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Her ship felt strangely empty after they sold their remaining merchandise. The atmosphere on the ship was sober, as each member prepared for their encounter with one of the four emperors of the sea.
The crew had traded a few devil fruit users for new gear from Joker and had given the remaining slaves that weren’t sold away as a gift, since they would only die if they would remain in the ship during the altercation.
Having received the location of the Red Force from Joker, the Crimson Slaughter pirates set sail to what could be their doom.
An enraged cry that was followed by curses interrupted the peaceful silence on the abandoned island. Red Duchess Medea was trashing the island, where the Red Hair Pirates should have been. Instead, they only found the remains of a party.
Medea barked at her crew to go to the next island for supplies and information. Her scarred face did little to hide the utter hatred she felt towards the Yonko and her annoyance at not finding him on the island.
The journey towards the next island was a calm one. Their log pose was guiding them through the waters of the new world as Medea sparred against her crew to burn up her energy.
They reached the next island a week later and before they could even dock, Medea cried out with fury while the only emotion on her face was utter loathing.
The crew was in their position in seconds, already knowing that this fight would decide their survival.
“Fire. Decimate that ship. I want them captured for an execution in front of their captain.” Medea spat out.
Within seconds, the cannons released a chain of cannonballs on the giant ship belonging to Red Hair Shanks.
Despite the ship’s guards taking out most of the cannonballs, a few got through their guard and crashed into the stationary ship.
While they had now lost the element of surprise, the Fallen Angel could shoot at the enemy ship without having to risk return fire.
“Captain, the one guarding the ship is ‘Chaser’ Yasopp!”
A low growl escaped her throat as she continued staring at the burning dock, waiting for him to show up. Esmeray, meanwhile, was giving the crew orders to stay alert to any attack from the enemy.
At that moment, Medea felt her observation Haki ping, and she dodged the Haki coated bulled with a tilt of her head.
Their ship, the Fallen Angel, had now anchored close enough at the port to allow Medea to jump on land. She drank up the smell of gunpowder and fear in the air as she scanned the city for the missing crew of the red force.
She had little doubt that her crew could take on Yasopp, but that could change if the other officers arrived before they dealt with him.
She walked through the burning rubble of what had been a shipyard, when she saw the cursed red hair appear in her vision.
Ignoring her plans, Medea charged and attacked the Yonko, but he dodged and stabbed her with his sword..
“Another foolish challenger, it seems. Isn’t that right, Red Duchess?”
Red Hair’s deprecating words ignited the fury she had buried in her heart for the last two decades. With a loud roar, she buried a Haki coated fist into his abdomen.
She knew that hadn’t been enough, but it brought her crew enough time to subdue Yasopp and take over the Red Force.
A maniac grin spread on her face as she basked in Shanks’ bloodied form.
Her observation Haki warned her of an imminent attack, but she didn’t bother dodging, as Fia’s cutlass blocked the butt of Beckman’s gun.
Despite both weapons being coated in armament Haki, Fia was rapidly losing ground, at least until Colvin forced Beckman back with his own attack.
Two crews were facing each other, preparing for battle, when movement from Medea’s crew interrupted them..
The Yonko’s side looked murderous as they realised that the bloodied person now lying unconscious under Medea’s feet was Yasopp.
A wave of conquerors’ Haki erupted from the hole that Shanks had created just moments ago, causing over half of Medea’s crew to fall unconscious.
Red-Haired Shanks looked downright murderous. A fact that thrilled Medea.
A mad laugh escaped her lips as the crews readied their weapons. “Kill them.” “I want them gutted in front of him!”
Both crews were clashing within moments. Medea’s crew was strong, but her four best members were no match for the Yonko crew’s officers. Not to mention that they had to fight one versus two. The only reason they could survive at all was that they still had the enemy’s third-in-command as prisoner, with an additional ten crewmen back on the ship.
In the centre of the crews, fists met sword as Medea and Shanks clashed, destroying the surrounding town. While Shanks would usually try to keep such damage to the minimum, Medea’s crew had attacked them and taken Yasopp as prisoner. He wasn’t playing around, wounding Medea every time she attacked.
