The young woman yawned heavily, tossing her purple bangs out of her hair as she sat up in the tent. The sound of the festivities just outside hadn't lessened. If anything they had significantly increased, and the belligerent rowdy cries of the drunken reprobate pirates pierced at her ears as she felt around in the half-darkness for her clothes.
Colette leaned over the snoring body of her crewmate Lancer, the apprentice shipwright and the only one on board the Obeliskwho seemed to know how to handle a woman.
Desperately needing to relieve herself, she ended her search for her clothes and settled for the young man's black overcoat. She undid the tent flap without bothering to button the coat shut and stepped out on the beach. She had never been especially modest about her body, at least not the parts men most carnally desired, but she made it a point always to conceal her back where the branded mark that had once labeled her a slave still resided, along with the majority of her scars.
She found her boots just outside the tent and slipped them on, the cool night breeze catching her hair as the blazing light of the dozen or so campfires upon the beach stung her eyes.
"Was he a worthy opponent?" The grizzled old pirate Sachs asked her from his spot reclining against a nearby treasure chest, his gaze focused well beneath her eyeline. She bent over, picked up a bottle of black rum from the pouch beside the tent, and wrenched the cork out with her teeth.
"I've yet to find my equal…" Colette spat the cork down into the sand and brought the bottle's neck to her lips, indulging in seven long swallows. "…but when the body craves stimulation, it's better to settle for a novice than pine for a champion."
"I was a champion in my day." Sachs smiled lustfully at her.
"Not one anyone seems to remember." She tossed the bottle into his lap, making him grunt in pain, and she walked towards the smoking remains of the town, pausing to collect her twin rapiers from where she had hidden them underneath one of the bodies of their fallen.
Colette Carlyle was a member of the Driftwood Pirates, named as such when the survivors of the ill-fated Stone Fist pirates had lost their ship during the devastating warring storms of the South Blue. Their name had eerily foretold their undoing, as their captain had refused to lighten the ship and yield their stolen gold to the sea, resulting in the ship splintering and dragging most of its crew into the black maw like lead caskets. Those who had clung to the splintered scraps of their former vessel and outlasted the storms had regrouped to form a new, wiser pirate enterprise that hoarded less and reveled more.
Such was their chore for that evening.
After sacking an isolated port village and looting whatever treasures it had to offer, the pirates returned to the beach to feast, drink, clean their weapons, and stack the heads of those who had tried to resist upon the sand to use as target practice.
Colette picked at the knots in her hair as she walked into the shadows and made her way down a short cobblestone alley towards an enclosed cemetery that had mostly been used as a dumping ground for the slaughtered pack animals deemed worthy enough to gut for meat.
Leaning her swords against a low stone wall and trying to ignore the putrid stench of decaying flesh, Colette kicked a fallen bucket upright and squatted down over it, yawning again and adjusting the borrowed trench coat around her frame.
After a few moments, she heard something moving among the desecrated headstones on the other side of the wall. Drawing a pistol from the coat's pocket she straightened up and quietly maneuvered herself behind a decorative stone angel.
A tall, rugged man who appeared nearly made of stone himself stood within the cemetery walls, a giant cross strapped upon his back as he removed his hat and knelt on one knee before one of the plots.
Colette smirked as she leaned out from behind her angelic shelter and aimed her weapon. The distance wasn't ideal for a single-shot pistol and neither was the lighting, but she trusted her skill to make up enough of the difference to deliver the bullet through the man's back, past his overlarge holy adornment and into his grieving heart. The shadows cast kept the details of the face all but invisible, but by the light of the half-moon she watched as he produced a single rose from his jacket, wrapped it in a white handkerchief, and laid it to rest on a grave splattered with fresh pig's blood.
When the man stood again Colette's heart froze in place as two realizations struck her like twin harpoons to her chest. The first was that she recognized the hawkish eyes that stared in her direction from under the wide-brimmed hat as he silently set it back upon his head. The other was that the overlarge cross upon his back wasn't a cross at all. It was the hilt of an enormous sword.
Colette crashed out of the undergrowth and back onto the beach, barely pausing to catch her breath as she sprinted across the sand.
The captain of the Driftwood Pirates, an extremely lean, wiry man named Argus Saint, sat smoking his clay pipe while having his feet bathed by two young women he had selected from the captives who had once resided in the village.
"Captain!" Colette darted towards him, stopping short, completely forgetting how much of her body was open and exposed. "He's here! In the village!"
