Grandline Koukai: Enter the Abyss

Enter the Abyss is a Grandline Koukai side story about Silvia and her brother Nyerus' descent into the ranks of the Abyss Pirates.

Synopsis
After searching for their missing uncle, Nyerus returns home with a terrible wound. His sister Scylevea tries to wrap his wounds and find out what happened, but Nyerus is evasive and won't explain, only claiming that he's doing it to protect them. The next day, Scylevea secretly follows her brother, discovering that he has been undergoing tests to prove his worth to the Abyss Pirates who are holding their uncle hostage. Nyerus demands that Scylevea go home, but she refuses to let him get himself killed, demanding to join him. He explains that he is the "chosen one" that will unlock the legendary Seven Gates. After taunting and bickering between the two, Nyerus allows Scylevea to accompany him on the condition she does everything she is told.

Story
Scylevea’s ears perked as she heard the door open. From just down the hall she could hear the voice of her older brother quietly unleashing a plethora of swears beneath his breath. It was the third night in a row that he was late coming home! Darting to the door she was just about ready to unleash a string of strong words of her own, that is, until she saw him gripping his side where huge stain was spreading through his shirt and stream of red trailed behind him.

"You’re bleeding!" Within seconds she had sprung to the cabinet and back with cleaning cloths and bandages."Nyerus, what happened?"

"I’m fine." With bloodstained hands, he pushed past her gruffly, grabbing rum from the shelf and downing a gulp straight from the flask to dull the pain.

"You sure don’t look fine to me." She grumbled as she started to unbutton her brother’s shirt to clean the wound. He winced but didn’t argue, possibly too weak from blood loss to bother. The gash stretched from just under his lower left rib around to nearly his spine, blood oozing out from exposed the tissue. "King Neptune…it’s worse than I thought. We need to get you to a doctor."

"No." His answer was immediate and stern. "Don't have money and can’t have people asking questions."

"But you can't just die on me! Ugh!" She gave a frustrated sighed and picked up the cloth, preparing to clean the wound. "Alright then, give me that alcohol."

"I need it more than you do." He panted before preparing to take another swig, but the young mermaid rolled her eyes, nicked it straight from his hand, and poured some onto the rag. A sharp pain ran up his side. It was like he was being attacked all over again! "What the hell are you doing Scyl?!"

"Applying antiseptic," She handed back the rum and continued her work despite his cries of protest. "Shut up, will you? If you’re not going to let me take you to get professional help, then this is what you’ve got to deal with. The last thing we need is for you to get infected and die just because you’re being a baby."

That seemed to shut him up. Aside from a few more grumbles under his breath, he silently let her continue. After she finished cleaning out the wound, she began to wrap it. She had never done this before, so the bandages were messy and probably wrapped far more excessively than needed, but they would do the job and keep things from getting worse. At least, she hoped. Finishing the last of the bandages, she looked up at her brother pleadingly. "Where have you been?"

"Where do you think? Looking for the bastard that’s supposed to be taking care of you." Nyerus scowled, taking back the flask to finish it off. Realizing the container was empty, he flung it at the wall, shattering it. “Don’t you dare tell me that you wasted the last bottle cleaning out this damn scratch.”

“No need to throw a tantrum, gilthead!” His sister winced and repressed a groan, knowing that she’d have to clean that up later. Sure, she ought to make him do it, but by the time he finally sobered up and got around to picking up the shards, she probably will already have sliced her tail on the mess twice.

In the meantime, she wanted to minimize any further damages. Swimming to the kitchen, Scylevea found a wooden cup that would cause less of a mess if he threw it. Breaking into Hayvar’s hidden supply, she pulled out two bottles. The man had been missing for over a week, so it’s not like he’d miss it. After preparing mixing her brother’s drink, she made her way back to the main room.

“Took you long enough,” Nyerus grumbled when she returned.

"So did you find anything on Uncle Hayvar’s disappearance?" She asked handing the cup to her brother.

