I had to pause this story for a while because I realized I needed to study One Piece lore more before I could start writing. About twenty video essays and a whole lot of wiki articles later, we're officially back.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Robin said. “I can’t read it.”
Percy looked flatly at her, although the effect of that was lost since they were standing in the dark.
“You clearly just read it.”
“I only know a few words,” Robin said. “No more than that.”
He squinted at her. She was defiant, and a skilled liar. Even if tonight she had picked a ridiculous lie she clearly wouldn’t be able to sell.
“Alright,” Percy said. If she wanted to insist she hadn’t read anything, he’d let her. “In that case, come and look at this.”
He picked Robin up again and this time she only squeaked a little, instead of outright screaming.
Percy jumped and carried them up to the glowing shape that looked like an orb, the one with an immense number of faces and an order that they needed to be pressed in.
When he and Robin were standing in front of it, Percy explained what he’d figured out about it:
“You touch the different sides to open the doors. I think that’s what it does, anyway. If I touch the wrong one, they all glow red. Once, I got the right one by luck.”
“How do you know which one is right?” Robin said.
“Guess?” Percy said.
Robin wrinkled her nose, looking disgusted. When Percy lifted his hand to try a random side like usual, she actually grabbed his wrist.
“That’s not right!” Robin said. “There has to be some kind of method!”
“Probably,” Percy said. “But if I can’t figure out what that is…”
“Take me back down,” Robin insisted. “I want to look at the door again.”
Smiling, Percy did what she wanted. Soon they were back where they started.
“I thought you couldn't read it,” Percy said.
“Quiet,” Robin said. Her eyes were drifting over the words. All together, there were probably as many words as you could fit on four pages of a book.
Finally, Robin said: “Take me up again.”
They returned to the alcove, Percy jumping up and carrying her again. With only a moment of hesitation while she thought about something, Robin tapped a side.
Instead of the space filling with red, a brighter blue color bathed the cave.
“You did it!” Percy said. “What’s the trick?”
“It’s a story,” Robin said, her voice distracted. She was clearly focusing. “There are three hundred and sixty five sides here. Each of them corresponds to a day out of the year. If you press the key dates in order, I think the doors will open.”
Percy was happy to hear she’d given up pretending that she couldn’t read it. In the first place, she must have known she never fooled him.
“Then can you solve it?” Percy asked.
At the same time, Robin touched a second side. This time, the lights turned red, then dimmed back to their resting brightness.
“What does that mean?” Robin asked.
“You got it wrong,” Percy said. “We won’t be able to try again for a full day.”
Robin grunted. She had a competitive side, Percy noticed. Or at least, when faced with a challenge, she naturally got sucked into trying to overcome it.
“I don’t know if I can solve it,” Robin said. “I don’t know what the story is saying.”
“You can clearly read it,” Percy said.
“I can read SOME of it,” Robin insisted. “I was being taught the language. It all happened before I could finish learning.”
She spoke without fully thinking about it, then looked like she wished she could put her foot in her mouth.
“What happened?” Percy asked.
“The marines,” Robin said.
Although she left it at that, the anger in her voice told Percy plenty. Considering the marines were still hunting her down, chasing her between islands, Percy had some suspicions.
He saw no reason to rush Robin.
“Want to go back up?” he offered.
Robin nodded.
LINE BREAK
Time passed. Instead of disappearing, Nico Robin began to move in one day at a time.
Things for her started to appear. First there were women’s clothes, the same loose dresses, skirts, and vests worn by girls in the local village. Clothes appeared for Percy too, clearly from the same village.
Robin insisted she didn’t steal them. It was the village’s way of repaying her for calling the marines.
While Percy trained and hunted the way that he’d grown accustomed to, Robin handled tasks around what was fast becoming THEIR house.
She began to practice cooking. She had a deeper knowledge of plants than Percy did, especially in this world where many of them were new to him.
This allowed her to bring back herbs and grab fruits that Percy hadn’t trusted weren’t poisonous.
She organized Percy’s storage room to a whole new level, trying out recipes that she partially copied off of the locals. Robin was able to create any part of her body on distant objects, including eyes and ears. Spying in on the villagers was too easy for her.
Her powers fascinated Percy. Robin explained to him that the concept of Devil Fruits, rare and powerful plants that when consumed by humans granted all kinds of tremendous powers.
These fruits brought drawbacks, however. In a world that was dominated by oceans, Devil Fruit users could not swim. Just being touched by water would weaken their powers. When Robin bathed, for example, she had to be careful not to submerge herself more than halfway.
Robin also carried all kinds of information about the world beyond this little island.
“There are four blues,” she told Percy, the two of them eating boar meat sandwiches for lunch one day, using bread liberated from the village thanks to Robin’s sneaky arms. “The North Blue, South Blue, East Blue, and this one: the West Blue.”
“Inventive names,” Percy said.
