A/N: Hello again, everyone! Thanks for everyone whose stuck with this story. As a special treat, here chapter 3 four months earlier than chapter 2 was. I myself was surprised when I first published chapter 2 and realized it had been a whole year. Rest assured, I don't intend to drop this story. However, my creative abilities are not ones to conform to any sort of deadline so updates will be whenever a chapter is finished.
So without any further ado, lets return to The Adventures of Red and Blue!
It's funny how a person can think they know someone, trusting their own perspective of another's actions and expressions, only to let it blind them to what should've been obvious.
Rayleigh knew Buggy did not like big crowds, had been with her multiple times when she changed direction away from a busy square or retreated to a quiet corner of the ship when the crew got too rowdy. He'd seen how she clenched her juice or the bar top, knuckles white and face fighting off a scowl, whenever a fight broke out during port stops. He hadn't seen how Shanks hovered around her when they hid away during battles, doing his darndest to help her work through the anger and fear and sick delight that stained her mind like paint. He thought she was simply a little introverted, preferring the company of a few rather than many.
Roger was the one to put the pieces together.
. . .
The bar had been noisy when the crew entered. That had been easy to ignore as they weren't a quiet bunch themselves, and a few weeks at sea had made them desire the unmatched quality of pristinely kept swill very few ships could manage. Rayleigh watched the dance that was Roger being his lovable, whiplash of a self, heartily ordering rounds for his men and regaling anyone who would listen of the wonders they'd seen. The tense shoulders loosened and soon the townspeople were back to acting as before, the fear of pirates blown away by Roger quite clearly missing the expected mark.
One table close to the bar top steadily grew louder, heated demands and rebutals giving way to shouted arguments and angry curses. Rayleigh thinks it had been some sort of land dispute between local farmers, but he hadn't really cared to remember their words. That day's quota of memory was dedicated to what followed.
Buggy had been chatting with the nice bartender lady, who had been happy to brag about the intersea merchants she'd carefully cultivated connections with, supplying her establishment with one of the largest varieties of alcohol this side of the sea. The assortment had been impressive indeed, he remembers. Buggy had seemed fine, leaving Rayleigh's attention solely on keeping the nice lady's assortment out of their other youngling's hands (and feet… and clothes… Rayleigh was well acquainted with the many ways a child could try to smuggle a drink). So focused on his task, he didn't notice when Buggy got quieter and quieter, or when she stopped speaking entirely.
He did notice when Roger threw his stool at that table, breaking both into pieces.
"Get out," he ordered, a touch of haoshoku threaded into the command.
"Wha-" one of the men managed to recover his voice. Rayleigh knew not whether his defiance against a Conqueror came from bravery or idiocy, though he had an inkling toward one over the other. "Whad'ya think yur doin', ya f(92 6)k'r?!"
"I don't care about your squabbles," Roger bit back, putting his arms up only the slightest bit as he straightened post-throw. To everyone else in the bar, it was innocuous, a motion no one really noticed. To Rayleigh and the rest of the crew, they saw how it shadowed their little girl.
Rayleigh's heart caught in his throat when he saw the pallor of Buggy's face, so clear a contrast against her ever-flushed nose. She was hunched so as if to prepare for inevitable blows. Expressions warred across her face, fear and helplessness battling an anger that seemed so wrong, both only getting more exaggerated as neither went away. Everything in Rayleigh ached to gather the little one up and take her back to the ship.
Why had Roger's response been to evict the rowdy locals?
"You're hurting my child. Get out." A drop more haoshoku and the table's former occupants scrambled for the exit like prey. Roger watched the door swing shut, face a stone that cracked when he turned around to his apprentice, bending knee to be eye-to-eye.
"It's alright," he soothed, slowly reaching to pick her up, letting her know she had every right to refuse the hold. She sunk into it gladly, almost seeming to disappear among the folds of Roger's coat. Rayleigh let himself breathe when he saw that, her face, while still pale, no longer resembled death. "We're heading back to the ship, Blue. Just you, me, Red, and Rayleigh. I'll keep the others busy."
A short apology to the bar owner for driving away their customers and he strode out the door himself, footsteps shadowed by Red. Following the unspoken command, even if he didn't understand why, Rayleigh told the rest of the crew to either stay ashore or steer clear of the captain's quarters. A reparation for the mess, plus a little extra, to the nice bartender and he followed his Captain.
