Morning came with no warning. Just the sound of keys, the grind of iron, and the barked orders of men who thought themselves gods.
"Get the two snakes. The tall one too if she resists."
The door flung open.
I opened my eyes just as boots stormed in. My chains clinked softly as I shifted.
Two guards pointed to Sandersonia and Marigold.
"On your feet. Now."
Sandersonia hissed. "What is it this time, training or a message?"
One of the guards grabbed her by the hair.
I sat straighter.
Boa Hancock stood before they could reach her. She didn't speak, but the fire in her gaze was answer enough.
She dared them to touch her.
That earned her the prod.
The electric crack filled the cell as Hancock crumpled to her knees, jaw clenched, breath hissing between her teeth.
They didn't bother dragging her. They let her crawl.
My knuckles turned white where my fingers gripped the chain above me. The cold iron didn't budge.
Marigold was struck across the back with a baton when she refused to leave her sister's side. Sandersonia tried to bite one of the guards. It earned her a kick to the ribs.
And all I could do—was watch.
Until they were gone. Until the door slammed again, the echo ringing louder than the silence that followed.
I sat frozen, a breath caught in my throat. Fury simmered under my skin. Not wild, not reckless.
Controlled.
I stared at the empty cell door. And I began to count.
One minute. Two. Three.
The screams came next.
Dull at first. Then clearer. Snapping. Whipping. Sobbing.
I said nothing. But my body shook—barely, subtly—with tension.
I kept count.
Eleven lashes.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Sandersonia's growl.
Marigold's cry.
Hancock's silence.
The kind that meant teeth had punctured lips just to keep from giving them the satisfaction.
When the door finally opened again, they were thrown back in—bloodied, barely conscious.
I rose immediately, chains clanking behind me.
I went to Hancock first. Ignored the bruises on my own ribs, the soreness in my spine.
"Let me see," I murmured.
"No," Hancock rasped. "I—"
I pressed a hand against her shoulder firmly. Not cruelly. But with authority.
"Let. Me. See."
For a second, we locked eyes.
Then Hancock exhaled… and allowed it.
I worked in silence, tending to their wounds with water from a cracked pipe and strips of my own tattered tunic. I didn't flinch at the blood. I didn't speak of pity.
Only action.
Sandersonia's lip quirked despite the swelling. "You look like death, and here you are playing nurse."
"I'm not playing anything," I said flatly. "You're alive. That's what matters."
Marigold looked at me through one swollen eye. "You're angry."
I didn't answer. Not directly.
I finished tying the last bandage, then sat back and whispered, more to myself than to them:
"This place made a mistake."
Hancock tilted her head. "What mistake?"
"They let me care."
×~×~×~
Two Years Later — Mary Geoise, Level 13: The Gilded Kennels
The cell was different now.
Larger, reinforced, isolated at the highest level of the slave chambers reserved for "volatile stock." The stone was marble-veined, but cracked. Scorch marks scarred the ceiling. The walls shimmered faintly with Sea Prism Stone veins embedded in every corner. Not even the Celestial Dragons dared enter without armed guards and observation Den Den Mushi.
It was me who made that necessary.
I sat on the far end, my posture as still as ever. Not from fear—but poise. The chains bolted to my neck, wrists, and ankles were double-thick and lined with Sea Prism. They hummed faintly when I moved—even slightly.
My hair, once ragged and dull, now flowed down my back like silver-spun silk—though strands of it occasionally shimmered blue-black, feathered, wild. My body had changed: honed. Taller, leaner, with shoulders like carved copper and eyes as sharp as golden blades.
Eyes that saw everything.
And when I blinked, sometimes a third eye opened faintly on my forehead—an eerie remnant of the Morrígan's influence, my Zoan form barely kept at bay.
I'd eaten it a year ago. Force-fed, actually—by the scientists who thought they could control it.
They were dead now. Not from battle. From fear.