The hubbub quieted slightly as Saint opened his mouth and belched a thick spider's web of gray smoke from his mouth.
"Who?" He asked, stroking his beard in a manner that implied he was enjoying the sight of her distress equally as much as her generous visage.
Colette struggled to remember the name. "The pirate with the giant black blade and golden eyes! The one the Navy just issued a new bounty on! The Hawk! Mihawk!"
The crowd's murmur died to a barely audible whisper.
"Dracule Mihawk?" The smile disappeared from Saint's face and was replaced by something between terror and hopelessness.
Colette nodded.
"He's in the village?" Saint pressed her.
"The cemetery." She added quickly.
Argus Saint stood, showcasing the black skull tattoos on the palms of his hands as he set down his pipe and dropped the chain leashes keeping his captives from running off.
"Get some clothes on and sharpen your swords." He snarled as he spat upon the skulls and slicked his hair back with both palms. "Find Nestor and Otto."
But the two men were already there. Nestor was a towering brute of a man with a broadsword strapped to his back, its handle made from discarded whalebone. Otto was a former Navy helmsman with two metal gauntlets with thin poisoned blades sticking from them like scorpion tails. The three of them together were the most formidable warriors amongst the Driftwood Pirates and they had yet to face an adversary they couldn't eliminate.
The pirates who still had wits enough to find their weapons hastily gathered them. Colette slid on a pair of tattered beer-stained shorts and wrapped a length of torn sail around her chest several times before tying it tightly and knotting it. She pulled her blood-stained twin rapiers from their sheaths and let down her purple hair to fly loose in the breeze.
As the dawn began to birth itself over the inky horizon and the pirates prepared to make their way back to the devastated village to set a trap, the man walked down from the trees and onto the beach, his trench coat open to expose his chest, his head bowed and his steps heavy.
Several pirates pulled out their pistols and aimed them at the figure, but not one of them dared to cock back the hammers.
"Argus Saint!" the man bellowed, his eyes narrowed and expression still aimed at the sand.
"Mihawk…" The pirate captain drew his blade with one hand and raised his double-barreled pistol in the other. "Still sulking in the shadows, boy? Where were you when these people needed you? How much of their blood is on your hands because you're forever content to be the eleventh-hour hero?"
"I warned you what would happen if you ever returned here." Mihawk raised his hand and placed it on the hilt of the giant sword strapped to his back. "It's not my hands that are stained with blood, but my boots. That's something a hero may forgive, but not me."
He drew his sword slowly, as though it was made of glass, and pointed its massive edge at Saint.
"The only blood on my hands will be whatever is left of yours as I clean this blade."
Saint cocked the hammer of his pistol. "After you're dead, I'm going to bury you beneath the pig shit right next to your rotting friends. Nestor! Colette! Otto!"
Colette smirked and launched herself forward from where she had been hiding amongst the crowd and the three Driftwood Pirate assassins charged at Mihawk from three different directions.
Mihawk spun in a manner much smoother than Colette would have thought possible given the size of the blade and deflected Nestor's first blow easily, then sidestepped fast enough to dodge her attack and counter Otto's scorpion strikes.
Argus Saint fired his pistol at Dracule Mihawk's head, but the man arched his back and narrowly missed the blast. His hat was ripped from his scalp from the impact of the searing bullet, and the projectile struck the face of an unfortunate pirate behind him.
Nestor corrected his stance and swung his blade in an arc, the metal colliding with Mihawk's ebony blade. Otto sprung forward like a snake, but the golden-eyed pirate wrenched his kogatana from its cord around his neck and parried the man's attack almost effortlessly with the miniature knife.
Colette slid across the sand and stabbed her blades at his legs, aiming to sever his tendons, but he maneuvered around her attack as easily as if he were avoiding a puddle.
The three pirates circled him, taking turns launching attacks at him. They were used to fighting as a unit and knew each other's strengths and weaknesses. They knew where they could press an attack and when to collectively fall back and regroup. They knew how to compensate for the short reach of one or the limited speed of another. This was the first time Colette could remember where all three of them were giving it their all, but none of them could find an opening. This man fought like he was dueling with wind and lightning, seeming to know where each blow was coming from before the attacker had delivered it.