Aboard the Oro Jack, Rayleigh headed for the captain's quarters (not actually used by Roger, for he slept with the rest of the men; rather, it was a place for official meetings and guests) after a quick stop to relieve himself, not wanting his grog-sloshed bladder to get in the way of serious conversation. The silence between the three was heavy, the unspoken words telling they waited for him. Buggy was still enfolded within Roger, though now ensconced in his side rather than hidden in his arms. Shanks sat on the ground in front of the bench, studiously ignoring the small fiddles of Blue's hands with his hair.
"I'll be frank," Rayleigh said, breaking the silence intentionally as he took another chair. "I think I'm missing something here."
Shanks opened his mouth to answer but stopped at Roger's hand on his shoulder. A silent conversation ensued, clearly telling Shanks this was not his to tell. Roger shifted ever so slightly, just enough to no longer completely shield Buggy. Blue was a smart girl; she knew Roger was asking her if she would talk. She took one breath to brace herself.
"People are… beacons," she said just above a whisper. "Always have been. It's a lot but… but I can manage… mostly. When people are angry or scared or any strong emotion, they become a thousand times worse and… It's like a cup of water, except it fills really easy and when there's too much it spills over… into me. So I feel angry or scared or whatever it is."
"Kenbunshoku," Rayleigh breathed when the words settled, looking at Buggy with awe. It had taken them years to learn haki to the level Blue was speaking of, awakened and honed through countless battles and brushes with death. But to possess it naturally, untrained though it was? In all their travels, they had come across only one with a similar gift.
Yet it was a gift that could be. Right now, untrained and too much for her young mind, it resembled more a curse.
"Aye," Roger agreed to Buggy's surprise, the light in her eyes quickly shifting into that familiar curiosity. "Tis something we picked up on the Grand Line, using will to see the world 'round you. Yer such a curious bugger it comes natural to you."
He ruffled Buggy's blue hair, destroying any semblance of neatness it might have had along with the last of the tension in the room. Buggy swatted at his hand like the anklebiter she was but didn't move from his side.
"How come I get emotions?" she asked. "That sure don't sound like what you're saying."
"It's more than just sight," Rayleigh answered, dragging his chair closer to the rest now that the gap of knowledge had been bridged. "Though simple-minded men certainly tell it as such." Rayleigh ignored the offended 'hey' from Roger, leaving the big baby to sulk by himself, a grinning Shanks patting his leg in false sympathy. "It's an extension of the senses yet, at the same time, a sense all its own, willing a connection to the world outside your body. That includes other people, letting you sense their emotions. You have the haki; you just don't have the training to control it."
Buggy's eyes sparkled as she began to understand what Captain and Rayleigh were explaining. Shanks' eyes sparkled as his captain confirmed his fellow apprentice had the same mysterious, awesome power the stronger of the crew did. It only cemented the idea in his mind that Buggy was awesome!
"Right now," Roger announced, picking up Buggy under her arms to spin her around. "It's not doing you any good, a baby with a sword." Roger expertly avoided the sharp kick Buggy aimed at his stomach. "So we're gonna teach you how to use that sword."
Rayleigh's first reaction to Roger's declaration was a deep seeded rejection, the nightmarish ways the crew had learned haki flashing across his eyes vividly. But he remembered the pallor of Buggy's face, how a civilian argument Rayleigh barely noticed hurt her to the point it stopped her curiosity. Surely they could train Buggy's kenbunshoku without the stress of battle she definitely wasn't ready for.
Rayleigh realized Shanks was grinning victoriously at him and sighed. Looks like they couldn't hold off teaching him haki either.
. . .
"Ow! I, ugh! Hate, ah! Haki, ow! Training, stop that!"
A whistle came from the crowd of deadbeat pirates who had nothing better to do than watch little kids be assaulted with wooden sticks. "Dang, wish I had that kinda skill with kenbunshoku."
"What're you yabbering about?!" Buggy demanded, throwing the hateful blindfold onto the deck just in time to dodge another deadly swing of the repurposed barrel plank. Shanks' snickers cut off with a yelp as Rayleigh focused on him.
"Ya dodged that last one, Blue," one piped up.