"Does it look like I found anything?" He rolled his eyes and took a drink.

"It looks like you found trouble." Her tone was equally as cynical.

"Right." He scoffed. “This stuff tastes like crap."

"I had to pull from Hayvar's backup stash." She shrugged. Several minutes passed in awkward silence before she finally decided to ask. "You want to tell me what happened?"

"Not really, Scyl." Nyerus sighed in annoyance. "Bug off."

"Well then I don't care if you want to or not, you come home in this state, I deserve to know why." Scylevea crossed her arms defiantly. "Nyerus, where have you been going? Who did this to you? What's been-"

"It's none of yer business, Scyl!" He interrupted, rising and fiercely slamming the cup on the table. She flinched and backed away. "I'm pertectin' this family....Doin' this for you, ya ungrateful little b-"

"Okay, Okay!" Scylevea cut him off, deciding she didn’t want to be around for whatever rant came as he realized he’d been drugged before the sedative fully kicked in. She quickly headed to her room and locked that door. Curling up with her tail around her, she ignored the yelling from down the hall and tried to drift to sleep, but her thoughts were consumed by anxiety. What had happened to her brother while he was out looking for Hayvar? Their uncle had been missing for over a week. He didn’t make a lot of money selling the fish she and Nyerus caught, but that was their only source of income and rent would be due soon. She supposed that she could start selling the fish herself, but she doubted any fishmen would be willing to buy fish from merfolk and merfolk wouldn’t buy fish at all. On the bright side, thanks to their marine telepathy, she and Nyerus wouldn't need to worry about starving. They'd just be homeless. Great.

Sick of making her situation seem even more depressing, she let her thoughts wander to the fantasy she'd held since she was a little girl. She saw herself travel across the entire world with Nyerus at her side. Together they would track down the bounty hunters that ruined their life and exact their vengeance in the most slow and excruciatingly painful manner they could think of. Sometimes it was by tying them up, calling out to hungry sharks and watching the show. Others, Scylevea imagined dragging them along the sea floor, or shoving their faces into an underwater volcano. Of course, a good old repeated stabbing seemed like it would be pretty cathartic too. Amid such happy thoughts, she drifted off to sleep.

~

The next day came quicker than Scylevea anticipated. The best time for fishing was early morning, but she had been having such a wonderful dream about causing the destruction of the human race. After spending about five minutes lying in bed trying to justify going back to sleep, she sighed and decided to go check how much damage Nyerus caused the night before.

Silently she made her way down the hall and found her brother passed out on the couch. The table had been knocked over, but much to her relief, it seemed that nothing had been majorly damaged. It didn’t take long to sweep up the broken glass and straighten up the place. Within half an hour she was out on the reef at work.

Food. ''Come. Eat.'' Simple but effective messages. Most fish hardly could understand more than that. The more intelligent fish and sea creatures could be communed with through audible sonar in more complex and complete sentences. But why should she bother? It was just extra work trying to convince them to come and a lot more annoying when they refused to let her kill them. Scylevea much preferred hunting the stupid ones through the simple signals she could deliver without having to even open her mouth. With a flick of her wrist, her prey would swarm.

Today looked as productive as any other. The fish would rush to her side, blissfully unaware of her malicious intentions. All she had to do was reach out her hand, and with a quick snap of their spine, the deed was done. The difficult part was keeping her new victims away from the older ones as a fish’s primary source of food was naturally other fish.

Scylevea had always found that curious. If fish were so willing to eat one another to survive, then why was it so taboo amongst merfolk? Fish were fine with it. Humans were fine with it. Fishmen ate their pathetic less evolved counterparts all the time. It’s not like merfolk biology prohibited it. She and Nyerus had been catching and consuming them since they’d moved in with Hayvar when they were kids.

