Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter Text
Before they knew of the man who sought to rid the world of the corruption and evil that plagued it; before the man extended his hand to them in friendship and salvation; before they, the once forgotten and discarded, banded together, unified in their life-long quest to free others in the same way they had once been freed, they were people. People who had given up hope, who had lost all sense of themselves, and who were dying from the inside out and left to rot by the very society that was supposed to protect and serve them.
You’ll find no man alive today who can’t think of at least one horrid offense or unacceptable transgression committed by a society against its people. After all, society is little more than the name used to describe a population’s collective ideals and sentiments. Overall societal opinion is just a reflection of the middle ground that can be found between all the individuals who make it up, rather than the one “agreed-upon” opinion that many seem to interpret it as. This may also be the reason why many find themselves perplexed when they learn that most of the atrocities we denounce and ridicule in our history textbooks, still remain as firm and present facets in our so-called “modern progressive society”.
The common, everyday fool will cry, “bUt hOw cOulD tHiS HavE bEEn AlLoWed tO hApPen?”, their faces alight with horror and anger as their sudden realization of the events they have lived blindly to their whole lives, perhaps even contributed to unknowingly in their ignorance, suddenly moves them to passionate speeches of doing better for the future and active calls for justice that are not theirs to demand, nor out of any true concern or respect for the people whose justice they call for. And with whose enslavement they are all secretly and unwillingly complicit, whether they want to admit that terrifying reality or not.
The World Government certainly doesn’t. They have made this notion very clear, and in as many of their territories as possible. Often brutally. Sometimes fatally. The severity of punishment usually depended on how quickly people went back to not talking or caring about whatever “foreign propaganda” or “blatant Government defamation nonsense” had washed up that week.
Most common folk didn’t have the education needed to tell the difference between a nuanced truth and an outlandish lie. And even the ones who did often struggled to get their perspectives the same attention that people tended to devote to the outlandish lies, especially when the lies were always so much more fun and interesting to share than the boring truths that called for far too much self-reflection and accountability for one’s own actions and how they impact the people and world around them, and not nearly enough of calling Emily a fat fucking whore who sells herself at the tavern to pay for her father’s horrific drinking habit.
So long as it’s not the truth they’re talking about, the execution officer is happy either way. Even happier if it falls in line with the Government's "truth."
Despite this, to outright blame these poor society fools for abandoning their sudden bravado at the slightest resistance from their holy superior figures, without acknowledging the restraints that bound them into silence and branded them all with ignorance, deemed a fair price for the loose sense of freedom and peace they were provided at the World Government’s divine grace, would be the greatest act of hypocrisy known to man-kind. It is, after all, so very easy to sit on the periphery of a situation and condemn a man’s actions, or lack thereof, during the heat of the moment when lives and moral values are on the line, but we ourselves are not the ones with a pistol pointed between our eyes, or a family with muskets pointed at them.
So different, and yet so earily similar are the fates of slaves, and those innocent civilians who are foolish enough to dare speak ill against the great divinity of the World Government, that offered them so much and yet asked for so little, as if blind and unquestioned following were the same as loyalty, and the only difference between a citizen and a slave was the name used to refer to them. It seemed a faultless system to many, and certainly for a time it likely was. But when one too many harvests fail in a row without government aid or there’s nowhere near enough gold in the vault to keep up with this year's taxes or the government-appointed doctor for a local epidemic is nothing more than a filthy drunk who cheated his way through medical school, one can’t help but realize (or stop burying one's head in the sand about) how little distance there really is between the respected and the wretched in the eyes of their false gods.
No, the common everyday fools living in the false light of society, the false light of the World Government, were not the ones to blame for the larger problems and atrocities faced by both themselves, and those unfortunate enough to have fallen between the cracks in the safety net. Perhaps they are not as free and innocent as they’ve allowed themselves to be told, but they are truthfully no more to blame for the raging typhoon that has consumed this world and everything in it, than the humble whale is for daring the attempt to exist peacefully and happily amongst all the chaos and uncertainty.
And yet, upon deaf ears did the whale’s broken and sorrowful cries from the choppy ocean’s surface fall. For the ones meant to hear them were buried too deep beneath the blackened tides for their hollow thoughts and prayers to reach.
The wretched were all just people, despite what the World Government might tell you, and truth be told they never really stopped being people, even after the back of society had turned itself fully to them, shielding its good people from the death, torment, and atrocities it would ultimately convince the poor ignorant fools were a necessary evil for a society that desires “freedom”, “democracy”, and “peace”. Atrocities they won’t have to worry about so long as they stay in line like the good little boys and girls the World Government had raised them to be.
Very few who had the masochistic honor of calling themself a slave had ever been treated as more than the disgraceful and putrid animals their masters so readily and easily treated them as. And the brave but kind few who could find it within themselves to extend a shred of kindness and mercy never lasted long enough for their efforts to be in anything but vain. A whisper lost within a raging wind storm.
So as time went on, growing meaningless and mundane with every agonizing second they were forced to remain living for the sick and twisted entertainment of their “masters”, so too did life itself begin to grow into a shriveled husk of its former self, as lost to these begotten souls as the truth was to their city-shackled brethren.
It would seem as though this dreary nightmare would continue in a never-ending loop, like a long tunnel whose exit seemed to grow smaller and darker the closer and faster you ran towards it, yet which was so close that to stop now would be a disgrace to how far you’d already come. Certainly there was little that could be done for those who had fallen so far out of the sacred and divine light of protection offered by the World Government, and the fear of being the next to join them was enough to provoke any common citizen into apathetic complacency, ignorant or not. For a time and a half it seemed as though this thoughtless and abusive narrative would continue to be the only story ever told, carefully crafted and hand-written by the malicious elites who ruled over their lands with fists of iron and hearts of steel, who sought to secure their everlasting reign, even, or perhaps especially, at the expense of their stupid and pitiful worshipers, who lived happily, if blissfully unaware and undeserving of the warmth and safety of their blinding holy light.
But then… everything changed when the shadow arrived.
Most people had heard about the mysterious and deadly Blue Shadow from the newspaper article that first took the world by storm following the fateful assassination of a well-known, if not particularly well-liked King from the Solomine Kingdom. Anyone who hadn’t heard about this unknown vigilante the first time around, would soon come to know of who he is, or rather who people thought he was, from either the numerous other successful assassinations that would follow the initial, or at the very least from one of the numerous rumors that had spawned from those stories. But despite the claims made, however truthful or outlandish they seemed, the World Government was quick and ruthless in writing these wild accusations off as little more than fantastical stories with no evidence to support them, as they were with every accusation made against them.
And so, the poor everyday citizens, too ignorant to know better, or too fearful to speak up, laughed at the story, as there was no other acceptable response to such an outlandish tale, at least not without punishment there wasn’t. For as courageous and valiant as this “Blue Shadow” character was for trying to make a difference in the world, if he was even real, he would soon be caught, publicly humiliated on live broadcast, and then executed by the World Government as an example of what happens when you don’t behave. Period. End of story.
For many, citizens, slaves, and world government officials alike, this indeed was the end of the story, as any and all mention of the elusive Blue Shadow, who had taken the newspapers by storm just about every other week for the better part of 2 years, suddenly appeared at the Pirate King Gold Roger’s execution, before disappearing without a single trace in a burst of bright and blinding light, the degenerate Pirate King in tow too, by the looks of it.
Two of the greatest anomalies the world has ever known, vanished into thin air, as though they’d never even been there to begin with.
No warning.
No message.
Just… gone.
Any talk of Blue Shadow’s public appearance, which many still waved off as being a trick of the light or something done by the Gold Roger himself in a cheap (if terrifyingly successful) escape attempt, had been drowned out by the Pirate King’s final message, heralding the existence of his fable treasure “One Piece”, and its current availability to anyone who could figure out where he’d left it. And get to it alive, of course
As the already unstable and tumultuous relationship the World Government had with the individuals who existed along its periphery, not quite as bad off as the slaves who’d spend their lives working or being tortured to death, but nowhere near as well taken care of as the actual respectable people of modern society, threw themselves headfirst into the dazzling and jewel-filled dream that One Piece had quickly become for those who saw no value or use in saving society, and were therefor more than content to watch it burn as they counted their riches. What would very soon become known as The Great Pirate Era, would begin, and despite all that their fabled Blue friend seemed to have accomplished in his short stint of vigilantism, he too disappeared into the night, in much the same way as he appeared, along with the last man they ever expected to see him with.