"Jumped outta the swing clean as a whistle," another contributed. "Took me three months to get there after awakening it."
"Really?" Buggy breathed, a little blindsided by the idea she might be good at something, and a skill the crew held in high regard. It seemed fantastical.
"They're right, Buggy," Rayleigh added, the gentle knock of his plank atop her head bleeding red into her face at losing sight of her surroundings. "But that's no reason to slack off."
"You're doing great, Bugs!" Shanks encouraged, the hand he meant to pat Buggy's shoulder pawing the air like a confused puppy because of the blindfold that still obscured his eyes. They'd been repurposed from the thick cloth of an old sail to ensure not even light could get through. Buggy rolled her eyes as she picked up her own and remastered it around her head. She was already tensing at the memory of old man Rayleigh's hits but if this was what it took to stop from nearly passing out in crowds, if this could make her a little stronger and a little less useless, she'd take it head on.
Hours later, Buggy repeats. She hates haki training.
. . .
Buggy didn't let her contacts go one way. People were not altruistic enough to fork over local information and gossip for nothing, much less to a child who had yet to reach her teenage years. She traded her own in return, gathered from all over and parceled through until connections and patterns arose. People were much more loose-lipped when you could barter the next island's trends for suspicious marine patrols. Give-and-take, until the only one holding the strings was herself. Favors owed to others were lead, but those owed to yourself were gold; Buggy had lived by this principle for as long as she could remember.
As her web developed, a few iron-clad rules came about, some naturally and others that Buggy nudged into being:
1. Knowledge of Buggy and the scope of the line were on a need-to-know basis between the contact and a protégé. Information traded through the line was to be shared otherwise as 'from personal contacts'
2. The line and its progenitor were to be referred to as the Circus and its Ringmaster
3. All illegal acts were to be taken at the requester's own risk
4. Contacts could be added only by the Ringmaster, though suggestions for new contacts could be offered
5. Infringements of the above rules were to be dealt with internally, with punishments ranging from suspension from all or part of the Circus to expulsion to silencing through appropriate means
Number 2, in particular, popped up through the contacts. The titles spread through the web within a matter of weeks and refused to die. Everyone she complained to – the grandmotherly hostel receptionist on Torano, the vice-president of the farmers' union on Whezel, the mafia boss's secretary on Casteve – insisted on the name until, eventually, Buggy gave in and decided to be grateful she wasn't saddled with a stupider title like the Clown.
She limited incoming calls from the network to between six and nine in the evening, wheedling the hours from the crew as Buggy's Private Time, only to be interrupted with the expectation of a knife to the third leg. Her Den-Den and archives were moved to a corner of the captain's quarters after a certain incident involving Shanks and coffee (which was subsequently kept away from the redhead more religiously than alcohol). For the times when her contacts needed information outside those hours, Buggy vetted requests for communication between other contacts, approving any for which interest was mutual.
The first few months were rough, requiring several re-organizations to record incoming information more efficiently and access it for requests and her own analysis, but it was the kind of challenge she'd longed for, always feeling like everyone in Vodal was five steps behind her. In the unfamiliar world she jumped feet first into, the puzzle would never be finished no matter how many pieces Buggy clicked into place. The mystery scared her as much as it excited her and Buggy grew to love the razor-thin line she walked between knowledge and ignorance, every day a battle to keep her balance.
. . .
"Battle stations!"
The call resounded through the night air, shadowed by the sound of nearly twenty pairs of feet jumping from hammocks. Nowhere were the clumsy stumbles of half-awake men Buggy was used to rousing her slumber. The sudden thuds jolted her from half-formed dreams of treasure maps and gold bullion, a sheen of panic clouding her mind as she pulled in her hands to better defend her center.
"Easy, Bugs, easy there." Shanks insufferable voice – while normally causing her blood to boil and do just about anything but calm her – soothed the edges of her panic, just enough to shrug off the hand he had on her shoulder.
"The watcher's cryin' for a fight," he whispered, at least as much as Shanks could whisper. "Some ship must be tryin' to sneak up on us."
Armed with knowledge, Buggy converted her fear into a determined glare, nodding at Shanks in confirmation and the ounce of gratitude she possessed. A quick tap at her thigh to ensure her knife hadn't unfastened during the night and the two apprentices made for the stairs leading top deck. They had a few minutes before the rest of the crew ushered them into the Chest (as those of the Oro Jack had taken to call the secret room, delighting in the scarlet that flamed the young'uns cheeks when they claimed it held their treasure).
