Chapter Text
Some men took up too great a share of the world to themselves and, upon dying, released all the possibilities they had been hoarding back into the air, to be chased by grown men made as helplessly starry-eyed as children. Wealth, adventure, power, freedom – whatever that meant – were now out there again, in places from which they’d long vanished, ripe for the taking.
As the body of the man who had been King of the Pirates collapsed, a hush fell over the crowd, soon followed by deafening cheers.
I wanted to be the King of the Pirates, once.
A part of her that she thought she’d already starved to death stirred and reached out feebly. She dragged it out of the closet in which she’d locked it and shot it in the head.
Dreams were for children. She’d long replaced hers with plans. Nice, solid, dependable things, plans. One step flowed into the next until the process reached its predictable but satisfying conclusion, and if something went wrong, well, you could always find someone to blame, other than yourself.
Speaking of plans, she had a great one in the works for today, the culmination of many months’ work and one evening of tedious maneuvering with a glue gun. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Dragon’s face when he realized how many of their enemies were about to die.
Crowns and treasure lost their appeal, at the end of the day, when you could just as easily make a throne from a pile of corpses instead.
Dragon pulled the hood down over his head to conceal his face, mindful of the sudden prickly sensation in his eyes, an allergic reaction he always had when he saw someone die. He’d considered staying home and reading about Roger’s execution in the news, but that wouldn’t have felt right. The King of the Pirates had been one of the very few kings who had earned his respect.
Someone tugged at his sleeve. He started and turned around, fists clenched, ready to make an escape if he needed to. Crocodile’s impassive face stared back at him. “Follow me,” she mouthed.
He hesitated. As the corpse had been taken down, the crowd’s mood had shifted from festive to rowdy. Boots, bottles and vegetables in various stages of decay were thrown at the elevated execution platform. The two Marines who’d carried out the execution unhooked their pistols and shot a warning in the air, to dubious effect. From their seats above the crowd, Admiral Sengoku and his subordinates stirred, their faces uneasy.
Dragon had meant to announce the founding of the Revolutionary Army on the following day. He had been presumptuous. The Revolution had already begun.
Crocodile had turned away from him and made her way through the crowd, away from the platform, towards one of the alleys that branched in all directions from the city square. He shrugged and followed. She was, after all, a pragmatic type, not usually prone to flights of fancy.
The alley in which she led him was deserted, a long row of locked doors and shuttered windows. Most of the citizens of Loguetown had gone to attend the execution, with the exception of a few, more sensible souls, who had sensed the coming trouble and left town on the previous day.
The walls dimmed the noise of the crowd, though he could tell, from the way it rose and fell, that the Navy was losing control. “What is it?” he said, raising his voice so that he could be heard.
Crocodile fished in the pocket of the heavy black overcoat that she always wore, regardless of the weather, and took out a gift-wrapped box. “Here.”
He stared at it. “I’m touched that you should remember my birthday was three months ago, but don’t you think this is a bad time?”
“It’s to celebrate the start of the Revolution,” she said, lighting herself a cigar. “A small present from me. Just open it.”
He sighed and complied while she watched him from her heavy-lidded eyes. A series of shots rang from the city square. Smoke began to rise.
“A transponder snail,” he said. The creature blinked sleepily at him as he took it out of its box. A large red button had been glued, rather artlessly, to its shell.
The corners of her lips curled slightly. “Aptly observed.”
He looked around to make sure they were still alone. “What does the red button do?”
She exhaled a long stream of smoke. “The button will initiate a call to an employee of mine. A signal, if you will. Somewhere out there, at the heart of the city, near the Navy base, a switch will be pressed. There will be a massive explosion. We’ll hear the detonation from here, perhaps even see some smoke. That will be the signal for another employee of mine to press on a second switch, this one much closer – not far from the town square, in fact, where the Navy top brass is currently sitting. For that reason, I would recommend for us to walk a little further away beforehand. The heat may find its way here.” She looked down demurely and waited, it seemed to him, for his thanks.
“Crocodile,” he said, managing, only barely, to keep a civil tone of voice.
“Yes?” She raised an eyebrow. This was not the expected response.
“Look at the town square.” She turned her head in the direction in which he pointed, where the situation had seemingly degenerated into a full-blown riot. “How many people do you think are out there?”
“Nine or ten thousand. Could be a bit more.”
“Precisely. What do you think will happen to these people if I press that button, Crocodile?”
She stared at him, politely baffled, waiting for him to get to the point. “Some will die.”
