A Light Touch (Eustass X Reader)

Chapter 1: Smashing Introductions

Grandline Metropolis had been your home your entire life, and while you were aware of the darker sides of the massive city, it hadn't been a part of your life. Which wasn't surprising to you, there might be a robust everyone-knows-but-no-one-says underbelly in Grandline Metro, but with 600,000 square kilometers of land and over 100 million people, it was still a statistically small part of the city.

The one thing the GL Metro had aside from size and population, was the highest concentration of Devil Fruit users. Most people in the city referred to them as Devils, and there were a lot of laws and regulations regarding what they were and weren't allowed to do with their abilities. The majority of devil opted out of filing if they ended up with a Devil Fruit, but the fines if you were caught after the fact were pretty big.

Currently, your job was one of a plethora of people who worked for the Government at the Devil Fruit Registry office. It wasn't a glamorous job, but it paid enough to keep you afloat and doing decently well. Well enough, it seems, that you have actually been headhunted by another company. Devil Fruit Laws were public and private sector, and there was a private company that had reached out to you to fill a position within their firm. It was a 40% raise, and the benefits were comparable, if not downright better.

You were on your way to the first interview of what would probably be a few rounds of interviews when the worst possible series of events could've happened.

Sitting at a red-light you could hear sirens in the distance as they were drawing nearer. Looking around for a way to move your car aside in case the sirens turned into flashing lights behind you, you didn't see the non-emergency car careening toward you.

Not that you had anywhere to go to get out of the way.

The late model, full-metal body, of a dingy brown Oldsmobile slammed into the back of your compact beater. The impact shoves your trunk practically into your backseat and forces your car out into the intersection. The violence action rattles your whole body, slamming you into your steering wheel and knocking your foot off the break.

You barely had a split second to realize what had happened when the crystal-clear picture of a full-sized truck grill meets your gaze. The terrifying screech of tires and the smell of burning rubber fills your senses as the heavy vehicle tries desperately to stop, but this secondary impact did more than just rattle your whole body. Searing pain rips through your left side as the door crumples against you in the impact.

The pain keeps you awake and aware for the most part, but your brain has been rattled around twice in short succession and you're struggling to stay focused on your surroundings. Your arm's pinned between the seat and the door, and you don't have the sense or strength to pull it free.

"Killer! Make sure that bastard in the Olds' doesn't get away!" A voice shouts, and then suddenly there was a massive, muscular man with fiery red hair and golden eyes peering into your shattered driver's side window. "Aw fuck, hey! Are you okay? Stay with me! Come on lady, I'm calling an ambulance right now, just hang on!" He turns his attention to the phone, barking about the accident and requesting emergency services.

Aside from his shockingly red hair, the only detail you could hold onto was the massive metal arm he had in place of his left arm. The pain was making it hard to focus, but every time your head rolled around, those golden eyes would be in your field of vision, getting your attention and trying to keep you awake.

"Hey lady, they say you gotta stay conscious, so hang in there. I can't pull the door off until they get here, incase you're hurt worse than it looks, so you gotta stay there, okay? Come on, talk to me, tell me you got that."

You nod weakly and swallow. "...Yeah." You manage, but you're not really up for extended conversation.

"Your name, what is it?"