#kidhawkins

[the-bar-sinister]

Bright and All-Consuming (3710 words) by VickytheSnake, thesavagesabretooth Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Relationships: Bartolomeo/Cavendish (One Piece), Basil Hawkins/Eustass Kid Characters: Cavendish (One Piece), Bartolomeo (One Piece), Eustass Kid, Killer (One Piece), Basil Hawkins, O-Kiku (One Piece), O-Tama (One Piece), Speed (One Piece)

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, pirates acting like pirates, Established Relationship, Missing Scene, Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Revenge, Character Study, Aftermath of Violence Summary: Soon after everyone's departed Wano, Bartolomeo and Cavendish run across the wreckage of the Victoria Punk and chase down the marines that have Kid and his crew in custody.

Reeling and raging from the sharp, sudden loss of ship and crew, the remaining Kid Pirates come together, and Basil Hawkins reaffirms his loyalty to his new captain as they figure out where to go next.

Whatever happens, none of them are giving up.

-

Cavendish stood on the prow of the ship, the sea breeze whipping through his gorgeous blond ringlets as he held his hat in his hand. It was a gorgeous day, clear skies and fair winds, and the Sleeping White Horse, carrying his and his recent co-captain's combined crews, cut a gorgeous path through the gleaming, jewel-like blue waters of the New World. They had been exploring the local waters for the past several weeks while Luffy– Emperor Luffy now– was busy with his adventure on Wano, and now that they'd heard word that he was setting sail further into the grand line,so too had they in his wake.

And it was all going beautifully, Cavendish thought with a beautiful smile.

Except for that huge plume of black smoke on the horizon.

The blight on the otherwise perfect skyline twisted and rose into the sky like an obsidian snake, blotting out the blue of the sea and sky. He heard the footsteps of his co-captain clomping behind him, heavy boots against the treated wood before he leaned heavily on the banister beside him.

"What the fuck is all that?" Bartolomeo's tone was as loud and brazen as ever as he squinted out at the smoke. "Think Emperor Luffy sank some idiot? No— we woulda seen his ship if it was him." 

Cavendish nodded, putting his hat back on and looking up at his tall companion's striking–if not beautiful– face. "We would have! Shall we come around and get a better look at the scene? Or steer clear of it."

Barto's piercings were catching the light, and his long fangs were bared in the confused curl of his lips as he scratched the back of his strikingly verdant head.

"Eugh…we don't exactly have the time to be checking on every poor sap who falls into the drink, Cav. But…" he squinted again at the curling smoke. "It looks pretty bad. Hell, worse comes to worse nobody's alive, right? And we can grab whatever supplies they left." 

Cavendish grinned and hooked his pinkie finger through Barto's nose ring, tugging on it gently. "Oooh, you're so mercenary, Barto. But I'll admit I was thinking much the same thing. Besides, if there's trouble, we'll want to know, eh?"

Barto wobbled on his feet, and Cavendish was treated to the hot flush across his face as he grinned widely, baring his uncanny teeth as he laughed. 

"Of course you were, prettyboy! You're as much a mercenary as I am, ya know!" He chuckled under his breath. "And if it's real trouble, yeah… we'd better make sure it ain't gonna interfere with anythin'." 

Cavendish tugged on him again with great satisfaction before letting him go. "Good boy. Have the crew bring us around!"

That brought an indignant and delightfully flustered huff from the man as he stuck his hands in his long coat's pockets with a lopsided grin. "Yeah, yeah. You keep prettying up the prow like a figurehead, I'll get 'em going."

As he walked off with his strangely birdlike gait, he hollered to the men to start bringing the crew about. 

–

With the mainsail broad, and a good, steady wind they made it within telescope sight of the wreck within the hour. There were great chunks of a familiar ship floating in the sea when Barto peered through his glass.

The unmistakable Victoria Punk.