It became clear to him that they had misunderstood each other as much as two people could while speaking the same language. “What is the purpose of the Revolution, Crocodile?”
“To overthrow the World Government.”
“To overthrow those who think nothing of enslaving and murdering civilians. Not to become like them.”
“Keep your voice down,” she said. Her own was trembling with barely restrained anger. “Do you realize that we may never get another such occasion in years? An admiral, a vice-admiral, two CP0 members, all gathered so conveniently in the same area. Look, if you don’t want to get your hands dirty, I’ll press the button myself.”
“That’s not the point.”
The ground quaked, as if under the tread of some massive creature. A general stampede began. The Navy top brass, it seemed, had finally decided to act.
They both pressed their backs against the wall, waiting for the storm to pass. A few pirates ran into the alley and, finding it occupied, apologized and ran back into the town square, where they were promptly crushed by a gigantic fist.
He was silent. His good friend Ivankov had warned him about this, once. (Some people want to change the world, darling, and some just want easy access to the explosives, or a good excuse to use them.) Should he have seen the signs that Crocodile was like this? Now that he thought about it, she did have a tendency to threaten anyone who burned her breakfast toast with evisceration, although he’d always taken that for friendly banter. And it was odd, the way their household pest problem had gone away once she’d become interested in poison. And really, how had she been procuring all these weapons and explosives for them in the first place?
He placed the transponder back in its box and handed it back to her. “Let’s split up and meet at the dock. We’ll leave in an hour. I’ll ask you to throw this thing into the sea. Without pressing the button first, I hope that goes without saying.” He hesitated. “Once we get back home, we’ll need to have a talk about what’s an acceptable way to meet our goals, and what isn’t. If we can’t come to an agreement, we’ll have to part ways.”
He’d hoped that, by handing her the transponder back as a gesture of trust, he would win her over. A futile hope, as it were. “Why put it off for later, if we can say goodbye now?” she said and was gone, carried by the crowd in its desperate flight.
Doflamingo Donquixote unfolded himself from the alcove in which he’d spied on this most interesting conversation and stretched, careful to remain out of sight of the monster that ravaged the town square. (A little action to bring this already splendid day to a close would be great, thank you, but a rampaging admiral was a tad more than he could chew.) For some time, he stood indecisive, scratching his chin. Then, seeing the woman called Crocodile turn the corner, he made up his mind and followed her from the rooftops.
He’d long daydreamed about his first grand public appearance, the event by which he’d let his estranged relatives know that he was still around. For the first time in years, his name would be spoken behind the ancient gates that protected them, in the gilded halls and ballrooms in which they led lives entirely given to champagne and casual cruelty. They would look up, briefly distracted, perhaps even troubled. Why, Donquixote, they knew that name. He was one of theirs.
He'd grin at them from the newspaper, front page, of course. Hello there – it’s been a while. Still alive and kicking, as you can see. How’s tricks?
Most importantly: I’m coming for you.
He had no illusions that they would take him seriously. Years would elapse, dozens of plans unfold and thousands of irrelevant assholes die before he could make good on the threat, but a man had to start somewhere.
By blowing up a Navy base, for instance.
He set up tightropes between the roofs on which he waltzed in silence, using his coat to balance himself. If anyone had looked up in those moments, they would have seen him; but no one ever looked up, and night would soon fall.
When the mayhem had begun, the few remaining citizens who hadn’t already evacuated or attended the execution had poured out of their homes, some in housecoats and curlers, others carrying their prized and pathetic belongings in quaint little suitcases. The Marines herded them unceremoniously towards the docks, ignoring their protests when their suitcases spilled their contents. Once in a while, a pirate poked his nose into the open and was immediately shot.
From Doflamingo’s vantage point, he glimpsed distant battles, the vice-admiral locked in a struggle with a swordsman in an overdramatic plumed hat, two CP0 agents fighting off the tendrils of black smoke that a sorcerer directed towards them with a lazy hand gesture. He would have liked to linger and watch, perhaps pick off the survivors, but he had to keep moving.
The woman weaved her way through the town without trouble. When a large group of civilians walked by, she would join them for a time, hunching to reduce her height. When a promising alleyway presented itself, she would dodge out of sight. There was, insofar as he could tell, no pattern to her movements, no fixed destination. Just a single-minded focus on survival.
A light rain began to fall. She paused to open her umbrella, though she did not immediately raise it over her head. Had she noticed that she was being followed?