Perhaps it was because of the merfolk’s ability to communicate with the creatures. She supposed that it had been a bit traumatic at first to hear the screams of each creature as she and her brother slaughtered them. However, they had soon discovered there was an easy fix simply by finding a more effective method of slaughter. Spinal fracture was instantaneous, and she assumed, painless. At first, it still might have caused a sinking guilt-ridden feeling in her gut back when she was a little girl, but with time and understanding that too had been fixed.

Things lived. Things died. Some things died so others could keep living. It was just the circle of life. Everyone just did what they had to in order to survive. Once Scylevea began thinking of it in these terms, it didn’t bother her anymore. She and Nyerus killed to live – just like any other ocean creature.

Once she was satisfied with her haul, the young mermaid took her time swimming back. If the past few days had been any indicator, her brother would still be sleeping for another few hours. Although she felt a bit uneasy leaving him to wake up alone with the injuries he had incurred the previous night, Scylevea figured it was better to get the fish sold sooner than later. If she hurried to work out a deal with one of the other merchants, perhaps she could even get home before he woke up.

In the end, she had worked a deal with Hereh, one of her uncle’s toughest competitors. He had tried to cheat her by offering to buy the entire morning’s catch for what he termed a “generous” price. But having run Hayvar’s accounts for the past few years, Scylevea knew he was giving her under half what it was worth – especially since he was probably going to raise the price now that his competition was out of the picture. After some failed flirting, intense haggling and immense self-restraint she managed to cut a deal neither were happy about, but both of them could live with and headed home. Perhaps things weren’t so bleak after all.

Nyerus was still out cold when she arrived. By the time he woke up, she had a nice hot meal waiting for him as well as some proper antibiotic and painkillers she had picked up after selling her fish.

"Aghhhh, my head is killing me," Her brother sat up slowly, suddenly feeling a sharp pain "And my side...and back...."

"Well thanks to me at least you're not dead." Scylevea rolled her eyes and brought him his food and medicine. "Here, this ought to help."

"How unusually sweet of you," Nyerus frowned. "Let me guess. You're trying to roofie me again?"

"No."She scoffed. "That was because you were throwing a hissy fit and it was the only thing that would keep you from wrecking the house and making your injury even worse. I managed to get you actual medicine and I'm not stupid enough to mix that with any other drugs. You're welcome."

"Gee, thanks." He quickly downed both without another word.

"So, you ready to talk?" Leaning on the table, she watched him sitting there in silence. When he didn't respond, she continued. "If you're not going to tell me what's going on, at least promise me you won't be doing it again."

"Sorry, but I can't do that, Scyl." He shook his head. "If I don't find our uncle-"

"Uncle Hayvar has been missing for over a week. You've been completely disappearing for the past three nights and whatever you're doing, wherever you're looking for him, it's clearly dangerous, Nyerus! If you go out again with that wound chances are you won't be coming back!"

"Calm down, Scyl. You're overreacting." It was his turn to roll his eyes. "I'll be fine. That much I can promise you."

"You call that pretty little gash in your side fine?" She growled back. "Nyerus I'm not going to lose you too. If Hayvar's gone then we're the last family we've got. You can't just go off trying to be the hero and die. You can't just leave me all alone!"

"Relax, sis, I'm not leaving you alone." After a brief pause, he set his plate down with a sigh. "I'm doing this for you, you know."

"No, actually, I don't know because you won't tell me." She crossed her arms with a frustrated huff.

"Look, Scyl, you're just a kid. You shouldn't have to worry about any of this." With some effort he rose and ruffled her hair, much to his sister's annoyance.

"I'm not a child, Nyerus!" She shoved his hand away from her head. "I don't need you to take care of me. I've pulled just as much if not more weight around here as you in running this place and I don't see why Uncle Hayvar's disappearance changes any of that!"

"Like you said, we're the only family we got. And that means I'm the head of the family now and it's my responsibility to take care of the both of us. I'm doing what it takes to protect us."

