DANCES WITH DEVILS, Part the SECOND!
Chapter 2: The Sacrifice Scheme 「人柱の計画」
Earlier that very morning
The blinds drew up instantly with two snaps of mother’s fingers. Light flooded the stately bedchambers of the Princess and Heir of the Noble’s Republic of Castena Cacao.
“Ugh…” Fasmidi shielded her eyes.
“Up.” With a firmness belying her aristocratic poise, Notona threw off her daughter’s carefully arranged sheets, though careful the three-coconut Alberina family crest in the quilt didn’t touch the floor.
“Mother, it’s been a year,” Fasmidi moaned, dragging her sheets back on. “A whole year. Enough psychiatrists.”
“Young lady, you are eighteen already and you have an important appointment, and, and you are an enterprising and vivacious daughter of the three hundred seventy seven and a half year dynasty of Alberina and you will. Get. Up!”
Fasmidi rose up, rubbed her eyes and glanced at the grandfather clock by her bed in a daze. “Oh, it’s only half past ten. Better get my beauty rest.” And she plopped back down.
Notona paused and betrayed a brief flicker of dismay; but no, she must get a hold of herself. This was her final recourse.
She removed her glove and raised her hand. Glad her daughter wouldn’t see her biting her own lip before the sting.
She trembled, trembled as she had only once before, on that terrible night when Wieder…. Her blush reddened with each second, her hand hovering over her only child’s cheek.
But. She couldn’t. Just couldn’t. There wasn’t a violent bone in Notona’s body.
“Oh Fasmidi,” the queen cried at last, sitting by her bedside and stroking her face like an absent-minded cat owner as she spaced out. “It’s not about our image, Fasmi. I just want what’s best for you. And this, this melancholy you’ve seen fit to trap yourself in, it’s not healthy! I know you think you’re fine, I know you think you’ve moved on, but you’ve got to just let it all out, and I know that once you have you’ll be the bright and sunny and responsible young woman I raised. So, can you do it for me? Please, just hear the man out.”
“…Who is he,” Fasmidi answered at last, opening her eyes. Her eyes were still groggy and grumpy and… somewhat dead… but she thought she could see there was the lingering ember of the Fasmi she knew there, and so a modicum of relief broke over Notona’s face. Though naturally she hid it by gazing away towards the grandfather clock.
“Never mind that, you’re late, he’s coming in a half hour and knowing how long you take you’ll have barely strapped on your corset by then. Come on, up!”
She shook her leg to a muttered “Five more minutes.”
Then Notona sighed and, casting forlorn glances left and right as though she might be caught at it, she flicked Fasmidi on the head.
“Ow! Mother!”
“I apologize, dear,” she said with apparent horror at the consequences of her own playful whim. “But, but you really must-”
“Fine, fine…” Fasmidi said. “Besides, ever since Wieder I haven’t been so frail.”
Notona didn’t know whether to smile or frown at that. She settled for her typical grim, worried sort of half-smile.
“Oh, and don’t think you’ll be escaping my swift retribution after this, either,” Fasmidi said, motioning to flick her mother’s head.
To this Notona smiled genuinely. “Then I’ll have to fit my crown on as protection until you forget, now won’t I? All right, I’ll leave you alone to your diabolical scheming. Hurry up and don’t take forever in the bathroom. And I’m sorry but forget breakfast today, honey; Nana Reba and the rest of the maids will cook you a nice big brunch instead, doesn’t that sound nice?”
No answer. And so Notona swept away through the threshold and closed Fasmidi’s bedroom door behind her.
Alone now, finally. She gagged at the thought of having to sit through yet another new-fangled “psychotherapy” session with some dull, self-important and overconfident egghead who didn’t and couldn’t understand the first thing about her.
Her reflection in the mirror echoed her disgust. Just looking at herself in this form caused her some measure of anguish; dark rings under the eyes and her long purple locks all disheveled and swung out of whack. Her true self, the side of her forever burning to be unleashed, had no such beauty issues. But right now she seemed terribly under the weather when she really didn’t feel as awful as she looked.
She needed leaves, that was all. Nutritious, delicious leaves.
_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_
The reading room, their makeshift therapist’s office.
“Mr. Orel Klopp,” read the business card.
“Please, if you would lie down on the couch, Ms. Alberina,” said the fidgety, fast-talking old man. “And technically that’s ‘Dr.’ Klopp, but of course I would be honored even if you simply referred to me as Orel; I have nothing but the utmost respect for the Fasmidi family and your father and I have recently made acquaintance over the most wonderful session of crumpets and tea on the Isle of--”
She tuned it all out, and plucked the leaves of the potted bonsai adjacent her couch and had her fill as he admired the chandelier and droned at length about whatever stirring adventure he’d enjoyed alongside a father she barely knew or cared to know.
“…So. To get down to business, as they say.” Dr. Klopp himself sat on his swivelly chair, wiped his bifocals and dipped his owl feather quill, pad at the ready. “Tell me about what happened with poor Herr Wieder.
Here we go again, she thought.
“Nothing. We were engaged for around five months, and one night while he was entertaining me with his martial arts and trying to teach me the karate chop for the umpteenth time, he suddenly choked up, keeled over and... Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. The physicians say it was poison; I’m inclined to agree. Probably a political assassination, over God knows what-you know how hairy it’s been getting these days, what with that poor noble from Yipra catching all the press after his own son turned coat, and aristocrats from all over the world getting picked off before their prime for some cheap anarchist’s kicks. Someone-a self-styled revolutionary maybe, or just some other jealous bum-meant to place a pox on both our houses that night, and if I had kissed him that night (as I had meant to, believe you me) then I too would have died, after the least exertion.”
“My dear, you seem awfully nonchalant over such a traumatic experience, especially seeing as this Wieder fellow had so much potential for greatness. Was he not hailed as one of most prominent up-and-coming martial arts geniuses in fifty years, despite being a noble of a very poor nation? You mustn’t bottle up your true feelings. It’s my job to be analytical, not yours!” he said, in a feeble attempt at humor.
She rolled her eyes. “Look, the truth is I’ve done my mourning. I just don’t wail my eyes out like my mother wants. I’ve been abroad on several tours as a medical volunteer, I’ve seen true despair, I’m not a baby,” she patiently insisted.
“Yes, in fact, was it not one of these disease-stricken islands where you met Wieder?”