Medea, meanwhile, was cursing in her mind. She had underestimated his strength and while the regeneration from her Regen-Regen Fruit was still keeping up, Shanks hadn’t even used his advanced Conquerors Haki yet, something which she was sure he had access to.
Meanwhile, their clash of advanced armament Haki devastated the landscape. The battle paused for a split moment, when a wave of killing instinct swept over the battlefield that caused members of both crews to fall unconscious.
Yasopp, who had woken up during the fight, got impaled by a spear right through the abdomen. A wound that would prove fatal if he didn’t get treatment soon.
“You!”
Shanks rage overtook the battlefield, causing the Crimson Slaughter Pirates to retreat. While Medea was feeling like thousands of blades had carved her up, as she stood in the centre of his anger.
“How does it feel, losing him? No matter. I challenge you to a duel. No one interferes.”
Shanks, who had wrestled control over his emotion, especially now that Yasopp was with their doctors, sized her up before scoffing. “Your crew is losing. It’s only a matter of time until they are dead. Why should I?”
Despite the question being rhetoric and him already readying another attack, her words stopped him in his tracks.
“You know Shanks. I saw an interesting bounty poster the other day. What do you think the marines will do if they find out that you have connections to a rookie grand line pirate who couldn’t even defeat a rare-Admiral? Ah. He’ll probably die as easily as this brother of yours that is waiting for his execution in Impel Down. Oh, at least your other brother is giving him some company down there.”
She could see the confusion in his face as a small smirk escaped her and she let out a maniacal laugh.
“Diejajajajaja. How sad. The captain you loved so much didn’t even mention he had a child. He really didn’t trust you. He must have been smarter than he looked. You would have sold him out at the earliest opportunity, after all. Diejajajajaja. Poor Podgas D. Ace is going to die because you are a traitorous shit Shanks.”
The murderous look had returned to Shanks’ face and the words that came out of his mouth were cold and flat, hiding promises of pain.
“I accept the duel.”
The moment he uttered the words, a sword slash was in front of Medea, to which she barely crossed her forearms on time to block.
During that time, Shanks appeared before her, cutting her neck artery for a blow to his kidney.
She recovered in less than a second and buried a fist in his nose, which produced a satisfying crack that had left her grinning.
“So you regenerate. How useful.”
Shanks’ words made her turn around to discover his sword burying itself into her back, coated with a layer of Haki.
Medea was struggling to track Shanks with her Haki. It felt like he didn’t exist at times, forcing her to use her other senses.
She was getting beaten, and she knew it, so she did the one thing she had prepared for this situation. She whistled a tune for her crew to hear that they had decided on before they embarked on this endeavour.
Esmeray sounded the retreat and her team collected their wounded and ran back to their ship, leaving only their captain behind to hold the emperor off.
She let out a small chuckle as she realised that her crew would have to rebrand. After all, the whole Crimson Slaughter thing had failed spectacularly.
The short distraction cost her, as an anchor impaled her stomach and anchored her to the ground.
Before she could crush it and continue their fight, multiple swords impaled her limbs, making it impossible to move.
Shanks had been smart enough to point the sharp edges inwards, stopping her from cutting herself out.
She laid down on the ground, letting out a defeated sigh as the Red-Haired Pirate surrounded her.
“Captain, Yasopp is out of danger for now and her crew has disappeared completely.”
“Good. Bring the injured to the infirmary. And get some sea stone bracelets while you’re at it. I’ll guard her.”
Medea prepared herself for a long day as she let a suffering sigh. She stared into the clear blue sky even as she began to lose her devil fruit ability and Shanks hefted her on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her blood red hair was still the same colour as before, unlike her blood covered clothes, as they fell into her face, blocking her vision.
She got pissed and bit his arm with all the strength she could gather, but he just shrugged it off, as the seastone made her too weak to do any damage.
Instead, a wave of conquers Haki knocked her out before they threw her into the brig.
She woke up shackled to the wall. In front of her was Ben Beckman, the first mate of the crew, holding a dripping water bucket. Its contents still dripping down her hair.