In the distance came a great crash, as buildings collapsed under some monstrous blow. The woman shook her head, raised her umbrella and picked up the pace.
He hastened to follow and ran into a cloud of smoke or dust of some sort, gritty and dry. If his eyes had not been protected by his sunglasses, he would have teared up. As it was, he could not repress a coughing fit, which he silenced as best as he could by shoving the sleeve of his coat into his mouth. When he looked into the street again, the woman was gone.
He sat back on his haunches and waited. The rain picked up, from a drizzle to a light downpour. The woman did not come back. He scratched his chin and tapped his fingers on his knee, in a pattern that he had often practiced of late. A figure rose next to him, first a shapeless horror, then a creature that looked like a reasonable facsimile of him, given a few additional generations of inbreeding.
The puppet jumped off the roof in a jerky motion and crept out into the street, where, sure enough, another shape soon followed it. He grinned as he watched the woman pull a pair of knives from inside her coat. He’d expected something more elegant, a rapier, perhaps, or a lady’s pistol, but he supposed these blades, practically prison shivs, were more on theme for a revolutionary.
He made the puppet whirl around and block the first blow with its forearm, then withdraw again into the alley, close to the spot where he sat and waited. The woman followed, struck again. The knife sank in the thing’s shoulder, which immediately unravelled.
Before she could compute what had just happened, he let himself down from the roof on a string and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and whipped her arm towards his neck with astonishing speed. He swung out of the way, laughing. “Oh my, oh my. I just want to talk.”
“There’s no good conversations to be had in a dark alley.” Up close, he was glad to confirm what his unexceptional eyesight had already led him to suspect, which is that she was exactly his type: lithe, dark-haired, and a complete hellcat. A man of less discerning tastes might have objected to the scar that ran across her face, but he much preferred people who’d picked up a little damage somewhere along the way.
“That is why I was hoping we could – ” he danced backwards, hands in his pockets – “continue in a more civilized location, such as – ow! – my hotel room.” She had managed to nick him in the chest somehow.
“No way in hell.” Her fighting style, like her choice of weapon, was inelegant but brutal, the kind of art one could only learn in prison, or perhaps the rougher sort of orphanages. He parried a blow with his boot, though it forced him to take his hands out of his pocket to keep his balance. Another step backwards, and he found himself, to his surprise, already standing against the wall. A punch followed, which he only narrowly dodged, and the bricks next to his head exploded.
He withdrew and hauled himself up to the top of an awning, where he stood in precarious balance on one of the beams, just out of reach. “Couldn’t help but overhear your earlier conversation. Seems that you’re out of work. I have a business proposition for you.”
No answer, except for a blow to the wall next to him strong enough to rattle his perch. He did not fall, exactly, but the ground seemed unusually eager to make his acquaintance.
He righted himself, no longer smiling. “You won’t get paid if you kill your employer.”
“I’ve never worked for anyone. I don’t plan on starting with you.”
It occurred to him that he might have to start taking this fight seriously. “Fine, then.” He wriggled his fingers. Glowing white filaments emerged from the wall and coiled themselves around the woman’s chest. “What the hell is this?” she said.
He closed his hand into a fist, and the strings slammed the woman into the wall, where she remained glued. He smiled again. His strings could be broken, but not through raw strength. She’d have to demonstrate her powers, if she had any.
She paused, and he thought he detected a flicker of emotion cross her face. Not the fear he’d anticipated, but something else. Amusement, really?
Then he heard it as well through the sound of rainfall. The sound of footsteps, coming closer. A shout: “I’ll be the next King of the Pirates!”
They stared at each other. The woman bared her teeth, looking like an alien that had learned how to smile by studying pictures of assholes. Just for that, he was tempted to leave her stuck to the wall for the Marines to find, but that would be tantamount to admitting defeat. “To be continued,” he mouthed, releasing her. She nodded, face impassive once again, and vanished into a doorway, where her black clothing made her invisible. He used a string to haul himself back up on his roof.
Four pirates ran into the alley. Three turned back almost immediately. The fourth, carried by a surfeit of enthusiasm, ran halfway into the alley before realizing she had found a dead end. She turned back, snarling, a pistol in each hand. The group of Marines that had pursued her closed ranks and blocked her exit. Two bullets, six Marines, some possibly wet powder; the situation was bound to get interesting.
As much as Doflamingo liked getting his hands dirty, it could be nice to just sit back and enjoy the fruit of someone else’s labour. He only wished he had a drink to nurse while he watched the show, something sweet and red, in keeping with the night’s theme.