“It was. In fact half of my tours were just excuses to go visit him.”
The blasé attitude with which she said all this impressed upon the psychiatrist that he must break through this façade.
“You claim you are not a baby. And yet, I hear every time you embarked on one such journey, you had to be knocked out due to your crippling fear of sea travel and the ocean.”
“I’ve always been a bit… weak. Sickly,” she admitted, now carefully studying the dust on the bookshelf beside her couch. “It’s why I always sympathized with the indigent and infirm, and why I went on all those tours in the first place. But since Wieder I grew up, and now I know the world for what it is.”
Klopp looked up from his incessant scribbling. “Or so you say, but you still refuse to leave the villa every chance you’re offered. Or is my intelligence quite faulty?”
“Okay, all right, so I still can’t stand the ocean! Happy?” she snapped.
“Here is my theory, Ms. Fasmidi. See if you can agree. The reason you detest sea travel is buried deep in your subconscious mind,” he said, tapping at his forehead.
“My what?”
“Your subconscious mind. The true you, buried underneath layers upon layers of your-and our-awareness.”
Fasmidi’s eyes narrowed. How did this bird brain infer she was hiding her true self?
“You fear showing your weakness and vulnerability to others, and since your frailty would be difficult to hide on a rocking ship you must resort to the pretext that you catch your very best beauty sleep and relaxation on such long voyages, in order to appear less weak. That is also why you are wont to suppress your emotions: the more stoic you appear in the face of adversity, the stronger you hope you come across. Well and good during matters of diplomacy, my dear, but in regards to a proper grieving process it simply will not do!”
Interesting conjecture, she smirked, though of course flatly wrong in every respect. It would serve her to strengthen this convenient cover he so unwittingly spun for her.
“By God…” she said, feigning a fainting spell. This ought to hasten her escape. “You’re… you’re right…!”
Dr. Klopp, satisfied he’d hit the nail on the head and not the type to question the ease of his own success, drew the session to a close and allowed her to return to her own quarters.
LATER THAT NIGHT
Mother had indeed worn her ceremonial crown all day that day, an act of uncharacteristic extravagance that she indulged in for the sake of her daughter and their servants, and she seemed even more pleased when she heard from Fasmi their session had yielded actual progress.
Fasmidi dangled her legs out over her bedroom window sill, and sat for a moment to gaze on her snoring mother from across the sprawling estate’s pond through the window of the master’s chambers some fifty feet away. She briefly mused how effortless it would be, in reality, to pick off her mother with a simple flick of her finger. Mother’d even taken her crown to bed! And then, of course, that crown would be Fasmidi’s, in more than one sense.
Normally she’d slink into the shadows immediately after everybody had fallen asleep, but tonight she took pause. Despite being the de facto ruler of the nation, her mother’s queenly countenance was a rare sight, and even if it was just for a single day, she fulfilled her ordained duty to greatness simply by deigning to look the part. As such mother could not figure into her sacrifice scheme; only people like Wieder, who opted out of honing their greatness to the highest degree in favor of “settling down” earned her scorn-or, more accurately, the scorn of her only true master, the Sea Devil, Davy Jones.
With intense relish she disrobed and transformed into her Zoan form, that of a tiny and nimble stick insect, and she bounded towards the wide ocean. Terrified of the water as she was supposed to be, this sort of late night skullduggery was the last thing anybody would expect of her. It also provided an excellent pretext for why she couldn’t swim at the beach, for nobody outside the ring of occult worshipers she spearheaded knew she had consumed a Devil Fruit.
The waves of the private beaches of Castena Cacao glistened in the pale moonlight. By the coast, where she was certain nobody could be around to see her, she unleashed what she considered her true self. Her magnificent hybrid form.
She appeared more insect than human. Her long hairs receded and fused into two probing antennae. Her four powerful insect arms grew to deadly human size with two grasping claws on the nub of each appendage, and her eyes bubbled up into two bulbous, protruding green spheres positioned on each side like a horse’s eyes. Moreover, two long hard spiky stalks at her back bore gigantic leaves that served as gliding wings. Her original hybrid form had retained more human aspects, but years of targeted training had shaved it all away, apart from her dulcet voice and, most importantly, her brain, which danced whenever her she let her true self emerge from its slumber during the day.
Spreading her leafy air-foils out to each side, she leant on four legs and speedily skipped across the waves to the midnight meeting of the Devil Dare Society; they could not convene without their Prioress.
With her compound vision she could see in all directions at once, and so it was not long until she spotted the orb-like barque of her followers. As she approached, the winds intensified, powered by the boat’s weather machine, the society’s safeguard against potential interlocutors; after all, the Grand Line was perilous enough already without their exacerbating the matter of the weather, especially to pirate crews that strayed from the paths set forth by their log poses. She, on the other hand, needed only carefully to adjust her wings and leap with dizzying speed against the very air, enabling her to sail for but a split second through the ocean spray that would otherwise drown her and drag her down to meet Davy Jones a bit prematurely. The next thing she knew she had boarded safely, sopping wet but none the worse for wear.
The sail-less, mastless barque, still named the “Kakisto” after the founder of the Society, had been enhanced over the centuries since he died as technology advanced, but it ran on the same principle-embedded in the keel of the ship was a hydroelectric mill that spun as the seas churned underneath, providing power to the fans which would push the ship forward. Since Fasmidi managed to acquire a new Devil Fruit for her closest disciple to consume, he had invested his bottomless wealth into building a whole other deck above the existing structure of the ship, with a clear dome that housed all the gears and gizmos to operate the weather machine.
“Goldweadth! Clothe me!” she commanded. She was not one to waste time with greetings.
The cloaked man emerged from below decks with her proper, pure white priestly robes.
“Is that a new eye?” she noticed, as she slipped into her robes and assumed human form once again-Davy Jones suffered not such arrogance above these sacred waters. “Nice touch!”
Goldweadth had replaced his trademark golden eye with a green, spherical eye shaped like her hybrid form’s.
“Does it please you?”
“Yes, but don’t draw down your hood until after the initiation rite is over. I’ll admire it-
along with the rest of you-later,” she promised, to which Goldweadth could only simper.
“Fasmidi, I don’t know about this guy…,” the cloaked man intimated nervously. “He doesn’t seem too committed to the cause…”
“Don’t worry about it. If he’s not committed, we’ll make him committed. Besides, it’s about time we had a chef on board.”