Colette spun her blades rapidly and assaulted him with a barrage of strikes, making Mihawk retreat two steps. Easily the fastest of the three assassins, Colette sought to exhaust enough of his energy for either Otto to get in a poisoned slash that would slow him down, or for Nestor to deliver an attack powerful enough to cleave his giant black blade in two.
Mihawk kicked sand into her face and knocked her aside with the hilt of his sword. Otto attempted to strike him with two quick stinging punches, similar to a boxer, but the closest he came was puncturing the man's trench coat.
Nestor swung his broadsword in a wide arch and Mihawk launched himself over it, stepping off the enemy blade and slashing the man across the face with his kogatana, making the larger pirate roar in fury. When the man landed in the sand a moment later he nimbly spun his sword around his back and parried both of Colette's blows. Shoving her back he side-stepped another attack from Otto, caught the man's right gauntlet blade between his upper arm and forearm at the bend in the elbow, and snapped it off.
Caught off guard by the sudden change of weight Otto stumbled backward, and Mihawk plunged his kogatana into the man's eye. Otto made a croaking gasp and fell backward upon the sand, involuntarily spearing his cheek with his remaining blade as he reached up to cover his wound. He was dead before the poison could take effect.
Colette didn't miss a step as she leaped over her fallen comrade. She stabbed at Mihawk's neck, but the swordsman tossed Otto's broken gauntlet blade in her direction, causing her to recoil and deflect the incoming projectile.
Argus Saint took two careful steps forward and trained his pistol at Mihawk again, waiting for a clean, unobstructed shot.
Enraged at his slashed face, Nestor abandoned any hint of finesse and changed tactics, brutally clashing his blade against the other man's as if he were chopping wood. On the fourth strike, Mihawk's wrists buckled and he let out a strained grunt. Putting his shoulder into the spine of his blade he shoved the larger man's sword back up and off him.
Nestor, trying to put as much force as possible into his next blow, brought his weapon as high up over his head as he could before bringing it down again. Mihawk took advantage of those few seconds to dart sideways, jab his elbow into Argus Saint's throat and disarm him of his pistol. When Nestor's blade came down, Mihawk angled his weapon so the attack glided neatly down the length of the black sword like water off a rooftop and embedded itself in the sand.
Colette barely noticed the blur of motion as Mihawk redirected his attack, spinning his blade like a bo staff, and with a flash of unforgiving cold metal, Nestor's hands were severed from his arms and landed with wet thuds upon the ground, still gripping the handle of the broadsword.
Before the big man could fully comprehend what had happened, Mihawk raised Saint's pistol with his free hand and fired the second shot into Nestor's face.
She winced as she felt warm blood splatter on her cheek.
Argus Saint staggered backward as Mihawk tossed the spent weapon aside and marched toward him.
"There's a special place in Hell for those who defile the earth where the dead sleep."
Colette lunged forward in fury, blindly slashing at the man, causing him to wince as he pivoted a second too late and blood ran down his arm from the first wound any of them had been able to deliver.
She planted her feet between him and her captain, more out of a foolhardy desire to remind Mihawk that she was still a threat than because of any kind of self-sacrificing loyalty to Saint, her confidence reborn upon seeing that her enemy could be made to bleed.
Dracule Mihawk paused as he lowered his sword and touched the wound she had delivered to him. After a moment he raised his golden stare to meet her eyes, instead of her body that all the other men's eyes had lingered on.
"You want to make him the man you die for?"
"If I die, it won't be for any man." Colette kept her voice steady.
Mihawk raised his sword so the point was level with her throat.
"So for what reason do I kill you?"
Colette smirked.
"Because if you don't, I'll kill you instead."
Mihawk seemed to consider for a moment before shrugging microscopically.
"If you feel you're able."
He seemed to vaporize into the space between them and the next thing she knew he was close enough to cleave her in half. She barely brought up her swords in time to deflect the blow, and for thirty seconds that may as well have been the eternity between a star igniting and dying, she held him at bay as they dueled across the sand, her two lighter blades, primarily designed to stab, barely able to hold back the mass of his much larger, heavier cleaver.
Inevitably, before she was able to find a moment of respite, one of her blades shattered like glass and the shrapnel tore at her, cutting angry gashes across her cheek and chest.
She winced and bit back a sudden cry of terrified pain as her second sword was knocked sideways out of her grasp. She felt a searing hot pain rip across her stomach as blood stained the sand at her feet.