And the ghastly wreck wasn't the only ship in view. A hulking marine vessel– itself smoking and the worse for wear– was sailing away from its ruined prey.

Bartolomeo hissed softly between his teeth as his eyes traced the marine vessel— one of the Navy's battleships, clearly. The sorts that rolled in and blew entire islands to rubble. Still, the idea that it could decimate the hell out of the VICTORIA PUNK of all ships.

Kid was a monster, a brutal sonofabitch who seemed to walk out of any fight he stepped into with a grin.

But he sure wasn't walking out of this one smilin', that was for sure.

"Son of a bitch, it's Kid's ship. You've gotta be kiddin' me…the Navy did this?" 

Cavendish popped up under Barto's shoulder, wide eyed and angry look on his too-pretty face. "What did you say? Kid's ship? The navy?"

"Yeah!" Bartolomeo almost growled as he leaned on the railing and handed the spyglass to Cavendish. "It's unmistakable. I'd recognize that skull anywhere. That's Eustass Kid's 'Victoria Punk'.., and that's absolutely the fucking Navy. Wounded, but— shit, they somehow WON." 

The prince-pirate's eyes flashed dangerously with a look of bloodlust. "Wounded, you say? And I'd wager that it's a highly ranked ship?"

Barto's heart beat faster as he leaned over the bannister. "Oh yeah, Cav. That's a warship. That's one of the ones they use for serious shit. They brought one to Dressrosa, remember?" 

Cav's smile took on an uncanny, toothy nature. "So I do. Why not take advantage of wounded prey then, eh? Maybe rescue a few fellow pirates as a bonus. But I would love to take down a warship."

Bartolomeo glanced at his co-captain's increasingly unhinged smile. He found himself grinning widely in response. 

It was kind of hot when that bloodlust crazed alter-ego of his bubbled to the surface. Real hot, even, when he pictured the 'prince' covered in blood and cackling. This was going to get REAL FUN , REAL FAST.

He rolled up his sleeves and pointed to the Navy ship with his foot up on the bannister and a wicked grin of his own "All men! Open fire on the Navy and bring us into close contact! Let's butcher ourselves some marines!" 

Cavendish— Hakuba— drew his sword and cackled.

-

They were all in sea-stone shackles in the navy's brig when the ship rocked powerfully– first once. Then a second time.

It sent Otama falling, too weak to stop herself as she rocked into O-Kiku with a gasp, caught by the only woman not weakened by the cuffs to the point of exhaustion.

It'd been terrifying. One moment they were sailing along, she'd been talking to her new captain and trying to show him the latest ninjitsu art she'd mastered— and the next, the next moment the world was on fire.

Shells exploded, splinters showered her face, and the world grew hot as a ship the size of a castle fired upon them from a distance Otama would have once called impossible. They hardly had a chance to fight, even as Hawkins attempted to use his strange devil fruit's powers to intercept the shells with straw, and her captain attempted to with the power of 'magnetism'.

It was as good a fight as they could manage, especially when the Marines were close enough to board. Swords clashed, powers flared— Otama tried her best to be useful to her new crew with her kunai and ninjitsu, only to be grabbed and beaten by a heavy handed man in a coat reading 'Absolute Justice'. 

The Victoria Punk was sinking, the crew was slaughtered, and those deemed important enough were dragged off into the brig and slapped in cuffs. 

Otama wasn't sure exactly why she'd been spared.

O-Kiku squeezed her, and used her limited range of movement to ease her back into a sitting position.

"There, there…" she murmured soothingly before looking up at the ceiling. "it appears the 'marines' are encountering difficulties."

Speed hissed softly through her teeth. "If it weren't for these cuffs I'd be given' them a few more." 

"Be ready for anything," Kid warned, sneering. "And use it to your advantage."

The captain's eyes were flaming, though he looked small, and rather wretched without his metal arm, and with his face covered in bloody streaks.