“Next thing I know we’ll be eating nothing but leaves,” he mock-complained. “I reckon he wasn’t coined Bitter Kurt by the editors of Monthly Epicurean Ring for nothing.”
Eager to escape the night’s chill, Fasmidi started down the stairs with Goldweadth bowing in after her.
“He’s made it to the top of the culinary world, and that’s a good enough criterion for me for initiation. I’m tired of all my meals being coconut by-products back home. The real question is how this ‘Bitter Kurt’ discovered us. I understand Jamal was about to offer him a place in the Society but Kurt beat him to the chase?"
“That’s what Jamal says, anyway.”
“Interesting. Very interesting.”
They reached the worship room’s silver door, engraved with a depiction of how in the beginning the oceans spewed forth from the formless void of the abyssal deep. A complex Lock Dial sealed the door shut unless the passphrase was whispered in exactly the right cadence. Fasmidi knelt as though in prayer and touched her lips to the shell’s opening.
“D. is the Devil. D. is doomsday.”
The Lock Dial spun and loosened the bolt, and the ornate door swung forward. The two acolytes of Davy Jones were welcomed with a burning shaft of light and the intense fumes of the incense braziers adorning the tapestried walls of the barque’s circular bethel, and they entered with proper deference, heads held low and hoods covering their eyes.
Surrounding them were seated every other member of the Devil Dare Society, including the new recruit. At her prompting all but the grumbling man in chef’s attire rose.
Fasmidi started the proceedings, taking her place as Prioress in front of the three-tiered Shrine of the Sea God. “State your name before God the Demonic, state your true and only name, for he shall judge you against his many magnificent titles, and deem you great or unworthy.”
“Goldweadth Gallant.” He drew back his hood, and his fake eye turned gold once more. He undid his blonde ponytail before his God and fell to the floor on his knees, abject and penitent.
“Rise,” Fasmidi intoned. “The Sea Devil smiles on your name. You are worthy.”
This role call repeated down the circle of cloaked men.
“Bayrad Falstaff.” The haughty bald old swordsman, who wanted nothing more than to get this tedious initiation ceremony over with, affected his most convincing expression of reverence and knelt. His name too was judged worthy.
“Jamal.” The swarthy hunter didn’t even bother to conceal his broad, toothy grin or sweep his grungy block locks into a more presentable coif as he knelt. Pronounced worthy, like everybody would, but Jamal decided it would be pressing his luck to punch the air just this once.
“Tertullian.” The timid scholar glanced apprehensively each way as he removed the bookmaster’s pileus from his scalp before whipping off his hood and prostrating himself to Davy Jones’s sinister scrutiny. Fasmidi passed down the same judgment every time, but there was still always that kernel of doubt lodged in his brain.
“Ushao.” Jamal’s little brother proved it was possible to kneel ostentatiously. He screwed his eyes closed and prayed hands clasped that Davy Jones would wash away the old world and scrap everything which displeased Ushao in the cloud-piercing tsunami of his dreams.
“Tremain.” The pot-bellied music mogul relished his validation by the Sea Devil, whom he worked for in secret, even if his public persona was as a wholesome, family friendly enemy of the unconventional, revolutionary music pioneered by the Soul King. He drew back his hood and put away his glasses, revealing his dim watery eyes and falling to his knees, awaiting judgment. Davy Jones and Fasmidi were the only beings he respected who deemed him worthy.
“I the Prioress renew our pact and our promise. In the name primordial, and the essence prime, Davy Jones.” She made a holy sign with her hands similar to the letter D. She drew back her own hood and let swing her regal purple hair, announcing herself as the sublime and invincible Heiress of All.
“I’ve had about enough of this,” Bitter Kurt blurted, a boozy unkempt heap against the wall. His gums flapped toothlessly as he spoke, and he could not get up so easily because of his peg leg. “What makes you so damn special?”
Goldweadth nearly lunged at him. “How dare you speak to her that-“
“Stand back, Goldweadth!”
He drew back in silence, apart from the audible grinding of his teeth.
“It’s a fair question. For all he knows I could be a charlatan. Indeed, Kurt, it may amuse you to know that the leader of this ring before me was in fact a false prophet.”
“Was he now?” Kurt coughed, somewhat distracted by the pungent incense. “And what clued you in to that?”
“His imbecilic sermons parroting that old heresy, the absurd anti-fructus notion that humankind’s decadent partaking of the Devil’s Fruits in the Primordial State precipitated our fall from grace. Davy Jones revealed himself to me in all his terrible splendor when I ate my Fruit, and so I understood that the fall was triggered by lazy, complacent humans failing to show their Fruits the proper respect and using them to the utmost. As such we must demonstrate to Davy that we his acolytes have earned our place back at the very top of the Chain of Being by dominating all the sinners and weaklings.”
“So what, you just changed this ‘false prophet’s’ mind because you ate one?”
“No. He was obstinate in his blasphemy, so I put him in his proper place. The bottom of the ocean.”
“You done Lockered him!” Kurt seemed impressed. “I didn’t think royalty such as yourself would get their hands dirty.”
“The Sea Devil predetermined that the pretender would meet his end. I’m just his vessel.”
“Bet nobody in this here Society wanted to flout your authority after that.”
“How did you come to discover the Devil Dare Society?”
“I didn’t discover the Devil Dare Society. I inferred it,” Kurt said. “Told myself, there’s got to be something like a secret society in this wide old world, and Luck is finally on my side. Jamal swaggered into my restaurant the other week slamming 300,000 too many berries on the counter for my famous flank of panda shark and the rest is history.”
“Don’t thank your luck until you’re properly initiated and you’ve surrendered yourself to the will of the Deepest Depth to my satisfaction.”
Kurt grimaced, but was curious; it sounded as though she herself had only been initiated relatively recently. “So how exactly did you come into all this Sea Devil hullabaloo?”
“Davy Jones guided my hand. I retrieved countless occult manuals from libraries on loan, slowly deciphering the cryptic allegories for any hint of a society far flung from my boring fate as the potentate of a minor nation, a society that would behoove a post-human such as myself. Imagine my ecstasy when I finally pieced it all together. Most of the acolytes gathered here are legacy initiates, but I found this barque by myself. The Sea Devil has granted me eyes that see all!”
