A Clue

Part 2

Bepo continued to grow more and more curious while he studied his feelings and the danger that he knew was coming from the girl. He still had no idea how and why it was happening, but he was fairly sure that she herself wasn't dangerous or a real threat to them. He just didn't know what was going on here. And his confusion grew even more when one of the glittery sparkles appeared right in front of his eyes. He blinked at it before it suddenly started to take a more solid form. He watched the shimmering sparkle until it became a clear light blue crystal. He kneaded his furry eyebrows then looked around the room again. All of the sparkles were becoming more and more solid. They all were becoming light blue crystals. This girl had some ability that could summon crystals. But what did that have to do with the storm he felt coming?

"Did you see that one sword the pirate had? It was incredible!" a crewmate said.

"Yeah! You know I have been thinking about getting a sword and learning how to use it. It's been an interest for me since I was a kid and I think I might be able to handle it. What do you think? Wouldn't I make a great swordsman?" The crewmate laughed then jabbed out his finger like it was a sword. "On guard, you fiend!"

The girl tightened her hold on her legs. She closed her eyes and tried to block out their voices but it wouldn't work. Their words and laughter continued to pierce through her mind, body, and soul. Tears gathered and burned in her eyes, forcing themselves out of her tightly closed eyelids. Her breathing was now bordering on hyperventilation. Her head was starting to spin from all of her rapid breathing. She wanted them to stop. She needed them to stop. She mumbled under their playful banter, "Stop it."

Why wouldn't they stop? Could they not see she was in such distress? Why wouldn't that one man, the one she was with do something to stop this? She wanted to look over at him, to ask him to make them stop. But she couldn't get herself to bring her eyes up to him.

"You? A swordsman?" Another crewmate laughed. He held up his hands in mock fear of his friend poking his finger sword at him. His voice became high pitched, as he spoke with a horrible, pretending to be scared voice. "Oh no! Please, Mr. Pirate, don't cut me down! I didn't mean you any harm, Mr. Swordsman! Spare my life!"

"On guard you worthless scum!" The man poked his finger sword into the faked scared man's ribs, pretending to run him through as if it was a real sword.

"Stop it," she wheezed. Her mind filled with shadowy images. All with sharp pointing fangs and fingers that closed in on her. The pirates' laughter mixed in with the images she was seeing. She felt as if the world was closing in on her. "Stop it…stop…don't…I didn't…I can't…"

"Ah! I've been hit!" All the gathered men laughed when their fellow crewmate grabbed his stomach and dramatically dropped to the ground like he was gutted. "Oh, the pain! Grandmama, I'm coming to be with you!"

"You're such a goof!"

"You should have gone into the theater instead of becoming a pirate!"

"Yeah, you really could have knocked them dead on the stage!"

"Stop it," she whispered to herself. She grabbed her head more tightly as their laughing increased and tried to curl into herself to get away from their laughter, to get away from the dark images rolling through her head. "Please… just stop it. Don't do…this…anymore. It hurts."

Shachi was walking down the hallway with a light whistle playing on his lips. He came upon the rec. room and decided to drop in and see how the girl was doing since he didn't have any orders or anything else to do at the moment. He hoped she was doing all right with her first real trip out of the recovery room. It would be amazing if she was doing fine. He wanted her to come to trust them. And consider that their captain was letting her out like this it appeared they were on the right track.

He tromped down the stairs, hearing the loud laughter that was coming from down the hall. His whistle caught in his throat while he kneaded his eyebrows, wondering where exact the laughter was coming from. He hoped they weren't in the rec. room with the girl. He relaxed and shook his head. The girl should be fine. Penguin was with her and he was very good at carrying out commands their captain gave them. He wouldn't let anything happen to the girl. The light tune came back to his lips as he headed down the hall.

When he finally reached the room he turned into it, his whistling cut off when his eyes dropped to his fellow crewmates, one which was on the floor acting as if he was injured or something, goofing around then immediately shot over to the girl. His heart took a sharp jolt in panic to see how much distress the girl was in. Despite there being several feet between him and her, he could clearly see her body trembling. Her face was red and stained with tears from crying. His brain didn't even register the many crystals hovering in the air around the room. He just slapped himself on the head in frustration with how inconsiderate his crewmates were being. "Oh geez! You morons! Penguin!"

Penguin was still lost in the depths of his book. He didn't notice anything that was going on around him in the rec. room until he heard his best friend shouting out his name in a panic. He looked up to the man calling out his name. "Huh?"

