Dragon's Heart [One Piece]

Chapter Two

~Dragon's POV~

She'd been right, once I'd started asking questions instead of blindly obeying, I began to see corruption, everywhere. I'd left the marines shortly after, crushing my father's hopes and dreams, but I couldn't support it. It was time for a revolution, time for someone to truly stand for the people of the world. Not long after leaving, I'd made some new friends who shared my ideals.

My few companions and myself had set sail to an island we'd heard was under tyrannical government rule, the natives were being treated like slaves. We docked our ship in the middle of the night and set out to scout the island to see how bad it was and what our next course of action was going to be.

Instead of the sounds of oppression and sorrow I'd expected to hear in the night, I heard the sounds of laughter and music. Smoke dwindled up into a large black cloud in the sky occasionally concealing the moon and stars in an eerie manner. I crept closer toward the village with my second in command, a strange being I'd met in my travels who dreamed of a world where people could be who they wanted to be, whatever gender that may be and often transitioned from gender to gender with the use of a devil fruit.

"Not quite the state we'd expected to find them in." Ivankov noted, he was male at the moment, as he'd been prepared to fight if we were intercepted by the local government. He was a stocky man with an oversized head, bright purple curls that framed his face and wore a bizarre red one piece that revealed his legs, chest, part of his midriff, and really left little to the imagination.

My heart skipped a beat as I heard a familiar melodic laugh, the laugh of the insufferable girl who I owed a large debt of gratitude to. Why was she here?

"You okay?" Ivankov looked to me curiously.

"Fine. Let's proceed with caution." I said stiffly as I made my way through the small forest surrounding the village. Through a break in the trees I spotted the world government's local outpost building up in flames, the government officials sporting uniforms issued by the world government that closely resembled the marines uniform, were all sitting in the town square with their hands bound behind their backs.

The townspeople filled the streets dancing and cheering while throwing shackles onto the burning government building. In front of the massive blaze was a beautiful girl with black as night hair and summery golden flecked green eyes, eyes I'd dreamed about every night since we'd met, dancing with children. She'd turned my world upside down and had haunted me ever since.

"What do we do here?" Ivankov pondered aloud, noticing as I had, that the oppressors were now being held captive and the people were free.

"Let's try to find out what happened." I sighed and felt a fluttering in my chest as her summery gaze pierced through the trees and darkness I'd thought had been concealing me, latching onto me in an instant. It was unnerving.

A small sweet smile twisted onto her lips for the briefest of moments before she looked away, bashfully. This girl was going to ruin me. I stepped out of the cover of the forest and was immediately swarmed by panicked villagers.

Before anyone had a moment to act, Lily appeared before me and jumped into my arms nearly knocking me off my feet as she hooked her arms around my neck and threw all of her weight onto me. "You made it!" She giggled as if I were late to a party.

The villagers began to relax. "Is this your husband, Lily?" One of the villagers asked and I felt my face go hot.

"Stop telling people we're married!" I snapped at her.