Grandline Metropolis had been your home your entire life, and while you were aware of the darker sides of the massive city, it hadn't been a part of your life. Which wasn't surprising to you, there might be a robust everyone-knows-but-no-one-says underbelly in Grandline Metro, but with 600,000 square kilometers of land and over 100 million people, it was still a statistically small part of the city.
The one thing the GL Metro had aside from size and population, was the highest concentration of Devil Fruit users. Most people in the city referred to them as Devils, and there were a lot of laws and regulations regarding what they were and weren't allowed to do with their abilities. The majority of devil opted out of filing if they ended up with a Devil Fruit, but the fines if you were caught after the fact were pretty big.
Currently, your job was one of a plethora of people who worked for the Government at the Devil Fruit Registry office. It wasn't a glamorous job, but it paid enough to keep you afloat and doing decently well. Well enough, it seems, that you have actually been headhunted by another company. Devil Fruit Laws were public and private sector, and there was a private company that had reached out to you to fill a position within their firm. It was a 40% raise, and the benefits were comparable, if not downright better.
You were on your way to the first interview of what would probably be a few rounds of interviews when the worst possible series of events could've happened.
Sitting at a red-light you could hear sirens in the distance as they were drawing nearer. Looking around for a way to move your car aside in case the sirens turned into flashing lights behind you, you didn't see the non-emergency car careening toward you.
Not that you had anywhere to go to get out of the way.
The late model, full-metal body, of a dingy brown Oldsmobile slammed into the back of your compact beater. The impact shoves your trunk practically into your backseat and forces your car out into the intersection. The violence action rattles your whole body, slamming you into your steering wheel and knocking your foot off the break.
You barely had a split second to realize what had happened when the crystal-clear picture of a full-sized truck grill meets your gaze. The terrifying screech of tires and the smell of burning rubber fills your senses as the heavy vehicle tries desperately to stop, but this secondary impact did more than just rattle your whole body. Searing pain rips through your left side as the door crumples against you in the impact.
The pain keeps you awake and aware for the most part, but your brain has been rattled around twice in short succession and you're struggling to stay focused on your surroundings. Your arm's pinned between the seat and the door, and you don't have the sense or strength to pull it free.
"Killer! Make sure that bastard in the Olds' doesn't get away!" A voice shouts, and then suddenly there was a massive, muscular man with fiery red hair and golden eyes peering into your shattered driver's side window. "Aw fuck, hey! Are you okay? Stay with me! Come on lady, I'm calling an ambulance right now, just hang on!" He turns his attention to the phone, barking about the accident and requesting emergency services.
Aside from his shockingly red hair, the only detail you could hold onto was the massive metal arm he had in place of his left arm. The pain was making it hard to focus, but every time your head rolled around, those golden eyes would be in your field of vision, getting your attention and trying to keep you awake.
"Hey lady, they say you gotta stay conscious, so hang in there. I can't pull the door off until they get here, incase you're hurt worse than it looks, so you gotta stay there, okay? Come on, talk to me, tell me you got that."
You nod weakly and swallow. "...Yeah." You manage, but you're not really up for extended conversation.
"Your name, what is it?"
"(Y/N)..."
"That's a good name. Tell me about yourself (y/n), keep talking." He had his phone against his ear, looking around trying to assess the damage better.
"My... car..."
"If it was important to you, I can help you restore it, but it's not going anywhere right now."
"Interview..."
"You're going to miss it, Mouse."
"Name's... not... Mouse... Red." You manage almost a full sentence and there's a lop-sided smile from the red-haired mountain standing over you.
"Name's Eustass Kid." He offers. "Calling someone with red-hair 'Red', is kind of unimaginative."
"Working with... what I got."
"Fair enough. The professionals are here, hang in there."
Paramedics took over what Eustass had been doing and asked a lot of the same questions, keeping you conscious as they assessed what was going on. It took almost a hour to get you safely out of the car, and the paramedics wouldn't answer any of your questions about how you were. The frustration from their non-answers and blatant dodges had the needed effect of making you so irritated you were staying conscious just to grumble.
Loaded into the ambulance you were taken to the hospital, prepped for emergency surgery and put under.
.
.
.
.
When you came around you were in a recovery room. It was dim, but not dark, the muffled sounds of steady beeps and the smell and feel of astringent bleach, and the scents of other cleaners gave away the hospital room for what it was. A familiar form was sitting in a chair in the corner of your room and an unfamiliar form was next to him.
You remembered Eustass Kid, but the guy beside him, every bit as muscular as his red-haired friend, had the wildest, thickest, most amazing mane of long blonde hair you'd ever seen on a man or a woman. Most of his face was obscured by the long locks, but he seemed to see through them just fine, as he nudged Eustass with his elbow.
Kid looks up, and then lights up; a small smile playing at his lips before he slowly approaches your bedside.
"Hey Mouse, how're you feeling?" He asks. For such a big guy he seems a little apprehensive.
"Better, I think? Uh... not to be rude, but why're you here?" You question groggily, coming around to your new reality slowly.
"Er, well, we were just gonna stay until someone else showed up, but-."
"Ah. Yeah, I... don't have family in the Metro." You try to sit up, but pain zings through you all over the place. Kid's massive hand is barely touching your shoulder, urging you to lay back down.
"I can raise the bed for you, if you want, but you should stay resting." Kid explains, looking for the controls on the bed. "The nurse said they're gonna move ya to a more permanent room later."
"I... uh... thanks." You say finally after he raises the bed a little. "I mean, for staying. It's nice to have someone filling me in on what's going on."
"You remember what happened?" His friend prompted.
"Kind of? I remember hearing sirens, and I looked over to see if I could move my car to the side, in case they needed to get by, and when I looked back up it was just in time to be shoved out into the intersection." You grimace, shifting yourself to what you hope is a more comfortable position, which is a little difficult with your left arm in a sling. "You, uh, ran into me after that, right?"
Kid makes a face. "Yeah."
"You wouldn't have if I hadn't been hit the first time." You state, the grimace on your face from your discomfort, not because of him. "It'd be a real dick move on my part if I was mad at you." You remember hearing Kid yell something before he'd come up to your car. "What happened to the guy who rear-ended me?"
Kid growls, and his friend answers. "He's fine."
"For now." Kid grumbles.
You looked back and forth between them, before looking toward the blonde. "Sorry, you are?"
"Everyone calls me Killer." He explains. "Kid and I run a mechanic shop."
"How's he fine?" You grouse. "He hit me pretty hard."
"Drunk." Kid seemed to be getting angrier by the second. "He was so fucking sloshed he was walking around the street with his car wheel in his hands making motor noises."
"He'll probably be sore and have a massive hangover tomorrow, but I doubt anything's broken. Drunks are rubber in accidents, they don't tense up, so they don't get hurt." Killer explains.
"I'm still really tired," you admit, struggling to keep your eyes open. You had wanted more questions answered, but recovering bodies slept a lot. "I just got one more question."
"What is it, Mouse?"
You look into Eustass Kid's golden eyes. "Why can't I feel my left hand?"
The look on his face tells you all you really need, but he puts it into terrible, undeniable words for you.
"Sorry, (Y/N), it's gone."