"The girl!" Shachi said, pointing at the distressed blue haired girl.

"Oh crap!" Penguin cursed when he realized what had happened. He had unintentionally let himself get lost in the world of the book he was reading and didn't even noticed his crewmates had came in the room with them. He closed his book and placed it down on the couch beside him. But before he, Shachi, or even Bepo could do anything about their crewmates or the girl, her scream erupted over the jollies the Heart Pirates were having.

"Stop it!" she screamed, finally bringing everyone's attention to her.

"Hey, are you okay?" the want to be swordsman asked. He walked closer to her and reached out for her shoulder.

"No! Don't touch her!" Penguin shouted, but it was too late. His crewmate placed his hand on her shoulder.

She screamed again. A pain and fear filled scream like none of them had ever heard before. She flung herself backwards. Tipping the chair and herself over. The chair hit the floor of the sub, making her release a startled scream and causing the crystals to become clearer to all of the pirates.

"Huh?" The Heart Pirates all gasped when they finally noticed glittering sparkles of crystals around the room. The light blue crystals were of all shapes and sizes, just lazily hovering around the room. But what puzzled them the most was when wind began to spin around the crystals like small whirlwinds. And with each passing second, the whirlwinds became stronger and stronger.

"What's happening?!" another crewmember asked, holding down his hat when the wind became strong enough to blow it off.

"Stop it! Stop it!" The girl continued to scream from her spot on the floor. Curling more into herself, she held her head in her hands as she managed to scoot back away from all the men in the room. The chain, that Penguin was supposed to be watching, slid off the couch and onto the floor with a startling clank. She jumped at the sound and scooted away faster until she had herself pressed firmly against the wall as far away from the pirates as she could get. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

"What the heck is going on here?!"

"Someone stop her!

"How is she even doing this?!"

"Is she crazy?!"

"Will you all knock that off?!" Shachi demanded. "Haven't you all scared her enough?!" His crewmates blinked at him like they didn't have a clew what he was talking about. He sighed. They really were clueless. "Just keep quiet! Let Penguin handle this! Penguin!"

"Uh, yeah!" Penguin nodded and walked over to the girl. He struggled a bit against the wind she was somehow creating. Hoping she could hear him over the wind, he spoke as softly as he could. "Hey, shh, it's okay, sweetie. They didn't mean any harm." Staying four feet away from her, he knelt down to try and make himself less imposing to her despite the fact she was refusing to look at him or anyone else. He kept his voice low and soothing as much as he could. "It's okay, honey. Just take it easy. You don't have to be scared. They're not going to hurt you. They really didn't mean any harm to you. They were just joking around that's all. You know? Having some fun? They didn't hurt anyone at all."

"Stay away from me!" Tears poured down her cheeks as she screamed out again, the wind seemingly picking up at her outburst. "Stay away!"

Penguin knew she didn't hear him. He wasn't sure if it was because she was so scared or if she just didn't hear him over the wind.

Bepo lifted his arm over his face, pushing against the girl's wind as much as he possibly could. But no matter how much he tried to dig his boots into the metal floor, her winds still managed to push him back. He finally he felt the back of his boot press against the wall. It helped stabilized him. He stared at the crystals in front of him. There were just so many. He counted at least thirty near him. All of them different shapes and sized that ranged from an inch to two and a half inches long. He wanted to count them all but the wind was just too much. It kept drying out his eyes and blowing his fur and boiler suit all over his body. His brain went over and over all of the devil fruits he's heard of. None like this came to mind. But she had to have a devil fruit. What else could she possess?

He looked out to his fellow crewmates. They were having just as much trouble as he was keeping their footing. Some had already been blown against the wall as some were on the floor trying not to get thrown up against anything while dodging all the loose paper and other lightweight items that were currently flying around the room.

"What are these?" He had somehow heard a crewmate ask. His black eyes wandered over to the one who had spoke. They all had finally taken noticed of the crystals hovering in the room. His heart hammered inside of his rib cage when he saw his crewmate reaching out for one of the crystals. But before he could issue a warning on leaving the crystals alone, his crewmate tapped a near by crystal with his finger. A gust of wind exploded from the crystal. It knocked them all back against the walls, pinning them in place. "What the heck?!"

