"This is such a stupid idea."

"I thought Mitchel was the bitchy one."

"We're going to get caught."

"Only if you keep talking."

"They're going to kill us before we even get sold."

"Preferable to actually becoming slaves. Now shut up and keep digging."

Michael grunted wordlessly but did as ordered. The silence that followed was tense and paranoid. Nadeen crouched near the bars of their prison, listening as carefully as she could to the slavers going about their business normally like they weren't ruining lives. It made the redhead furious just thinking about it, but she couldn't let herself be distracted.

She could hear voices, yelling and murmuring to each other. The words were indecipherable, but that didn't matter. Nadeen was just making sure they weren't caught. Her plan was to tunnel through the earth to a place the slavers couldn't see them and then make a break for it. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Michael was right. It was a stupid plan. But she didn't see him coming up with anything, so nyah, she wins!

… That and she couldn't think of anything else to do, and at least doing THIS made her feel like they weren't just sitting around waiting to be rescued. They didn't even know if they WOULD be rescued. She doubted Mitchel cared enough about Michael right now to think he was missing. After the fight she heard, both Mitch and Doc might think he was just avoiding them.

As for Law, she had no doubt that he'd know she was gone. By now Shachi and Penguin had probably already checked the infirmary and seen she wasn't there. They would have told Law when he got back to the sub. The question was if he cared that she was gone. It wasn't like she was part of the crew. Like she'd told Michael earlier, the only reason she could think of that he'd come after them was because she'd been taken from his domain, his territory.

If she was lucky he'd also be angry because she was hurt and he was her doctor. He gave off the feeling that he didn't appreciate his hard work going to waste. Not that he'd actually done much, beyond assessing her injuries. Who'd been the one to make her tea? Coryn. Who'd been the one to bandage her arm? Herself. The most she could say was that he wrapped her middle, which was something even she could have done. Albeit less neatly, but still!

Nadeen was broken from her mental rant by the rumbling of the entrance. Being as lost in her thoughts as she'd been, she hadn't heard the voices get closer until they were right outside the entrance. "Shit, stop digging!" she hissed quietly. The scratching stopped just as the rumbling started and the light appeared. Nadeen threw her arm over her face to shield her eyes from the light and heard three sets of footsteps.

"Hello Nadeen. Ready for your first session of education?" It took her a minute to place the familiar voice and remember his name. Abaddon. Dammit, she was hoping she wouldn't see him again until she broke out and kicked his ass. He glanced around the darkness of the room, and Nadeen prayed he couldn't see the hole Michael was working on. "Where's the other one?"

She gave a subtle twist of her hand, and a pile of dirt in the back vaguely shifted to resemble a human male laying down. The movement drew Abaddon's gaze, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously on the pile. "I told him to sleep and rest his injuries. There's not much we can do in here besides curse your existence and pray for your painful and bloody demise."

And boy, did she pray for it. She wasn't a very religious person. If she feared for her immortal soul, she wouldn't have become a pirate. But she did acknowledge that there was some higher being that held some power over their lives. There was little chance her prayer would be answered, but it still made her feel better to imagine Abaddon being torn apart by horses pulling his tied up limbs in separate directions.

Abaddon kept his eyes on the pile of dirt before shrugging it off with one shoulder. "I suppose there's no harm in it. Not that it will do him much good." Nadeen stiffened and narrowed her eyes into a glare at the words. Did he mean resting his injuries or wishing he was dead? Because the words sounded like a threat to her ears.

Maybe she was being paranoid about it and expecting the worst, though. Abaddon must have read her wariness in her face or posture, because he threw his head back and laughed. In such a confined space, it echoed over and over again until it seemed more like it was bouncing around in her skull. When he stopped laughing, his green eyes glowed eerily in the dark. "I'd explain it to you, but you'll see soon enough. Now, back away from the bars. My friends here," he gestured to the behemoths to his side, "are going to open the bars. Wouldn't want to delude you into think you can escape."

Nadeen made a show of rolling her eyes, but stepped back anyway while retorting. "I'm not that stupid. Why would I make a break for it when you're right here? No, if anything I'll wait until the dead of night, unleash my awesome pirate skills on ya'll, 'n run off cackling into the shadows." She enjoyed the looks of confusion and surprise on their faces and made sure they knew how stupid they looked by snickering while stepping back.