“They’re effective,” Robin said. “Between them runs the Grand Line. Surrounded by Calm Belts, stretches of windless sea that are dominated by tremendous and fearsome Sea Kings, the Grand Line is the heart of the world. It has two halves, Paradise and the New World, where all of the world’s great powers congregate. The World Government controls Paradise more strongly than anywhere else, with their capital Mary Geoise being located on the border between the halves. The New World is controlled by the most powerful pirates in the world, called the four Yonko.”
“The World Government controls the marines?” Percy asked.
“The marines are their dogs,” Robin said, scowling.
Percy waited, watching in a curious silence, wondering if she would go on. Robin almost seemed like she might, before she ultimately decided not to.
“Where are you from?” Robin asked.
“Nowhere anyone has heard of,” Percy said. I got lost and ended up on this island. I swam here.”
“I guess you don’t have a Devil Fruit…” Robin said.
She would probably have questioned his claim of having swam to the island, if not for the things she had seen Percy do. The first time that he appeared carrying an entire boar carcass up the sheer cliff that he lived atop, Robin couldn’t help gaping at him.
She stood up, having finished her food.
“I’m going back down,” she announced.
“Want me to give you a ride?” Percy asked.
Robin hesitated for a moment. “Please.”
She could get down to the doors on her own, Percy had seen her do it. She sprouted arms out of the cliff face and used them to lower herself down, passing her body along them like a vertical conveyor belt.
Percy’s way of getting down was just much faster.
When he picked Robin up and leaped back and forth all the way down, she no longer screamed.
She trusted him not to drop her.
When they got down, Robin picked up a carved stick with a sharp edge. She studied the writing on the door and began writing in the dust.
The characters that she scribbled there joined hundreds that she had already etched into the ground.
Robin was going by trial and error. She said some words were spelled the same in this language, so context was the only way to figure out how to read some of them. Someone who was fully fluent would be able to do that on the fly, she said, but she wasn’t there yet.
That night, as they did every night, Robin and Percy tried to input the correct password.
They made it to four correct inputs before the door turned red.
LINE BREAK
Two months of Robin making notes in the dirt. Two months of her living with Percy on the peak of their private mountain. She was laughing more these days… Although when she was working, she did so feverishly, as if possessed by a deep fear of failure.
Tonight, Nico and Percy lay at the bottom of the extinct volcano’s crater, both of them on their back with their hands behind their heads. They were looking up at the stars, the door’s blue light shining on them.
“Do you have parents?” Robin asked.
“Of course. Someone had to give birth to me,” Percy said.
“No! I meant… Are they still alive?”
“My mom died a long time ago.” Robin probably thought Percy meant when he was a baby, not hundreds of years ago. “My dad is still alive. I left him behind when I came here. It wasn’t because of him that I left. I just wanted something new.”
“My dad died when I was a baby,” Robin said.
“And your mom?”
“She died two years ago.”
After being silent for a while, Robin carried on. “She isn’t the one who raised me. She left me with her younger brother and his wife, so she could go out to sea and be the greatest archaeologist. Apparently, that was her and dad’s dream. I didn’t see her again until I was eight.”
Robin was ten years old. That was the same age Percy was. She had also mentioned, in passing, that she spent two years roaming around the West Blue before she landed on his island.
Which meant the day she saw her mom again was right before she left home.
“The island I’m from was called Ohara. It was home to a library with lots of archaeologists. I was one of them, the youngest one.” Robin sniffled softly. “All we wanted to do was learn about the past. Because of that, they killed everyone except for me. Even the civilians, Percy! People who didn’t have anything to do with the library! They were all on the boat, and as it sailed away, the marines blew it up! I’m the only survivor.”
“And they’ve spent two years hunting you down.” Percy’s voice was calm, because that’s what Robin needed to hear. Meanwhile, he’d started to glare at the stars.
“Because I know the ancient language,” Robin said. “There’s something the government doesn’t want anyone to know. The past, their origin, is told in fragments around the world, and they want to kill anyone who can read them. That’s why they want me dead. That’s the reason they destroyed my home.”
Robin’s breath hitched. Percy reached over and squeezed her shoulder. This made her lose control, beginning to cry.
“They won’t get you here,” Percy said. “I won’t let them.”
“Why do I believe you?” Robin asked, laughing while she cried. “There are monsters in the marines! I’ve watched vice admirals fight… They were way too strong for any kid! But when you say that, why do I think I might be safe? That’s dangerous.”
“The marines might be strong, but I’m stronger,” Percy said.
“Shut up,” Robin said, saying it laughingly the way that friends do. “You’re so arrogant.”
Percy sat up and she did the same, both of them ready to get down to business. Robin had hit her limit on how much trauma she could discuss for one night, and Percy had given her his word.
Over time, she’d understand the strength of what he’d just promised.
They made it to seven correct inputs before the door turned red.
LINE BREAK
Four months after Robin appeared, they decided to go into town.