The pirate backed up slowly until she stood against the wall. One pistol fired and took off a Marine’s cap. The other clicked uselessly. The butt of a carabine sank in her stomach, and she keeled over without a sound. Over so quickly; predictable, but a disappointment, all the same.
As the threat subsided, the Navy transitioned smoothly into what it did best, whaling on a weak and helpless target while it begged for mercy. The pirate’s face, which had been white in the lantern light, was soon streaked with dirt and gore. Her limbs twitched below the Marines’ boots.
He thought of the ants he’d once seen crawling on a dying maggot, taking away bits and pieces of it back to their nests. The maggot, halfway gone, still writhed. Hope sprung eternal in the animal kingdom.
The pirate’s eyes rolled in his direction, and she smiled. “An – Angel,” she said, and passed out.
He looked over his shoulder to see what she had been staring at, realized, a second too late, that she had been talking about him. As did the six Marines, who exchanged glances and, in a single movement, turned to look at him.
Well, why the hell not. His last fight had only whetted his appetite, after all.
He jumped from the roof, his pink feather coat floating around him, indeed, just like angel wings. Six bullets immediately headed in his direction, but the large web of strings he shot from his fingers intercepted them.
“A devil fruit user,” the squad captain said, her eyes wide. “Run!”
“I’m afraid it’s too late now,” he said. After all, he did not want their boss to find out he was still around, not while he still had plans for the night.
His fingers swept the air in a cross-shaped pattern. Coloured strings vibrated into being, sharp and sly as razor wire. He laughed as they buried themselves in the Marines’ flesh, dyeing their dull white clothing with red stripes, in a definite style upgrade.
Three bodies collapsed. A fourth stared down at its suddenly exposed organs in disbelief: meat that did not yet know it was meat. He ignored it, turned to the remaining two Marines, who cowered against the wall, trying to reload their guns with trembling fingers.
He politely waited for them to finish before sending out new strings, invisible to all but those who knew to look for them. The Marines’ faces betrayed a visceral fear when they realized they could no longer control their limbs. He made them face each other and forced them to aim their guns at each other’s heads.
Two knives came out of the darkness, each burying itself in a man’s chest. The woman called Crocodile strolled up next to him. “No more gunshots,” she said as she retrieved her blades from the two bodies.
The unknown female pirate had come to, most likely when one of the dead Marines had collapsed on her. She turned her face towards them and extended a shaking hand. “Help,” she croaked.
They stared at each other, shrugged and strolled away, hands in their pockets. “You said you had a hotel room,” Crocodile said.
“I do indeed. Shall we?”
“It’s not a bad idea. At least, until things calm down a bit.”
“Don’t forget your umbrella.”
“Shots this way!” came a shout, and more footsteps heading in their direction. At least they were not accompanied by the minor earthquake that would have announced the admiral’s presence, he reflected, trying to be optimistic. “I’ll handle these,” he told a skeptical Crocodile. “Just get out of range – fifty feet should do it. No, don’t worry, nothing flashy this time.”
He stood in the middle of the street, waiting. Four groups of five or six this time, all carrying storm-proof lanterns. “Hands on your head!” they barked at him.
He obeyed with a grin and waited for them to surround him before unleashing his Conqueror's Haki: a wave of weaponized scorn that let them know exactly how little he thought of them. Vermin, all of you, only able to get a taste of power when you put on a uniform and travel in packs, looking for someone even more pathetic than you are.
Gun after gun clattered from nerveless hands as the Marines collapsed, eyes rolled back into their heads, mouths foaming. Two resisted and stood on wavering legs until he strolled up to them and tipped them over with a finger to the forehead.
Crocodile came out of her hiding place to join him. She nudged one of the bodies with her foot.
“They’re out cold, not dead,” he said.
“I can tell.” She stooped to search the unconscious man’s shirt pocket and emerged victorious, holding a box of cigarettes, one of which she lit.
“There’s only perhaps ten or fifteen people in the world who can do what I just did,” he said, annoyed by her lack of interest.
“Is that so? Let’s get out of here before we attract the old man’s attention.”
“Fine. Try to keep up.” He pulled himself back on the rooftop and began to run, casting his spiderweb bridges over the gaps between the buildings.