A thought broke into her mind about that brief interaction, and Nadeen felt the grin on her face dim a bit before she forced it back up. 'Law would have laughed.' Or at least he would have smirked before ignoring her oddness and going on with whatever the conversation was about. She shook the slight melancholy off and stepped through the open door. Honestly, the way she was behaving, you'd think she'd been with the Heart Pirates for months instead of a few days. She shouldn't be as attached to them as she felt she was.

Once they all turned away from the cell, she released her powers and let the dirt settle. The two big goons walked on either side of her, acting as a barricade. Abaddon was behind her, and Nadeen was almost convinced he was trying to keep her from running back to the cell. Yes, because that totally made sense.

The sun made Nadeen blink until her eyes adjusted. Once they did, her gut started to knot up in horror. Suddenly Abaddon being behind her did make sense. There were other slavers around, hauling chains and boxes, but that's not what made her quake in dismay. On the far side, directly across from her, were cages. And inside those cages, slaves were sitting around. Men, women, teenagers, children, all with shackles around their wrists and feet.

Some had black collars on their necks, but they were also the ones that still had a light in their eyes. Everyone else's eyes were so dark, so dead… so broken. The possibility that she'd become like that, she'd become so hollow and void… It scared her. 'We have to get out of here. As soon as possible.' she thought.

A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, and Nadeen instinctively tried to bite at the closest finger. The hand retreated, and Nadeen realized she'd it was Abaddon she'd almost nommed on. He glared at her, and she snorted at him. "Congratulations, you have faster reflexes than one of my former crewmates. He actually lost a finger because he snuck up on me." Needless to say, she wasn't on that crew for very long.

Abaddon rolled his eyes and abruptly shoved her to the side. It unbalanced Nadeen enough that she had to flail her arms to steady herself, and the goons to her side grabbed them. At first she thought it was to help, and was understandably confused. Seriously, you throw her into a cave-cage thing, then catch her when she's pushed? Like, what the fuck?

Then they started dragging her and the world made sense again. She gave Abaddon a one-eyed glare, as he remained behind her and she couldn't turn her head that far. "You, sir, are a dick. I hope you know this." He merely gave her this look that told her just how aware and proud of this fact he was. Nadeen stuck her tongue out at him. "Jackass." She allowed the guards to drag her, not bothering to fight a losing battle. It would just waste energy she might need later.

One of the guards tightened his hold on her arm to the point of it starting to hurt, but it was nothing like the beatings the marines gave her. Still, it might be a good idea for them to underestimate her. So Nadeen bit her lip, as if she was trying not to scream or yelp, and glared at the guard. It was a distraction; once her attention was taken from the other guard, he clapped a shackle onto her wrist. The chain on it was attached to a wooden post, like one would tie a horse to.

The other guard followed suit. Nadeen tested her bonds and wondered if she'd be able to break them at a later time. It was only wooden and wouldn't hold up to one good kick; she supposed they were used to normal people tied up here and not pirates who trained to fight for their lives. Obviously she couldn't try it now. Not only was Abaddon here, but she didn't have enough information to even formulate a plan. Plus there was Michael to consider. God knows what they'd do to the poor guy if she wasn't around to protect him.

Her captor muttered something unintelligible to his goons before dismissing them and faced Nadeen with a casual smile, unperturbed by her glare. "Welcome to The Post." The glare melted away to an unimpressed, 'you're a special kind of stupid, aren't you' look. Abaddon shrugged sheepishly, and he actually seemed genuinely embarrassed. "Don't look at me, I didn't name it."

She gave a derisive snort and pretended to tug hard on the chains. Not too hard, of course. Wouldn't want them to actually break. "Ain't you the head honcho around here? Just rename it something more intimidating and threaten punishment to anyone who calls it otherwise. 'The Death Post', or maybe… yeah, I got nothing else."

Abaddon gave her a scathing look that honestly caught her off guard for a moment. "That may be acceptable to you, pirate, but I run things a little more lenient. If my men want to call it anything else, they're allowed. I won't kill my subordinates for such a petty reason as a disagreement on a name."