The moment the Devil Fruit awakened inside me, ten handlers had gone mad from hallucinations. I had stood in my cell—silent, chained, smiling—as they clawed their eyes out, screaming of wings in the dark and whispers that knew their names.
I hadn't moved. Not once. But the walls wept black feathers for three days.
Now I sat, a monster hidden behind unyielding poise, wrapped in cold quiet.
Across from me, Boa Hancock was kneeling beside her sisters—Sandersonia and Marigold both resting against the stone, weary but watchful.
They too had changed.
Their bodies stronger. Their spirits unbroken. The devil fruits they'd been force-fed—Snake-Snake Fruit models of mythic scale—had not made them weapons. Hancock was different, however. She was forced-fed the Love Love devil fruit.
They made them dangerous.
Hancock, even kneeling, exuded danger like perfume. She had grown into herself—no longer just proud, but royal. Her beauty was unearthly now, her Haki unmistakable, and the mark on her back—The World Noble's hoof-brand—Still burned.
Just like mine. Branded together. Side by side.
Days after I had bandaged them. That was the moment they knew we were no longer prisoners. We were executioners in waiting.
Hancock broke the silence. "How long until they come again?"
I didn't glance up. "They're watching now." With my devil fruit powers, I was able to share my sight with ravens, crows, and any type of black bird. It was an excellent way to spy as well as for my observation haki training.
Sandersonia muttered, "Let them watch. Let them choke on what they made."
I finally looked at her. "They're not ready for what they made. But we will be."
Marigold exhaled. "You say that every week."
"And I mean it every time," I said, one eyebrow arching. "Because it's almost time."
Hancock shifted forward, her gaze intense.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
I nodded once. My fingers curled, and shadows stirred behind me—feathers, faint and spectral.
"They've grown complacent," I murmured. "The new guards haven't seen what we did. The auctions have become routine. They think we're tamed."
I stood slowly, and the walls groaned in response.
"But I've learned everything. The layout. The cameras. The gate rotations. The feeding hours. The explosives in the collars. The schedule of the auction floor."
I turned toward Hancock, my eyes glowing faintly violet now—inhuman and ancient. When my golden eyes turned to it's violet hue, it was a sign that my devil fruit powers were reacting to my emotions. Even after all these years I'm still having trouble controlling my emotions. I have gotten better, though. I'm close to perfecting it.
"The moment someone makes a mistake…" My smile curved like a guillotine. "We'll tear this golden cage apart."
Sandersonia smirked. "You have a plan?"
"I always had a plan," I replied. "But now?" I opened my palm. A black feather drifted up from my skin. "I have wings."
×~×~×~×
One Year Ago — Mary Geoise, Subterranean Research Chamber: Project Morrígan
The restraints were newer then. Tighter. Polished. Blessed by priests and laced with Sea Prism dust so finely ground it sank into the bloodstream.
I had stopped screaming weeks ago. Now I only watched.
Even drugged, I remembered everything—the sterile bite of the air, the too-bright lights above my cot, the low whine of machines calibrated not to keep me alive, but to record how long it took me to break.
I didn't give them the satisfaction. But they were persistent. The fools.
Dr. Kogarashi, lead researcher of Project Morrígan, circled me like a hawk that believed itself above the corpse it picked clean. He was a man of clean fingernails and rotting ethics—one of the Celestial Dragon's favored minds.
"You know what I admire about you?" he said, tapping my IV line with gloved fingers. "You're defiant, even now. It's adorable. But this fruit—" he gestured to the small black orb sealed in a crystal case nearby, pulsing faintly like a heart, "—this will make you useful."
I didn't respond. Didn't blink. Didn't move.
He leaned closer. "Warlords. Ancient weapons. Seraphim. None of them will match what you become once you're ours. A Morrígan isn't just a myth—it's death, prophecy, bloodshed. And you'll be the vessel."
He opened the case. The Devil Fruit hissed. Yes—hissed. Black veins writhed just beneath its surface, and its stem twitched toward me like it knew my name.
Kogarashi grinned. "Force-feed it to her. Do it slow."
