A Desperate Roar

**Date Started:** October 21, 2019
**Date Completed:** October 22, 2019
**Previous Role-Play**: A Dragon And His Princess
**Users Involved:** User:Berserkchart486, User:PuddingCups
**Setting:** Impel Down
**Characters Involved**:
* **Pirates**: Benjamin Tabart
* **Voice of Change: Helen**

## The Cracked Tower

Although Shichibukai usually didn't frequent Impel Down, Tabart had been sitting around the prison for the last few days, biding his time until he thought that the woman would eventually crack. While the guards treasured her more than the other prisoners, due to her supernatural charm, they had families to feed and desires of their own; desires that he had heard were not being met in this isolated world.

He had ordered his men to dock a ship outside the prison lined with money, alcohol, and exotic treats for them to enjoy. But only, and only, if they could make *her* life a living hell for the past week. They were to spit on her, torture her, isolate her, and starve her. She was to be left on the verge of life and death. But, she was stronger than he imagined. Her will kept her moving, even when she had nothing her stomach.

Still, there was no doubt that things were beginning to take a toll on her physically. He couldn't let her weaken too much. He needed her more than ever, and at this point, he would have her whether she agreed to it or not. Therefore, he sat in the empty room, her chair awaiting her as the guards went to fetch her.

He smirked as he heard the footsteps.

Impel Down was hell on earth. Helen had no doubt about that. The cruelties she was forced to live through in this place were nearly unbearable. Nearly. Her body was weak but her will was strong, her countries however... that was a different story. In truth, morale was low without their famed princess and many wondered if she would ever return home. Helen hoped to end these worries, to come back to her country and her men, but it seemed there was something in her path. As always, the hero faces an obstacle, and Helen's was Benjamin Tabart.

Her heels clicking against the cold concrete as they brought her into the room, forcing her into a chair and chaining her to the table just as they had before, with the very same sea-stone cuffs that stopped her from doing everything she wished to at the moment, using her devil fruit.

"So you've come back, to tease me? To mock me? I will not break just as Troy will not fall." Helen had always been told that the eyes are the window of the soul, and as she gazed into the mans sitting before her she saw nothing but chaos and destruction. It made her sick to her stomach, how someone could be so blatantly evil and still manage to live with themselves.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say princess," Tabart responded dismissively. "Look, have you thought about my offer yet? You know, the one where I get you out of here? The guards aren't too nice once they think you got friends on the outside you know. Especially when a man as powerful as me shows up...makes them think they got no chance for nothing, ya know."

As he spoke, Tabart pulled out a stick filled with cannabis, flicking his lighter to spark it.

"You already looking a little more paler than the last time I saw you."

Helen attempted to move but the cuffs prevented that, so her mouth did all the talking, while her body was more like a statue. "You're offer? I do not think you understand, I would rather die here than allow innocent lives to be ruined at your hands. I offered you a single favor, an army, a fleet, so long as Spartan steel does not make pure springs run red, the deaths caused by my people will only be those who would harm others. Whether that be your family, your competition, I do not care. I will owe you that and that alone, that is my offer and it is all I will give and all I can accept."

Helen did not appreciate the man smoking. It had a horrible stench and his manners, well clearly being raised royal did not give him those. Then again, he was a pirate! What could she expect. The civil and barbaric in him must have mixed to form some new creation, one that she wasn't very fond of.

Tabart inhaled the smoke, and then exhaled, sending a cloud of fumes towards Helen's direction.

"Hmmm," he hummed, tapping the table with his free hand. "You telling me that you'll get your armies to do mobilize for me? Take out anybody I want?"

"No. My army is not like yours. We are not pirates, slashing and shooting blindly without a care in the world who might fall by our hands, they will only fight with a just cause, and we will give them just that. An enemy of yours that is also an enemy of mine." It was mutually beneficial, and though Helen hated the thought of working with this man, she needed to get out of prison more and her hatred could wait.

Tabart paused. "Yeah, yeah this might be a good deal after-all. Like, so what you saying is, you guys will take out other assholes like me then? Real pieces of shit, right? I'm talking slavers, drug dealers, all that nasty, unholy shit."

He leaned in closer. "That's what you mean, yeah?"

"If that is what you consider yourself, then yes." Helen nodded.

"Perfect then! Before I let you go then, I want to make sure we're under agreement here."

Tabart reached into his cloak and pulled out a map marked with various X's. Though it was made from the same map that he had showed her earlier, it was in fact very different. The X's that were once there had been completely scribbled out, and there were new marks on the map.

"These are all my competitors in the Underworld. Real pieces of shit. Some use slave labor, others kidnap people...which I guess is the same thing as slave labor." Tabart blinked. "Anyway, point is, these are all my competitors right now. If you get rid of them, and their businesses, you can do some real good, while also paving me a way right to the top of the underworld. I know you hate my ass, but these people are way worse than me. I actually pay my employees."

Helen nodded once again in agreeance. "They will me taken care of, but I must warn you..." Helen stopped briefly, thinking if she should continue the next part of her sentence. She couldn't possibly close this deal, not without making sure he was aware. "We are nothing more than two people making a deal for a mutual benefit. After this is said and done, I will owe you nothing and if we ever cross paths again, be it in my power to do so, I will make sure you die." Helen was serious, the man sitting before her had brought violence to her country, a lapdog of the World Government, and one day she would make sure he paid in full.

But today was not that day.

"Damn. You really hate me that much, then." Tabart allowed his blunt to fall from his lips, holding it to the side of his body as he looked at Helen. He could feel it, the sheer amount of malice oozing from the pores of her pale, flawless flesh. She really did care about her people; even as she was tortured and starved for a week because of him, she hated him for what he had done to Troy. That was dedication, and something he doubt he could ever repair. She would never accept him, ever.

"Well, let's get your cuffs of you. You coming with me," