Ch. 29 - Do Gods Bleed?

Back at Saobody Archipelago, Helena awoke from her drunken rampage with a splitting headache and a weight about her neck. Shakily she raised a hand to her throat and felt a heavy collar there.

"No…" she gasped.

A familiar voice beside her helped calm her panic, but only incrementally:

"Don't be alarmed. This is going according to plan."

Rayleigh?

"What plan?" Helena asked, squinting at him through the darkness of…wherever they were. "Is this thing real?" she asked, pointing to the collar.

"Yes, unfortunately," Rayleigh admitted. She could see him beside her now. He too wore chains and a collar. "We didn't have time or means to get you one that had been dismantled. You'll have to figure out how to safely remove it later. Listen, we know what happened. I pulled you from the wreckage of Saobody Opera House before the authorities could get you."

"That was lucky…" Helena mumbled.

"Not luck," Rayleigh explained. "Shakky and I have been trying to remember what was off about that place. We mentioned it in front of Duval, and he said it's a front for some kind of specialized slave trading. I came to warn you but found it was too late."

"Wait, Kuina isn't the only one Balanchine has sold?"

"No. Listen, the only way you're going to get to young Kuina is to be sold as a slave yourself. We brought Duval in on it…"

"Remind me who that is and why he would help me?" Helena asked. She vaguely remembered him. The man who had helped to guard the Sunny for the Straw Hats.

"He was formerly a slaver. He's been out of the business for a while, but he said he was happy to help out a friend of the Straw Hats. Anyway, he's going to make a killing selling you."

Helena snorted. "I imagine. Where are we?"

"An elite auction house. Only the wealthiest of the wealthy come here, mostly World Nobles. You're up next."

"And you're coming too?" Helena asked. "Remind me why you would want to go to these lengths to help me?"

"Luffy's my nephew," Rayleigh said with a shrug, "You're his nakama."

"More like his nakama's nakama," Helena pointed out.

"Semantics," Rayleigh grinned. "Anyway, I was getting bored. I've let myself get sold a few times, but never to a World Noble; could be interesting to see if I can escape Marie Jois itself."

"You're crazy. You know that, right?" Helena shifted in her chains. Her eyes widened. "I still have my belt swords," she observed. "And my crown." Said item currently sat on her brow.

"Naturally. We want you to be recognized, don't we?" Rayleigh chuckled. "And the belts? Well, I was hoping you could get those in unnoticed. Shakky has your other swords."

"But my crown. I shouldn't be wearing it. It's not right. I'm no longer a…"

She didn't have time to finish her thought. Someone had just gotten a hold of her chains and given them a yank. She stumbled onto a stage, blinking in the sudden influx of light. Despite the light dance costume she still wore – a gauzy imitation of the traditional clothing of her country – she felt suddenly suffocated by the heat of the building. So many wealthy, perfumed bodies packed together to bid on human flesh. Helena thought she might vomit.

"The Flying Fish Riders have come back into business with the find of the century! Helena the Sun Queen of Ilium!"

The sleezy announcer grinned as a murmur shot through the audience of sweaty nobles. Duval, who stood off to the side of the stage, shot her a painful wink, and she cringed. Ah, yes. Now she remembered him. His winks were far from subtle, even at the best of times. If anyone had seen that, it would have given away their plot instantly.

"Let's start the bidding at her bounty at the very least. One hundred million berries!"

Helena didn't know how to feel as no one raised their pallets. None of the nobles actually wanted her. It was kind of insulting in a way.

"Come now! We can do better than this!" the announcer bellowed. "She may not be useful as eye candy, but think of the novelty of a lesser royal in your household! She is a famed swordswoman! Put her to use as a body guard! Look at that strong body! How about a maid? No less than a Queen to scrub your halls!"

This did nothing to up the ante.

Helena skimmed the crowd, searching for Rothbart. She didn't see him. Her eyes locked onto those of someone much worse:

Akainu.

"That woman is not for sale."

His voice boomed through the sweaty auction house. Helena tried not to cringe, to show any fear or emotion or rage. Flames danced in the corners of her vision, threatening to overwhelm her with memories of Ilium ablaze.

And yet, somehow the queen looked him in the eye with a steady gaze as he made his way toward the stage. Murmurs rippled through the crowd. The auctioneer looked like he might faint.