It was just one trip, while they planned to protect their identities. Although Percy called it a village when he first sighted it, the settlement on the island was actually pretty big. There were at least fifteen thousand people living on the island. The population supported itself through fishing and farming, the bulk of the arable land laying on the northern side of the village, far from where Percy usually roamed.
Since the village was big enough for two children not to stand out as strangers (so long as they didn’t cause a scene) they were safe to roam around.
The village had a market near the port. It was strange for Percy and Robin to be amongst people again. They found the market and roamed freely. They didn’t have any money, which wasn’t actually a major issue: this island wasn’t part of the World Government, it turned out, so they didn’t use the government’s currency.
Instead, the island operated on a principle of bartering.
Robin’s surveillance allowed them to figure out in advance what goods would have the most value. The massive pigs on the island were known as warhogs, known for their tremendous size and strength and their foul tempers. To the villagers, they represented a significant threat, so their tough yet smooth pelts were a rare commodity.
Percy and Robin brought one with them, having decided it would stand out too much to bring multiple. They also brought certain fruits that grew deep in the jungle, giving them a little bit of variety they could trade with.
Mostly, they just enjoyed themselves.
Seeing things that people had created, listening to voices all around them, was pleasant. Although they were each other’s company, humans weren’t solitary creatures, and isolation wore on them.
They traded the warhog pelt to an old woman in return for a huge beautiful painting that she had done herself. It was a landscape that showed the whole island viewed from the beach, including the old volcano in the middle, which Robin and Percy had taken to calling “Our mountain.”
While other goods might have been more practical, they were already subsisting and seeing to their needs. Art meant more, especially to Robin.
When they hung it inside of the bungalow house, which now had swinging wooden shutters over the windows (that Robin had put up) it started to feel more like home. They each had beds with woven grass spanning the gaps of a wooden frame, there was a rug on the floor made out of another warhog skin, and now they had their own personal picture.
With nails, wire, and a beautiful new hammer traded for at the market, Robin hung the painting on the wall. Then she stepped back and looked at it next to Percy.
He wasn’t sure he’d seen her smile so brightly in all their months together.
That night, they made it to eight correct inputs before the door turned red.
LINE BREAK
It took Robin six months to read all of what was written on that door. She only rarely reported the gains she’d made to Percy, saying when he asked that “She’d give him the whole story, once she had it.”
Tonight, that time finally came.
They were standing inside of the crater much earlier than they usually visited. The night before, they hadn’t guessed the combination to the door, so it was still blue and waiting for another attempt. Robin had skipped guessing because she had been certain that after one more night, she’d have the answer.
Now, the time had come.
Robin’s eyes darted over the door. She nodded to herself. “I have it.”
Percy put his arm around her waist and jumped to what they had taken to calling the door’s handle, meaning the shape where the cut was input.
Robin started carefully tapping the different sides.
“What did it say?” Percy asked.
“The writing is a story of destruction,” Robin said. “It’s a declaration of resistance… And an elegy for those who wrote it. The words remind me of Ohara, Percy. They talk about a war, multiple fierce battles, an event they call “Freedom’s decapitation” and then more battles… Or slaughters, I should call them. After that event, whoever wrote this was on the losing side of a war. The winners were hunting them down along with everyone on their side. The men, the women, the children. They were trying to wipe out every group who’d stood against them. Finally, after all that slaughter, the author came here. And the day that he arrived was…”
Robin hit one of the sides on the orb. It was the twelfth one that she’d pressed.
All of a sudden, the door turned green.
Percy had to grab Robin, jumping back as the door swung open, so that they wouldn’t tumble off or be thrown into the wall.
In front of them, the interior that they’d spent so long working to get inside of was revealed. They saw stones and torches that had long since burned out, along with a fierce wave of stale air that rushed over them.
There were skeletons everywhere…
Skeletons bigger than Laistrygonian giants, with proportionally short legs and huge ribcages and torsos in general. It took one look for Percy and Robin to understand that these were not the bodies of humans.
Together, they walked forward into the ruin. Percy looked down briefly, then looked up.
He wondered if Robin realized she had grabbed his hand to give her confidence.
Either way, they stepped into the place they’d worked so hard to enter, Percy bringing out Riptide to give them light to see by.
LINE BREAK
At the same time that the bowels of the volcano opened, a merchant vessel was unboarding near the market of the village. They were frequent visitors of the island, familiar to the locals. They had one man who had hitched a ride, a man carrying a duffel bag over his shoulder. He turned around and waved goodbye to the captain who’d given him a ride, and the captain waved back with a grin.
Hands in his pockets, the visitor to the island walked down the street. He wore sunglasses and had curly hair, going with his somewhat dark skin.
“I told you not to stay in one place, little scholar,” he said. “Otherwise, this is what would happen.”
As he set off to explore the island, even though the day was hot and sunny, he left little patches of ice wherever he stepped.