Penguin cried out when the wind shoved him back into the table and chairs, knocking them all over. His hip hit the leg of the table while his head collided with the edge of it. Luckily his hat was thick enough that it cushioned the blow, at least for the moment, but he could already feel a bruise forming on his hip. He knew they all would be in trouble if the wind picked up even more. His body and the table and chairs were still sliding over the floor. And not only would they be in trouble but the sub would be as well, assuming that she could increase her winds even farther. It was possible that she could rip the sub apart. He didn't want to chance it. They needed help. They needed their captain.

Struggling to look over at Shachi, the man was being pinning next to the door. He raised his voice over the howling winds as much as possible. He called out, "Shachi! Get the captain!"

"Right!" Shachi nodded. Pushing against the wind, he reached for the edge of the door frame. Once he had his hand firmly on the edge, he pulled himself towards the opening. His arms burned by the time he managed to pull himself through it and disappear down the less windy halls and up towards his captain's quarters.

Penguin watched until his best friend was finally out of the room. His eyes then turned back to the girl. She was still curled against the wall. Questions ran through his mind. The one at the top was asking if this girl even noticed what she was doing. She was so upset that he could only assume that she didn't. He couldn't help but wonder why she suddenly released this power. He knew she was scared from the second she woke up here. So what was it that really caused her to release her power on them now? And why wasn't she using it to try and escape them?

He tried to pull himself along the floor to get back over to her. But with nothing solid and stable to grab onto, his hands and boots just kept sliding back away from her. If this kept up much longer his body, along with the chairs and table, was going to go flying through the air and into his crewmates. He fruitlessly called out to her. "Okay, sweetie, calm down now! We're not going to hurt you! Please, just calm down!"

Law was sitting at his desk in his room, leaning over his medical book that was talking about a new procedure in reconstructing a cheekbone. It was riveting stuff for him to read. But all the while running his eyes over the words in front of him, his mind suddenly snapped back to the girl. Questions of how she and Penguin were doing started to over take his mind. With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. He told himself that they were fine. If something had happened someone would have came and got him by now. His eyes wandered over to the porthole in his room. He had the curtains pulled back so the sea life floating by could easily be seen. He had almost forgotten they were underwater. How long have they been submerged? Perhaps it was time for them to head back up to the surface.

It was starting to feel rather stuffy in his room. Bepo was probably sweating right now and whining about how hot he was to the others. Surely the navy was long gone by now. They had at least been underwater for a few hours. Thinking he should get up and have the sub surface again, he just leaned back over his book. He had already ordered for them to surface when the navy was gone. His crew was probably just making sure they had lost the navy ship before surfacing. And that was only because of the girl. Shachi was glad that they weren't going to fight after all. So he was positive the order to submerge made more than just Shachi happy.

Leaning back again in his chair, Law placed his hands behind his hatless head and stared up at the ceiling. He thought it odd how much his crew, most of them, actually cared about the girl. He thought it even odder that he cared so much about her. It was still bugging him that he brought her here. It wasn't as bad as it was before, he just still wanted answers as to why Corazon wanted him to care for her and why he was so willing to do so. It didn't fit him or a pirate crew. He had to be losing his mind. Shaking his head he thought maybe he could figure that all out once the girl started speaking to them.

He leaned forward with the intent to get back to his studying when he felt an odd sensation inside of his chest. Something told him that he needed to go check on the girl. Grabbing his hat, he rose to his feet. All it took was one step for him to notice the breeze that had now entered into his room through his partially opened door. Check the porthole again he made sure they were still underwater. They were. There was no possible way for this amount of wind to be inside of his submarine. And he knew they didn't have any type of machine that would cause wind like this. He bolted for the door. Just as he stepped out into the hall Shachi's voice called out to him.

"Captain! Captain!" Shachi said.

Law turned his eyes down the hall. The older man was running up to him, clearly panicking a bit about something. A shiver ran down his spine. He didn't like that all. Walking towards his subordinate, he asked, "What is it?"

"Captain, we have a problem," Shachi said just as he reached his captain. He pointed back down the hall. "The girl is somehow creating wind inside of the sub. And there are these weird crystals floating around the rec. Room, too. I think she created them."

Law frowned. His feeling about something being wrong was correct. Something had happened with the girl. With no other words between the men, he started to lead the way back down to the rec. room. A question to whether or not he should have brought his sword with him passed through his mind as they pushed their way through the wind and down the stairs. Ultimately, he decided it was probably better that he didn't bring it. The girl wasn't an enemy. He, somehow, knew that for sure. He just had to get to the rec. room and figure out what happened. That is, if he could manage to get to the rec. room. With the wind in the closed off vessel it had nowhere to go.