For those who had lost all hope and concept of a life better than the one they had been so “graciously afforded” by the World Government, particularly during this increasingly dangerous and pirate-filled era, they soon cast this story aside, and thought little more of the mysterious shadow monster who made them ponder of a kind of freedom they dared not even dream of, when a reality worse than their own worst nightmares lurks not far out of sight. Though the same could not be said for those unlucky enough to find themselves moved by the courageous actions of the supposed shadow monster, whose bold but pure-hearted messages scrawled upon the walls of his victims’ homes, begot a man far less monstrous and evil compared to the ones who claimed were there to protect and serve them.
Ah, but so ignorant are we ourselves, to think that the citizens and slaves would be the only ones sad to see the unsung hero of the night disappear into oblivion without the slightest warning, or hint as to when, or even if, he’d be back. For while no man who ever takes up the title of “soldier” and marches into battle with the intent to kill any and all who stand in his way may claim to be an innocent in this god-forsaken game we are all forced to play, but also true is the fact that no man decent enough to take upon himself the burden of life’s greatest hardships and traumas in the name of protecting those closest to him, does so with the knowledge that they will have to bite their tongue and watch helplessly as their Regional Commander beats an elderly woman for accidentally spilling cranberry juice on his shoes.
To join the ranks of the Marines, and to a larger extent, the World Government, is to not only become painfully and personally acquainted with all of society's worst people and aspects, but to accept your inevitable part in keeping the whole system running. For while the citizens who indirectly contribute and maintain the system are permitted the luxury of blissful ignorance in exchange for their compliance, kept as far away as possible from the harsh realities faced by those unable to conform with the “vision” the world elites have for their perfect heavenly society, the soldiers… are not quite so privileged.
But to deny an order from a superior, no matter how violent or abhorrent it may seem, was the same as to spit in his face, and any self-respecting officer who wanted even the slightest chance of making it out of service alive and getting a payout for all the torment and suffering they endured, would just do as they’re told. Just following orders, the trembling soldiers chant to themselves, long after the lights have been put out for the night, but long before the nightmares of what they’ve done, what they’ve allowed themselves to do in the name of “just following orders”, would permit them the mercy of sleep again.
Although a largely unspoken sentiment among the lowest ranks of the World Government, the arrival of Blue Shadow was heralded much more positively than it was among the higher ranked officials, who all immediately began fearing for their own lives as more and more evidence supported the existence of this crazed masked assassin who somehow knew about all their backstage bullshit, and was apparently slowly but surely on his way to shove it right back up their asses. Both newbies who’d yet to be sufficiently beaten into submission and long standing veterans who could no longer be brainwashed into complacency, found a sort of kindred spirit in Blue Shadow, or at the very least saw him as an incentive to their higher ups to get their shit together and start acting like the professional high-ranking officials they supposedly were. Despite their technical allegiance to the World Government, they all somehow knew, deep down, that they were not the true targets of this righteous vigilante. Perhaps they stood upon the same side, and maybe even “protected” the wretched and foul government elites who’d convinced the world they were the inventors of society and the happy stable little lives they all were allowed to live, but they held no loyalty to any of these people, not past what was outlined in their contract, at least.
For as much as the elites of the World Government liked to tout themselves as the harbingers of civilized times, and a symbol of peace and safety to all who pledged loyalty (and sufficient payment) to them, those who were unfortunate enough to enact their holy government’s demented will, knew all too well just how much blood that crisp white flag secretly hid behind it.
Just thinking about it made most of them gag, but they were happy to see that someone had finally had enough, and was finally going out of their way to do what they all had secretly wished they had done, on the day they decided they wanted to “make a difference”. Perhaps murdering kingdom leaders without warning wasn’t the best way to get your point across, but when the kings being taken out are nothing more than vicious tyrants who prey on their own citizens, well… even the hardest of bootlickers were finding it hard to feel sorry for these degenerates. Maybe if they’d just been good little kings and behaved as they should have, Blue Shadow wouldn’t have needed to come in and take them out?
But none of these soldiers had done what Blue Shadow did, for very few men in this world were truly courageous enough to go to the extreme, but necessary lengths that the masked assassin had gone to. And they likely never would be. Which was exactly the reason why the day Blue Shadow stopped showing up in the newspapers, stopped doing… anything, was the day they truly began to fear the worst.
The one man who was capable of putting their unruly superiors in check, even if only implicitly, was now gone without a trace.
Ultimately, the World Government decided to keep quiet about Blue Shadow’s visit to Roger’s public execution, instead pinning the whole thing on an “unknown terrorist attack” that resulted in the Pirate King’s unfortunate escape from his execution, and deflecting any and all mention of the masked assassin as pure fantasy with no supporting evidence. But the soldiers who stood behind their corrupted leaders, tongues held fast and strong between sharp teeth that dug like daggers into their tender flesh, needing every ounce of willpower to keep from screaming the truth to the heavens, as much of it as they could get out before they were finally silenced for good.
But no. That was not an option here. For as much as a grand act of courage and bravery would be a wonderful way for any soldier to go out, knowing that they’d used what they know to show someone, anyone, that there was more to this life than the lies the World Government had been feeding them their whole lives, the soldiers knew that was not what was needed of them here.
None of the individuals, slave, citizen, or soldier alike, knew when, or even if Blue Shadow would ever return. He’d come to them like an angel in a dream, bringing with him a brief sense of peace and comfort in the knowledge that someone was out there, doing what was actually necessary in order to protect them from the true cruelty and wickedness that lurked within higher rungs of this animalistic society’s ranks. And with his absence, many were returned to their waking nightmare, as they were reminded, time and time again, of the less-than-pure intentions their so-called “leaders” had in store for them, should their usefulness become obsolete.
Several years of painful silence would pass before any sign of Blue Shadow would return to catch the public’s attention, and truth be told, it would still take far longer than anyone in the World Government would like to admit, before they all, once again, became aware of the masked assassin and the true potential threat he would one day pose to their fake sovereign society.
But that is a much larger story for a much different day, as these are but the tales of the once lost and begotten individuals who’d been cast aside by society, in one way or another, prior to their introduction to the not-so-mythical man they’d heard so much about. Before they knew of the man who sought to rid the world of the corruption and evil that plagued it, before the man extended his hand to them in friendship and salvation, and before they banded together, unified in their life-long quest to follow and aid the man who set them free, they heard the whispers of Blue Shadow.
They heard their call to join The Shadows.
Chapter 2: The Little Pit Queen
Chapter Text
Pain.
In the darkness of a dank and rotting prison cell, all there was to feel was pain.
This was nothing new, or anything of that sort, at least not for this particular individual. In fact, for as much as the everyday person may shy away from things they believe will bring them harm, for this special creature, pain was familiar, a comfort even, or at least it had become familiar over the many years she’d been forced to endure it, and in the endless streams it often came in.
Not too unlike a pacifier to a small child, who could never conceive a world being truly described as “ok” unless their precious source of security was lodged firmly between their budding dentals, she could never truly say that her day had been completed to its fullest unless a moderate wince-inducing throb was emanating from some portion of her body. And today would be absolutely no different, it seems.
What was the damage this time around?
Without even moving she could already tell that the ligaments connecting her right forearm and midarm were ripped to shreds, and several of her ribs were cracked at best, and at worst shattered. Additional neusances included her chronically bloody lips, the minor stab wound on her left thigh, and whatever other cuts and bruises she manages to acquire from her most recent fight.
She’d definitely been through worse before and had beaten guys way stronger than the clown she fought yesterday with ease. But she’d gotten cocky, which was merely the first of several mistakes she made throughout the duration of that fight. Although she managed to stay on top in the end, like she always did, her opponent definitely did a lot more damage than he should have ever been allowed to, and both she, and her “manager” knew it too.
As if taking a beating from a half-giant nearly 10 times her size, and still winning, wasn’t enough, but apparently her manager felt her performance was so lack-luster in the most recent fight that she needed a second one from him just to “correct” her awful behavior and “encourage” her to do better next time.
Encouragement is quite honestly the furthest thing she felt in response to her manager’s wildly erratic and abusive methods of ensuring her continuous successful performance in fights. Sadly, her opinion on the topic mattered very little in the grand scheme of things. In fact, if there was one thing she had learned with absolute certainty since coming here, it was that she herself didn’t matter either, much less any of her stupid little thoughts or feelings.