She could no longer suppress it, and surely Davy woudn’t mind if his chosen Prioress showed off just a little? She bit her lip as her true eyes sprang forth, great big compound eyes that graced an otherwise still human face. She quivered and blushed and smiled unabashedly.
But far from some manifest goddess, all Kurt saw was a deluded young woman who was addicted to her Devil Fruit power like burning.
“You see ‘all,’ huh?”
“Yes, and before these divine eyes there is not a creature on the earth who does not tremble.”
“You see me trembling, princess?”
“You are tainted by sin,” she confabulated. “Once you are properly baptized, the sea devil will claim your heart and infuse it with life-giving fear.”
Kurt blew his nose on his handkerchief and glanced up at her with some irritation; this was getting old fast. “Look, I’m not really here to join your club, and we don’t like each other anyway. I just need your assistance. And if the transaction goes smoothly, then we can part ways pleased as punch as soon as tomorrow morning.”
Silence. Fasmidi bit her lip, at a total loss for words, but he couldn’t tell if she was from shock or rage, because her insect eyes no longer conveyed human emotions. So he pressed on regardless.
“I understand you lot are interested in sacrificing ‘people who don’t pursue their potential’ to end the world or something.”
“The world would be reborn-“
“Yeah, all right, ‘reborn,’ whatever you say princess. Well who better a candidate than Monkey D. Luffy? Rising star pirate, 400,000,000 berry bounty for god’s sake--”
“Don’t blaspheme!” Goldweadth seethed.
“Shut your trap, boy. Do you want your new era or not?”
“Puh, please, go on,” said Ushao, so eager for his imminent godhood he spoke out of turn.
“What, can we talk now?” Falstaff the swordsman drawled.
“Wait till you hear the plan guys, it’s goooood,” Jamal guffawed. “You’ll be glad I met him, no joke.”
“Monkey D. Luffy, isn’t he that pirate who dropped off the planet two years ago?” asked Fasmidi.
“Well yeah, that’s the point. Not exactly fulfilling his true potential is he? And he’s a D. and everything,” said Kurt.
“But isn’t there the minor issue of his being already dead? Why else would he be gone so long?” said Goldweadth as evenly as he could, anxious to poke holes in Kurt’s plan.
“He’s not dead,” piped up Tremain. “And that bastard Brook turned out to be one of his crew all along!”
“Yadede, didn’t catch the news on your way to the barque did ya, ‘Goldweadth,’ was it? The Straw Hat Pirate Crew was spotted in its entirety on Saobody just earlier today. Lucky lucky,” grinned Kurt toothlessly. “We need to head them off before they go and dive down underwater for Fishman Island; if we can’t reach them by then they’ll be on the other side of the Red Line miles into the New World in no time, well out of our ambit.”
If Fasmidi could have narrowed her eyes she would have. “What’s in it for you?”
“I get to see the man I’ve despised these two long years get his comeuppance. I want him to see his crewmates suffer and perish one by one. And then I want that miserable cur pirate dead at my hands.”
“No, Monkey D. Luffy must die at my hands for the ritual to take,” countered Fasmidi.
“Oh, I’m not talking about Monkey D. Luffy.”
“Then who?”
Kurt held up the bounty poster. “I’m talking about one Black Leg Sanji.”
“Black Leg Sanji? Who’s that? What is his connection to the D.?”
“Never mind that, to you he’s just another member of Luffy’s crew. Anyway, here’s the plan-“
“Not so fast, Kurt,” Fasmidi chided. “If you want to work with us, I’m afraid you’re going to have to become one of us. We absolutely cannot conduct the will of Davy Jones alongside infidels. Goldweadth.”
Goldweadth smirked and pulled the ceremonial brand of the Devil Dare Society from inside his cloak.
“Get that damned thing away from me.”
“If you want to work alongside us, you have to take the brand,” she urged. “It’s our sigil of camaraderie and discipleship to the Sea Devil. You have to accept his auspices on your flesh and prove yourself trustworthy before we can proceed with any sort of arrangement.”
“Thanks cupcake,” he spat with excessive bitterness, “but unless your eyes aren’t as great as you say they are I think you can see I’m scarred enough as it is.”
“Fool,” she snapped. “You would rather we dunked you to your death?"
“I know too much?” he asked, with the air of somebody who’d known too much on many other occasions. “I’ve been dunked before. I survived. Tell your Sea Devil that Lady Luck’s got my back.”
“My divine eyes aren’t necessary to forecast Lady Luck won’t lift a finger to save you where our Underseer lurks. Your services are no longer required.”
“Ahaha, surely you don’t think for a second I would be quite so moronic as to come without any back-up?” And Kurt fished out of his chef’s jacket pocket a tiny bell. “Allow me to show you some ‘creatures on this earth’ who scoff at all your silly fables…”
From the deep emerged with a tremendous surge of brine three slavering Grand Line sea kings-two regular sea kings and a part-earthworm sea king -majestic scales sparking bright in the breaking dawn as they skipped and tangled necks goofily for Kurt, as a conditioned response to the dinner chime.
“What!?” Fasmidi gasped as the barque rocked violently. “Jamal! Why didn’t your Remora Hounds come warn us!? Didn’t you train them to-“
“Ah, is that what those things are called. They ferry everybody to the barque right? I must admit to peeking at my recipe book’s index now and then for a description that matched the rank beast while Jamal steered,” Kurt gloated, staring pointedly at the panicking Jamal. “I was going to try my hand at roasting them and maybe even experiment… basting them with a savory honey glaze… but I guess my babies were just a little too hungry tonight.”
On cue, the blood and entrails dripping out of one the sea king’s maw crashed sloshing onto the barque, splattering against the translucent dome and nearly seeping through and jamming the works of the weather machine rigged under its screen. Despite hailing all the way from the Calm Belt, these sea kings were completely unperturbed by the roaring wind and waves generated by the machine.
“So, the plan,” Kurt cleared his throat, everyone rapt with attention. “They must still be around Saobody. We all head off this very second and kill them. Objections?”
“D. is for doomsday,” Fasmidi breathed. “We have to get there before they escape!” she realized. “Full throttle ahead!”
“As you wish, princess,” said Kurt, and with another little ring of his dinner bell the sea kings quit dancing and began to tow the barque extremely fast across the tumultuous waves.
“Goldweadth, fetch the Aspect Orbs! Ushao, go prepare the Fasmibots! Tonight is the night the sun will never stain! Tonight is the end of the world as the weaklings know it!”