Chests straining against the railing, the moon revealed the shadow of a ship, larger and bulkier than the Oro Jack and obviously taking the smaller ship as easy pickings. Before her eyes, lights flared aboard the approaching vessel, stealth abandoned now that the target was awake. Smudges of men milled at the ready, each bearing flashing metal. A torch atop the rigging sparked, positioned so its light cast onto the topmost flag, pitch black but for swathes of white, the standard skull-and-crossbones that adorned every pirate ship but for elongated canines, giving the whole fabric a ferocious feline appearance.
"Sabertooth pirates," Buggy said to herself, having heard of them from several islands they pillaged previously. There were few crimes that didn't follow in their wake, even the ones that turned Buggy's strong stomach. Buggy had listened to Miss Melinda, the prickly seamstress and gossip mill on Ferrant, sob about her niece, whom the Sabertooth pirates held for ransom and returned a ravaged, cold corpse.
"What'd ya say?" Shanks side-eyed her, question in his eyes.
"The Sabertooth pirates," she repeated, motioning at the afar ship. "Troubled the north-West Blue the last two years. They're bad news, real bad."
Shanks acknowledged her with a hum, turning back to the sea with a tight jaw. When Scooper Gaban corralled them below deck, they went without fuss.
"Be careful," Buggy warned the quartermaster before he returned to the soon-to-be battleground. "They play dirty."
"Got it, little Blue," Gaban smiled, ruffling her hair just to make the serious faces on the apprentices crack. Buggy's offended yelp and Shanks' following snort let him return above deck with a chuckle.
Shanks lowered the beam while Buggy set up a simple trip wire, placing the rope coil in the corner anyone entering would see last. They settled themselves behind a pile of spare sail, threading the rope through the folds so it would be ready to use at a moment's notice, and waited for the sounds of battle to start.
Buggy could tell when the Sabertooth's ship approached, a multitude of beacons awash with infectious greed and bloodlust flickering within range of her consciousness. She slammed down a wall in her mind, willing the emotions back with every scrap of skill she'd gleamed from hours of being the target in target practice. Like a child feeling for the door in the dark, it was slow, but the overflow decreased from an impossible river into a brook, still tainting her thoughts with their greasy emotions but far more manageable than before. This much, she could grit her teeth and push through.
"Bugs?" Shanks asked, caution evident in the actual whisper-decibel of his voice. His fists were clenched, knowing from experience how Buggy would react to touch when her haki was overwhelmed.
"It's okay," she whispered back, divesting as little focus from her mental wall as possible. If she lost that defense, she'd be useless.
Cries crescendoed above them, signaling the start of the fight, and Buggy turned what remained of her awareness to the sounds that trickled beneath the salt-soaked wood. Very few screams tingled with that note of familiarity, a small source of comfort to the two children who were blind to the happenings above them.
Screams, creaking woods, and the quiet breaths of two children surrounded them, echoing the hymn of the battle above them. Like the innocents, they hid in fear, terror increasing with the sounds they could not see. Except Buggy could see, the deck awash with lights dim and brilliant aplenty. The ones she knew, she knew; and the ones she did not, she did not. So relieved was the little pirate who saw too much when the unfamiliar lights began to dwindle one by one, that she didn't notice one come closer.
"The fight's starting to die down," she whispered to her fellow apprentice.
"Awesome!" Shanks shouted, a little too loudly for Buggy's taste. "Hah! I knew Captain and everyone could beat them off. Those guys didn't stand a chance!"
"Quiet!" she ordered the foolhardy apprentice, watching the invading lights be snuffed out and keeping careful track of the crew. A few flickers from injuries but nothing that lingered, she observed with silent gratitude for the sea's mercy. Finally, when all that remained above them were familiar lights, Buggy let herself breathe.
"Sabertooth's gone," she informed to Shanks' grin, the hyperactive redhead immediately unbarring the door.
"Say, if we find their liquor stores first," Shanks plotted. "Bet I could get a bit for-"
Shanks' ramblings cut off in a scream, followed by a thud far heavier than his bony body could make. Buggy pressed herself against the wall by the entrance, suddenly far too aware of the other light she'd missed in her pinpoint focus of the deck.
