Kid and killer with someone who is a literal mouse/rat ? ate the mouse zoan fruit unknowingly thinking I’d be a cooler ability
I hope you don't mind if I turned this into a little drabble bc it inspired me. It was such a cute idea.
(Okay this got out of hand... I am incapable of telling a succinct story)
The Only Free Cheese Is in the Mousetrap
You had to admit, when you first ate the Mouse-Mouse fruit, you thought it was going to be something a little bit cooler. Mice were small and lame. No one would blink twice at a silly little mouse. As it turned out, that was your advantage.
You had been trying to hitch a ride through the Grand Line and you had been successful for the most part, hiding in the storage of random ships, eating whatever you could find. You didn't need much as an innocent little mouse. This ship, however, had no food in storage. There were only weapons and prisoners. If you got caught on this ship, the consequences would surely be dire.
The mistake was made when you decided to venture around the ship in search of food. You happened to find yourself in the workshop of the notorious K.I.D., Eustass 'Captain' Kid that is. Unfortunately you were a very unique, bright white mouse. It didn't leave you much in the way of camouflage, unless there was a bowl of flour somewhere. Even more unfortunate was that Kid was a very observant man and spotted you instantly.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here? A wee mouse?" Kid crouched in front of you.
You had been so sure he was going to crush you under his foot.
"Yer not even scared, eh?"
In truth, you were terrified, in the third, secret state of fight or flight: freeze.
Kid returned to his bench, where there was a mostly empty plate, save for some crumbs. He collected them in his hands and returned to the interesting white mouse, sprinkling them on the floor.
He returned to his work, glancing up at you every so often to watch you nibble on the crumbs.
The next evening, you returned. He wasn't going to squish you and he even fed you. If he continued, you could just do this and survive until the next stop in port. You were pleasantly surprised to find that he had already set out some cubes of cheese.
"There ya go, mousey. I got the good stuff from Killer's stash."
That made your tiny mouse ears flick forward. So there's better food somewhere on the ship.
It turned out, you didn't have to search for it. Kid brought it to you. Over the next evenings, Kid left grapes, cheese, bread, bananas, and a bunch of other little tidbits. After about a week, there was a tiny metal table and chair set out with the food on top. You played along and sat in the chair for him, which mad him extremely happy. He moved it slightly closer to his bench every night until it was on the top of his desk. If someone had told you that you would be eating cubes of cheese, sitting on the desk of Eustass 'Captain' Kid, you would have laughed in their faces, but here you were doing just that.
This evolved even further until you were being carried around in a pocket on the inside of his coat. It was a little warm, but it offered protection. Every so often, he would sneak a crumb into the pocket for you.
"Boss, why are you feeding your coat?" Heat had been watching him put crumbs in his pocket over the course of dinner.
"No I'm not!" Kid said defensively, not answering the question correctly.
Killer reached out to pull open his coat, but Kid snatched it closer to him. Killer tugged on it harder.
"Stop it! Yer gonna hurt Mousey!"
"Mousey?" Killer let go of Kid's coat.
Begrudgingly, Kid opened his coat.
"I don't see anything," Wire quipped.
Kid's face had a light dusting of pink. He whispered into his coat, "Come on out." Nothing happened. "It's okay."
You didn't expect to be revealed to anyone and you were reluctant to come out. Kid had kept you safe this far, though. You poked your snout out of the pocket and sniffed. There were quite a lot of people in the room. Your round, soft ears followed until your whole head was peering out of the pocket's edge. You were met with a chorus of adoring squeals from the girls and even some of the guys in the crew. Kid scratched between your ears, which you were ashamed to say, felt amazing and a squeak slipped out of your mouse mouth.
Heat covered his face. "So cute." Heat reached out to scratch your head.
"Don't ya touch my Mousey." Kid possessively closed his coat.
Heat's face got even sadder than it normally was.
"Just keep that thing out of my kitchen," Killer said. "They're full of germs."
Kid muttered down into the pocket. "Don't listen to him, Mousey. He's just jealous."