"Ah, Fleet Admiral Sir, I understand that this woman is a wanted criminal, but according to article ten section twelve…"

Fleet Admiral Sakazuki merely turned a look on the man, and he melted into a quivering silence. The murmurs died down as he turned his gaze to the merchandise:

"Hello, Helena de Zoro," he seemed to still get a kick out of her married name, for whatever reason. Helena hardly blinked. "You will be coming with me."

The auctioneer looked like he wanted to say something, but was too afraid to speak. Akainu sensed the unasked question and answered it calmly:

"She is not for sale because she already belongs to someone. A World Noble. If he reneges his claim on her, I will return her here for auction."

The auctioneer nodded in understanding, and shot a shrug to Duval, who gave Helena an apologetic look. The man had no subtlety, did he? Did he want it to look like he was trying to help her?

She chanced a glance at Rayleigh only to see that the old pirate had disappeared. Well, perhaps his sense of adventure had waned in the face of the Fleet Admiral himself. Helena couldn't exactly blame him.

Akainu made to take Helena by her chains, but she took a step forward of her own accord:

"I will not be dragged like a common slave, thank you," she informed him point blank.

"Ah, but that is what you are, De Zoro," he goaded; however, he didn't take up the chains. After all, it wasn't like she could make a break for it or anything. He gestured for her to go first, and she stepped off of the stage with her head held high.

Helena was somewhat surprised. She didn't expect Akainu to treat her with decency. Not after the way he'd treated her and her family in the past.

It wasn't long before he had her comfortably riding a bubble rickshaw, en route to Marie Jois. Well, that's where she'd wanted to be all along, wasn't it?

"You aren't going to kill me?" she commented to him, and he grinned.

"Would you like me to?" he rumbled.

Helena decided not to deign this with a response.

"I admit, it is tempting. I could have incinerated you right there on that stage, but this fate seems far more just," Akainu admitted. "You should have belonged to Rothbart ages ago. All the trouble you've caused never would have come about if you're parents had accepted their, and your, proper place in the world. – anyway, you'll get to be with your daughter. Aren't I so generous?"

Helena smirked despite herself:

"Fleet Admiral, "generous" is not really the first word that comes to mind when I think of you."

"Ah, and what is the first word?"

"One not suitable to sully the lips of a Queen I'm afraid, even a deposed one."

Akainu laughed.

"Truly you've caused us no end of trouble, Sun Queen," Akainu went on. "After all the effort we made to keep your daughter's existence off of the radar of the World Nobles, you go flaunting her right in front of one."

"You were trying to keep her a secret from the World Nobles?" Helena inquired. That explained a lot. After all, they hadn't made any mention of her in the papers, except the misprint in the article about Hancock choosing an heir. Kuina had a distinct look, yet she hadn't been given a wanted poster. She would have been an easy target for bounty hunters if they'd put a bolo out on her.

"After all the trouble one god-power connected child had caused, it didn't seem prudent to give them something else to cause a ruckus over," Akainu admitted.

"But you killed the sibyl, so what does it matter?" Helena asked.

"Rothbard doesn't know that," Akainu explained, but there was something in the way he forced himself to meet her gaze. Something in the way he smiled, daring her to call a bluff:

"You know something that I don't," Helena growled. "You think you have some way to access the god powers, don't you? Does Rothbart know?"

Akainu merely smiled that infuriatingly cryptic smile.

"And another thing. Why bring me to my daughter? What kind of plan do you have up your sleeve? It's always something, you wily bast…"

He shook a finger at her. "Ah ah, I thought you wouldn't sully those queenly lips of yours with foul language, Majesty." His gaze snagged on her belts for a moment, and he looked back at her face with a grin. "Those are nice," he said.

Did he know what they were? Why didn't he take them away?

He refused to give her any more information, and eventually they settled into an uneasy silence. Helena couldn't help but fume internally. Sakazuki always had a plan, and she hated to think he was using her to accomplish his own ends.

Soon he had her on a bondola, loaded with other slaves. Helena had ridden one once as a child, but it had been so long ago that she couldn't help but stare in amazement at the bubble contraption before they shoved her below deck. Stuffed shoulder to shoulder with other slaves, she wouldn't get any sort of view of their ascent of the Red Line.

Still fuming over Akainu and trying to figure out why he would want her reunited with Kuina, it took her a moment to register a hiss at her feet. Squinting in the darkness, she looked down to see Lady coiled about ankles.

"Ah, so you made it, you silly snake. I was wondering where you were."

"She's been hanging around me," a slave beside her admitted, giving Lady a scratch on the chin. The snake had Foxy tied to her with a ribbon for safe keeping. "Let's just say she wasn't about to let us perform a Kuina rescue mission without her."

"Shakky?" Helena spluttered, turning to her in surprise. The woman wore no collar, yet lounged with the other slaves as though she belonged there. "How did you get here?"

"Don't worry about it," she replied dismissively.

"Where's Rayleigh?" Helena asked. "Is he back at the bar? Is that why you're here?"

"Rayleigh is scaling the Red Line by hand," she said dismissively, as though he performed Herculean feats every day. "He has your swords now, by the way. He'll get them to you when we reach the top."

"He's what?" Helena spluttered. Scaling the Red Line by hand? Was he nuts? Maybe Shakky was just messing with her.

"Honestly, I thought he'd gotten cold feet at the auction house when he saw Akainu was there," Helena admitted.
Shakky chuckled. "Cold feet, eh? No, but Akainu would have recognized him, which would have blown our plan. Honestly, we should be thanking him. We had no way of insuring that a World Noble would purchase you. He's given you a direct pass to Marie Jois. Not only that, but he's sending you straight to Rothbart."

"That's what worries me," Helena admitted. "It's almost like he knows what I'm planning to do. Like he wants me to do it! I mean, he didn't even disarm me!"

This gave Shakky pause. "That is concerning. Do you think he will try to intervene?"

"I have no idea. You'd think he'd have done me in at the auction house. It's not like anyone wanted to buy me, so he didn't have any political repercussions to worry about. Not to mention I'm a wanted criminal and he hates me and my family. He has no reason to keep me alive."

"We can't do anything about it. Just be vigilant," Shakky advised. "We have to focus on rescuing young Kuina before anything happens to her."

"How do we know something hasn't already?"

Shakky sighed. "We don't," she said heavily.

"I won't bore you with the details," Helena told the Straw Hats. Her tone had become dead during this part of the telling, like she was afraid to think or feel too much about what she was saying. "Suffice it, they took me to Rothbart's manor. There is a bit of a process, vetting incoming slaves. They didn't recognize my belts were swords though, so I went in armed."

"What about Shakky?" Zoro asked. "You said she didn't have a collar."

"Shakky told me I was on my own, and that Rayleigh would find me to give me the rest of my swords sooner or later. She left me to the process as soon as our Bondola reached the top of the Red Line," Helena explained.

"That process ends with branding," Robin pointed out, and at this Zoro turned to look sharply at Helena.

"Wait, were you…?"

Helena smiled wryly at him. "No, they didn't brand me. I didn't give them the chance."

Helena stared wide-eyed at the line of chained slaves in front of her, one by one having the backs of their clothing torn open to expose them to the brand. The ones who struggled ended up with a botched brand and had to be marked again. Their pained screams made Helena's bound hands itch toward her swords. They were out of reach, and they'd manacled her feet to a long chain, keeping her in line with her fellow slaves. She'd have to wait until the opportune moment.

Two slavers would take off the foot manacles, removing their captive from the line before they held each victim down. Then a man with a white robe, a Celestial Dragon, did the actual branding. It wasn't Coppelius Rothbart, but inevitably one of his horrible kin. Another Coppelius. A son perhaps? He had the same type of owlish face, but younger and without a beard. Helena hated him on sight.

She forced herself to take deep breaths. Either this would go very well or very poorly.

When her turn came, they didn't need to tear open the back of her dress. The dance costume already exposed a good portion of her back, and the dragon claw scar Regent had left on it. The slavers discussed the mark, and decided it best to brand her right in the middle of it, but Helena didn't give them a chance.

The instant the slavers lay her down on the slab, she arched her flexible back. Kicking up and crossed her legs behind her, she used her toes to grab hold of her belt swords. In an instant she had slain the two slavers helping with the branding.

She used her foot swords to catch the brand in the Celestial Dragon's hands, and flipped it so that it flew free of his grasp.

"I wouldn't try that if I were you!" the Coppelius shrieked in both fear and disgust, lifting what appeared to be a detonator. He pointed it at Helena's collar. "I can blow your head off with the touch of a button!"

Helena smirked at him. She lifted her bound hands, and tapped the pin of the collar, starting the timer.

"What are you smiling about?"

Helena's smile widened. The dragon took a nervous step back.

"I'm warning you!"

In an instant, Helena disappeared, reappearing moments later behind the dragon's back. She soon had him pressed against her, her chained arms holding him tightly to her so he could hear the ticking bomb in his own ear. Here on Marie Jois he didn't wear his bubble helm, and so had nothing between himself and the bite of Helena's chains at his throat.

"You might want to give me the key, or you'll be going up in smoke with me, Coppelius."

"Guards!" The dragon screamed, beating futilely at her arms. He clearly had no idea how to get out of the chokehold.

"Master Seigfried!" his men cried, but Helena gave them a glare and they dare not come forward.

The beeping sped up and grew louder, making the dragon's eyes bulge. "GUARDS!" he squealed again.

"They won't close in. You can't feel it through that stupid fat suit of yours, but I've got a sword ready to stab you through back here. They make one move and you're a goner, understand?"

"You'll never get away with this!" the nobleman squealed, but he procured a master key from his belt. He unlocked her cuffed hands, and let her take the key to turn off her collar's detonator.

Soon all her chains lay on the stone floor of the branding room. Her two swords now in her hands, she faced the guards, who all jumped her at once. Despite their heavy armor, she made quick work of them.

She stood amid the carnage, the object of awed stares by her fellow slaves.

"Wait, I know you," Seigfried said, taking in the crown on her brow and the blood on her two blades. "You're…you're the one my father told me about. The Sun Queen! Your daughter came through to be branded just yesterday evening."

Helena stopped dead and turned slowly to face him, her russet eyes ablaze with a golden-red fury.

"You branded my daughter?" she growled. "YOU BRANDED A TODDLER?"

Of course, they had branded her. Helena had dared to hope, had dared to give one more shred of humanity to her captors, had dared to believe they wouldn't go through with such a grisly process on one so young. Why she had thought as much was a mystery to her even then.

Within moments she had run the nobleman through. He never felt the fatal blow. The haki pulsating off of her was enough to knock him and the slaves out cold.

Helena glanced at the unconscious slaves and at her key, then swore under her breath. "I don't have time to free them all. Kuina needs me. Now."

She closed her eyes and focused her haki outward. More guards nearby had heard the ruckus and were on their way. She had maybe a minute before they arrived. She felt a good deal of confusion and fear, but a few floors above she felt an air of merriment. She sensed Rothbart and others of his station. There must have been some sort of party going on in the uppermost floor.

But where was Kuina? Helena couldn't sense her anywhere.

What if…what if the branding had been too much for her? What if it had killed her?

She sensed Shakky before she saw her. Actually, she sensed the approaching guards fall unconscious first, just before Shakky sauntered into the room. A glance down the hallway she'd come from confirmed that she had just taken out a whole regiment of armored soldiers.

Shakky took one look at the carnage surrounding Helena, and decided not to comment on it more than to say:

"I see you have things under control here. Let's go. They're holding Kuina in the harem. It's part of an adjacent building."

"HAREM?" Helena seethed.

Lady hissed her own anger from Shakky's side. She seemed to have a pretty human grasp of the situation, and slithered about impatiently, moving between Helena and Shakky as if to say, "Let's go already."

"Before you go jumping to horrible conclusions," a male voice said. "I think she's being kept there as a matter of status, not to be used in the, ah, same way as the other slave wives."

Rayleigh appeared from around another bend. He looked a bit winded, if only just.

"Took you long enough," Shakky commented. "You're getting old."

He tossed her a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. "Only because I stopped to swipe some of these for you off a guard."

"You're too good to me," Shakky chuckled, "They're even my brand."

"Other wives?!" Helena snapped, as though the conversation hadn't been interrupted by Rayleigh's arrival. "You're telling me the marriage has already taken place?"

"They don't waste time, these nobles," Shakky commented, "Come, I can lead you to the Harem."

Rayleigh tossed Helena swords to her and started after his wife, Lady quick to match pace with the couple. It took them all a moment to realize that Helena hadn't moved.

"Roronoa-Chan?"

Helena stood in a shadowed corner of the servant's quarters, the rage still flowing off of her in palpable waves. She could feel the fires of Tartarus burning in her soul, an anger so powerful it threatened every moment to overwhelm her.