The bridges would be invisible for another hour, perhaps two. Then, according to the weather forecast, the rainclouds would clear. As the moon rose high in the sky, the strings would begin to glimmer, revealing the path he’d taken: North, towards the Navy base in which Crocodile had claimed to have stockpiled explosives.
He’d heard there were a few very acceptable hotels in the area from which one might enjoy a display of fireworks.
Smoker concealed himself behind a deserted florist’s shop and let his engine run idle, counting exactly one minute before resuming his route. It would not do for him to show up on time; he had a reputation to maintain.
Unlike the rest of the town, Departure Street still looked pristine. Doors were closed, store displays unmolested, “Keep off the lawn” signs ostentatiously undefaced. If not for the twenty-odd bodies that lay strewn across the road, he might have thought today was just another boring night in the boondocks.
His squad had already arrived at the scene and was administering emergency rations of chamomile tea to the victims, with mixed results. He nodded at them as he walked past, looking for his new supervisor.
Captain Allesia and her partner had once been two of the most renowned bounty hunters of the East Blue, until they had decided to join the Navy and exchange their life of adventure for one dedicated to bureaucracy. Ten years later, they had turned Loguetown into the world’s capital of paperwork. For some reason, Sengoku thought Smoker could get valuable lessons about leadership from them.
He found the captain speaking on a transponder. Allesia was a short middle-aged woman who would benefit from having something in her life that couldn’t be arranged in alphabetical order, although she’d probably go to her deathbed without realizing it. “Yes. They say he looked like, I quote, ‘a demon-possessed lawn ornament.’” She paused and listened to an indistinct voice. “No, I don’t suppose an exorcist will be necessary. Wait, hold that thought. Send one over, just in case.”
“Doflamingo Donquixote,” he said.
“I am running late. Let me call you back.” She turned to him. “Corporal Smoker. I can’t hear a word you are saying while your shirt is undone.”
Gritting his teeth, he buttoned his shirt and stood up straight while she inspected him with a critical eye. “Is this satisfactory, Captain?”
“Adequate. You were saying, Corporal Smoker?”
“Doflamingo Donquixote, ma’am,” he repeated. “The lawn ornament guy. That’s his name.”
“Hmm. I don’t believe I’ve heard of the gentleman.” She turned to her second-in-command. “Does that name ring a bell to you, Miss Cadiz?”
Miss Cadiz, tall, black-haired, clad in an immaculately pressed suit and thigh-high stockings, appealed silently to him. “There was a briefing this morning before the execution,” he said. “That’s when it was brought up.”
“Ah!” Captain Allesia’s face lit up. “That explains it. I would have loved to attend the briefing, of course, if a most unfortunate state of affairs hadn’t taken up all my attention. Remind me, Miss Cadiz. To what duty was I forced to devote myself this morning?”
“An emergency bed inspection.”
“Indeed. It has come to my attention, Corporal Smoker, that you and your classmates have not been taught how to make a bed properly at the academy. Not a single corner was properly tucked. What was the word that I used to describe this sorry sight, Miss Cadiz?”
“Dismal.”
“Dismal! I perfectly agree with your assessment, Miss Cadiz. At least one person here appreciates the gravity of the situation. Now, Corporal Smoker. Perhaps you will care to summarize what you’ve learned this morning for a tired old woman who’s just had the longest day of her life, thanks in part to you?”
Smoker sat at the back of the classroom during the briefing, boots on his desk, staring at the ceiling and picking his nose, because again: reputation to maintain. The seventh slide came up, “Wanted: 35,000 beris. DOFLAMINGO DONQUIXOTE.” Some douchebag in a flamboyant feather coat and hideous flea market sunglasses, childishly sticking out his tongue at the camera.
The guy looked like a tackier version of the plastic flamingos that people in his hometown would plant in their neighbours’ gardens as a birthday prank. He repressed a chuckle.
“Something amusing you’d like to share with the class, Corporal Smoker?” Admiral Sengoku from his seat at the front, next to the screen.
He sat up straighter, a little abashed. “No, sir.”
“Good.” The admiral ate a rice cracker to compose himself before continuing. “Take a good look at this guy’s face, gentlemen, because he’s well on his way to becoming the biggest pain in the ass of his generation.
The Donquixotes used to be World Nobles, until Donquixote Senior thought it would be a great idea for them to renounce their title and go live among the common folk. The common folk weren’t thrilled to have them. A bit of starvation, a few beatings and a failed execution later, and young Doflamingo’s budding character flaws turned into a terminal case of antisocial personality disorder.