More cannon shots— they could only be cannon shots— slammed against the hull of the ship, and all of the men who had been left to guard them scurried up on deck leaving them alone.

Hawkins, his own stump raw and bleeding again with the re-opening of his wounds, smiled grimly. "The cards are in our favor…we have only a 10% chance of death in this affair."

"That's reassuring!" Otama managed to smile, despite the fresh wounds dotting her body. Her throat hurt, dark bruises around her neck from the marine's grip when he caught her. Everything hurt.

O-Kiku— the only non-devil fruit user among them now— flexed her fingers in her cuffs "I am not weakened. If the door opens, I shall bludgeon any who dare check on us with my cuffs and steal the keys for you." 

"Good." Kid's eyes searched the room, looking for anything they could use to their advantage.

That was when a high, echoing laugh— a cackle— cut through the sounds of chaos. The clang of swords rang closer and closer from down the stairs to the deck.

Otama froze, her eyes widening as she glanced at Speed.

 "What— what is that?"

"...someone having a good time?" Speed offered with a half smile. "Hopefully they're on our side." 

A beautiful blond face, covered in blood and looking utterly deranged peeked in the room just as a navy man fell dead at their feet.

Otama's eyes widened further. "A-Akuma…" she whispered to O-Kiku's curious 'hmm'. 

Some of the twisted fervor went out of his smile as he said, "Kid and crew, I presume? How about a little vengeance? My partner's holding the admiral back, for the moment, up on deck."

Hawkins closed his eyes with a sliver of a smile "I personally would be delighted for a little vengeance."

Speed glanced over at Kid with a wide grin, as O-Kiku shifted to hold her cuffed hands up towards the door.

"I think we should go for it, Captain— I'm itching for a little payback."

Otama had to agree. Her body hurt, she felt angry and humiliated, and the pirate part of her wanted very, very much to give a little of that back to the marines. 

With difficulty, Kid pushed himself to his feet alongside the silent Killer, he and smiled a smile almost as terrible as the one on their savior. 

"Let's paint these marines red."

-

It was one thing for Admiral Ryokugyu to have taken them by surprise and torn their ship apart when they could barely respond.

It was another thing entirely for him and his marines to try to take them on already wounded from the battle themselves, with a full crew of pirates, and more than half a dozen devil fruit users loose on the ship.

It was a brutal, chaotic battle. They made good, blood for blood, for the crewmen who had been lost. For Heat, and Wire who had been with them for so long, and for the rest. The deck of the warship ran red, and Eustass Kid's new arm was fashioned from marine guns and swords, and metal pieces of hull. It slammed, and smashed and splattered screaming marines as the pirates wrecked the navy at their own game.

In the end, it was Ryokugyu in sea-stone irons, crawling on his belly on the deck, his glasses smashed. 

Kid stood with the two captains from the garish ship that had rescued them, with his foot on the admiral's back.

"I'm gonna kill him," he declared, pressing his boot down hard. 

Cavendish's face contorted. "Hold on— there's a bounty on him. Barto, is he worth more alive?"

Nearby, O-Kiku cleaned her shining blade on a marine captain's coat, wiping the blood from it as she looked down at him through the glaring eyes of her demonic mask. "What is this talk of 'bounties'?"

Barto rubbed his chin, looking down at Ryokugyu thoughtfully. "Not that I know of. But you know those Cross Guild fellas. Someone there might have a grudge to settle and be willing to pay a little extra for it."

Otama walked over, her kimono tattered and her eyes glowering in anger, and kicked the back of Ryokugyu's head to smash him and his glasses one more time into the deck. "S-stop trying to wiggle away! Asshole!" 

She'd come at him with a bomb during the fight, using some 'substitution' trick of the ninja to blow part of the man's plant-armor away enough for the rest of them to rush in.

"We've got a grudge against him," Kid growled. At his side, Killer grunted tacitly agreeing. His new zoan-fruit tusks ran red with blood, and Kid thought it was a good look. "He killed men who've been sailing at our side for years."