It was a hard lesson to learn, especially at first, and worst of all it had been a lesson that she’d resisted learning for the longest time. Oh how naive and stupid she’d once been, believing that a sewer rat like herself could ever amount to anything more than the pile of dirt she’s been told she originated from. But she had, once upon a time, and before she’d been dragged into this literal hell on earth, she’d had many dreams and other things to believe in, that made the everyday struggles a little bit easier to bear with. Like a bright and shining star that illuminated the night sky, bringing hope of betting things to come when the light finally returned.
They were all gone now, of course. Those dreamy little stars were now as dead and dissolved as the very girl they once belonged to, who herself was little more than a corpse who’d yet to accept that death had long since passed over her, signaling the end of her days before the sun had even risen. While pain remained her only reminder of the mortality that she and all living creatures shared, such sensations did not mean that she shared the same divine right to wish and hope for a better future.
Dreams are for the living, and she had died far too long ago for such trivialities.
That is… until the longing came back.
Longing is familiar, but not in the same way that pain is familiar. With pain, she felt it immediately, her damaged body violently signaling the areas in need of attention, and depending on how bad the damage causing the pain is, it can feel quite horrendous. But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, pain brings a strange sort of catharsis that she's yet to be able to articulate properly. A twisted and perverted sense of peace and self-achievement that spreads itself throughout her body like poison, dulling her screaming nervous system to a low throb and lulling her tortured mind into a sweet and dreamless rest that could only ever be surpassed by the eternal slumber of death itself.
Longing however, did not bring her these same comforting feelings.
More than anything else, longing is a pain. A different kind of pain from what she’d usually refer to as “pain”. It was not an injury or a sign that there was something wrong with her physically. It was… an urge, or an itch even. A stinging, nagging little itch that dug its way underneath her skin, crawled into the deepest and darkest crevasses of her mind and body, festering and biding its time until her guard has lowered, her senses have dulled, and just when she thinks she’ll finally be able to find an ounce of reprieve from the nightmare that her life has become, it strikes.
In the beginning, it starts out small, just like it always does, a barely perceptible sensation that she has to focus hard on to even realize it's there. It matters very little however, whether she notices the itch’s presence immediately or not, because it's not so much a matter of “whether” she realizes it's there, but “when” she finally realizes. She always inevitably realizes after a while.
After that, it's really only a matter of time before the persistent and ever-growing hunger from within begins to drive her to madness, the itch having grown from a barely perceptible tingle to a raging and all-consuming fire that threatened to sear her alive for the rest of time until the need that fueled it had been quenched.
“Fairy Dust”.
A magical red powder that her manager always made sure to give her before she went into a fight, not that she ever complained. In fact, the constant supply of red dust before fights was one of the few benefits to her current arrangement. Although she didn’t understand how it worked, or even what it was made out of, she knew for certain that it made her stronger, faster, have better reflexes and reaction times, and also dulled the amount of pain she felt when struck. She felt braver, but more importantly than any of that however, the Fairy Dust made her feel powerful . A fleeting sense of it perhaps, but enough that it keeps her coming back for more, and more, and more and more and more and more and more and more and more more more more more more-
“ MORE. ” Is what she screamed from her cell on the night they first gave it to her, hours upon hours into the night, night after night begging, screaming, and pleading for even just a crumb more of that sweet heavenly powder and the satanic bliss it filled her with.
She wanted it. No, she needed it. They had given it to her the first time because they were afraid she wouldn’t be able to beat the man they’d brought for her to fight. He was big, not bigger than the one she’d fought today but this was back before she’d developed her reputation, before they all knew just how much of a fighter she really was, so they fretted and worried.
Not about her obviously, they couldn’t have cared less about her if they tried, this she was aware of. But no, they were worried not for the stick thin little girl they were about to throw into a cage match like some glorified dog fight, but for their own necks. For unbeknownst to their little fighter, these matches were far more about the very notable and important people who sat watching in the audience, than they ever were about the people actually fighting. This fight in particular happened to be one where she, or rather her manager, really needed a win, for whatever reason that he’d never even bother wasting the breath trying to explain to her. But in that moment of fear and desperation, with more hanging in the balance than the girl would ever be able to realize on her own, a miracle was performed, and a star-fighter was born.
If only she knew how quickly stars come crashing to the ground, when not given what they really need to shine.
From that moment on, she was always given Fairy Dust before her fights. It was her greatest strength, her secret weapon, the infallible trump card she’d always have at her disposal, so long as she fought and won like how she was supposed to. And she did, for the most part. There were of course still days like today that popped around every now and then. Never often enough that they were a concern for her superiors or a damage to her notorious win-streak, but enough that she knew better than to slack off unless she wanted to spend the night alone with little more than her thoughts and the itch to keep her tortured screams company.
The itch came around not too long after she started taking the magical powder, but the more she took to make it go away, the worse the feeling got. She’d even tried telling her manager and the medics about it after a while, but they’d merely shrugged her concerns off, and said it was nothing to worry about before throwing her back in her cell. Bastards… easy for them to say it's nothing to worry about when they’re not the ones feeling like a colony of fire ants have made a home in their very veins.
Oh well, there isn’t anything she can do about it herself, and nobody else seems bothered enough to do anything about it for her, so perhaps this should just be a lesson in why she should always win her fights as quickly and viciously as possible, like her manager says. Because when she doesn’t, she always ends up face-first in her cell with a broken body, and without even a line of Fairy Dust to knock herself out with as reward for her victory. The pain from her fight would have still been there when she woke up in the morning of course, but a short amount of relief is always better than no relief at all.
Anything to keep the dreaded longing away.
Right now, the longing hasn’t hit her just yet. She can feel it budding beneath her skin, at the very base of her spine, but it's nowhere near bad enough to warrant her continued self-pity, not with how busted her ribs are, at least. The pain is keeping the longing away for now, not unlike how the Fairy Dust normally would, but much like how her precious Dust never kept the itch away for long, she knew the pain wouldn’t be able to do much more for her in the long run.
The loud rumbling of her stomach suddenly stole her attention. Hunger. And thirst too by the feeling of it. They were familiar, like pain, but both easier to ignore than longing, even when combined.
Food and water came regularly. That was another thing she’d learned in the time she’d spent here. They could beat her, break her, toss her around, throw her into walls, choke her nearly to death, crack her over the head with their weapons, or even take away her Fairy Dust, but no matter how bad she was or what they did to her, they always had to bring her food and water. Not out of choice mind you, not if the way they acted when bringing her these things was anything to go by, but something else that the girl hadn’t the knowledge or experience to put a name to. Something, or perhaps someone even, was clearly insisting that she be given… something to keep her going.
Food didn’t feel as good as Fairy Dust but when she ate she still felt strong, strong enough that her long arms could break anything, it seemed. This was something she took great pride in, especially after one of the guards had once mentioned that people like her, which he referred to as “long-arms”, usually weren’t capable of such great feats of strength due to the limitations of their double jointed appendages. The guard’s compatriots all laughed at him, finding a hilarious amount of stupidity hidden somewhere within their comrades' statement.
The next time she managed to break out of her cell, she made sure not to go back to it until she’d proven to all those laughing idiots why they should have heeded their friends' warning when they had the chance.
They probably won’t feed her after tonight’s horrific performance. Not for a few more hours, at least. They just want her to suffer. They know they’ve already taken away her Fairy Dust for the night and even then they’d never go more than 3 days before giving her more, so as long as she can hold out until then, she’ll be fine in the end. They’re trying to scare her by taking away the only other thing they give her on a reliable basis, and if this were anyone else we were speaking about, it might have actually worked. But much like how she’s accepted the inevitability of pain, she’s also come to accept the inevitability of victory.
They may have won today’s battle, but she would be the one to win the war.
The slowly building sound of dripping water on metal was another familiarity that slowly made itself known to the girl the longer she laid motionless on the ground, thinking herself down such long circular rabbit holes that it was a wonder how she didn’t get lost in her own head. Perhaps the sound of gentle dripping droplets in the corner was a contributing factor. It was soothing in a way. She remembered back to a time when it used to drive her crazy. The constant sound, endlessly tormenting in its consistent rhythmic slap of water droplets against the face of a long-worn canon that hadn’t been used or properly maintained in god knows how long, a horrible reminder of each and every agonizing second she spent wasting away in her living tomb. Now the sound was a comfort. It meant she was in her cage. It meant she didn’t have to fight. It meant she’d lived yet another second, in spite of death’s scythe curling menacingly around her neck.