Earlier that very morning
The blinds drew up instantly with two snaps of mother’s fingers. Light flooded the stately bedchambers of the Princess and Heir of the Noble’s Republic of Castena Cacao.
“Ugh…” Fasmidi shielded her eyes.
“Up.” With a firmness belying her aristocratic poise, Notona threw off her daughter’s carefully arranged sheets, though careful the three-coconut Alberina family crest in the quilt didn’t touch the floor.
“Mother, it’s been a year,” Fasmidi moaned, dragging her sheets back on. “A whole year. Enough psychiatrists.”
“Young lady, you are eighteen already and you have an important appointment, and, and you are an enterprising and vivacious daughter of the three hundred seventy seven and a half year dynasty of Alberina and you will. Get. Up!”
Fasmidi rose up, rubbed her eyes and glanced at the grandfather clock by her bed in a daze. “Oh, it’s only half past ten. Better get my beauty rest.” And she plopped back down.
Notona paused and betrayed a brief flicker of dismay; but no, she must get a hold of herself. This was her final recourse.
She removed her glove and raised her hand. Glad her daughter wouldn’t see her biting her own lip before the sting.
She trembled, trembled as she had only once before, on that terrible night when Wieder…. Her blush reddened with each second, her hand hovering over her only child’s cheek.
But. She couldn’t. Just couldn’t. There wasn’t a violent bone in Notona’s body.
“Oh Fasmidi,” the queen cried at last, sitting by her bedside and stroking her face like an absent-minded cat owner as she spaced out. “It’s not about our image, Fasmi. I just want what’s best for you. And this, this melancholy you’ve seen fit to trap yourself in, it’s not healthy! I know you think you’re fine, I know you think you’ve moved on, but you’ve got to just let it all out, and I know that once you have you’ll be the bright and sunny and responsible young woman I raised. So, can you do it for me? Please, just hear the man out.”
“…Who is he,” Fasmidi answered at last, opening her eyes. Her eyes were still groggy and grumpy and… somewhat dead… but she thought she could see there was the lingering ember of the Fasmi she knew there, and so a modicum of relief broke over Notona’s face. Though naturally she hid it by gazing away towards the grandfather clock.
“Never mind that, you’re late, he’s coming in a half hour and knowing how long you take you’ll have barely strapped on your corset by then. Come on, up!”
She shook her leg to a muttered “Five more minutes.”
Then Notona sighed and, casting forlorn glances left and right as though she might be caught at it, she flicked Fasmidi on the head.
“Ow! Mother!”
“I apologize, dear,” she said with apparent horror at the consequences of her own playful whim. “But, but you really must-”
“Fine, fine…” Fasmidi said. “Besides, ever since Wieder I haven’t been so frail.”
Notona didn’t know whether to smile or frown at that. She settled for her typical grim, worried sort of half-smile.
“Oh, and don’t think you’ll be escaping my swift retribution after this, either,” Fasmidi said, motioning to flick her mother’s head.
To this Notona smiled genuinely. “Then I’ll have to fit my crown on as protection until you forget, now won’t I? All right, I’ll leave you alone to your diabolical scheming. Hurry up and don’t take forever in the bathroom. And I’m sorry but forget breakfast today, honey; Nana Reba and the rest of the maids will cook you a nice big brunch instead, doesn’t that sound nice?”
No answer. And so Notona swept away through the threshold and closed Fasmidi’s bedroom door behind her.
Alone now, finally. She gagged at the thought of having to sit through yet another new-fangled “psychotherapy” session with some dull, self-important and overconfident egghead who didn’t and couldn’t understand the first thing about her.
Her reflection in the mirror echoed her disgust. Just looking at herself in this form caused her some measure of anguish; dark rings under the eyes and her long purple locks all disheveled and swung out of whack. Her true self, the side of her forever burning to be unleashed, had no such beauty issues. But right now she seemed terribly under the weather when she really didn’t feel as awful as she looked.
She needed leaves, that was all. Nutritious, delicious leaves.
_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_
The reading room, their makeshift therapist’s office.
“Mr. Orel Klopp,” read the business card.
“Please, if you would lie down on the couch, Ms. Alberina,” said the fidgety, fast-talking old man. “And technically that’s ‘Dr.’ Klopp, but of course I would be honored even if you simply referred to me as Orel; I have nothing but the utmost respect for the Fasmidi family and your father and I have recently made acquaintance over the most wonderful session of crumpets and tea on the Isle of--”
She tuned it all out, and plucked the leaves of the potted bonsai adjacent her couch and had her fill as he admired the chandelier and droned at length about whatever stirring adventure he’d enjoyed alongside a father she barely knew or cared to know.
“…So. To get down to business, as they say.” Dr. Klopp himself sat on his swivelly chair, wiped his bifocals and dipped his owl feather quill, pad at the ready. “Tell me about what happened with poor Herr Wieder.
Here we go again, she thought.
“Nothing. We were engaged for around five months, and one night while he was entertaining me with his martial arts and trying to teach me the karate chop for the umpteenth time, he suddenly choked up, keeled over and... Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. The physicians say it was poison; I’m inclined to agree. Probably a political assassination, over God knows what-you know how hairy it’s been getting these days, what with that poor noble from Yipra catching all the press after his own son turned coat, and aristocrats from all over the world getting picked off before their prime for some cheap anarchist’s kicks. Someone-a self-styled revolutionary maybe, or just some other jealous bum-meant to place a pox on both our houses that night, and if I had kissed him that night (as I had meant to, believe you me) then I too would have died, after the least exertion.”
“My dear, you seem awfully nonchalant over such a traumatic experience, especially seeing as this Wieder fellow had so much potential for greatness. Was he not hailed as one of most prominent up-and-coming martial arts geniuses in fifty years, despite being a noble of a very poor nation? You mustn’t bottle up your true feelings. It’s my job to be analytical, not yours!” he said, in a feeble attempt at humor.
She rolled her eyes. “Look, the truth is I’ve done my mourning. I just don’t wail my eyes out like my mother wants. I’ve been abroad on several tours as a medical volunteer, I’ve seen true despair, I’m not a baby,” she patiently insisted.
“Yes, in fact, was it not one of these disease-stricken islands where you met Wieder?”
“It was. In fact half of my tours were just excuses to go visit him.”