At the age of ten, he killed his own father. Since then, he’s surrounded himself by a merry band of misfits, orphans and petty criminals who’d strangle a baby with their own bare hands if they thought it would make him happy. He would have turned his own brother, young Rosie here, into one of his child soldiers if we hadn’t rescued the lad.”
(Sensing that he was being discussed, a towheaded boy who had been dozing off in a corner of the room suddenly sat up, and his rifle clattered to the ground.)
“Not even twenty yet, and Donquixote’s already carved out a niche for himself in the North Blue underworld. He’s managed to get a hold of the String-String Fruit, the effects of which are not well-known, although we think he can use it to perform a limited kind of mind control. Besides that, he has a basic mastery of all three forms of Haki, oh, and he’s not a bad brawler, either. Weaknesses…” The admiral paused. “Well, insofar as we know, he’s not impervious to bullets.
As I’ve mentioned, this little asshole will cause no end of problems for us if we don’t nip him in the bud. So, if you run into him today, don’t hesitate.
Shoot to kill.”
Captain Allesia scoffed. “How typical of the man. What is it that I always say, Miss Cadiz?”
“Good habits are the key to success.”
“No. The other thing.”
Miss Cadiz paused. “It is not a lack of moral sense that causes piracy, but a lack of discipline.”
“Indeed. These young men all grow up without proper parenting, indeed without any positive role models at all. Uniforms. Good hygiene. A high fibre diet. These are all methods which, administered properly, will make a man out of any pirate, including this one.”
The little Smoker knew about Donquixote made him doubt that the man's issues stemmed from a lack of fibre, but he thought it best not to comment. “What are your orders, Captain?”
She smiled at him. “I’ve been told that you’ve shown some promise as a leader. What do you think we should do, Corporal?”
He had not expected the question. “Uh. We’ll have to track him down, first of all.”
She nodded. “Marines! You’ve heard your leader. Look for signs of this gentleman. Magical strings, pink feathers, wanton destruction. Report back if you do.”
“Don’t just look at the ground. Look up at the rooftops,” Smoker added impulsively. He glanced at the captain to see if she’d reprove him for speaking out of turn, but she winked at him.
“Get ready, Miss Cadiz,” she said. Her assistant heaved the massive rifle from her shoulders and loaded it with a teal bullet almost as large as the palm of her hand. A keyhole, intriguingly, had been carved into its side.
Smoker normally affected a complete lack of interest in everything his superiors said or did, but his curiosity got the better of him. “What’s that?”
Captain Allesia smiled. “Discipline.”
Crocodile’s favourite word was “no,” “no” and all its glorious variations: “don’t be absurd,” “not interested,” “never,” and the always satisfying “fuck off.” Over the years, she had developed a sixth sense for detecting her natural predators, this being, of course, people who had never heard the word “no” in their life. It was not difficult to see that the stranger who had waylaid her, with his expensive but carelessly-treated clothes, his shit-eating grin, his eminently slappable face, was one such specimen, some rich kid who, instead of getting a motorcycle and a drug habit like a normal teenager, had decided to stage a complaint against the bullshit of existence by becoming a pirate.
Protests were useless against such creatures, as was any attempt to make a silent getaway. She would succeed, of course, but days later (or weeks, months, even years), she would wake up in a good mood, go downstairs for her usual breakfast of toast and black tea, and find herself staring at a pair of dirty boots resting on her kitchen table and a toothy grin. “Good morning, my dear! (Or some other similarly insufferable term of endearment.) How I have missed you!” The mere idea was enough to give her cold sweats.
No, more drastic measures were required. Her normal procedure involved a heartfelt knife between the ribs, perhaps a slow death by desiccation if she’d been caught on a bad day. A tempting proposition, but one that might not end well for her, in this case. The rain had neutralized her defensive abilities, and the asshole was strong.
How fortunate, then, that they should be surrounded by a few hundred Marines, including an admiral, who would most likely be thrilled to see an obnoxious young pirate fall into their hands. With the bounty, she’d be able make a new start on a nice little island in the Grand Line, open an office, extend her network, work towards her goal of, well –
She’d figure that part out later.
Umbrella in one hand, unlit lantern held in the crook of an arm, she dragged her other hand across the wall as she moved forward. Wherever she touched them, stones and bricks began to crumble. Though the change would not be immediate, they would soon turn into sand, leaving a long groove behind that would point, like an arrow, at their destination. She hoped it would be enough.
“For now” worked, sometimes, just as well as a “no.”