Speaking of things around the neck, heavy chains were bound around her wrists, ankles, and neck as usual, holding her down firmly, restraining her to the floor even, but they were also familiar, not quite a comfort in the way some of the other familiarities in her life had become, but familiar nonetheless, which was always better than what wasn’t familiar. The chains were there to keep her in place. When she’d first arrived, her manager felt no need to take such measures, and truthfully there likely wasn’t actually a need to either. She’d been so young and timid when they found her. No bigger than a tot was she when she’d been stolen away from wherever it was they’d found her and the family she may or may not have had at that time. Some say they found her floating in the middle of the ocean and saved her cursed life by bringing her aboard, while others insist that she’s the spawn of satan who rose from hell to bring the civilized world to an end, those were the interesting responses. The more boring ones mentioned something about her being a whore’s child (whatever that meant), or a science experiment gone horribly wrong, among many other lies, jabs, and taunts the awful no good adults could think to throw at her. Point being, there had been no reason to chain the small girl up when she’d arrived, so they never did, believing her to be so weak and powerless that they’d never fall victim to anything she had planned.
Prior to introducing her to Fairy Dust, the guards and managers were more than correct in their assessment of the poor girl in their custody, however things took a massive turn for the worst once they’d started giving her the mysterious red powder that turned into the results they were all looking for.
She’d only ever managed to escape from her cell 2 times, and the chains were introduced almost immediately after the first escape, with more being added on following the second. Not only that, but the punishments she received each time always made her think twice whenever an escape opportunity did present itself now. She never regret her previous escape attempts, no matter how much she said she did to her superiors, nor did she feel any sympathy for the sorry fucks she slaughtered during her few moments of freedom, but if there’s one thing fighting has taught her, its that just because an opportunity to strike is present, doesn’t mean it's the best option in the moment if an immediate and more deadly counter is going to be waiting right around the corner to knock you into next year.
Even with pain, hunger, thirst, and longing keeping her powerless, she knew that she was not truly weak. She had been fighting for too long. Killing for too long. It had been hard at first, harder than almost anything else she’s been forced to do by these wretched and heartless people, but she could do it now and she could do it very easily, especially when they pumped her so full of Fairy Dust that her body trembled and her eyes turned as red as rubies. Those were the days when killing was the easiest, her mind and body so numb and out of touch with everything going on around her that she often wouldn’t even realize what’s happened until she’s standing in the center of a blood-soaked room surrounded by the mangled and bludgeoned corpses of her would-be “masters”.
So the guards kept her chained now, and very tightly, at that.
For a long time, the girl was left wondering why they didn’t just kill her after the second escape. She’d already done enough damage the first time around and even more so the second, and given how ruthless and trigger happy these guards were at times, it was shocking that she hadn’t been given that same treatment after proving that she was, in fact, a threat to them as well as her opponents in the cage. The reason wouldn’t become clear for a very long time, and to be perfectly honest the girl still wasn’t totally sure what was the cause behind it all, but apparently there was something “different” about her in comparison to all the other fighters they’d given Fairy Dust to previously.
Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say it was the fact that there wasn’t anything drastically different about her after she began taking the enchanting powder.
You see, while the itch was by no means a pleasant or even normal symptom brought about by her heavily encouraged misuse of the mysterious substance over the years, the girl's self-proclaimed discomfort was by no means a symptom that the fight managers or medics were at all interested in paying attention to, mostly because as far as they were concerned, at least she still had a working brain to “feel” such sensations with. The majority of the other fighters… had not proven to be quite as lucky in this regard.
She had long since lost count of the number of fighters who’ve had to be removed from training or even official matches because of the horrific effects that Fairy Dust can have on those who don’t have the willpower to wield the raw and almighty power the magical Dust afforded its user. Like her manager had once said, “any and all are free to use Fairy Dust, but only those who prove themselves worthy may do so without losing their minds to the power and might they were never going to be able to control”.
Only a select few, the Kings and Queens of the Pit, were lucky enough to keep their minds when exposed to Fairy Dust. They, like her, were the fighters that everyone had to watch for and be mindful of, because not only were they strong, but they were also still “there”, and that made them more lethal than any out-of-control lunatic who’d finally taken a tumble down the rabbit-hole into Crazyland could ever hope to be. She wasn’t entirely sure what made her so different from the others that she was “found worthy” to benefit from the power that sent most others to the hospital, or worse, but it had never really mattered before whether she understood something or not, only that it did what everyone told her it would, so as long as Fairy Dust kept working for her the way it always did, then she was content to refrain from asking questions that would only get her in trouble.
Like the good little Pit Queen that they’d trained her to be.
The sound of soft, murmured voices from somewhere in the distance halted her thought process, slowly filling her with a deep rage as the not-familiar sounds infected the air and grated on her slowly dwindling patience.
She knew they weren’t prisoners. Prisoners never talked, either too tired, scared, or some awful combination of everything to do much more than wimper helplessly in the corner, much less talk. Guards also don’t like talking much, not to prisoners at least, and they weren’t really allowed to talk amongst themselves either. Too much risk of plans or classified information being leaked and incurring a rebellion or non-monetized prisoner fight. Guards do a lot of things, they yell, laugh, hiss, moan, and grunt, but they don’t talk, at least not usually. By the sound of it however, it did seem like guards speaking, which meant it was likely a secret conversation, one that was safer being had amongst prisoners who wouldn’t be able to do anything with their information, than superiors who might take issue with the words being exchanged.
She sighed, quickly growing tired of the boring guards and their boring conversations that usually ended in someone getting beaten, or forced to give really terrible head, either one was an awful way to end the night.
The itch was beginning to become a nuisance, which the girl silently lamented as she resigned herself to a very long and restless night.
She just wanted more Fairy Dust, but she knew they wouldn’t give her any. She knew that like she knew pain, hunger, thirst… longing. Like she knew the dripping sound of water against metal, she knew they would not give her more of her beloved Fairy Dust, not until she’d proven that she was still worth the dose, and even then it wouldn’t be enough to truly satisfy her, not by a long shot. No matter how much they gave her, she wanted more.
She always wanted more.
But she only got more if she fought well, if she killed, if the crowd cheered and screamed for her to continue with her senselessly violent onslaughts like it wasn’t another person she was pounding into the floor. They didn’t seem to care, so why should she? She wouldn’t, so long as she kept getting her Fairy Dust.
When would she fight again?
When would she be coated in more blood, thick and red like the very powder that gave her the strength to do these monstrous feats?
When would they give her more Fairy Dust?
When did things come to this?
How did she get here?
Why did she hang on anymore?
When will this all finally end?
There were no answers or comfort to be found in the dark abyss she was forced to call her home. The girl had long since given up hope of anything better than this life that she’d been dealt. All she needed was Fairy Dust. That was it. That was everything. Forget food, forget water, forget sleeping or any of those other things she’s been told people “need”. She doesn’t need any of those things. She’s stronger than all the other pathetic little weaklings. So long a s she has her Fairy Dust she has everything she needs and she will be unstoppable, because Fairy Dust is what makes her strong.
Even as it kills her, slowly and agonizingly.
The girl’s musings were once again interrupted by hushed, hurried talking. Those blasted guards again. What on earth could be so important that they felt the need to… wait, what?
The girl silences her mind’s annoyed complaining for a moment in order to listen more closely to the words being exchanged from around the corner of a nearby wall.
It was hard to make out at first but after a while the girl finally picked up on the topic of their conversation. They were talking about… a shadow?
“Why are you still going on about that horse-shit, man? There’s no way any of that’s real.” said one of the guards, dismissively.
She recognized his voice. He had a heavy hand. When the longing was too strong and she didn’t move as fast as he’d like, he would hit hard and pull roughly on her chains. He was by no means a patient guard.
“Look, you saw the same newspaper I did, just read it. ‘The Mysterious Blue Shadow strikes! World Government officials have been dispatched to investigate the horrific assassination of King Hammonly III of Solomine Kingdom. Leading to the murdered ruler were the bodies of all the late king’s royal guards who died valiantly while defending their leader from the perpetrator. Out of the 250 man-strong army, only 3 guards survived the ordeal: one who had been assaulted and left unconscious in a storage closet, the other 2 having escaped by hiding beneath the bodies of their fallen crownsguard.’ Doesn’t that make you just a little bit on edge?”
“No, I can’t say that it does. A better question to ask would be ‘why are you acting like such a pussy over this?’”