Cavendish sneered. "Then if he's worth as much dead as alive, I'd say that makes him worth more dead, then."

On the ground, the admiral squirmed pathetically as Otama kicked him.

Hawkins drifted in from below deck, a massive lurching monster of blood-stained straw and nails, and loomed over with a low hiss of breath. "best not take the risk of him wriggling away. The chances are in our favor if we kill him now."

Speed's hoof clopped against the ground, blood running down her own face from the crimson-stained spiral horn jutting from her forehead "I say we let our captain do the honors…unless he wants this to be a group activity."

Barto held his hands up, a grin on his face. "Agreed. One less admiral is a DAMN good deal. Especially a chump like this!"

Otama kicked him again. 

Kid grinned widely. "Then let's do this. All we need is for the head to be recognizable."

The look of terror was the last expression on the admiral's face.

-

They had butchered the admiral and the rest of his men, and put the warship to the torch. Killer stood on the deck of the ship that had rescued them— a ridiculous thing with a unicorn figurehead— and looked out at the small amount of remains of the Victoria Punk that were still visible.

"After all that," he said thickly, thinking of Wano. "After all that, she's gone and they're dead anyway."

O-Kiku stood beside him, her hand upon her sword at her side and her mask still lowered over her face.

She nodded once, and her off-hand reached out to pat his shoulder. "I know. It's a tremendous loss…your ship, your men. Thi– I'm sorry I could not do more to protect them alongside you."

He shook his head. "You did everything you could. I'm glad you were there."

It was little surprise that it was their 'new recruits' who had survived in the end. And if they hadn't been there? It could have been a total disaster. Killer and his captain might have been at the bottom of the ocean too.

It just wasn't fair. Heat, and Wire. All the rest. They'd been with them a long time.

"I'm pleased I could be there too, but…" Her fingers tightened against her sword's grip. "Your men deserved better. I hope you won't mind if I say a prayer for them…?" 

He shook his head. He didn't mind. He sure wasn't going to say one, but—

"I don't mind. None of us… are good men. But they were my friends."

She laughed softly, and without joy. 

"I feel that is the important thing. What makes a 'good man'? They were your friends; they had an honor of their own. And they'll live on in one form or another. The spirits of warriors always do." She closed her eyes, clapping her hands together and whispering softly under her breath as the remnants of his beloved ship floated among the waves and sank into the churning sea. 

Killer closed his eyes too, and leaned on the rail, watching the wreckage and thinking back to the day they'd set sail.

Would they have regretted it, if they knew how it would end? He didn't think so.

"The spirits of warriors live on," he repeated. 

If nothing else, they'd carry them forward. The captain was already talking to their rescuers about plans.

O-Kiku finished, a soft prayer on the strength of a warrior's soul lingering as it drifted from behind her mask, and she straightened up.

"They do. In many ways, Killer. In memories, in others, in their weapons, or their wishes. Or on to their next life— reborn to fight again." 

"Yeah." He was aware of the thick sound at the back of his throat. He'd done so much to try to keep them all from harm. In the end it was a zero sum game. But he'd make it count, and he'd remember them. "That's good to remember. Thanks."

O-Kiku bowed her head to him as her fingers returned to the blade at her side.

"Of course. It's something I myself have to remember, for my brother." She grabbed his shoulder again. "I did not know them well, but we've already gotten a start on vengeance for you, Killer. You will have my blade for all further blood that must spill in atonement." 

Killer put his hand on her back in return and nodded. 

"I'm sorry you didn't have longer to get to know them. But we've spilled a lot of blood for them already— and there'll be more, I know it. Captain's not going to give up just because we lost…"

Everything.

The ship. The whole crew minus the handful of them. They lost everything.

"He won't give up," Killer repeated firmly.