The self righteous tone he used set her hackles rising like nothing else. "Excuse me?" she snapped, eyes flashing. "Where the hell do you get off sounding like you're better than me?! I may be a pirate, but a slaver is just as bad, if not worse! You sell off innocent people to the highest bidder like they're nothing more than cattle. Not every pirate is a thief or a murder, but I can't say the same for people like-"

He moved so fast that even perfectly healthy she would have had to concentrate to dodge. One minute he was close to 5 feet away, the next he was right in front of her with his hand around her neck. Nadeen gagged and choked as his grip tightened around her airway and he lifted her into the air until her toes only just brushed the dirt. She couldn't claw at his arm since her hands were still chained together, and he was still far enough that she couldn't get a good kick in.

She tried to glare as defiantly as she could, but the look in his eye… It was anger and insanity and rage, all swirling together. Quite frankly, that look alone scared her more than Law ever did. "People like me? People like me?! Don't make me laugh. You know nothing about me, so don't you dare act like you do, girl."

She couldn't breath. Her lungs were slowly screaming louder and louder, and dots started appearing in her eyes. She flailed her legs, but every second that passed zapped her strength. The dots started growing, and panic set in. She couldn't die, especially by something as lame as being strangled by an asshole like Abaddon!

"Sir!" Just like that, Nadeen was dropped. She fell to her butt and, with the slack on her bindings, massaged her throat. Three people were approaching, the guards and a new person. One of the slavers had been the one to yell, and both of them were looking at their superior with looks of exasperation. For his part, Abaddon actually looked a mite-bit embarrassed. "Really sir, what have we told you about damaging the merchandise?"

Merchandise? Merchandise? Yeah, sure, go ahead, talk about her like she wasn't there. It gave her more time to plot all of their deaths. Still holding her neck tenderly, Nadeen glanced at the newcomer while the guards actually scolded Abaddon. At first, she thought he was a slaver as well. The guards weren't holding him and he wasn't running away, not to mention he wore actual clothes instead of rags.

Then she looked closer. He stood in the middle of the group and a little behind, so while they weren't dragging him, they were most certainly leading him. His clothes, while an actual t-shirt and sweat pants, were worn through and dirty. He had that broken, defeated look in his eye that she'd seen in the others. He was a slave. Why had Abaddon sent for him?

From his reaction once he caught sight of him, it was clear Abaddon had a reason. He seemed absolutely delighted at his new arrival. "Ah, just in time! Come come, Eli! It's time to show off that marvelous ability of yours!" Eli stepped forward, and Abaddon clapped a hand onto his shoulder while practically beaming at Nadeen. "My friend here has the most interesting devil fruit power! I'd tell you about it, but it would be so much funner to see your reaction."

Wow, and Law thought she was bi-polar. Nadeen would have twitched at the mood swing at any other time, but the situation was a bit too tense. She wanted to back away from the broken man, back as far away from him as possible, but her bondings made that difficult. The closer he got, the tenser she became. All she needed to do to resemble a cornered cat was hiss.

At first, all he did was touch his fingertips to the center of her forehead. They stayed like that for maybe a minute before Nadeen relaxed. Her first mistake. The second was screaming at the top of her lungs when suddenly it felt like all her wounds had reopened at once. Her back and ribs were the worst; it felt like her bones were being rebroken over and over and over again.

Was this Abaddon's plan? To torture her until her spirit broke? Well he'd have to try harder than just this! Nadeen snapped her jaws shut and growled, trying to push the pain away from her mind. Then, suddenly, it all stopped. Even the residual pain that she'd been ignoring was gone. Nadeen felt herself hesitantly, only to widen her eyes. Everything was healed. Her ribs were no longer cracked, her bruises were gone, even the cuts. The only evidence of her abuse was the blood and dirt on her skin.

A pained whimper in front of her made Nadeen look, and a deep gasp ripped itself from her chest. Eli was holding himself carefully, face pale and eyes wide enough to show the whites. Everything that had been on her, no matter how big or how small, was on him. He was taking fast, shallow breaths, like it hurt to breath.

A tidal wave of mixed sympathy and horror made her reach out to try and touch him, to somehow ease the pain. But Abaddon got there first, and he lifted the slave's shirt to view the damage. Eli cried out in pain at the sudden motion, and Abaddon had the gall to whistle appreciatively. "Well I'll be damned. You were walking around and dancing with such severe injuries?"

He almost appeared awed, and definitely impressed. Then a malicious look darkened his face, and Nadeen fought the urge to swallow nervously when he practically purred, "It will be so much fun to see what breaks you."