The second guard growls in frustration. “Oh, come on, man, you heard the higher ups whispering about this last night. That king was dead as a fucking door nail when they found him! Head chopped off at the root, blood splattered everywhere, and a creepy-ass message left behind on the wall talking about “shadows” and “false holiness” or something along those lines! And that's all before we’ve even addressed the whole army this… “thing”, whatever the fuck it was, had to take down before it could even get to the king. The guards and servants are all talking about the green eyed monster that did it!”
It took her a moment to recognize it, but she knew the voice of the second guard as well. He was always fucking the other slaves. Sometimes so much he forgot to do his job properly. Bastard wouldn’t dare touch her now though, not after what she did to teach him a lesson. He’d only tried something on her once, and she’d almost ripped his arm off as a reward for his foul behavior, so he stayed well clear of her nowadays. He’s lucky, because if it hadn’t been for the chains holding her down, she’d have done it, and fairly easily at that.
She ended up getting his eye in the end though, so she considers that encounter a win.
The first guard scoffing at his partner draws her attention back to the conversation. “What? You afraid this “green-eyed monster” is going to show up here and free this lot, too? Afraid our little “Pit Queen” might get out and come for that other eye of yours too, are you?”
The second guard growled angrily in response to the pointed teasing, moving a hand to touch the patch already covering his left eye self-consciously. “Shut up, shit head.”
The first guard laughed, “Well, what do you want me to say? You keep going on and on about this as if it’s actually something to worry about. You really think some random guy from Solomine is gonna come all the way out here just to free a bunch of pathetic slaves? From a fighting ring?”
Free the slaves? Now that was an interesting idea, but it did little more than pique her interest, since there was no point in actually holding out hope that it might happen.
Freedom was nothing. It was a lost hope, at least for her it was. She could have her pretend freedom during the moments following an escape attempt, but those moments are few and far in between these days, and freedom that doesn’t last doesn’t feel like real freedom, so perhaps it was better left forgotten. Slaves aren’t free, and they never will be. The only freedom a slave could dream of was death. That was the only way to be freed in a place like this. It was how she earned one of her many nicknames from her fellow slaves.
The “Freedom Granter”, they sometimes called her, and while it was a name that carried great weight to it in the eyes of the other fighters, and she’d killed more than her fair share of pit partners to have earned that name fully, it was not a name that filled her with pride in the same way being called Pit Queen made her feel. All it did was remind her of the salvation that she readily provided for others, at the insistence of her managers and their insatiable crowds, but would likely find little of for herself in the end, as was the case with many aspects of her life.
The second guard speaks up again. “Ok, so maybe this shadow monster thing is a bit fantastical to take seriously, but what about potential copy cats? You know how it is, some guy does something crazy and gets away with it so people all over start thinking they can just do shit like that without warning. What if someone like that got in and actually did manage to spring a couple loose? Do you want to deal with a bunch of drug addicted pit fighters?”
The first guard snorts. “Shit no. But you don’t need to worry about it. Because that Shadow monster isn’t real.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
A groan precedes the response, “Why am I on shift with you again?”
“Because even the boss is a little worried that someone might come and free the slaves. And as you just pointed out we wouldn’t want to deal with a bunch of drug deprived pit fighters now would we?” The second guard snickers knowingly.
She would laugh if she had the strength. No, no they would not like to deal with that. They can barely put up with the slaves when they have been pacified with the mystic red substance they love to pump into their fighters to make them more submissive, but also more deadly. And the more they gave it out, the deadlier they all became.
The first guard groans, his frustration clearly growing. “Fuck head. The boss worries about too many things. Especially with the Celestial Dragons breathing down his neck to get more fighters to go against the Pit Queen and actually put up a goddamn fight for more than 2 seconds. That’s the only reason he’s even paying attention to this stupid rumor of a Slave Freeing Shadow.”
A Slave Freeing Shadow? Now that's a sight that she would love to see. A part of her wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of how it sounds, but another small part of her wants to believe it, despite how preposterous she knows it probably is. She’d certainly never heard of something like a slave freeing shadow before now, and the thought of falling pray to gossip being spread by the stupid guards made her want to gag over how untrue it all clearly was, but then again… what if it wasn’t… what if she… No. Do not dream. Do not hope. It leads to nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
‘No matter how much you wish it did otherwise.’
The second guard sighs in resignation. “If you say so.”
“I do,” states the first guard harshly. “Now shut up before you do something else to piss off the Pit Queen
besides
waking her up with your stupid chatter.”
In response to his comrades comment, the second Guard gasped in audible fear before slowly peeking around the corner where the two guards were standing, his face turning a pale white color when he noticed two red eyes staring hungrily at him from the otherwise darkened room, the owner of said eyes wanting nothing more than to make all his horrid thoughts of what she’d do to him into the nightmarish reality that he deserved for his grotesque and vile ways.
“Fucking hell, how the hell’s she awake already after all that? I know the little twit won the fight and all, but after the smacking she took shouldn’t she be fucking dead by now?”
The first guard gives an almost hysterical laugh. “No way, shithead, she’s our little Red Eye Pit Queen, after all. The youngest fighter we’ve ever had in this corner of the underground fighting circuit, and so far one of the strongest we’ve ever seen. Even the other Pit Kings we got refuse to fight her after seeing what she’s capable of when she gets on that Fairy Dust.”
“I can’t imagine how. She’s as thin as a twig and probably weighs half as much.”
“Maybe. But unfortunately she’s been a crowd favorite from the start and there’s a reason why all her fights gotta come from foreign waters, these days. Cuz there isn’t anyone within 100 miles of these seas stupid enough to get into an enclosed space with that crazy psycho bitch, and the crap they keep pumping into her is only barely keeping her under wraps, it's the same for the rest of them, too. They should have never given these freaks any of that shit, it only makes them even more braindead and pathetic than they already are. If you ask me we ought to have shot the dirty whore the second we-”
She listened to the guards curse and berate her endlessly. That was far more familiar than the talking from before. They always cursed her, she was the Pit Queen, after all. The strongest fighter here or anywhere else, who all other fighters either bowed to or learned, the hard way, why you don’t get into a cage match with her. The fact that she’d held on to her title for as long as she had was also a noteworthy accomplishment. Most “Pit Royalty”, as they were referred to, didn’t last more than a few months, maybe a year if they were lucky. But she was different, she was strong, and with the help of her precious Fairy Dust, she’d been able to hold on to her crown for almost 5 years now, cementing herself as an unstoppable force not to be taken lightly, by anyone.
It was a heavy crown to bear, and she was already so tired… so lonely.
But she couldn’t give up. Never give up. Never give in. Stay strong. Stay true. True to what, she didn’t remember anymore, but the words were something ingrained deep within her, as much a part of her as the long arms that have won her all these meaningless accolades.
The Little Pit Queen slowly closed her eyes, hoping for a little rest, despite knowing it wasn’t likely given the growing discomfort of her “itch”. But if, on some strange occasion, after having slipped into a fitful slumber brought about by her body’s physical need for sleep, she happened to dream of Shadows sneaking into her cell to free her from the chains that bound her down, of a hand reaching forward in welcoming greeting, or of dazzling green eyes, so pure and bright that they shined like precious gems… well, that was no one’s business but her own as far as she was concerned.
Years would pass, and the Little Pit Queen would greedily listen to every conversation that came her way, waiting for even a scrap of information about the Shadow she’d once heard of. She learned many things about the outside world. But never enough. Never ever enough.
It would be aboard a ship taking her to yet another pit to fight in, where her hopeless little dream would come true, along with many others who were present on that ship that fateful day.
He would free her and so many others, yet would treat it like it was the most obvious thing to do. The shadow was much, much more than she could have ever imagined, probably because he was actually real, and if the very creature behind all the fantastical rumors was true… then perhaps what they said of his abilities were also true.
It would take her a while to see what needed to be done, but once she did, she’d made up her mind. She would demand to go with him, and no amount of convincing would change her mind. Deep within the girl her hunger for food, Fairy Dust, and Freedom warred violently, threatening to tear her apart from the inside out unless a resolution to her internal battles could be reached. To this day she still has no idea why Blue Shadow, or just Blue, as she would soon come to know him, took her with him that day. Frankly, she's not even entirely sure if he’s even certain why he decided to take her along, but in the end, he did, and the former Pit Queen would spend the rest of her days forever grateful to her leader and friend, for the unimaginable kindness he’s showed to her since their meeting.