Scylevea frowned. "You're only three years older than me."

"Yes, three years that make me a legal adult and you not." He grinned.

"Yeah, well last I checked 'Mr. Legal Adult', I was the one taking care of you. You're in no shape to be running off at night and getting yourself into more trouble." She poked his bandages, causing him to reel back in pain.

"Aghhhhh!" He clutched his side in agony."Alright, alright, point taken! Just don't do that again!"

"I promise not to do that so long as you promise not to go out and do whatever stupid mysterious thing you did last night that you won't tell me about."

"Fine, as long as you promise to stop being so nosy about it and just leave that concern to me." He held his hand out to shake. "Deal?"

"Deal."

~

She mentally gave it thirty-six hours. It only took eight. Just after he had come to check on her to be sure she was sleeping, she heard him sneaking out the door. With a shake of her head and roll of her eyes she slipped out the bedroom window.

It wasn’t difficult to follow her brother unnoticed. As long as she wasn’t too far behind, she could trace his electric signature. She’d been doing it since they were kids. Pity she hadn’t gotten stronger shark genes from their grandfather’s side of the family and have electroreceptors able to detect anything within a few mile radius like Uncle Hayvar, though. Not to mention the strength and elegance she would have possessed if she had been so fortunate. No, instead she was stuck with mostly far less attractive sailfish attributes of her father. Still, it could be worse.

She supposed she should be grateful for the speed her sailfish heritage gave her. Even if she was rubbish at recognizing most signals, she at least always use them to sense direction. Plus she could send electric signals and mask hers a little. Unfortunately, Nyerus was the only electric signature she could reliably follow. Conversely, he had inherited all the good looks of both their parents, particularly their mother, but little of the functionality. He could use the sonar abilities most merfolk possessed, but that was the extent of his special abilities. Honestly, even without any electroreceptors though, she was surprised he hadn’t figured her trick and practiced altering his pattern ages ago. Not even after she had completely ruined his first date with that one lionfish girl, which had basically ruined his social life entirely. Oops.

Laughing silently to herself at the memory of her brother stumbling into the girl’s poisoned quills,  Scylevea suddenly wondered how far they had gone from town. She paused a moment to mentally calculate. It seemed they were roughly five miles out, twenty degrees north-northeast. They must be nearing the graveyard – a streak of turbulent waters that were well known for mercilessly sinking the ships of careless sailors. That couldn’t be right. What would Nyerus be doing anywhere near here?

Yet sure enough, as she continued to swim, the sea floor began to be littered with remnants of what must have once been grand ships now reduced to pathetic algae ridden masses. With a slight grin of delight she realized there were probably remains to more than just the boats. That, she thought, would definitely be something to explore once after she found her brother.

However, finding him was becoming a challenge. As the wreckage became denser, Scylevea struggled to follow his electric signal. Something was interfering with her reception. Suddenly it completely vanished. That didn’t make sense. Nyerus didn’t know how to do that. The only way he’d stop giving off his signal was if...

“No…” She shook her head, feeling her stomach sink. Darting to where she had last felt him at full speed, she repeated a single phrase, silently praying that it was true. “He’s not dead. He’s not. ”

In her fear and rage, she nearly crashed into the site she had last felt him. A ship? Unlike the rest of its surroundings, this ship looked perfectly functional. Its hull looked as though it had been just polished, with not a barnacle in sight giving off a that starkly contrasted the blanket of green. It seemed like someone could still be using this boat. Judging from the light coming from inside, someone already was.

Quickly, Scylevea did her best to hide her own electric signature. She circled around the ship as cautiously as she could, careful not to make any unnecessary waves. There! A window! Swimming upward she peeked into a room just below the deck. It appeared that twenty or so fishmen were gathered, circled around-Ugh! Stupid hammerhead fishman moved in front of the window and blocked her view. She went a little further to the next window, when she saw just what they were circled around – a throne of some sort. She couldn’t tell who was in it, as she was looking in from behind. But the merman kneeling in front of it, she knew.