The blasé attitude with which she said all this impressed upon the psychiatrist that he must break through this façade.
“You claim you are not a baby. And yet, I hear every time you embarked on one such journey, you had to be knocked out due to your crippling fear of sea travel and the ocean.”
“I’ve always been a bit… weak. Sickly,” she admitted, now carefully studying the dust on the bookshelf beside her couch. “It’s why I always sympathized with the indigent and infirm, and why I went on all those tours in the first place. But since Wieder I grew up, and now I know the world for what it is.”
Klopp looked up from his incessant scribbling. “Or so you say, but you still refuse to leave the villa every chance you’re offered. Or is my intelligence quite faulty?”
“Okay, all right, so I still can’t stand the ocean! Happy?” she snapped.
“Here is my theory, Ms. Fasmidi. See if you can agree. The reason you detest sea travel is buried deep in your subconscious mind,” he said, tapping at his forehead.
“My what?”
“Your subconscious mind. The true you, buried underneath layers upon layers of your-and our-awareness.”
Fasmidi’s eyes narrowed. How did this bird brain infer she was hiding her true self?
“You fear showing your weakness and vulnerability to others, and since your frailty would be difficult to hide on a rocking ship you must resort to the pretext that you catch your very best beauty sleep and relaxation on such long voyages, in order to appear less weak. That is also why you are wont to suppress your emotions: the more stoic you appear in the face of adversity, the stronger you hope you come across. Well and good during matters of diplomacy, my dear, but in regards to a proper grieving process it simply will not do!”
Interesting conjecture, she smirked, though of course flatly wrong in every respect. It would serve her to strengthen this convenient cover he so unwittingly spun for her.
“By God…” she said, feigning a fainting spell. This ought to hasten her escape. “You’re… you’re right…!”
Dr. Klopp, satisfied he’d hit the nail on the head and not the type to question the ease of his own success, drew the session to a close and allowed her to return to her own quarters.
LATER THAT NIGHT
Mother had indeed worn her ceremonial crown all day that day, an act of uncharacteristic extravagance that she indulged in for the sake of her daughter and their servants, and she seemed even more pleased when she heard from Fasmi their session had yielded actual progress.
Fasmidi dangled her legs out over her bedroom window sill, and sat for a moment to gaze on her snoring mother from across the sprawling estate’s pond through the window of the master’s chambers some fifty feet away. She briefly mused how effortless it would be, in reality, to pick off her mother with a simple flick of her finger. Mother’d even taken her crown to bed! And then, of course, that crown would be Fasmidi’s, in more than one sense.
Normally she’d slink into the shadows immediately after everybody had fallen asleep, but tonight she took pause. Despite being the de facto ruler of the nation, her mother’s queenly countenance was a rare sight, and even if it was just for a single day, she fulfilled her ordained duty to greatness simply by deigning to look the part. As such mother could not figure into her sacrifice scheme; only people like Wieder, who opted out of honing their greatness to the highest degree in favor of “settling down” earned her scorn-or, more accurately, the scorn of her only true master, the Sea Devil, Davy Jones.
With intense relish she disrobed and transformed into her Zoan form, that of a tiny and nimble stick insect, and she bounded towards the wide ocean. Terrified of the water as she was supposed to be, this sort of late night skullduggery was the last thing anybody would expect of her. It also provided an excellent pretext for why she couldn’t swim at the beach, for nobody outside the ring of occult worshipers she spearheaded knew she had consumed a Devil Fruit.
The waves of the private beaches of Castena Cacao glistened in the pale moonlight. By the coast, where she was certain nobody could be around to see her, she unleashed what she considered her true self. Her magnificent hybrid form.
She appeared more insect than human. Her long hairs receded and fused into two probing antennae. Her four powerful insect arms grew to deadly human size with two grasping claws on the nub of each appendage, and her eyes bubbled up into two bulbous, protruding green spheres positioned on each side like a horse’s eyes. Moreover, two long hard spiky stalks at her back bore gigantic leaves that served as gliding wings. Her original hybrid form had retained more human aspects, but years of targeted training had shaved it all away, apart from her dulcet voice and, most importantly, her brain, which danced whenever her she let her true self emerge from its slumber during the day.
Spreading her leafy air-foils out to each side, she leant on four legs and speedily skipped across the waves to the midnight meeting of the Devil Dare Society; they could not convene without their Prioress.
With her compound vision she could see in all directions at once, and so it was not long until she spotted the orb-like barque of her followers. As she approached, the winds intensified, powered by the boat’s weather machine, the society’s safeguard against potential interlocutors; after all, the Grand Line was perilous enough already without their exacerbating the matter of the weather, especially to pirate crews that strayed from the paths set forth by their log poses. She, on the other hand, needed only carefully to adjust her wings and leap with dizzying speed against the very air, enabling her to sail for but a split second through the ocean spray that would otherwise drown her and drag her down to meet Davy Jones a bit prematurely. The next thing she knew she had boarded safely, sopping wet but none the worse for wear.
The sail-less, mastless barque, still named the “Kakisto” after the founder of the Society, had been enhanced over the centuries since he died as technology advanced, but it ran on the same principle-embedded in the keel of the ship was a hydroelectric mill that spun as the seas churned underneath, providing power to the fans which would push the ship forward. Since Fasmidi managed to acquire a new Devil Fruit for her closest disciple to consume, he had invested his bottomless wealth into building a whole other deck above the existing structure of the ship, with a clear dome that housed all the gears and gizmos to operate the weather machine.
“Goldweadth! Clothe me!” she commanded. She was not one to waste time with greetings.
The cloaked man emerged from below decks with her proper, pure white priestly robes.
“Is that a new eye?” she noticed, as she slipped into her robes and assumed human form once again-Davy Jones suffered not such arrogance above these sacred waters. “Nice touch!”
Goldweadth had replaced his trademark golden eye with a green, spherical eye shaped like her hybrid form’s.
“Does it please you?”
“Yes, but don’t draw down your hood until after the initiation rite is over. I’ll admire it-
along with the rest of you-later,” she promised, to which Goldweadth could only simper.
“Fasmidi, I don’t know about this guy…,” the cloaked man intimated nervously. “He doesn’t seem too committed to the cause…”
“Don’t worry about it. If he’s not committed, we’ll make him committed. Besides, it’s about time we had a chef on board.”