The next few days, since you weren't really a secret anymore, you spent sitting on Kid's shoulder. Killer had just as much disdain for you as he did initially, much to Kid's dismay. He really wanted his first mate to think you were as cool as Kid thought. Even the tiny leather jacket he made you didn't convince the blonde.
Kid fed you well, but you were still intrigued by this secret food stash that supposedly existed. There wasn't much entertainment as a mouse on a ship and you were getting bored. So at night, you had been searching the ship for this treasure. The kitchen was the most obvious, yet the scariest place to hunt. Certainly if there was hidden food, it would be there, however, Killer was extremely territorial and observant. It would be dangerous to search that particular area. Tonight was the night you would risk it.
It was easy enough to slip under the kitchen door. Finding the good treats was harder, but your well-equipped nose was able to sniff them out. The problem came when your tiny mouse hands were unable to figure out how to open the secret paneling that the food was hidden behind. You could turn into your human form, risky as it was. It would be nice to stretch it out. You had been a mouse for several weeks.
Taking your human form, you poked around the paneling until it revealed its contents. There was a variety of fancy or high quality specialty foods, including cheeses and preserved meats. You found a knife and cut small pieces from a few things you were interested in. Then you put everything back in its approximate original position. You climbed onto the counter and reverted back into a mouse, stuffing the tiny pieces of food you had curated into your cheeks.
The following day, as Killer went about his business, he noticed a set of bare footprints on the floor. There was a light dusting of flour from the day before when he made pasta from scratch. He hadn't noticed it before now. What was strange was that the footprints were only in one spot, like a person materialized and dematerialized there. It was also strange that someone who wasn't Kid was barefoot in the kitchen, and these footprints were about half the size of his. He somewhat brushed it off, that is, until he noticed the other footprints on the counter, the much tinier, much mousier footprints.
You had been spending most of your time in the walls of the ship, when you weren't being carried around in Kid's pocket. Today was no exception. You spent some of your time exploring listening in on others' conversations. Peering through the cracks of the wood, you decided to eavesdrop on Kid. Killer had come to talk to him and you were curious about what the captain and first-mate talked about. It was a good thing you did, since you were the subject matter.
"Kid, there's something up with your mouse."
His head snapped up from what he was doing. "What? Did something happen to them?"
"The 'mouse' is fine." Killer made air-quotes as he spoke.
"What do ya mean 'mouse'?" Kid copied his air-quotes.
"I mean I don't think it's just a mouse." Killer explained. "There are footprints in my kitchen that go from human to mouse." Killer wasn't stupid. He could put the pieces together.
"So ya think Mousey is a person?"
Shit. He was on to you. You didn't even notice the footprints you left behind. Should you even show up to eat? Or would it be more suspicious if you didn't? You ended up waiting until Kid left for the night before skittering out to grab your little crumbs and retreating into the wall.
You made yourself relatively scarce for the next few days, meaning you spent more time spying on the crew, for entertainment purposes only. One particular conversation caught your attention. You only caught portions of it, but it was clearly a mutinous theme. It ended shortly after you caught on to it, however, so you didn't get any details. Technically, it wasn't your problem. This wasn't your crew and you weren't planning on sticking around. It ate at you though. It felt wrong not to repay Kid for keeping you safe. Maybe you could return the favor.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary after that. Maybe they had given up on their plans. Until one evening in particular, someone new had delivered Kid's dinner to his workshop. He didn't always eat in there but he did more and more after he started feeding you. There was something off about the smell of the food. It wasn't right. Before Kid could eat any, you scrambled up to the table and bit his hand as he reached for the fork.
"Mousey! What the fuck?! That hurt." Kid bopped your head with a finger. "No biting."
As he reached for the fork again you knocked it onto the floor.
"Don't piss me off, Mouse."
He wasn't going to take the hint. He leaned over to pick up the fork, which is when you took the opportunity to push the plate onto the floor.
You knew he wasn't going to be happy, in spite of that, you couldn't watch him eat poisoned food. You tried to run away afterward, knowing this. However, you were slow compared to him and his powers quickly put a tiny metal cage around you.