Colette collapsed upon her knees and vomited rum down into her fresh blood, the mess obscured by the shadow of her crippled form, the sun having finally broken fully over the horizon's far wall.
Mihawk stepped passed her with barely a sideways glance. "To kill you would be elevating a minnow to a shark." He glowered as Argus Saint dropped his blade and turned to flee.
"Him, however…."
Following their Captain's example, all the other Driftwood Pirates dropped their weapons and took off running in various directions.
Mihawk grinned savagely.
"Sometimes a shark just wants to gorge itself."
Colette's head spun from the pain and she collapsed forward into her warm bile.
When Colette awoke the back of her neck and legs were sunburned and salt water was rushing past her face, stinging her eyes.
She groaned and lifted herself with her arms into a half push-up, and then nearly released a scream from her parched throat as salt water invaded the open wound running horizontally across her stomach.
The tide was coming in, and with it came the scattered remains of her crew. Heads, arms, legs, and feet all seemed to clatter like scraps of metal as the incoming waves jostled them about, the water as crimson as wine. The Driftwood Pirate's once majestic ship, the Obelisk, had been carved into seven or eight fragmented pieces like a slab of meat, and each hollow wooden husk now crookedly stood like a monument of their failure to kill one man. Argus Saint's body was impaled upon the masthead, his head and hands missing and his entrails hanging free.
Limping over to her tent, she noticed Sachs had been cut into multiple pieces and had been indignantly stuffed into the chest he had been reclining against earlier. Pulling out another bottle of black rum she once again wrenched out the cork with her teeth and sloppily spilled it down over her wound.
She gritted her teeth and bit back an anguished cry as she undid the scraps of sails she had used to cover her chest and instead used them to bandage her open wound.
She took a few more swigs from the bottle before tossing it aside and shakily turned to get her bearings.
None of her crew appeared to have been left alive.
Picking up a discarded hat and a sack of gold coins, she sheathed her remaining sword, buttoned her trench coat up, and began to make for the docks where she could hopefully find a boat that was still sea-worthy. After she had gone a few steps she heard a voice behind her.
"Colette? Is he gone?"
She paused and turned.
Lancer was poking his head out of the tent she had shared with him the night before.
"I saw him cut you. I was sure you were dead. I stayed hidden."
He climbed out of the tent and stood up, eyes wide and terrified as he looked over the carnage.
"What do we do now?" He asked pitifully.
Colette winced and waved him over to her with one hand. When he was close enough to embrace, she weakly raised her arms, placed a hand on his shoulder and drove her sword through his throat.
His wet gasp as she drew the sword free again lessened the pain in her stomach some.
Dracule Mihawk had decided to spare her, and she intended to make that known to everyone she encountered moving forward, but she alone would be the one to control the narrative. Not some cowardly onlooker too disloyal and useless to even come out of hiding to check her pulse.
Mihawk's black blade had cut her just a hair's breadth short of a mortal injury. She suspected, or hoped, that the sword master hadn't spared her out of pity or indifference, but because of some kind of begrudging respect. She would cling to that notion. That's what the Driftwood Pirates did after all. Trust that whatever insubstantial bit of wreckage that remained after the decimation would be their salvation.
"Respect…" She licked her lips.
Yes… That tasted right upon her tongue.
Without bothering to clean her blade she walked through the carnage of her former crew, passed the pilfered treasure that littered the sand, passed the formally captive women who were too busy striking hammers against their chains to even notice her, and climbed into a forgotten rowboat at the dock.
Many months later she was leaning against a tavern wall drinking from a rusty tankard when a woman tossed a coin on the table beside her where a chess board had been set up.
"You know the game?" The woman asked.
"I've yet to find my equal…" Colette replied as she drained her tankard and picked up the coin.
She sat down and moved a white pawn forward, allowing an opening for her castle.
Her opponent smiled and moved one of her black knights across the board. "Are you the one who survived a duel with Dracule Mihawk?"
Colette grinned wickedly. "Was my scar showing?"
The woman with the silver streak in her dark hair placed a second coin on the table. "I'm looking for individuals who are as formidable here…" She indicated the chessboard. "...as they are there."
She gestured to Colette's swords.
Colette picked up her white rook and delicately rolled it between two fingers, looking the woman in the eye with piqued curiosity before setting the chess piece back down on the board.
"Which self-proclaimed pirate king are you looking to dethrone?"
The woman leaned in close, so only Colette could hear the words escaping upon her breath.
"All of them."