Chapter 1 - A Chump's Cut
Before he was “Captain Gumdrop,” before the bounty posters, the ship, or the crew, he was just a thief with sticky fingers and a borrowed boat.
They called him Sticky Nick, a name earned after swiping a strange fruit that fell off a Marine cart during a routine shipment. He didn’t know what it was — only that it looked edible, and he hadn’t eaten in two days. Moments later, his skin clung to walls, coins stuck to his palms, and he could scale gutters like ivy on brick.
The Neba Neba no Mi — the Stick-Stick Fruit — turned him into a one-man pickpocketing operation. With no dreams of glory or piracy, he scraped by on petty crime, using his gooey gifts to lift wallets, scale balconies, and vanish before anyone could shout.
Then came Remy Vice.
Remy was a smooth-talking pirate with a chip on his shoulder and a gleam in his eye. He’d eaten the Ware Ware no Mi — the Shatter-Shatter Fruit — giving him the power to rupture metal, stone, or bone with just a touch. The kind of man who could crack a vault like an egg, and then laugh while doing it.
Remy found Nick on a rooftop, watching a merchant count coins below. He offered a deal: help him rob a corrupt noble on a nearby island.
“Vault’s full of stolen treasure,” Remy said, “and maybe something more. A map. Whispers say it leads to Pandora.”
Nick raised a brow. “What the hell is Pandora?”
Remy grinned. “Some say it’s an island where Devil Fruits don’t just exist — they originated here. Like, actually grown. A place they can be cultivated.”
Nick laughed once. “I’ve got my thing already. I don’t need a garden of curses.”
Remy shrugged. “Maybe. But word is a scientist managed to copy a Devil Fruit — build one from scratch. If they can be made, then maybe they had a starting point. Maybe someone’s still making them.”
Nick didn’t say anything.
“Look,” Remy added, “you don’t have to believe in it. But if even half of that story’s true… imagine the kind of buyer that’d pay to find it.”
A myth is just a story — until someone slaps a price tag on it. Then it becomes very real.
Nick didn’t care about legends. But Remy dangled just enough gold to catch his interest. The vault, however, was deep inside a compound built like a fortress. Remy could shatter doors and walls — but he couldn’t climb in unseen.
He needed Nick’s stickiness to crawl through the upper vents and open it from the inside.
With no ship of his own, Nick turned to Danilo, a gruff shipwright who had just finished building his dream vessel: the Goo Lagoon. Danilo agreed to join the heist under one condition — he gets to test his boat at sea. He didn’t trust Remy, but Nick vouched for him.
They reached the island under the cover of night. Nick and Remy slipped inside while Danilo waited at the docks. Everything went to plan — until it didn’t.
The vault opened. The treasure glistened — gems like melted starlight, piles of coins, even an old ceremonial saber resting atop velvet. But it wasn’t the gold that stopped Nick in his tracks.
It was the map. Faded ink. Edges scorched. A strange compass rose drawn in the corner, unlike any he’d seen.
He unrolled it slowly, his fingers half-goo, half-shaking.
Remy stood behind him. “That it?” he asked, voice tight.
Nick didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the markings. The lines didn’t lead to an island — they led to a nothing. A space between currents. A gap in the Grand Line. There, scrawled in jagged script: PANDORA.
Remy reached for it.
“Let me hold it,” he said.
Nick hesitated.
Then Remy’s palm hit his chest like a cannonball. His Shatter-Shatter powers erupted, blasting Nick backward through the vault’s inner chamber. The map flew from his hand as he hit the far wall, limbs stuck, stunned, oozing into the floor like spilled wax.
Before he could pull himself up, the vault door slammed shut.
From the other side, Remy’s voice:
“Thanks, Sticky. You’re a hell of a climber. But I think I’ll take it from here.”
Nick’s goo couldn’t stick to the inside of the slick steel walls. Worse, the vault had been reinforced — maybe even with seastone plating. He couldn’t melt his way out. Couldn’t climb. Couldn’t stretch. He was trapped.
Outside, things were getting complicated.
Ash had arrived — a bounty hunter with a cold stare and a cruel patience. He’d eaten the Kage Ito Ito no Mi — the Shadow-String Fruit, able to bind enemies in writhing threads of darkness. He’d been tracking Nick for weeks, waiting for the perfect moment to cash in the bounty.
The vault creaked open.
Nick looked up, expecting Remy — maybe back to gloat or change his mind.
Instead, a tall figure in black stepped through — calm, composed, shadow with threads trailing behind him like tendrils of smoke.