"Ya act like this after all I've done for ya?! Bad mouse!" He picked up the miniature jail cell and gave it a shake, causing you to tumble around inside, with squeaks of discomfort.
Kid stomped off with you in tow and threw you to Killer once he found the first mate.
"Take this little shit to the brig."
Killer gave him a questioning look behind his mask. "You want me to put the mouse in a cell?"
"Well, I ain't gonna kill it. I'm not a monster."
Kid relayed all your crimes to the blonde. It was funny, how Killer felt a little bit bad for you, even though he had never shown you favor prior to that. You bounced with every step he took down to the brig.
"Oh, Mousey. You fucked up." Killer was to keep you here until they docked somewhere to let you go.
No, you fucked up. Neither of them were familiar with mouse physiology it seemed. The bars on your prison were way too far apart. As soon as Killer left, you squeezed out of the cage and made a beeline back to Kid's workshop.
It was vacant at the moment. You hurried to the desk and found a writing instrument. It was tough in your diminutive body, but you left a message for the captain:
You hoped he took it seriously. Then you scurried your furry body back to your cell before anyone noticed, not that they would.
Unfortunately, Kid thought it was a prank. You tried another note on his desk. You tried to leave him a note on his mirror in lipstick. At this point, Kid considered that there was a ghost on board. Clearly this method wasn't working. Once it became obvious, you started venturing out of the cage when you knew there wasn't anyone scheduled to come down there to feed or check on you. The next best thing to try was going back to spying and figuring out who exactly was involved.
Now, what you would do when you figured it out? That was decided for you. It wasn't what you intended. But what were you supposed to do? One of the men spotted you. And he backed you into a corner. And he was going to step on you. Your only choice was to transform. And when he pulled a knife? Well, of course you had to disarm him. And now that he had seen you and knew you heard his plot, you couldn't just leave a loose end like that. So you had no choice but to cut his throat. You left the knife in his hand. Not very believable but there were footsteps in the hall and you had to get out of there.
Not long after that, Killer came down to your cell and squatted down, lifting your prison until you were eye level.
You licked your paw and groomed your ear, very cutely, you might add.
"You can't fool me. You really need to learn to cover your tracks."
You scratched the back of your other ear with your hind leg.
Killer let out a frustrated growl and dropped your cage. He stomped out of the brig.
How is he so observant! You really should have remembered about the tracks, especially since that's how he noticed the first time. Now what? Either their plan would be foiled by losing a member or they would escalate, thinking they had been found out. You knew there were others, and you had to find out who they were, and quickly.
Your investigative antics became riskier. You went into cabins and dug through drawers. You followed people around using the walls. You were getting closer. Until one day, you found two more people chatting. They were definitely up to no good. The more you listened the more alarmed you were. They were going to make an attempt on Kid's life again tomorrow.
There was no way you could take them both on. The only reason you won against the other guy was because you took him by surprise. You couldn't send a message to Kid either. That hadn't worked. If you tried to tell him as a human, he wouldn't trust that. The only person that knew your secret, or at least was fairly confident in his assumptions, was Killer. Maybe you could risk telling him. Maybe he would believe you. It was doubtful.
When you scampered back to your cage, you came to an abrupt stop. Killer was there waiting for you. You gulped. You were frozen. You were caught.
"Where have you been, mouse?"
The jig was most certainly up. He snatched you in his fist faster than you thought possible. You squeaked, trying to gain a little sympathy as a cute creature. Maybe it would make him believe you were a regular mouse. Then you bit him. He didn't even flinch. He was smart. He was trying to force you to reveal yourself, squeezing you gradually tighter and tighter.
You were forced into your human form to avoid being crushed, even then, his grip on your throat was immovable. You could sense his smugness in being right. He wasn't even surprised. You were grateful that however this fruit worked, you got to keep your clothes on when you transformed.
"Stop! Please!" You scratched at his hands.
Killer slammed you against the wall. "You killed one of my crew! You're going to pay for it."
"M-mu-tiny," you rasped out. The edges of your vision were going black.
Killer loosened his grip. "What did you say?"