She would be the first to join the ranks of the organization following the Shadow himself, and with that, he became her Captain, her Freedom, her Hope. It would take many years but through the trust and bonds formed with both Blue and the rest of the Shadows, she would one day overcome the lethal grip Fairy Dust has on her. It will not be an easy journey, and there may even be days where she succumbs to the tantalizing urge to give in and let the magical powder carry her away like she used to do at every chance she could get, back when she was a powerless slave just fighting to survive. But even with how difficult the road ahead looked, she would gladly give her once precious Fairy Dust for him, and everything he stood for, because how could drugs possibly compare to having her nakama and freedom?
It didn’t. As she would soon come to learn.
For as difficult a journey as our young Pit Queen has ahead of her, she can rest easy knowing that while the world may be a terrible place filled with terrible people, it also has the potential for so much more, as her leader would one day educate her, as one of the many gifts he would impart on her over their years together. For she was his First Mate, his second in command, his “Acrobat”, as her wanted posters would soon come to refer to her, but by far the greatest gift he had given her of all, was the gift of her name.
“Ok look, I get that you don’t really have a name, or at the very least you don’t remember what it was, but I have to call you something, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever refer to someone as “The Pit Queen” or anything of that sort in a serious conversation, so I’m just gonna call you “Li-chi” for the time being, and you can decide on your own flashy name later on if you want. Sounds good?”
The Pit Queen was now dead, and from her ashes, Li-chi was born!
Notes:
I genuinely hate how long it took me to get this chapter out, partially because I wish I had more time to write and post in general, but mostly because I wasn’t even the person who wrote this chapter. Yes, thats right, I have once again enlisted the incredible help of my co-author Dragowolf, who very kindly took time out of her day like… 2 or 3 months ago maybe, and wrote up the draft that would eventually become this chapter. To be fair to myself, I did edit and add a fair amount of stuff to this chapter (so much homework was avoided in the process of finalizing this), but the structural foundation of this chapter is 100% thanks to my dear friend’s genius and continued willingness to put up with my bullshit for the last 4 years, so please make sure to send some love her way, because quite literally half this AU wouldn’t exist without her in one way or another! Regarding the chapter itself though, Im quite excited for this one because it focuses on the first of many characters we’re revealing and providing an initial introduction of for some bigger things we have planned for this AU down the road. Definitely a pretty heavy one to be starting with and perhaps not a fully accurate depiction of how she will actually be when she’s finally introduced, but Li-chi is a character that I have had great fondness for since Dragowolf and I created her, partially because we did give her such a fucked up back story (not that most of these sad fucks wont have one but still), but also because she’s just a really fun character to work with and write interactions for and Im upset that I can’t write more about her and the other shadows yet. Patience is a virtue though, and more will be revealed when the time comes. For now, let us know what you think of this chapter and what you think about the stuff we’ve being doing in these fics recently. Otherwise, thanks for reading, have a great day, and i hope to see you back again soon for another one of my projects. Until then! <3
Chapter 3: Gullible Gossip
Chapter Text
‘Hold it in, Amanda…’ thought the young woman as she dashed down a long, empty hallway that seemed to grow dimmer and bleeker with each frantic step she took. The last remaining light of the day, and the young woman’s spirit, quickly giving way with the inevitably encroaching darkness of night.
‘Hold it in, just hold it in. Don’t let the tears fall. Don’t let them hear you. Don’t even make a sound. Don’t you dare let them know how much they really get to you’ Amanda repeated to herself, over and over, like some kind of deluded prayer as she made futile attempts to tuck her frazzled auburn strands back into the bun she’d neatly corralled it all into earlier that morning.
She wanted to howl. She wanted to scream. She wanted to kick and cry and shout and violently beat herself against the nearest hard surface until she bled everything she had to bleed and then maybe even some more after all that. Anything and everything to unravel the horrifically sick and twisted feeling that had knotted itself deep within her very core.
It was all a lie .
For years Amanda had dreamed of being a marine. She had no family ties to the World Government, nor did any of her friends or the people close to her on the small secluded island she once called home feel the same call to serve as she did. Yet for as long as she’d been able to talk, Amanda had spoken of nothing but dreams of a life filled with pristine unblemished uniforms, rigid but comforting structure, and the overwhelming pride that came from the knowledge that you were part of the very system that was making the world a better place.
That was her dream!
The day she turned 18, Amanda ran to the nearest recruitment office station, arriving at their door ready to take her examination even before they had opened. While her physical test scores weren’t the greatest by any means, her IQ and written test results had the recruitment officers practically begging the young woman to join the intelligence unit right there on the spot. Amanda might not be the fastest or the strongest person you’ll ever meet, but she was remarkably intelligent and to top it off she also had a rather remarkable little… gift that would soon come to serve her throughout her daily marine life and duties more than she could have ever hoped, or wanted.
For you see, while many might assume little of the short, plump, and sweet-looking young woman who’d been sent to greet foreign personnel or new trainees in her superiors’ stead, they would all soon learn that it was actually her very lack of assertiveness or aggressive aura that lent so well to her famed ability. After all, confidentiality, personal or otherwise, only holds importance to people when they think the person they are speaking to may actually be able to do something with the information they give them. While by no means a magical ability, there have been many a typically tight-lipped individual who found themselves spilling highly classified information without even realizing they’d done so. And even if they did realize eventually what they’d foolishly shared, it wasn’t like they could do anything to take it back.
What’s said is said and cannot be unsaid, as the saying goes.
It was a gift that her superiors within the reconnaissance and intelligence units were very enthused to hear about upon its discovery. It would also end up being one of the many reasons why the young woman was granted as much freedom and authority as she had despite her comparatively low seated rank. Amanda’s uncanny ability to get seemingly anyone to talk about anything she desired with little more than a coy question and an innocent smile, intentionally done or not, had been utilized in a number of scenarios with a variety of different people throughout her short but highly successful career.
At first, things weren’t so bad. For better or worse, Amanda enjoyed being useful to others and was initially more than happy to utilize her newfound talents for the benefit of her division and the Marines as a whole. After a while however, things began to change. Slowly but surely with each passing face she was seated before, her superiors' expectations of the kind of information she was to procure from them, as well as the methods and instruments which she would utilize to obtain this information, grew to levels of heinous debauchery the likes of which Amanda never could have possibly anticipated.
Even with the young woman’s resound acceptance of her statistical unlikelihood to make it out of service without at least a little trauma considered, never before in all her wildest nightmares did Amanda expect to enact the kind of vile and cruel acts of inhumane torture that she’s done thus far. That she’d been forced to do. Least of all at the orders of the men she once considered the panicle of mercy and humanity. Day in and day out Amanda was expected to come in, perform her designated “extractions”, write her reports detailing all the information she was able to obtain, report her findings to her superiors, and then go home to prepare for another day of the exact. same. thing.
Over and over again.
The structured schedule in which Amanda once found a sense of confidence and security had now become the fire fueling her very own personal hell. Work that once filled her with life and purpose now drained her of feeling. People she once enjoyed seeing and conversing with in the halls now made her sick to look at, much less be around. Even the four tiny walls that made up her heavenly little broom closet of an office now felt like more of a prison than any set of bars ever could. With each emotionless report presented and inhumane “controlled shock” administered to the ever growing blur of faces she tortured every day, Amanda couldn’t help but feel like she was slowly turning into some kind of machine. A sharp and dagger-like claw whose sole purpose was to sweetly slither its way up to its unassuming prey, before tearing its way into their deepest, most sacred parts and ripping only the darkest, bloodiest, most horrifyingly rancid secrets that can possibly be pulled from them.
Some secrets were those she expected to learn given the nature of many of the genuinely detestable criminals that were unlucky enough to be sat before her for their interrogation. But others… others made Amanda question. Question her motive. Question her methods. Question the very reason why information had to be extracted in the way her superiors all enthusiastically encouraged her to use when talking peacefully could yield the same results. They told her it didn’t mean anything. They told her she was overthinking things. They told her there was a difference between heartless tormentors and people who were just doing as they were told.
“Amanda is a good girl who does as she is told, stays where she belongs, and speaks only when she is spoken to first. So long as Amanda continues to be a good girl, then the World Government will make sure to take care of everything and everyone else!” they told her.
But it was all a LIE .
Coffee. All Amanda had wanted was a simple cup of coffee to reward herself for the long night of report writing and record keeping she’d just forced herself through. Between all her daily intel extractions and the time she wasted answering the inane questions of her superiors during daily presentations, she hardly had any time to perform her other daily duties like she used to; not that said superiors seemed to care very much about that when she last brought it up. It had been a difficult ordeal to get caught back up on all the paperwork she’d fallen behind on, but never one to allow the quality of her work to falter even under the worst circumstances, Amanda rose to the occasion and refused to quit until she’d accomplished her mission.