“Nyerus…” Before she even had time to think about her next action, something grabbed her from behind. She squirmed and tried to scream, but one arm held her tightly while the other managed to cover her entire face. She had been caught.

~

He must have taken her onto the ship, because Sylevea could hear voices muttering around her, asking about the little mermaid that had been spying on them and what they ought to do with her - none of which sounded pleasant.

“Who is this?” A deep, gruff voice silenced them all. She presumed the figure that had been on the throne.

“I most humbly apologize, my Kaiser, on my sister’s behalf.” The amount of groveling in her brother’s voice nearly made her want to vomit. “She doesn’t know when to stay out of other people’s business. Please, allow me to take care of it.”

Her captor released her, but only to tie her hands behind her back and anchor her tail. Not much better, but it gave her the opportunity to look around. They were a bunch of ruffians, that much was clear. Was this some sort of underground drug ring or gang? There were a series of flags hanging along the walls. With a start, she recognized the insignia that paraded the room both on the flags and worn by many of the crew.

“What are you doing here?!”  Nyerus interrupted her thoughts whispering harshly in her face.

“I could ask you the same thing!” She shot back, positively livid, moving upward to his eye level. “What are you doing with these pirates?!”

“That doesn’t matter!” He growled, rising above her again. “You promised to leave it alone!”

“So did you!” She thrashed her shoulder forward, giving him a quick, unapologetic jab in the side. They were breaking all their promises anyway, so why not?

After a silent scream of agony and a death glare at his sister, he turned to face the leader with a slightly higher pitched voice. “My sister apologizes for her intrusion. She means you no harm and will not say one word of our presence here if you let her return home.”

“Ah, no.” She defiantly rose as far as the chain attached to her tail would let her. "Okay, First of all, I did not apologize. Second, I’m not going anywhere unless this spineless excuse for a brother comes with me. And third, I don't have a death wish and I'm not stupid enough to go ratting out pirates that literally have my hands tied.”

The Kaiser seemed amused by her outburst, letting out a hearty laugh followed by the rest of the crew. Once again he held up a hand to silence them before speaking. "Alright, then, if you're so determined, little girl, you can accompany him. But breathe one word and we will kill you, that is if your brother's task doesn't kill you first..."

~

“Trying to join pirates?!” The moment they were far enough away that no one would hear, she exploded. “Nyerus, you’re gonna get us both killed!”

“Me? You’re the one who was sneaking onto their territory and disrespecting the Kaiser!” He stopped and whipped around to face her. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?! Who knows what would’ve happened to you if I had already left for my mission!”

“Mission? What mission?” She asked, becoming increasingly frustrated as he continued swimming in silence. “Well? What’s this mission we have to complete?”

“We?” He stopped and whipped around, looking down sternly. “There is no we, Scyl. You aren't going anywhere but home!"

“If I’m going, then you’re coming with me.” She took the opportunity to jab his side again mercilessly.

“Would you quit that?!”

“Not unless you quit being so obnoxiously mysterious and tell me what’s going on!” She crossed her arms.

“Hydrea.” He closed his eyes and sighed, waiting for her to go off on him again. “They want me to take down Hydrea.”

“You’re joking.” Rather than shout, she scoffed. “Everyone knows it’s not real. The Seven Gates are just a children’s story they tell to scare kids into behaving.”

“I wish it was, but this wound you keep painfully reminding me I have is from a close encounter with him last night." He glared at her, half-hoping for an apology, but settling for her shrug before continuing. "The rest of it was just like the story. Flesh eating eels, puzzle death traps, all that stuff. But Hydrea's different. It's not just a giant snake monster. It’s some sort of cyborg.” He frowned, pulling out a small metallic circle. “You see this? They want to control it by implanting it in the creature’s head.”