"There's gonna be a mutiny."
Killer pushed you against the wall harder. "So you're a murderer and you've turned our own crew against us?"
"N-no. Please. L-et me go." You gasped for air. "I'll ex-plain."
Killer was decent enough to hear you out, and was shocked by the accusations. You couldn't help him further though. You hadn't heard their names and the way you described them was vague. It left Killer in a tough place. He didn't trust you, yet if you were telling the truth and his captain was in danger, he had to.
Killer didn't like your idea. Yet, it was better than anything he could think of, so he went along with it. And that was how you found yourself sitting on the inside of the Massacre Soldier's helmet, hanging onto his hair the next day. You could see out of the eyeholes better than you expected. Killer was strategically staring at each individual member and you were to whisper in his ear when you saw the people who were plotting.
As you spotted them, you hurriedly signaled to Killer that they were the culprits. As they had no proof, Killer was simply going to talk to them. But, as one does when being approached by a brick house of a man like Massacre Soldier, they got scared. This was not their plan, but they were so nervous, especially after one of them was killed, that they thought they had been found out. They both jumped Killer, and in the process of him defending himself, you slipped out of his mask and fell onto the deck.
You shook it off and your eyes searched for Kid, who was so distracted by the seemingly random scuffle, that he wasn't watching his own back, where a third, unexpected assailant was waiting. You ran as fast as your short legs would carry you. He spotted you instantly.
Kid was taken aback by watching you run straight through his legs, and as he turned, seeing you transmute your form into that of a human. A human who was wrestling a gun out of someone's hand. Someone who was obviously trying to point said gun at him.
Regrettably, Kid was just a touch too shocked to react in time. His devil fruit activated to take the gun, but only after a shot was fired. He felt nothing. You, on the other hand, dropped to your knees and doubled over, clutching your midsection.
Was this how you imagined yourself being celestially discharged from this life? No. Did you have regrets? Probably. But saving Eustass Kid wasn't one of them. After all, what other mouse could say they saved a notorious pirate captain? Maybe your devil fruit wasn't that lame in the end.
______________________________________________________________
Kid thought about you a lot. They didn't have a trained doctor on board. They had to leave you at an island that had, thankfully, been in close range for you to be treated. He shouldn't be sad; his plan was to drop you off at the next island. Still, it felt wrong not to say goodbye or at least thank you.
Killer was grateful to you for saving his captain, even after being 'imprisoned' and roughed up by them. Even though you owed them no loyalty, you were more loyal than crewmates they had on board for months.
Several weeks passed. Kid happened to look up to see the NewsCoo delivery bird. The bird landed with a newspaper, some new wanted posters, and a small package. Curious, Kid picked it up and shook it next to his ear. Weird, what kind of gift made squeaks. Kid tore it open to find a dazed, white mouse.
"Oh fuck! Mousey! Sorry!"
You stumbled around in his hand, dizzy.
He hugged his hand to his chest and gave you a giant kiss on the head, staining your white fur red. In his excitement, he forgot you were a person. Upon remembering, he had a pink dusting to his cheeks and set you down.
You transformed into a human in front of him.
"Why did ya come in the mail?!"
"Cheaper fare than a boat," you grinned.
Kid all but threw you over his shoulder. "Killer! Look what we got in the mail!"
Killer stifled a laugh as he noticed a big red imprint of lips on your forehead. Kid went just as red as the mark when he noticed that it transferred to your human appearance. And neither one of those assholes told you it was there either.
Kid dropped the "y" from the end of your name from then on, but slipped up on occasion, still referring to you as Mousey. He still asked you to join him for dinner sometimes, too, as a person though, not a mouse; he didn't give you crumbs either. He liked your company.
Killer was impressed by your knowledge of cheeses and asked you to come shopping with him on islands for provisions. You also had a knack for picking the ripest fruits. He usually asked you to personally deliver Kid's meals, you know, to avoid another poisoning.
And some would even go as far as to say they saw a white critter scurrying under Kid or Killer's doors in the late hours of the night or scurrying out early in the morning.
