." A rough, male voice was speaking. One of the men who'd been her guard for the long train ride after her sentencing was talking to someone else.

She was cold. Cold and aching and her power was so far away. She hadn't even realized what a loss it was to be without her Magic. What she had lived through every day in the before. On Earth. But these bastards had taken it away, taken it away after helping the Marines to find their village.

"She looks half-dead," a very familiar voice replied, and the shock of that voice froze her limbs.

"Lucci-san, it took a hundred fully armed Marines to subdue her. Don't underestimate her."

A hand grabbed her and dragged her upright, and she was staring into the eyes of Rob Lucci – the leader of the ultra-deadly CP9.

Her lips trembled, then she spat blood in his face.

He snarled – just like a real big cat would, she thought with a hysterical snort of laughter – and tossed her into the wall.

"Lucci-san, you can't kill her!" the Government man protested.

"Then she had best learn to obey me," he said, voice as cold as Arctic ice. He turned and left the room, and the Government agent sighed.

"Gods, if I have to tell the bosses that Lucci-san killed a captured Magus…" he sighed again and shook his head. "Fuck, I'm not getting paid enough for this," he said and walked out.

She pressed her cheek against the stone floor and dropped into slumber. Maybe she wouldn't waken from it, she thought hopefully.

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I shall die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take," she whispered the prayer her mother had taught her into the cold, stagnant air of her cell, and drifted off to sleep, sick with hope that when she next awoke it would be to the faces of her mother and her teacher.

She was tired of this cruel, ugly world.