He asked her questions, but she refused to answer and only glared at him. Instead, she kept cursing his captain and crew until her throat was sore.
“…The Crimson Slaughters’ sole purpose was to help you find people to kill our captain, wasn’t it? Because I have the feeling your hair colour wasn’t the idea behind the name. And you have a grudge against Shanks, and since you said he was a traitorous bastard, you must have been close to him.”
Her irritation peaked, having him lay out the truth, and he seemed to have seen something in her expression as he left her alone.
The next time she woke up, it was to Shanks in the room and she immediately started trashing, and baring her teeth.
“I do not remember seeing your ugly mug at any point in my life. Who are you?”
Medea channelled all her hate and spit him straight in the face.
“What a gentleman. Mocking someone for scars they were the source of,” she replied sarcastically. “Fucking traitorous shit.”
Shanks seemed to contemplate that a bit, but came out blank before he continued.
“I think I would remember having dealings with your kind.”
“MY KIND! You arrogant asshole. Stop putting yourself on some moral high ground. We are the same.” She spat out the last part out.
“Slavery? Genocide? That’s certainly not something I’m known for.”
She couldn’t hold back the absolute wrath she felt underneath her skin. Her self-control had died decades ago. “At least I don’t leave little children to die.”
She closed her mouth after realising she had said too much and went silent even as her captor kept poking at old wounds.
Instead, she blocked him and after he realised she wasn’t responding, before falling asleep soon after.
Shanks came down to her prison from time to time, but she kept silent, even as her stomach protested. This time, he entered smelling like booze and was piss drunk. He looked at her with those sad eyes that made her want to rip them out and stuff them into his throat, that she at first didn’t compute what he said.
“Shannon, what happened to you?” She bristled in indignation as she swore at him. “Shannon died over two decades ago, when you abandoned her to become a pirate!”
“I thought it was better that way. I even got that baker couple to adopt you!”
She sneered at that half-hearted reason. “What wonderful people they were. One person tried to groom me and the other scarred my face because she was a jealous wench.”
She couldn’t stop the words dripping with sarcasm, not when it was one of the few things holding her together. “You, oh great emperor, have my thanks for making my life so wonderful.”
Shanks couldn’t even look her in the face anymore and she felt a vicious satisfaction in hurting him.
“I plead my eternal thanks to the man that left me in the care of two horrible human beings whose deaths gave me my first bounty just months later. You can take a guess what a seven-year-old had to go through to survive with a bounty in the west blue.”
Shanks was crying now, and she felt an immense satisfaction from the hurt she had caused.
“Go to hell, fucker.”
She bit her tongue hard, waiting until she couldn’t hide the blood any longer, and smiled when Shanks noticed it. Having herself die with a bloody smile on the face would fit her moniker perfect, Medea mused. Especially if it would scar Shanks even further.
Captain of the Crimson Slaughter Pirates, Red Duchess Medea (Shannon), Bounty 1.623.000.000 Beli.
Wanted for arson, assassination, piracy, slavery, murder, genocide, robbery and kidnapping.
Description: A cruel Pirate Captain in the New World, who leaves the places she docks at as bloody wastelands.
Red Hair, that often blends together with the blood she gets covered with.
Current user of the Regen-Regen Fruit, which makes her regenerate wounds quickly. When awakened, she can help others regenerate.
Her once white outfit was drenched in blood so often that it became a similar colour to her hair. Those two things granted Medea her moniker.
Strategist/ Vice-Captain, Checkmate Esmeray, Bounty 442.000.000 Beli.
Wanted for piracy, murder, and slavery.
Description: A highly intelligent strategist said to rival Fleet Admiral Sengoku. Be advised. Kill her before she can get a read on her opponent’s fighting style.
First Mate, Blackout Fia, Bounty 410.900.000 Beli Beli.
Wanted for piracy, slavery, murder and arson
Doctor, Voodoo Doctor Ubel, Bounty 400.100.000 Beli.
Wanted for piracy, slavery, murder, genocide, medical malpractice and the creation of a bio weapon.
Swordsman, Cold Cut Colvin, Bounty 400.000.000 Beli.
Wanted for piracy, slavery and murder.