“Next thing I know we’ll be eating nothing but leaves,” he mock-complained. “I reckon he wasn’t coined Bitter Kurt by the editors of Monthly Epicurean Ring for nothing.”
Eager to escape the night’s chill, Fasmidi started down the stairs with Goldweadth bowing in after her.
“He’s made it to the top of the culinary world, and that’s a good enough criterion for me for initiation. I’m tired of all my meals being coconut by-products back home. The real question is how this ‘Bitter Kurt’ discovered us. I understand Jamal was about to offer him a place in the Society but Kurt beat him to the chase?"
“That’s what Jamal says, anyway.”
“Interesting. Very interesting.”
They reached the worship room’s silver door, engraved with a depiction of how in the beginning the oceans spewed forth from the formless void of the abyssal deep. A complex Lock Dial sealed the door shut unless the passphrase was whispered in exactly the right cadence. Fasmidi knelt as though in prayer and touched her lips to the shell’s opening.
“D. is the Devil. D. is doomsday.”
The Lock Dial spun and loosened the bolt, and the ornate door swung forward. The two acolytes of Davy Jones were welcomed with a burning shaft of light and the intense fumes of the incense braziers adorning the tapestried walls of the barque’s circular bethel, and they entered with proper deference, heads held low and hoods covering their eyes.
Surrounding them were seated every other member of the Devil Dare Society, including the new recruit. At her prompting all but the grumbling man in chef’s attire rose.
Fasmidi started the proceedings, taking her place as Prioress in front of the three-tiered Shrine of the Sea God. “State your name before God the Demonic, state your true and only name, for he shall judge you against his many magnificent titles, and deem you great or unworthy.”
“Goldweadth Gallant.” He drew back his hood, and his fake eye turned gold once more. He undid his blonde ponytail before his God and fell to the floor on his knees, abject and penitent.
“Rise,” Fasmidi intoned. “The Sea Devil smiles on your name. You are worthy.”
This role call repeated down the circle of cloaked men.
“Bayrad Falstaff.” The haughty bald old swordsman, who wanted nothing more than to get this tedious initiation ceremony over with, affected his most convincing expression of reverence and knelt. His name too was judged worthy.
“Jamal.” The swarthy hunter didn’t even bother to conceal his broad, toothy grin or sweep his grungy block locks into a more presentable coif as he knelt. Pronounced worthy, like everybody would, but Jamal decided it would be pressing his luck to punch the air just this once.
“Tertullian.” The timid scholar glanced apprehensively each way as he removed the bookmaster’s pileus from his scalp before whipping off his hood and prostrating himself to Davy Jones’s sinister scrutiny. Fasmidi passed down the same judgment every time, but there was still always that kernel of doubt lodged in his brain.
“Ushao.” Jamal’s little brother proved it was possible to kneel ostentatiously. He screwed his eyes closed and prayed hands clasped that Davy Jones would wash away the old world and scrap everything which displeased Ushao in the cloud-piercing tsunami of his dreams.
“Tremain.” The pot-bellied music mogul relished his validation by the Sea Devil, whom he worked for in secret, even if his public persona was as a wholesome, family friendly enemy of the unconventional, revolutionary music pioneered by the Soul King. He drew back his hood and put away his glasses, revealing his dim watery eyes and falling to his knees, awaiting judgment. Davy Jones and Fasmidi were the only beings he respected who deemed him worthy.
“I the Prioress renew our pact and our promise. In the name primordial, and the essence prime, Davy Jones.” She made a holy sign with her hands similar to the letter D. She drew back her own hood and let swing her regal purple hair, announcing herself as the sublime and invincible Heiress of All.
“I’ve had about enough of this,” Bitter Kurt blurted, a boozy unkempt heap against the wall. His gums flapped toothlessly as he spoke, and he could not get up so easily because of his peg leg. “What makes you so damn special?”
Goldweadth nearly lunged at him. “How dare you speak to her that-“
“Stand back, Goldweadth!”
He drew back in silence, apart from the audible grinding of his teeth.
“It’s a fair question. For all he knows I could be a charlatan. Indeed, Kurt, it may amuse you to know that the leader of this ring before me was in fact a false prophet.”
“Was he now?” Kurt coughed, somewhat distracted by the pungent incense. “And what clued you in to that?”
“His imbecilic sermons parroting that old heresy, the absurd anti-fructus notion that humankind’s decadent partaking of the Devil’s Fruits in the Primordial State precipitated our fall from grace. Davy Jones revealed himself to me in all his terrible splendor when I ate my Fruit, and so I understood that the fall was triggered by lazy, complacent humans failing to show their Fruits the proper respect and using them to the utmost. As such we must demonstrate to Davy that we his acolytes have earned our place back at the very top of the Chain of Being by dominating all the sinners and weaklings.”
“So what, you just changed this ‘false prophet’s’ mind because you ate one?”
“No. He was obstinate in his blasphemy, so I put him in his proper place. The bottom of the ocean.”
“You done Lockered him!” Kurt seemed impressed. “I didn’t think royalty such as yourself would get their hands dirty.”
“The Sea Devil predetermined that the pretender would meet his end. I’m just his vessel.”
“Bet nobody in this here Society wanted to flout your authority after that.”
“How did you come to discover the Devil Dare Society?”
“I didn’t discover the Devil Dare Society. I inferred it,” Kurt said. “Told myself, there’s got to be something like a secret society in this wide old world, and Luck is finally on my side. Jamal swaggered into my restaurant the other week slamming 300,000 too many berries on the counter for my famous flank of panda shark and the rest is history.”
“Don’t thank your luck until you’re properly initiated and you’ve surrendered yourself to the will of the Deepest Depth to my satisfaction.”
Kurt grimaced, but was curious; it sounded as though she herself had only been initiated relatively recently. “So how exactly did you come into all this Sea Devil hullabaloo?”
“Davy Jones guided my hand. I retrieved countless occult manuals from libraries on loan, slowly deciphering the cryptic allegories for any hint of a society far flung from my boring fate as the potentate of a minor nation, a society that would behoove a post-human such as myself. Imagine my ecstasy when I finally pieced it all together. Most of the acolytes gathered here are legacy initiates, but I found this barque by myself. The Sea Devil has granted me eyes that see all!”
She could no longer suppress it, and surely Davy woudn’t mind if his chosen Prioress showed off just a little? She bit her lip as her true eyes sprang forth, great big compound eyes that graced an otherwise still human face. She quivered and blushed and smiled unabashedly.