"We need to hurry, Your Majesty," Rayleigh attempted.

"Don't call me that," Helena seethed. "Akainu implied they might know how to access the god powers through Kuina. If Rothbart married her, I have to end the marriage."

Shakky took a huff of one of her newfound cigarettes, letting lose a small stream a smoke before speaking. "And how do you propose to do that?"

The warrior queen raised her bloodied sword.

Three floors up, Rothbart raised a glass of wine in merriment; a toast among his fellows. "To the Sun Queen's daughter! Harbinger of prosperity," he burbled. "One day she might grow into a fine swan for my little collection. But even now she is worth more than all of them combined. To the little, moss-curled Cygnet, newest of my wives!"

Drunken voices echoed his own.

"And this just in, my fellows," Rothbart went on, a huge grin on his tiny mouth. "I overheard from the Fleet Admiral himself that the trollop, Helena du Cygnus had been captured by slavers after making a mess of my favorite opera house.

He took a deep swig from a diamond encrusted goblet and went on. "I said to the old Red Dog, 'Akainu,' I said. 'How can I go to the auction house when I've got my own wedding to attend?' And do you know what he said to me? 'Saint Coppelius Rothbart,' he said, 'I will make sure she is yours. And that it won't cost you a berry more after all your troubles.'"

He laughed loudly with his cohorts.

"So a toast to the Sun Queen, who will finally have a proper brand on her back!" he cried, "A toast to the wayward trollop who dallies with a pirate when she could have had a god. Hoo hoo hoo!"

"Petty, vain, power hungry," a confident female alto cut through the tittering chatter. Something about the voice commanded immediate attention, and the room fell silent. "If I have learned anything about the gods, you'd fit right in with them, Rothbart."

He swayed and turned to look at her. A smarmy grin spread across is little mouth as he seemed to recognize her, only to open his enormous eyes in sudden shock when he got a decent look at her. She sat in all confidence atop one of the tables, legs crossed, cleaning one of her rapier of blood. A six-foot, ivory-colored serpent circled her, hissing menacingly.

"Wait, where is your collar? Why are you armed?"

Helena smiled. "Tell me something, Rothbart," she asked. "Do gods bleed?"

She threw a slash from where she sat. Rothbart looked on in drunken horror as the glowing line made contact with his chest, flipping him clean over his table. He landed on the floor with a crash, his guests screaming for the guards.

No guards came to their rescue. Rothbart could only presume Helena had already disposed of them. His fellow nobles were no help. A few had drawn their pistols, but most had already fled.

He stared in horror as blood soaked his once pristine white robes.

"Hm, not a god after all," Helena sauntered over to him. She knelt close, tipping his chin up to her with the tip of her dagger. "Neither was your son."

Siegfried.

"How dare you, you peasant witch," he snarled. "I'll see you quartered for this."

"What a lovely idea," Helena replied. "I was just wondering how I should end you."

She stood, one foot on his chest, and flipped her dagger about her hand. It glinted evilly in the light of expensive crystal chandeliers. Rothbart could think of no way to defend himself, and then…

A gun shot rang through the air. The Sun Queen slumped, still on her feet, but no longer as threatening.

"You shouldn't let such a lowlife intimidate you like that, Rothbart, it's unseemly."

Saint Charloss had come to his aid. At least he had a few friends with guts enough to open fire!

But then he noticed that Helena sported no wounds on her white dancer's tunic. Her slumped posture had come from dodging the bullet.

"It's sad to me that such pathetic people hold so much of the world's power," Helena said. "Die."

The rest of Charloss' family also opened fire on the misfit queen, but their attempts to bring her under control were in vain. They distracted her just enough for Rothbart to wriggle away, clutching the gushing wound on his chest, but otherwise they only managed to irritate their target further.

"Hephaestus HAMMER!"

She leapt into the air, turned a flip, and then brought down the hilt of her finely crafted sea stone weapon into the white marble floor. Cracks spread from the point of contact, shooting about the room like black lightning. A shockwave knocked all of the nobles to the floor.

Helena looked at Rothbart. He'd come to rest against a load bearing pillar. An evil grin split her face, she drew more of her blades, crossed them before her, and then:

"Chariot of Apollo!"

She crashed into Rothbart in a blaze of fire, and his world went black.