With deadlines finally met and the promise of a slow day of work with which to round off her overloaded work week, Amanada skipped happily along to her office, coffee in hand, when another Marine suddenly stopped her to talk. He introduced himself, but really it wasn’t necessary. Amadna already knew who this particular marine was, including his name, island or origin, rank, likes, dislikes, and where he buried his sister’s dead goldfish that he absolutely didn’t replace with a different one after accidentally killing it while she was away at summer camp that one year. She also remembered that she didn’t particularly like him very much. Unlike most marines that Amanda knew and admired, this man was lazy, crude, disrespectful to authority, and could barely do his job properly without extensive assistance from his teammates. And when he wasn’t busy taking credit for the work being done by his compatriots, he was always yapping away at the top of his lungs about things he clearly knew nothing about. Everyone does it occasionally, even Amanda herself, but this man was a whole new breed of obnoxious. While on most occasions Amanda would know better than to let whatever this man had to say get to her, today’s topic of conversation had been eyeopening… and heartbreaking.
Slaves. Real-life, living, breathing slaves. Right here on their very own Marineford. They’d be arriving in a few days on a warship, after being apprehended from a trafficking vessel that had been carting all manner of beasts of burden, humans included, across the world to be sold to the highest bidder. He wanted to know if she’d go see them with him before they were sent up to Mary Goise .
“See them?” Amanda repeats in bewilderment, the room suddenly growing both hot and cold and the world around her turning upside down as the last remaining semblance of understanding Amanda about her life went careening out the nearest open window. She didn’t remember much of the infuriated outburst that followed the marine’s innocuously-intended question, but she remembers feeling angry. She remembers feeling confused. She remembers the singular question that had been racing through her mind throughout the entire ordeal, perhaps had even screamed as loud as her mousy little lungs would allow, if only so that someone might hear it and be able to provide an answer to her sudden philosophical query:
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE WORLD GOVERNMENT KEEPS SLAVES FOR THE CELESTIAL DRAGONS, I THOUGHT WE WERE THE ONES WHO FREED PEOPLE FROM THAT?”
It was then that Amanda learned the true horrific extent of her previously unknown ignorance. As the aforementioned marine, in addition to nearly every other officer who’d been within earshot of their conversation in the entrance of the cafeteria, began to laugh at her. A rare few present had the decency to look concerned or offended on Amanda’s behalf. The rest of them however, one by one all either rolled their eyes in amusement, shared hushed giggles of assumption with peers nearby, or just downright stared at her in confused disbelief as it became increasingly obvious that Amanda wasn’t kidding. About her question or how upset the implications behind it made her.
“Why… why are you all laughing about this? I don’t understand what’s so funny…” Amanda trails off, her voice barely above a whisper as tears begin to collect beneath her eyes, her body trembling from head to toe.
The marine who’d caused this whole nightmare in the first place takes this as his opportunity to collect himself before fixing Amanda with a confident smirk. “Jeez Gossip, I knew the rumors about you must have some truth behind them, but I’d never have imagined that Miss Prissy Piggy who's constantly shoving her little snout in everybody’s secrets wouldn’t know something that even a petty officer gets let in on. Do you really do anything worthwhile in that little hovel you call an office, or is that just where you give the Higher Ups their routine blowjo- I mean performance analysis?” The man says with a wicked smile, lifting his left hand to his mouth and utilizing the two to create the illusion of a horrifically inappropriate act one might consider using whilst pleasing a man that made Amanda scream in disgusted horror before turning and running away.
To the echoed laughs and uncaring taunts of her so-called fellow marines.
Amanda ran down the hallway, her career, identity, and sense-of-self hanging precariously in the balance between good and evil; act and don’t act; love and hate; blindsided betrayal and the sudden solemn realization that she had allowed herself to be fed nothing but fairy tales from the very beginning.
Self-Reliance. Respect. Dignity. Humility. These key ideals and many more were the tenants by which the World Government lived and breathed. Without these important values to help guide soldiers through the gruesomeness of war or remind military leaders to always seek peaceful resolution before violent confrontation, there would be little to separate the gracious men who selflessly gave their lives to protect those they loved from the sinful degenerates who refused to conform to the World Government’s “vision”. But as this most recent interaction has revealed, what was once undeniable truth may not actually be as it seems for those who’ve refused to open their eyes.
Of course, for as distressing as the situation had been, Amanda couldn’t help but hope that this was just another one of the loudmouth’s wild stories he so loved to tell. No one had ever lied to her before and she now suspected that perhaps they physically couldn’t. But she had to hope he was wrong. She had to stay true and have confidence that the World Government would never involve itself in something as heinous as slavery. Save for its elimination from the world as was their just and righteous goal.
But unfortunately he wasn’t wrong.
Within a few hours of returning to her office and beginning to rip the once meticulously organized space apart filing cabinet by filing cabinet, Amanda had confirmed the loud mouth’s claims. Confirmed them and expanded on them.
While obvious red flags like “slavery”, “slave quarters”, or “torture” were nowhere to be found within the piles of documents that were scattered about her office, cleverly fascecious terms like “unwilling imprisonment”, “prisoner quarters”, or “encouragement” were littered across the long pages of text in their places. All of these putridly coy means of talking around the atrocities that she now knew were taking place, that apparently everyone but her had known were taking place. And worst of all was that Amanda couldn’t even blame the fools who’d written these reports for their dubious choice of words, seeing as how she constantly implemented many of the same techniques in her daily work in order to avoid hurling every time she had to remember what she’d done. What she’d allowed herself to be tricked into doing during the hurricane that the last two years of her life had become. All in the name of Justice.
At least that’s what she thought she’d done all of that for. Now, she wasn’t so sure of what or why anything was.
She reached for more tissues, needing to wipe her tears and blow her nose for what felt like the millionth time. Thank the Talkative Winds she had her own office with a locking door, even if it was so small it barely fit all of her supplies, much less herself on top of it. At least she could shut herself away and cry in peace whenever she needed to. And it has been quite frequently as of recently.
Amanda had no idea what she was going to do now. A part of her knew that she couldn’t stay with the marines and continue to blindly follow their blissful little fantasy now that she knew the truth she’d refused to acknowledge all along; not when innocent people, truly innocent people, were still being treated with such cruelty by the very people who were supposed to be their salvation. Another part of her already knew that such a thing wouldn’t be possible even if she did feel it was the right thing to do. Not for another 13 years at least.
Damn that stupid contract. She isn’t entirely sure why 15 years seemed like no time at all when she’d initially been presented the terms of her service. Perhaps she’d reasoned that she spent 15 years wishing to be a marine so it only made sense to spend at least that amount of time truly actualizing her childhood dream. But only now that she was on year 2 of her career (and far too deep in things to get out without some sort of problem arising) did she realize, like so many other things today, that nothing about this place, this institution, was what it had originally seemed. And even less so what the World Government tried to proport things as apparently.
Amanda picked up the pile of tissues that had accumulated at her feet and attempted to throw the whole bunch into the nearby garbage can. She missed. ‘Damn’ she thought to herself, reaching to pick them up only to end up clumsily knocking over several piles of paperwork in the process. As stacks of meaningless chicken scratch fell down around the poor, helpless young woman she wondered briefly if the hefty stacks might be enough to bury her alive beneath the weight of their shameful deceit. At least enough to hide her from the misery and confusion that plagued the nightmare she still naively hoped this whole mess secretly was. Sadly, she knew that won’t work. Nor would she be waking from this nightmare anytime soon.
Amanda sighed to herself and started to clean up her absolute disaster of an office. As the seemingly endless stacks of paper were slowly but surely returned to their original locations, she contemplated burning it all. It wasn’t like any of the documentation was actually truthful anyways and while Amanda wasn’t keen on the idea of going to jail she certainly wasn’t terribly keen on the idea of continuing to lie to herself and everyone around her about the nature of the work they all did, or the exceptions they made whenever they were the ones who had to commit terrible crimes. She had joined the Marines to protect and serve the public. Not to torture and enslave. And yet despite her best efforts that seems to be all that Amanda has been able to accomplish in the 2 years since making this foolish and ignorant decision of hers.
All for the sake of a dream. All for the sake of Justice. Neither of which meant much of anything to Amanda anymore.
