A/N: Really short chapter this update. Hopefully this helps lighten the mood.
Thanks for all the feedback. I've been having a lot of fun going down the mihawk path, though it's thrown off a lot of my plans. See the swordsmanship stuff he could teach her was stuff I was hoping to have Zoro help her with. But it's ok, Mihawk/Helena interactions are delightfully awkward and fun to write. It would seem this route is actually going to be a heckuva lot less angsty than my original plan. I think we've had enough angst for a while, don't you?
Also, I know I'm super inconsistent with Kuina's toddler accent. Chalk it up to different people understanding her better/worse? I 'unno, I got nothing.
Ch. 14 – Kina the Amazon
Before Ilium's fall was complete, the bolt to which Princess Kuina had been strapped flew straight and true toward the southern bay. It jolted Camilla as it struck the spear strapped upright to her back. Quickly retrieving the arrow, the Amazonian recognized her fellow nursemaid's artillery and marksmanship almost instantly. And she knew immediately why Kuina had been shot her way.
The initial decoy plan had been intended to get Kuina onto one of the ships at the western port. The more the night progressed, the more it seemed that those ships were no longer an option with all the fighting happening on and outside the western wall. This meant they had three options – take Kuina northward, over Mt. Olympus and into the rural villages behind it, take her through the forest to the east toward Spathens, or take her south out of the sea prism bay.
Spathens and Olympus weren't really feasible. Not in the time crunch they had. – Camilla currently stood south, in the ruins of Mycenae. Clutching the cookie-munching princess to her, bolt and all, Camilla weighed her options.
Unfortunately, the only ships that hadn't been completely destroyed in the port belonged to marines and schichibukai, protected by a regiment of marines. The leader of which, a man named Captain Kumonga, had just spotted her and her charge.
"Surrender the Princess and neither you or she will be harmed," he called to her. He had a spindly black mustache that twitched when he talked. It had been combed and waxed to have eight separate strands that reached down past his cheeks. He had dyed yellow kinks in it to look like the joints of a spider's legs.
"Don't try to lie to me, marine," Camilla snapped, drawing her spear. She put the enormous crossbow bolt point down into her spear holster, effectively holding Kuina upright on her back and freeing her own arms to fight. "Even if I surrendered her, you would just execute her or lock her up to rot, sickos. She's only a child!"
Kumonga twitched his mustache, but had no retort for this. He signaled his men to raise their weapons, but raised none himself. Instead, he grew and sprouted four more limbs, black and yellow like his mustache. More eyes sprouted on his face. Pincers poked out from under his lip fuzz. Bristles sprouted all over his body.
So he had some kind of tarantula devil fruit. Peachy.
"Now now, Camilla, let's be reasonable here," a familiar voice put in behind her, "You know that of the immortal royals, it would benefit the World Government most for young Kuina to be the one to survive. Why do you think Cipher Pol's put most of its focus on her? – Now, hand her over, and we'll make sure she is well looked after, like it's our job."
Camilla shot a glare over her shoulder. "You're the last person I would ever trust, Bags. I'm not letting you anywhere near her."
"It's rude of you to even suggest it," another voice put in. Prunella pounded her flail into the beach of the sand for emphasis, taking a stand beside her fellow nursemaid. "I think it's about time someone put you in your place. There are few things more impolite than betrayal, scum."
Prunella charged Bags while Camilla focused her attention on the marines. Using her spear to vault over the sudden wall of gunfire from Kumonga's men, she went straight for their captain. He spit a web at her from his mouth, catching her legs as she went. Still airborn, she drew her sea prism dagger and threw it hard so that it struck the devil in one of his many eyes.
Screaming and flailing his many limbs, he fell into the sand. Unfortunately, with her legs now bound, Camilla wasn't much better off. She stumbled where she landed, making sure to fall face forward so as not to injure the Princess.
She had to turn quickly to shield Kuina from the enemy guns, though they actually held their fire when they realized they had a child between them and their target. Perhaps they had some scruples after all.
As Camilla struggled to free her feet, Prue appeared by her side, Bags on her tail. Swinging her ball and chain wide over both of them, she knocked a clean circle around them, actually managing to bludgeon the chief of Cipher Pol 4. The ball didn't do much damage to him, but at least it pushed him back.
