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Pain. All I feel is debilitating pain. My spine aches with terror, spreading up to my neck. Doflamingo got his little cross guild puppet. Me. His own little nephew that he left behind in the south blue. His last, awful trick. Joker wouldn’t hurt me, He’s wanting to save me from my hellish subordinate position with the man who tried to kill me at the forefront. Right?
I betrayed my friend. I betrayed Buggy. Good uncles don’t make their nephews do things against their will. But maybe he has a good reason. He just has to.
Who am I kidding? He’s doing this for his own amusement. He knows I’m pathetic and weak. He knows I’m still the same idiot who got left behind on a small south blue island. My cockiness has been stripped of me tenfold. He’s just in impel down, laughing at my tears. He’s laughing at my pain. Watching in amusement as I struggle to even walk. Buggy won’t even look at me. He hasn’t talked to me in days. But I can’t blame him, he doesn’t know what I’m going through, or what I’m being made to do. The only person who talks to me anymore is Daz. I like to think he understands, he helps me walk here and there when it hurts too much to do so. I know he’s just doing it to help a fellow subordinate yet it feels.. Warmer. More genuine, a hard thing to come by here.
I trip and stumble, I fall and scrape my knees, my spine hurts so much, I can barely sit. I can’t stand either, just existing hurts. Why does he make me suffer like this? What did I do wrong to seemingly betray him so badly that he feels the need to make me his little puppet spy? I followed all his rules, all his expectations. He didn’t truly care about me, he just wanted a little yes man who did everything he said.
I can’t believe how much I trusted him to come back for me.
I waited 10 years.
10 years I wasted.
Surviving off of cheap bounties and whatever good graces I could muster with the.. oddly kind townspeople.
I collected south blue bounties like it was nothing. Carving a carefully crafted persona on the premise of fear. Nobody would know what an idiot I was. Yet I still found myself crawling back to the same island, waiting for the return of my captain. He’d have to come back for his favorite, right? He wouldn’t just leave me to die.
A newspaper showed up at my door, Doflamingo in the header. “New Warlord” it read. “Hero of Dressrosa!” It continued. They praised him like he was the next coming of a god. He abandoned me. Left me on the island he destroyed to go fuck over some country on the grand line. That country led to his downfall so I should be laughing, I should be celebrating his defeat like Buggy was.
But I still felt sorrow, I was upset I wasn’t apart of something he did. I wanted to be with my family again.
I stabbed at the Donquixote pirates Jolly Roger tattoo on my stomach, stabbing it again and again until the tattoo was nothing but mutilated skin. Blood pooling around the area. I didn’t want to live if I wasn’t worth anything to Doflamingo. None of my family would’ve wanted to live in that situation. And I would’ve died if it wasn’t for a certain warlord looking for me. I lie on the ground, holding my stomach. Sand swept me off the ground and out of my door, falling on my stomach, and to the feet of a certain new scarred warlord who just came on the scene. He went by the name of “Sir Crocodile.” Dust, rocks and dirt got in my wound, making me whine in pain until I felt someone behind me scoop me up, and take me to their small ship off the coast of the island. Everything after it was a blur. I don’t remember accepting any payments or jobs, all I knew is that I had a bandaged up, clean wound, and a nice new outfit.
Crocodile gave me a look of pity as I lied down, my stomach bandaged and clean. A look he didn’t give people often. He never even gave Daz looks of concern when he got seriously hurt. He only gave me pity because he could sense I was weak. I still don’t know why he thought I was worthwhile. He didn’t see my often anyways, only checking in on me once or twice to make sure I didn’t try to kill myself again. And I did try.
He offered me a financial job at his casino, promising not to foil or mess with any other bounty hunting job I might have. How nice of him to give me such a good offer during my misery. Yet I was successful in filling out his demands. Success drives me. And I’m sure it drives my dear uncle Doflamingo too. Success drives all of those bastards, it always did and it continues to do so. None of the changed one bit. It’s like a cult now that I look back on the things he made me do.
Maybe he saw my success and needed someone on the inside of cross guild. To spy on who? If I had to guess, Crocodile. The man was obsessed with him. Prodding through newspaper articles day in and day out just to see his success. Making me the target of his torture along with it I guess. I never got the obsession. He seemed to be like any other Warlord just protecting what I assumed was his home kingdom, yet he’s special to Doflamingo in some way. I saw them fighting during the war after He found me hiding like an idiot. He seemed.. happy to see me. Laughing about how he thought I was dead.
He laughed. He didn’t care about me at all.
I should’ve guessed that already.