But far from some manifest goddess, all Kurt saw was a deluded young woman who was addicted to her Devil Fruit power like burning.
“You see ‘all,’ huh?”
“Yes, and before these divine eyes there is not a creature on the earth who does not tremble.”
“You see me trembling, princess?”
“You are tainted by sin,” she confabulated. “Once you are properly baptized, the sea devil will claim your heart and infuse it with life-giving fear.”
Kurt blew his nose on his handkerchief and glanced up at her with some irritation; this was getting old fast. “Look, I’m not really here to join your club, and we don’t like each other anyway. I just need your assistance. And if the transaction goes smoothly, then we can part ways pleased as punch as soon as tomorrow morning.”
Silence. Fasmidi bit her lip, at a total loss for words, but he couldn’t tell if she was from shock or rage, because her insect eyes no longer conveyed human emotions. So he pressed on regardless.
“I understand you lot are interested in sacrificing ‘people who don’t pursue their potential’ to end the world or something.”
“The world would be reborn-“
“Yeah, all right, ‘reborn,’ whatever you say princess. Well who better a candidate than Monkey D. Luffy? Rising star pirate, 400,000,000 berry bounty for god’s sake--”
“Don’t blaspheme!” Goldweadth seethed.
“Shut your trap, boy. Do you want your new era or not?”
“Puh, please, go on,” said Ushao, so eager for his imminent godhood he spoke out of turn.
“What, can we talk now?” Falstaff the swordsman drawled.
“Wait till you hear the plan guys, it’s goooood,” Jamal guffawed. “You’ll be glad I met him, no joke.”
“Monkey D. Luffy, isn’t he that pirate who dropped off the planet two years ago?” asked Fasmidi.
“Well yeah, that’s the point. Not exactly fulfilling his true potential is he? And he’s a D. and everything,” said Kurt.
“But isn’t there the minor issue of his being already dead? Why else would he be gone so long?” said Goldweadth as evenly as he could, anxious to poke holes in Kurt’s plan.
“He’s not dead,” piped up Tremain. “And that bastard Brook turned out to be one of his crew all along!”
“Yadede, didn’t catch the news on your way to the barque did ya, ‘Goldweadth,’ was it? The Straw Hat Pirate Crew was spotted in its entirety on Saobody just earlier today. Lucky lucky,” grinned Kurt toothlessly. “We need to head them off before they go and dive down underwater for Fishman Island; if we can’t reach them by then they’ll be on the other side of the Red Line miles into the New World in no time, well out of our ambit.”
If Fasmidi could have narrowed her eyes she would have. “What’s in it for you?”
“I get to see the man I’ve despised these two long years get his comeuppance. I want him to see his crewmates suffer and perish one by one. And then I want that miserable cur pirate dead at my hands.”
“No, Monkey D. Luffy must die at my hands for the ritual to take,” countered Fasmidi.
“Oh, I’m not talking about Monkey D. Luffy.”
“Then who?”
Kurt held up the bounty poster. “I’m talking about one Black Leg Sanji.”
“Black Leg Sanji? Who’s that? What is his connection to the D.?”
“Never mind that, to you he’s just another member of Luffy’s crew. Anyway, here’s the plan-“
“Not so fast, Kurt,” Fasmidi chided. “If you want to work with us, I’m afraid you’re going to have to become one of us. We absolutely cannot conduct the will of Davy Jones alongside infidels. Goldweadth.”
Goldweadth smirked and pulled the ceremonial brand of the Devil Dare Society from inside his cloak.
“Get that damned thing away from me.”
“If you want to work alongside us, you have to take the brand,” she urged. “It’s our sigil of camaraderie and discipleship to the Sea Devil. You have to accept his auspices on your flesh and prove yourself trustworthy before we can proceed with any sort of arrangement.”
“Thanks cupcake,” he spat with excessive bitterness, “but unless your eyes aren’t as great as you say they are I think you can see I’m scarred enough as it is.”
“Fool,” she snapped. “You would rather we dunked you to your death?"
“I know too much?” he asked, with the air of somebody who’d known too much on many other occasions. “I’ve been dunked before. I survived. Tell your Sea Devil that Lady Luck’s got my back.”
“My divine eyes aren’t necessary to forecast Lady Luck won’t lift a finger to save you where our Underseer lurks. Your services are no longer required.”
“Ahaha, surely you don’t think for a second I would be quite so moronic as to come without any back-up?” And Kurt fished out of his chef’s jacket pocket a tiny bell. “Allow me to show you some ‘creatures on this earth’ who scoff at all your silly fables…”
From the deep emerged with a tremendous surge of brine three slavering Grand Line sea kings-two regular sea kings and a part-earthworm sea king -majestic scales sparking bright in the breaking dawn as they skipped and tangled necks goofily for Kurt, as a conditioned response to the dinner chime.
“What!?” Fasmidi gasped as the barque rocked violently. “Jamal! Why didn’t your Remora Hounds come warn us!? Didn’t you train them to-“
“Ah, is that what those things are called. They ferry everybody to the barque right? I must admit to peeking at my recipe book’s index now and then for a description that matched the rank beast while Jamal steered,” Kurt gloated, staring pointedly at the panicking Jamal. “I was going to try my hand at roasting them and maybe even experiment… basting them with a savory honey glaze… but I guess my babies were just a little too hungry tonight.”
On cue, the blood and entrails dripping out of one the sea king’s maw crashed sloshing onto the barque, splattering against the translucent dome and nearly seeping through and jamming the works of the weather machine rigged under its screen. Despite hailing all the way from the Calm Belt, these sea kings were completely unperturbed by the roaring wind and waves generated by the machine.
“So, the plan,” Kurt cleared his throat, everyone rapt with attention. “They must still be around Saobody. We all head off this very second and kill them. Objections?”
“D. is for doomsday,” Fasmidi breathed. “We have to get there before they escape!” she realized. “Full throttle ahead!”
“As you wish, princess,” said Kurt, and with another little ring of his dinner bell the sea kings quit dancing and began to tow the barque extremely fast across the tumultuous waves.
“Goldweadth, fetch the Aspect Orbs! Ushao, go prepare the Fasmibots! Tonight is the night the sun will never stain! Tonight is the end of the world as the weaklings know it!”