He tightened his hat down on his head and continued to push himself forward. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that Shachi was having just as much trouble as he was. With the slow progress they were making it was going to take them several minutes to get to the room that should only took a few seconds to reach. He had no choice. Holding up his hand, he created his blue sphere around them and part of the rec. room. "Room. Shambles."

Appearing in the room, Law's eyes widened at the scene before him. The wind was worse than out in the hall. Books, papers, and even a couple of his own men were flying around the wind torn room while the rest were doing their best to anchor themselves down. His eyes flickered to one of the crystals that Shachi had mentioned. Instantly he could feel the raw power with in them despite being unsure of what they were exactly and how it was the girl who was using them to create this windstorm on his sub. But now wasn't the time for questions like that. If something weren't done soon to stop the girl then they all would be in severe trouble. So he tried to push against the wind. It didn't work. There was no way he would be strong enough to walk over to her. So he did the only thing he could. He turned back to Shachi. "Shachi! I have to use you!"

"Aye, Captain!" Shachi nodded in understanding to what his captain meant.

"Room!" Law called out. He once again called up on his own devil fruit powers. Spreading his Room over the rec. room, he switched their bodies. "Shambles!"

The second the girl was in Shachi's place, Law grabbed her shoulders. Instantly, he felt the violent trembling her body was producing. Momentarily it made him forget about his struggles against the wind and the chaos around him. When a gust of wind made him almost lose his grip on her, he snapped out of his thoughts. Roaring over the winds, he said, "That is enough! Stop it right now!"

"I didn't do it!" she screamed back. "I didn't do it!"

Law pulled back his hand to slap her out of this. His hand was suspended in the air. It wouldn't move. It wouldn't obey him. Then he felt it. A cool touch of fingers ghosted around his wrist. Turning his eyes, the coolness of the fingers ran down his arm and into his heart. He knew who it was before he even saw them. Corazon had once again appeared. The man shook his head at Law then disappeared. Exhaling, he turned back to the girl. That's when he noticed it. Something was off about her. In a weird way, it felt like she wasn't even here. Then it clicked in his head. He could tell that she wasn't talking to him. She was talking to someone else. Her mind wasn't in the room with him and his crew. Her mind was completely somewhere else, somewhere in another place, possibly even another time.

"I didn't do anything to him! I don't know where he is! Please, leave me alone!" she screamed.

"What are you talking about?" Law questioned even though he knew there was no way she heard him through her hysteria or over the winds.

"Captain!" Bepo's panic voice broke through the raging winds, snapping the captain out of his thoughts. Law tossed the bear a quick glance. The bear's fur was flying all over as his massive body was still being pressed against the wall like everyone else. "Do something! Please! Captain, please help us!"

Law turned back to the girl. Since slapping her was out of the question, he reached up and applied pressure to the pressure point on her neck, effectively knocking her out instantly. As she went limp in his arms, the wind vanished along with the crystals. The crew fell to the ground with grunts and groans before they picked themselves up. The room was quickly filled with questions of the girl and what had happened.

"What just happened?"

"How was she able to do that?"

"Does she have devil fruit powers?"

"She can't. If she did, she would have used them before to escape from us."

"Then what did she do?"

"I don't know."

"Captain, do you have any idea what she did?" Shachi asked, pushing himself off the wall.

"I don't have a clue," Law replied, not taking his eyes off the now sleeping girl in his arms. He studied her sleeping form for several seconds before running his eyes over the condition of his crew. "How is everyone? Any injuries? And what happened here?"

The crew sounded off. All reporting they didn't receive any injures, only a few bumps and bruises from flying books and paper that had given them a few paper cuts.

"It was my fault." Penguin pulled himself off the floor.

"How is it your fault?" the crewmate who had touched her asked. "You didn't do anything. She's just freaked out on us."

"Exactly. I didn't do anything." Penguin's reply earned him several confused glances from his crewmates.

"Explain," Law ordered.

"I was supposed to be watching her while she was in my care. But I allowed myself to get too wrapped up in my book and didn't notice the rest of the crew coming in," Penguin explained. "She wasn't comfortable with it at all. Then it only got worse when one of us touched her."

"That's right," Shachi said, backing his friend up. "When I came in the room it was obvious she was nervous. We were blocking the door. You know how she keeps glancing at them. I guess she just couldn't handle having her only escape route blocked. We freaked her out without realizing it."