"There's a kid, huh?" a voice muttered, raspy with the sound of too many cigarettes. "Perfect. They'll regret killing everyone when I show them your cold corpse!"
The light was flickering in what Buggy was slowly discerning to be insanity, the man's mumbled giggles clearly laced with sick madness. But most of the cabin girl's attention was on the light she knew almost as well as her own, a steady pillar of her home upon the waves that was so wrongly sputtering with choked breaths Buggy could hear not five feet away. She tightened both hands on the grip of her knife, the form of a dead man clear in her senses.
She saw the hand choking her fellow apprentice and the other pinning his arms to the ground. One leg did the same for Shanks' feet while the last served as a loadbearer. As focused as the corpse was on his desperate revenge, he had nothing to halt the knife driven into his neck.
Buggy's momentum forced the now limp man off of Shanks, shock in wide eyes as the life faded out of them with the blood emptying out his neck. She stumbled away before it could stain her clothes further because blood was a (5 53)tch to get out of any kind of fabric. She looked at the red and silver knife in her hand, at Shanks and the rapidly purpling bruise on his neck, anywhere but the pile of flesh in front of her that was empty as it had never been mere moments ago. Arms snaked around her and Shanks' aura wrapped around her with "thank you"s and endless gratitudes, leading her away from the empty flesh.
Bigger arms picked them both up and then Buggy was staring at the sea in its moonlight glory, the salty breeze carrying away the stench of blood and unwashed pirate. She wiped her blade clean on her shirt (it was already stained, a little more wouldn't hurt) and returned it to its sheath, eyes on the red that stained her hand. Not darkened by time, the lifeblood was the same shade as the hair of the one she'd stained it for.
Buggy was smart and had seen a little too much for ten years of living. She knew that she had stepped over a line today, one she couldn't return from. She also knew that she would do it again in a heartbeat.
She smiled, just a little upturn of her mouth, as she pushed that man's lifeless eyes back to where it could haunt her dreams and gripped Shanks' hand a bit tighter. Buggy was a pirate, and only dead men tried to steal stuff from pirates.
. . .
"Alright, men!" Roger roused after Gaban said something into his ear. "These ain't the kind of tar-flags we want mucking up our seas, so clean 'em up!" Bloodthirst answered the captain's order of execution, a sentence the approaching lowlives had unwittingly signed by turning their sights on the Oro Jack.
With Red and Blue safe in the Chest, Rayleigh was left with nothing but anticipation for a good fight. The ship approaching didn't have anyone strong enough to give them a hard time, but their numbers weren't a pittance either. Everyone should be able to get a few good knocks in.
The feline-flagged ship pulled alongside without a single cannonball, obviously intending to board and scavenge them right down to the timbers. Rayleigh appreciated that they weren't attempting something useless, though he doubted they realized the futility given how they were attacking in the first place. The world never seemed to run out of dumb b(33 16)tards.
The ensuing battle was brief but entertaining, the opponent's numbers adding just enough spice that Rayleigh could feel his blood pumping. Looking over the dead and the dying, he was ready to sheath his sword.
Red sputtered.
Blue spiked.
Rayleigh was but a step behind Roger, the captain easily sheltering the kids in his arms and taking them away from a bleeding corpse. Rayleigh saw the gaping wound in the man's throat and the blood that stained Blue's coveted knife and arms. After Roger headed above deck, he hauled the body overboard into the dark sea for Davy Jones to find.
It was Buggy who explained what had transpired, elbowing Shanks into silence when he tried to speak. From the hoarse wheeze forced out his lungs, the cabin boy would be going silent for at least a few hours. The sound of the body as it slid between the waves comforted the first mate when he spotted the bruises darkening Red's throat.
"You did good," Roger told Buggy, one hand on her small shoulder. "Kept your crew safe." Buggy's lips tightened but she nodded with steely eyes, not a tear in sight. Rayleigh felt his chest warm with pride.
Little Blue was already miles away from the girl that first boarded this ship, just as scrappy but a thousand times stronger. Rayleigh couldn't even start to picture where she'd be a year, two years, a decade from now, but he supposed that was the wonder of children.
Rayleigh watched the sun rise with a smile, his favorite blue and his favorite red meeting at the horizon.