The auburn-haired woman sniffed pathetically as she kept cleaning up her office. Her eyes glazed over the documents, barely registering which file each document belonged in before carelessly shoving them inside their designated cabinets. Then something caught her eye. An old wanted poster, dated for a number of years ago, laid precariously separated from the remaining stack of posters strewn about on the floor. Amanda cared little for the glorified popularity contest that wanted posters always felt more like than anything else to her, but this one was different. Unlike most wanted posters, which usually left her caseload just as quickly and without explanation as they arrived, this one was a recurring case. Not only had she seen this wanted poster a multitude of times amidst the endless stream of them that came across her desk on a daily basis, but she’d recognized the striking name and image immediately; truthfully there was no way she or anyone else who’d been around at the time wouldn’t have been able to.
She’d not heard of him through her work or career, not initially at least, but from a time prior to her enlistment with the World Government; during a period of Amanda’s life where the world seemed too large and scary to be tackled on her own, yet still so open and ready to be explored by anyone brave enough to embark on the journey, all the same. An age where it was the shadow, rather than the light, who brought liberation and hope to those who had otherwise been denied such unalienable rights for one horrid reason or another.
It was the age of Blue Shadow.
She remembered hearing about him… her… it… Well, whatever the horrifying creature that people called “Blue Shadow” truly was, she’d heard about him initially after he was suspected for the murder of a faroff kingdom’s monarch and entire royal guard. An article had run in the newspaper immediately after the incident had supposedly taken place but was quickly dismissed by the Marines and World Government. Called it all a hoax. A fairytale. A completely illogical string of assumptions that were born from pure conjecture and a clear over exaggeration of this tragic event.
Amanda had done her best at the time to learn everything she could about Blue Shadow, even given her limited resources on her home island. She’d never been one for spreading misinformation, but she’d always loved a good secret, loved hearing the latest gossip about everything going on. Now the idea of gossip and whatever of it was now being spread about her amongst her peers made her stomach turn. Her ability had given her access to more secrets and power than she could have ever hoped to receive in exchange for the work that she did. But apparently not everyone was so happy to see a girl barely 2 years into her service be given such authority and approval from the Higher Ups, inconsiderate of the entirely separate list of atrocities that she herself was forced to enact each and every in exchange for such amenities.
Looking back at the papers on the ground, Amanda furled her brow in confusion, now noticing just how many were dedicated solely to the supposed “over exaggeration” her superiors insisted was all Blue Shadow truly was. It was one thing for cold cases to be reopened upon the request of a high enough official, but why would a case that had been written off countless times before over the years keep resurfacing? And with increasing anxiety and distress from the officials who kept reopening the case by the looks of it too.
Amanda abandoned picking up the papers and began to read the outlined documents thoroughly. She quickly found that the Marines, contrary to what they had publicly reported, had done a great deal of research and reconnaissance on the fabled vigilante. Not only did Amanda learn additional information behind the Blue Shadow incidents that had been released to the public, but she’d also stumbled across a whole slew of other examples of shadow sightings that weren’t even fully detailed in the documents Amanda had on file, much less released to newspapers or the general public. Although the World Government had made quite the show of writing Blue Shadow off as nothing more than a costumed freak with a deathwish, it was clear based on their own actions and reports over the past several years that they saw, and continue to see, a much greater threat in this person and his ulterior motives than even the King of the Pirates himself.
And that greasy fucker had managed to escape his own execution in broad daylight.
Notes written by investigators and intelligence officers indicated that little was learned about Blue Shadow despite extensive investigation, and what little they did have often conflicted with other pieces of information, muddying the entire knowledge pool with impossible contradictions. But the kill count just kept going up. By the time of Blue Shadow’s last confirmed sighting, he’d ended up killing more than just a measly little King from some measly little kingdom. No, he’d killed many kings, some of large nations, others small, all of them previously ruled by monarchs who many would prefer weren’t there, in addition to the inconceivable number of power hungry marines, greedy nobles, and deplorable slave traders he’d taken out along with them.
Amanda felt sick and angry. Not for the degenerates who’d met such a brutal fate, but for the helpless innocents who’d been forced to give everything for the sake of someone else’s sick and twisted pleasure. And for the man she now believed could be hiding behind the mask and cloak that had expertly concealed his identity from even the best investigators for nearly a decade now. The man her former superiors had tried to convince her was a monster.
Unfortunately for them, she could see who the monsters really were now.
Over the next several days, Amanda began to secretly compile and organize any and all information on Blue Shadow she had access to. But this time, instead of utilizing her intellect and skills for the sake of the Marines, she worked with ulterior motives of her own. She was hunting for a secret, a secret about a shadow that might give her some idea of how to find the elusive figure. Before anyone even realized that she’d accessed the archives and talked her way into a section she definitely wasn’t supposed to be in, the usually meek and timid Amanda had already boldly and brazenly begged, borrowed, stolen, and ended the careers of several unlucky former officers in exchange for every scrap of information that the World Government had to offer about Blue Shadow, rumor or otherwise. At this point she had no way of knowing whether any of the information being fed to her directly was actually true, nor how much of her current information was actually little more than blatant lies. The only thing left for Amanda to do to prevent herself from being deceived again was to gather as much information and factual evidence of her own as she could. At least that way if she had to piece together the truth from a bunch of random bits of evidence like some shady puzzle, she’d have some level of certainty that the image she was looking at was actually what she was looking for and not some cheap illusion.
After almost a year of dedicated research and investigation, checking and cross referencing one source against another and those against two more in an endless cycle of ruthless analysis and logical assessment of everything being presented to her, Amanda felt like she’d finally learned enough. She’d learned where he’d been and what he’d been suspected of doing. She’d mapped out the timeline of his travels including every sighting and the notes taken on that event. She studied his preferred methods of infiltration and ultimate dispatching of his targets and any inevitable collateral damage that foolishly got in his way. And just when she thought there couldn’t be any more to learn about a man who the World Government wanted you to believe wasn’t real, she learned of the people who were now being rumored to follow said fairytale figure.
She didn’t know how she was going to reach Blue Shadow. Wasn’t sure if she had anything that someone like him would be interested in, doubly so due to her current status as a Marine, aka the people who want him thrown behind bars and the key tossed into the ocean never to be found again. She didn’t know how to reach Blue Shadow, but she did know how to gather information and more importantly, how to make sure it ended up in the appropriate hands.
Amanda almost felt petty and childish writing a letter of all things to Blue Shadow, but couldn’t think of any other means of communication she could use without being actively supervised. After all the time that had passed and all that she had learned, Amanda was so far past the point of simple anger at the Marines and World Government for lying (to her and the world) that she was willing to do whatever it took to get the truth out. Forget her fellow marines, forget her superiors, forget the Navy and the World Government and the newspapers and all the rotten lies of theirs she’d believed until now. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need any of them. Releasing the information directly to the public would call everything into question immediately, but without an outside force present to actually keep the World Government and their shady actions in check, Amanda knew that any information she leaked that way would only end up being thrown on the pile as another outlandish exaggeration.
No, if she wanted the truth to get out and for it to actually have the kind of impact on the world that she’d always dreamed of having, then she’d have to figure out how to share her precious data quickly, and without being caught. She didn’t know how long she would get away with this in the grand scheme of things and she knew even better that if she were to be caught at any point, she’d be labeled a traitor for her actions with classified intel and executed for treason against the World Government without trial or question. But Amanda decided that she didn’t care.
She had signed up for the Marines to protect and serve the innocent, so by the power invested in her tender heart and the noble oath she took upon joining, she would protect and she would serve!
Notes:
Sorry its been so long, life is kind of a mess right now but im still working (slowly but surely) on all the other fics. I dont like how long its been since posting last, a whole year with nothing is definitely too long even for me, so im gonna try and get some other chapters ready to be posted so I have some stuff to post over the course of the next few months. Idk how much ill actually get accomplished, and unfortunately fanfiction does not take priority over making sure i can pay my rent, but like ive said before, i think about this AU and these characters way too much to ever leave things without something of a satisfying conclusion, and we are nowhere near anything like that so dont worry cuz there’s plenty more to come. It just might take me longer to get things out now that im working full time and no longer in school (and also considering editing/revising this whole series from start to finish so that things actually make fucking sense when you read them together). It’ll be an adjustment, but ill figure it out. Anyways thank you so much for reading and for being patient with me as i desperately try to settle on one of the million different possible ways I could take this AU. Love you!
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