Before Nick could react, the strands lashed out — wrapping around his limbs, binding him tight.
“Sticky Nick,” the stranger said. “Finally.”
Nick squirmed, pinned to the cold vault floor. “What the hell—who even are you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the man replied, tightening the threads. “What matters is your bounty.”
Nick strained against the bindings, teeth gritted. “You gonna choke me out without even saying your name? Real polite.”
“Ash Volen,” he said, stepping into the light. His eyes were calm, unreadable. “Former Navy tracker. Now I work freelance. You show up on enough wanted posters, I show up not long after.”
Nick’s jaw clenched. “Figures. Another merc chasing a paycheck.”
Ash tilted his head. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re small time. But I don’t like leaving a job half-finished.”
Nick was about to spit another curse when the floor behind Ash shuddered.
A heavy bootstep echoed — then another.
A new voice growled from the dark:
“Thought I smelled a rat.”
A massive silhouette filled the vault’s threshold. Broad shoulders. Scarred jaw. Seastone gauntlets gleaming.
“Two rats, apparently.”
Ash turned quickly, eyes narrowing.
“Briggs,” he muttered. “Didn’t know they let you off the leash.”
The man stepped fully into view, cracking his knuckles. “Didn’t think you’d fall this far, Volen. From medals to merc work. You really are off the leash.”
Ash bristled. “You work for nobles now?”
“Work for whoever pays.” Briggs’s gaze darkened. “Was a Marine. Until a Devil Fruit freak like you got me discharged. Now I hunt your kind for sport.”
Without another word, he swung — fast, brutal. Ash barely dodged. The seastone gauntlet smashed into the wall, sending cracks through the reinforced vault.
Nick shouted, “Hey! You want your damn bounty? Cut me loose and I can help!”
Ash hesitated.
Then, with a grunt, his shadows loosened — and Nick dropped to the floor.
What followed wasn’t a fight. It was chaos.
Shadowstrings lashed across the vault like whips of midnight, slicing through beams and pulling debris down in violent arcs. Nick ricocheted off the walls in goo-slick leaps, slamming into Briggs’s chest with all the force he could muster — only to rebound off the seastone gauntlets that cracked the floor on impact. Sparks flew as Ash parried with precision, darting between vault pillars and catching Briggs in a brief tangle of shadows.
It wasn’t enough.
Briggs fought like a battering ram — no finesse, just raw hate. A man who didn’t just want to win, but to break you. His fists plowed through crates of treasure, pulverizing ancient gold into dust. Somewhere above, a support beam gave way with a shriek.
“You’re gonna get us both killed!” Nick barked, ducking a flying chair.
“Correction,” Ash shot back, dodging a burst of rubble. “I’m gonna get paid.”
Another crash. Briggs plowed through a marble column like wet paper.
Nick fired back, mid-leap: “This your plan? Fight a walking cannonball in a collapsing mansion?!”
Ash’s lip curled into a smirk. “Didn’t peg you for the delicate type, Gumdrop.”
Nick skidded behind a broken crate. “Don’t call me that.”
“Then move faster.”
They didn’t beat Briggs.
They outmaneuvered him. Slipped past him in the rising confusion as the mansion began to fall in on itself. They burst from the vault’s shattered entry just ahead of a collapsing corridor and sprinted for the docks, bruised and breathless.
Danilo was already raising anchor.
He spotted them and shouted across the waves, “Where the hell’s the other guy?!”
Nick dove onto the deck. “Remy sold us out,” he spat. “Locked me in the vault and tried to make off with everything.”
Danilo raised an eyebrow, turning toward Ash. “And you’re the bastard who scratched my boat.”
Ash gave a noncommittal shrug, brushing dirt from his shoulder.
“Great,” Danilo muttered. “Just great.”
Nick sat up, wincing. “I got the map, though,” he said, reaching into his coat and holding up the scorched parchment. “Remy thought he had it. But turns out being sticky has its perks.”
Danilo grunted, adjusting the wheel.
Ash didn’t say anything. Just leaned against the mast, arms crossed, watching the shore fade into the horizon. He hadn’t meant to stay. He just wanted the bounty.
But the boat was already sailing.
The Goo Lagoon slipped into the mist. Three men. No plan. A stolen map. And one hell of a bounty on the captain’s head.
The world didn’t know it yet, but that was the beginning.
Of the hunt for Pandora.
Of the legend they’d come to follow.
Of the man they’d call…
Captain Gumdrop.