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Marco didn’t know what was happening.
The village had been quiet, until the shipment of the newest merchants rolled in and his mother had given him a strange looking fruit. It seemed very odd, but he had been hungry so he hadn’t complained.
Still, he hadn’t been the only one to eat such a fruit and all of the sudden those men were there. They had come on the next ship, looking mean and greedy. They had looked around before starting to round up every able bodied young man and pretty looking girl and woman. Shooting whoever had tried to resist, which is when the pandemonion started.
He had run too, had gotten shot, only for blue flames to appear to heal his injuries, making his freak out. He didn’t know what was happening, all he did know was that things were turning South and he needed to get away.
Crying he just kept on running, even as he heard others in pursuit.
Heard the person, the Captain of the slaver’s ship, call out they needed to capture him. That he had eaten a Devil Fruit and those freaks always fetched a nice price at auction. He didn’t want that, he didn’t want to be sold off.
As young as he was, he knew what slavers were and he knew what happened to the people that had been taken by them. His mom warned him of that, and showed off the brand on her back, mentioning that she had gotten out because of luck. There was no way she was going back and she urged him to run if there were ever slaves on these shores.
His mom had been taken already, and Marco knew that he wouldn’t see her again. After everything he had known, she would sooner kill herself than let the slavers take over back to wherever they had sold her the first time.
“Stop, you little freak,” A voice sounded next to him and he freaked out, his scream changing into a screech as his arm changed into a wing.
Freaking out once more as he wasn’t able to change it back to a human arm.
Shaking his arm, or wing in this case, and crying as he didn’t know what was happening. Something was going on and he couldn’t control it. He was nine at this point, he thought he had been big, but right now he wanted to be small once more. He wanted his mom, even if a part of him knew that he would never see her again.
The man chasing him hit him with the back end of his gun and Marco fell on the floor. Curling up around himself, he tried to protect himself. Only for the hit he had been expecting to never come.
Instead the whole island shook, tremors the like he had only felt when an earthquake hit went through the Earth. Making him scream once more. The blue flames took over as he fully transformed and the new way of thinking made it easier to not have to deal with all of this. He felt something take over to the point that he spread his wings and flew off. Marco was no more, not right now, now there was only the Phoenix.
—
At one point he was too tired to continue and soared down to settle on the Earth once more.
As soon as his talons hit the Earth something shifted and he was a boy once more. The memories of what happened came back. He was somewhere he didn’t know, alone as he didn’t have anyone else. Things happened that he had no idea how they had happened and he had no clue what to do now.
Sobs pass over his lips, as thoughts catch up to what had happened and what needed to happen now.
His mom had told him what had happened before. Where she came from and how she would never go back. As a little boy it seemed something that would never happen, but things had happened now and he knew he had lost her.
“Mama, please, mama,” He’s yelling now, though his sobs.
Those slavers had calculated this, had made sure to let a merchant ship with wares get to the shore and once the people were distracted they had the time to strike. They had come and wouldn’t leave until they had the people they needed to get a good sale out of all of this. To them people were aware, and not actual beings.
Whoever had made that quake happen, Marco hoped that it would take out the slavers too. To make sure that they wouldn’t be allowed to continue what they had been doing. He hoped that his people managed to get away even if they hadn’t liked Mama and him, none of them deserved that.
Marco doesn’t remember arriving on the island, even if he had been born off of it. His mama never told him who his father was, but often she’d get a very lost look in her eyes whenever he asked about it so it couldn’t be anything good. He never had the chance to ask, and the chances of asking now were nihil. For all that he was young, he knew more than he let on, to the point that he was aware of Mama stating that she would never go back to that place.
Running still, he waited until he found a hollowed out tree where he crawled into. The tree had fallen down, so no adult could just see into it, nor could they just crawl into it. For now he was safe and that’s all he needed. Pulling himself together he hugged his knees to his chest and tried not to think about what was going on now. Sniffling, before hiding his face into his knees as he sobbed.
Sobbed for what happened with the strange fruit, with the merchants and the slavers, with his mother and the other villagers.
Hours must have passed, before Marco startled awake by voices close by. He was scared that it was the slavers, making him curl up even closer. Not wanting them to find him, not wanting them to find him.
Heavy steps stopped at the tree he had been hiding in, feeling his breath hitch in his throat. Before he could run or hide, the three were picked up and he was dropped out of there, screaming before crawling back to get back from wherever he had landed.
His eyes fell on a giant of a man holding onto the tree he had been hiding in. A soft smile on his face as he caught Marco staring at him, “So you’re the young man who got away, the villagers were very worried about you.”
Looking on in fear, Marco took a step back and fell, crying out as his wrist landed wrong. Before he could cry however, blue fire engulfed his wrist and the pain disappeared. Looking on in awe, and slight fear, he forgot about the adult close to him. Only to be reminded of that when a chuckle sounded, “That’s quite the devil fruit you have there, little one.”
“Devil fruit,” Marco asked, “I didn’t eat a devil fruit!” He denied it, knowing he didn’t do so. Only to have the man explain that a devil fruit could look like a normal fruit if one didn’t pay attention, except that the taste of it was rancid.
Thinking about the strange fruit he ate when the merchants arrived, that tasted horrible, before the slavers arrived.
While it takes a moment, the adult introduces himself as Edward Newgate, or Captain Whitebeard, a new Pirate Captain who had arrived just after the Slavers had. Someone who had met Slavers before and hated them so he had unleashed his own devil fruit powers to free the people. Most of them had been freed, and those already on the ship had been retrieved not long after. With the exception of one woman who had chosen to become one with the sea over being taken to Marigeose. The villagers had mentioned she had a son that they hadn’t seen since the start of the raid.
Kind golden eyes look at him, “That’s you, isn’t it?”
Nodding, Marco looks sad at the knowledge his mother isn’t here anymore and he has to go out on his own. Mentioning as much, Newgate offers him a place on his crew, “To belong, and to gain a new family. Additionally, I can help you figure out your fruit, that’s better than figuring it out on your own?”