O-Kiku chuckled softly. "That may be the thing that drew me to ask to join his crew. He isn't a man who'll give up in the face of despair." 

"Damn right. And we'll follow his example, eh?" He slung his arm fully over her shoulder.

The former samurai leaned down and against his shoulder with a nod, finally pushing her mask up and out of her face to smile at him. 

"Without hesitation, Killer." 

-

Basil Hawkins felt— dreadful, really. The loss of his new captain's ship, so like his own loss months ago, combined with the brutal loss at the Marines' hands had not done wonders for morale.

But the shadow of death was never on any of the surviving cadre, and they'd been rescued by familiar faces to the New World. The 'pirate prince' and Barto the terror. And in said rescue they'd killed a naval Admiral and removed his head to put on ice for the trip to Cross Guild for his bounty.

A sweet revenge but it did little to ease the lingering anger. He worked with straw, forming shapes and dolls with it as it wound through his body, and sighed softly. He did not know them well, Kid's crew.

But he knew the lance of loss better than anyone. 

He heard stomping boots across the deck behind him that could only belong to one person, though he didn't announce himself.

One of Basil's dolls turned instead of him as he shifted against the chair. "Hello, Captain Kid." 

"What the hell are you doing, Hawkins?" Kid growled. He drew up behind him, leaning over his shoulder as Basil remained with his back to him.

Basil finally half turned, the dolls hanging off his arms as he held them out. "I'm working on dolls. I'll likely keep them in my body until we face a proper target for me to latch them onto. But for the moment it's keeping my mind occupied." 

"Freaky fucking hobby," Kid drawled. There was a twitch at the edge of his lips though— a shred of amusement? Even that tiny amount would be a surprise after the day Kid had had.

"I've been told," Basil smiled wryly as he stood, and the dolls burrowed their way into the straw of his arm. "But I think you like it well enough. I'll gift you one. As a present."

Kid snorted and rolled his eyes brushing off the offer and changing the subject. "We're sailing with the pretty boy and the ogre for now, until we can get another ship."

He tilted his head. "We're sailing with the famous 'pirate heel' and the pirate prince? Interesting— for very long, do you think?" 

Kid growled. "As short as I can fucking manage, that's for sure. I'm not a huge fan of sailing under another man's flag. Speaking of which…"

He gave Basil a speculative look.

Basil tilted his head to the side, examining Kid's expression. "I believe I know what you're wondering… but go on." 

"I want to know if you're still planning to sail with me after this… fucking diaster." Kid's weight was heavy against his back as he stood with his arm thrown over Basil's.

Basil leaned against him with a thoughtful hum. 

"While it's true I could sail under my own flag again…" he began. Faust, his beloved first mate, and his crew were dead. His ship, tailored to their shared tastes, was sunk. His flag burned away in the disgrace of defeat. "I'm still rather curious to see what sailing under you holds in store. Even with this disaster muddling the cards." 

"Wouldn't blame you if you were going to leave." Eustass' hand found his own, and his fingers closed around it. "But I'm glad you're not planning on it."

Basil squeezed his hand tightly as one of the dolls trotted along to hang off of Eustass' elbow, looking up at him with a half smile. "Quite the opposite. I've hitched myself to your star, I'll be with you as we recover from this mess and beyond." 

Kid's narrow eyes followed the doll, then his gaze returned to Basil's face and he smiled grimly. "I'll happily accept the vote of confidence, magician. We've been set back. But I'm going to keep rising as far as I can before I burn out. You and this lot with me."

Basil's fingers trailed against the pack of cards at his hip, his other hand still squeezing against Kid's. He didn't need them at the moment to tell him what he already knew.

This star would rise higher, even with this cursed day upon them, and it would either illuminate the sky or burn out and fade to stardust.

He smiled grimly back up at him. "If we should burn out, let's burn out as what they called us." He chuckled under his breath. "As supernovas. Bright and all-consuming. But let also that time be a long way out, Captain Kid."