"Are you two serious?" another crewmate asked. "She freaked out because the door was blocked?"

"That and by being touched," Shachi clarified.

"They have a point," Law said. He looking back down at the girl in his arms, shifted her into a better position, and stood up with her in his hold. "She does have a habit of keeping an eye on the doors. But I don't think that's the only thing that caused her to lose it. If that were it, then she would have had this reaction when I chained her to the recovery bed. That prevented her from getting to her escape route too. But she didn't do anything like this."

"So, it wasn't really about not being able to escape. It was more about all of us in the room," Shachi summoned up. "Kinda makes it sound like she was ganged up on or something."

"But why would someone want to do that?" Bepo asked, smoothing down his wind blown fur. He walked over to his captain and looked at the girl in his arms. She looked so peaceful sleeping there. She didn't look like she could hurt anyone, even with her wind crystals. The thought of anyone hurting her bothered him. She was good. He could tell that. He knew that.

"I have no idea. I'm just spit balling here." Shachi huffed at their lack of answers to their increasing questions about the girl.

"I'm going to take her back to her room now." Law glanced around the mess now cluttered in the formerly clean rec. room. "Clean this place up."

"Aye, Captain," the crew shouted.

Law nodded then left the room without another glance at them. Working his way up to the medical bay, his head was buzzing. His brain was trying to form any kind of answers that would satisfy him. He got none. Just more questions piled on to his still growing pile of unanswered questions. He was almost to the room she stayed in when Penguin's voice rang out to him.

"Captain, wait!" Penguin ran down the hall. He continued to speak once he had caught up to his captain. "Captain, I really am sorry. You entrusted me with taking care of her and I failed you."

"Don't worry about it," Law said, entering into the room.

Penguin raised an eyebrow when his captain said that. He wasn't expecting it to just be brushed off. The girl could have hurt them. Still, he followed his captain into the room. "What do you mean, Captain?"

"I don't blame you for anything that happen just now," Law replied. He laid her down on the bed. He continued speaking to Penguin as he removed the chains from her wrist and replaced the correct one on her right wrist, linking her back to the bed. A tick of his heart caused him to second guess chaining her back to the bed. But with what happened in the rec. room he couldn't take the risk of leaving her unbound. He had no idea what she was going to do when she woke up. "I expected something like this would occur before you brought her back up here, but not the wind of course."

"Are you saying that this was some kind of test for her?" Penguin asked.

"Not really." Law shrugged. "Though I do believe it has confirmed that she has been through something extremely painful. Well, I'm not sure painful is really a strong enough word for it. Traumatized might be more fitting."

"For what?" Penguin asked

"Whatever it was she's been through," Law replied.

"But what has she been through? What could have happened to her to cause her to be this afraid of people? And what were those crystals things that appeared in there?" Penguin questioned while his hidden eyes dropped down to the girl.

Law didn't answer for a while. He had no answer to give. All he said was "Go help finish up cleaning the rec. room for now."

"Yes, sir." Penguin sighed. He took one last look at the girl before finally leaving the room.

Law remained standing by the unconscious girl's bed. His mind was once again going over all of the mounting questions they had about her. About twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door. It broke him from his thoughts. "Yes? Come in."

The door creaked open, soon followed by Bepo poking his head in. "Can I talk to you for a moment, Captain?"

"Come in." Law said. The bear did as he was told and stepped into the room. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Well, it's about her." Bepo nodded at the unconscious girl.

"What about her?" Law turned his body to his navigator.

"It's kind of about her freaking out. Maybe a bit before it happened..." Bepo started but paused.

"Yes?" Law inquired.

"I sensed something," Bepo continued. "It was like when I can sense when a very bad storm is approaching. You know, because I'm a bear? It felt like she was calling up a storm. Is that possible?"

Law narrowed his eyebrows at the bear. "I don't know. It seems that all this girl can do is give us more unanswered questions after unanswered questions. I'm going to have to get her to answer our questions if she's going to be staying on this ship with us."

"How are you going to do that?" Bepo asked.

"Continue trying to gain her trust," Law replied. "It's obvious that my typical tactics of torture aren't going to work on this girl, even if I did want to use them. And I blame Cora for that."

"What do you mean by that, Captain?" Bepo asked.

"It's nothing. Never mind that. We're just going to have to start treating her more like a member of the crew," Law said.