Feet now mostly free of the sticky web, Camilla struggled upright. She knew without a doubt that she and Prunella would be captured or killed at this rate. There were just too many of them. Though she could see Astyanax and Epiphany making their way across the beach to back them up, they had come in pursuit of Orpheus, Nysa, and Diddy, who had likely followed the princess here. The other nursemaids would do little to even the odds.
Camilla called for Prue to cover her. Retrieving Kuina from her back, the Amazon shot the Princess a reassuring smile. The girl had finished her cookies by now, and clutched her fox to her, her eyes wide and confused.
"It's going to be alright, Princess," she reassured her. "I'm sending you to a place full of beautiful, strong people who will respect your warrior's spirit. You don't need to be scared."
"Want Papa," Kuina insisted.
"Sorry," Camilla murmured, both to Kuina and to the distant Sun Queen. "We really tried." Praying that no one was paying attention in the confusion of battle, she drew back her muscular, battle hardened arms, and hurled the bolt as though it were her spear.
It landed in the safest place Camilla could think of; aboard the ship of the Kuja pirates. After all, Boa Hancock was the most beautiful, compassionate, perfect ruler to have ever lived. Still a faithful Amazon through and through, Camilla didn't once doubt that Hancock would welcome the princess with open arms.
Hancock held the giggling toddler over the side of her ship by the ankle. It had been a long night, and she didn't have patience to spare for stowaways.
"Wait, Big Sister!" Marigold cried, "She's just a child!"
"Not to mention the daughter of the Sun Queen of Ilium!" Sandersonia put in.
"I can see that," Hancock snapped.
"The World Government will want her!" they pointed out.
"So she's something to them, but nothing to me," Hancock retorted. Without further ado, she released the child, letting her fall to the ocean's mercy. "Anyway, even if I toss her overboard you will forgive me because I. Am. Beautiful!"
She tried to use her beautiful face on the crew, but Marigold cut her short when she pointed out:
"But she's also the daughter of one of the Straw Hats!"
Hancock's selective hearing filtered out a few words. With a beautiful shriek she jumped over the railing to rescue the girl now caught in the waves.
"Princess!" her crew cried in unison. Several of the Kuja jumped after her, and soon they had her and the water-logged toddler back on board.
Breathing hard and clutching a towel that someone had proffered her around her shoulders, Hancock stared at the dripping, shivering child, who stared back at her with sparkling eyes:
"You reawwy pwetty," she said, hardly blinking as one of the crew started to towel her dry.
"Your father is a pirate?" Hancock asked her, ignoring this not unexpected praise.
Kuina nodded. "Papa reawwy stwong piwate," she confirmed, clutching her soaking fox plush to her.
Hancock fell back in a near faint. "How could he do this to me?" she cried in agony.
"Sister, we said the Sun Queen was married to A Straw Hat, not THE Straw Hat," Mari tried to reassure her. "Considering the Princess' hair color, it's probably safe to assume that her father is…"
"WAIT!" Hancock cried, sitting upright suddenly again, knocking over the crew members who had been leaning over her in concern. "The Sun Queen was just killed, wasn't she?"
"Well, that hasn't been confirmed…" Sonia started.
"And if she's dead, that means that Luffy is single again," she concluded. "And the quickest way to his heart would be through…"
"His stomache…?" Mari reminded her.
"…his daughter!" Hancock cried, pounding a hand into her palm. She turned her gaze back on the toddler. "I will be her mother now!"
"Reawwy?" the child asked, her eyes growing even more wide and awestruck. Though innocent, she could do nothing in the face of Hancock's entrancing beauty.
"Would you like that, little one?" Hancock asked her, smiling winningly at the spell-bound babe. "You could have as many sweets as you want, stay up as late as you want. I'll get you far better toys than this one," she tried to pry the fox plush from the toddler's arms, but despite her still awestruck gaze, the little princess' grip tightened around it.
"Papa give me," she said.
"In that case, he needs a crown," Hancock amended, snapping her fingers. Someone produced a small coronet and placed it on the fox plush's head. "Now, what is your name, little one?"
"Kina," she replied, still not fully able to pronounce it. She made a charming little curtsey, impressively polite for one so young.
"Princess Kina," Hancock repeated. "I am Boa Hancock, but from now on you will call me Mo—"
"Hammock?" 'Kina' asked, and Hancock thought she might faint. It must be fate, if Luffy's daughter should call her the same name that he always had:
"Yes, Hammock. Call me Hammock!"