“That’s not a test that’s suicide, you idiot! It's a miracle you've survived this long!” She swam in front of him and began pushing him back. “Nyerus, you’re in no condition to be stupidly going up against some giant monster. You have to stop this nonsense! Why would you even do that?"

“They’ve got Hayvar.” His face betrayed no emotion. “If I succeed, then I’ll become a member and they’ll let him go. We’ll be under the protection of the Abyss Pirates from now on. No more worries about money or neighborhood crime or-”

"Hold on. You knew?!" She froze, gritting her teeth with a furrowed brow. “You knew where Hayvar was this entire time, and you didn’t tell me?! You just decided to go off and get yourself killed playing pirate, huh? What the hell were you thinking?! No, What the hell ARE You thinking, Nyerus?!”

“I’m thinking that I’m going to save our uncle!" "It’s the right thing to do Scyl, and you’re not going to stop me.”

“The right thing?!”  She raised her tail again ready to strike, causing her brother to flinch. “Since when did you start caring about the ‘right’ thing, huh? The right thing to do would’ve been to tell me! I deserved to know!”

“Yeah, and what would that have done then, huh?!” He laughed sarcastically. “You would’ve stuck your nose and your hot little head into things sooner and gotten yourself killed!”

“You don’t know that!”

“Oh don't I? You think you’re oh-so-special just because you’ve always gotten things your way ever since you were little!” Nyerus scoffed. “You think you can do whatever you want, but news flash, little sister, you can’t! That’s not how the world works!”

“Maybe not, but did you stop to think that maybe there’s a reason I tend to get what I want?” Scylevea glared him down with all her might. “If you’d come to me for help then maybe I could’ve actually, oh I don't know helped? Maybe I could've talked them down, huh? Or maybe I could’ve helped you in a fight or helped come up with an escape plan to get Hayvar out without the suicide mission! You can't just treat me like a little girl, Nyerus! I’m faster, I've got more abilities, and we both know I'm the smarter one here! For all you know I could’ve gotten us out of this mess!”

“Well maybe I don’t WANT out of this mess!” He glared back at his sister with equal intensity until he'd realized what had just come out of his mouth.

She stared back at him in utter confusion. "What do you mean?"

With a sigh he tried to explain. “Look…these guys…they say I’m some sort of chosen one, Scyl. I passed the other tests and unlocked the other gates. No one’s done that before. It has to be me.”

“Pfft. Yeah. Right. You?!” Scylevea didn’t even try to hold back her raucous laughter. “A Chosen one?! Okay, now I know you’re insane!”

“It’s true!” His lip curled into a deep scowl. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but I am capable of holding my own against these tests and I will defeat the Hydrea. I don't need your help and I especially don't need your skepticism. Go home and stay out of "

“Oh, C'mon Nyerus." She rolled her eyes still snickering. "You don't seriously believe that, do you? They’re just messing with you. There is no way that they actually expect you to succeed. There's no way you actually could."

“Shut up!” He pushed her away with a growl. "If you're not going to take me seriously, then you might as well leave instead of making yourself a pain in the-!"

“Okay, okay! Calm down!" She stopped laughing and backed off. “Look, I'm sorry for making fun of you. Happy? But if you want to be some sort of ‘chosen one’ and save Hayvar, I'm not going anywhere. We're all we got and I just don't want you to get yourself killed."

"You think I want you to die either?" Nyerus shook his head. "I'd never forgive myself if you got yourself hurt fighting my battle."

"Then I won't get hurt,” She grinned. "It's not just your battle, Nyerus. Hayvar's just as much my uncle as he is yours. We're stronger together, Nyerus. C'mon, you should know that by now."

"Fine, Scyl. We'll do this together." Her brother finally caved with a sigh and began leading the way. "But for once in our pathetic lives you have to just listen to me, got it? If I tell you to do something, no smart mouthing or back talking. Just. Do. What. You're. Told. Deal?"

"Deal." She said and followed behind without another word.