Two assistants held my jaw open while the third began pressing slivers of the fruit into my mouth.
The taste was vile. Rot and iron and something older than sin.
I swallowed. And the world shattered.
The machines screamed first. Not me.
The lights exploded above my head, raining glass and sparks. One of the assistants clutched his head and shrieked, collapsing to the ground in convulsions. Another stared at me in wide-eyed horror as feathers began blooming from my skin—obsidian black, glimmering with impossible sheen.
Then came the visions.
The Morrígan awakens through war. Through prophecy. Through death. And I—already shaped by loss, tempered by pain—became the mirror.
I stood. My chains melted like wax.
The guards fired. I blinked and wings exploded from my back, massive, shadowy, edged in violet flame. A wail unlike any mortal voice tore from my lips, and every living soul in the room dropped to their knees.
Not from injury but from dread.
They saw me. Not as a girl. Not as a slave. But as an omen.
Their minds buckled.
Dr. Kogarashi tried to speak—but his voice broke. He saw his death in my eyes before it even came.
I whispered, "I see you."
He dropped the detonator meant for my collar and began clawing at his face, howling about crows nesting in his lungs.
He died without a mark. No one survived.
Only her.
I stood alone in the ash and ruin of the lab, bloodless hands at my sides, the feathered mantle of the Morrígan still smoldering across my shoulders.
And in the quiet that followed, I did not weep. I simply returned to my cell—alone, without chains—and waited.
×~×~×~
Present — Mary Geoise, Level 13: The Gilded Kennels
The silence was brittle.
It was the kind of silence that listened back—a hollow stillness before a storm cuts open the sky.
I sat cross-legged, chains coiled around me like discarded jewelry. My eyes were closed, lips still, breath even. But beneath the stillness, my Haki stretched outward.
It had taken me two years to hone it in this prison. Two years of memorizing footsteps, heartbeats, lies whispered through gritted teeth. I had learned how to feel a man's fear before he drew his weapon. How to tell if a noble was in the mood to hurt, or simply watch.
But this… this was different.
A presence approached Mary Geoise. Not a noble. Not a Marine. Something vast. Something angry.
It was like sensing a tidal wave with no water.
My eyes opened slowly.
Boa Hancock noticed first. "What is it?" she asked, already standing, her own Observation Haki flaring at the edge.
"Something's coming," I murmured. "No. Someone."
Sandersonia and Marigold stiffened.
"A Celestial Dragon's guest?"
My gaze sharpened, distant. "No. He's not like them. He's not above us. He's below." My voice lowered. "In the dark."
Hancock's jaw clenched. "A beast?"
My lips curved faintly. "A rebel."
The prison lights flickered once.
Far below, alarms began to ring—subtle at first, like a vibration in the bones. Then louder. Shriller. Metal doors slamming. Muffled screams. The earth trembled.
The guards shouted over Den Den Mushi lines. Panic rising.
And I smiled. "Finally," I whispered. "The chain breaks."
A guard bolted past the outer corridor, wide-eyed, bleeding from a gash across his face.
"Lockdown! Lock everything down!" he screamed. "The fish-man's here! Fisher Tiger—he's in the upper gardens! He—he's already torn through three guard squads!"
A second guard followed, dragging a barely conscious comrade. "He's freeing the slaves—all of them! Humans too! He's not even stopping to check brands! He doesn't care what race they are!"
I stood. The walls groaned under my presence. Chains clinked and strained as my body rose taller than before, the faint shimmer of my Mythical Zoan form curling behind me in feathered shadows.
My eyes glowed violet.
"I need you all to be ready," I said. "Our moment's coming. I'll open the doors. But when we get out—"
"We burn it down," Hancock finished.
"No survivors," Sandersonia whispered.
"No mercy," Marigold growled.
I walked to the barred cell door and pressed my palm against it.
The walls trembled.
"Let the gods watch," I said coldly. "Let them scream. Tonight, we are not theirs anymore."