"She's a member of the crew now?" Bepo gave his captain a quizzical look.

"No, we'll just treat her like it," Law explained. "Show in more everyday gestures that she's not in any danger here and that we view her as a normal human being." His body twitched at the word human. He forced it aside for now. "I'm sure it'll work out a lot better than keeping her locked up like this. Unless there's something else, you can go now."

"Aye, Captain." Bepo nodded. "I've nothing else to say."

Law kept his eyes on his navigator as the bear left the room. It was obvious that Bepo was still slightly confused at was he was planning on doing with the girl. But there was nothing that could be done about that. They did not need another episode like the one that happened today. On a regular ship it wouldn't have been so bad. Ships were open to the outside world so her wind would have been easily released through doors unlike in the confined space of his sub. She needed to keep control over her abilities, whatever they truly may be.

Now again alone with her, he couldn't stop himself from reaching out to her. He took a strand of her blue hair in between his fingers. Her hair was soft, practically silkily soft. It wasn't what he was expecting from a girl who came from nowhere and from being in the dirty mess that she was in before. In her sleep, she shifted, touching her cheek against the back of his fingers. He could feel her shivering in her sleep but her skin wasn't cold. It was from what happened before. Mumbling, he said, "Such a strange girl you are. What happened to make you so scared of people? Why do you keep shivering like your cold? Just who the heck are you? And why do I keep talking to myself and asking the same questions over and over?"

With a heavy sigh at the annoying questions that wouldn't leave him in peace, he sat down on the edge of the bed. He didn't want to leave her just yet. It annoyed him even more that he wanted to stay with her. But he needed to think more about his decision to treat her more like a member of his crew. She wasn't going to have any crewmember duties to preform, she wasn't a pirate after all, but he did want her to learn life skills, if she was missing any. And that meant things that people normally did on daily bases like cleaning, taking their own bath, and basic stuff like that. Right away he knew she wasn't going to be showering in the crews' quarters. She would have to use his private bathroom in his quarters. He knew his crew wouldn't peak in on her and vice versa, especially if he ordered them not to and stationed Bepo outside the bathroom just in case. He just didn't want to chance an accidental walk in on her.

And neither would she be sleeping on the same floor with the crew. She still needed a tight hold on her, especially after what happened today. He didn't blame Penguin for anything that happened. He just knew this girl was going to need someone to set boundaries for her and keep a firm hold on what she can and can't do. She needed stability. His crew wouldn't be able to do that on their own. They already proved that with how worried they were over her and how happy they were when they didn't engage the navy ship. Still, he didn't want her sleeping up here in the medical bay. This place wasn't a bedroom. It was a place for recovering. With his crew growing he knew that he would need this room for the injured at some point in time. She needed a room. A place where she could put her own clothes in a dresser or a closet, once he got them for her that is. They still had a while before reaching the next island where he could do that.

He knew only one place that would suit her. And that was his room. She was going to stay in his room at least until he could come up with a better solution.

He then pondered over whether or not he was going to allow her to leave the sub. Instantly he knew she wouldn't be leaving the sub any time soon. She would have to gain his trust before he allowed that to happen. And she would have to get use to being around more people. He definitely didn't want something like today to happen around others. If someone outside of his crew saw what she could do he had no doubt that they would try and kidnap her. Pirates and even the navy were bound to take an interest in her strange wind ability. They could easily use her to their advantage and would without carrying how it affected her.

Hot anger flared up in his chest at the mere thought of that. There was no way he was going to let that happen. She had been damaged enough. Who knows what would happen if he let someone take her. He knew other pirates weren't as nice as his crew was. And despite his own reputation for being sadistic towards his enemies, he would never hurt a member of his own crew or this girl. Trust and loyalty in his crew was important to him. He never would rule over his crew with fear. It wasn't his style. So whenever the time came for her to step off of the sub, someone was always going to be with her. That was one thing that he would not budge on. Either she was with at least one of them or she remained on the sub.

And thinking of his sadistic nature towards his enemies brought up another issue he needed to address. He was going to have to be careful about letting that side of him out when she was around. She surely would become even more afraid of him if she saw him like that. But that was a problem for later. He had no intention of letting her be around him during those times. Most of those times happened during fights anyway. Right now he was more concerned about the first and most important step, gaining her trust. And like that it was all settled. He was going to give her a week of supervised freedom around the sub then see where he would take her from there. All that was left to do was discuss this with his crew.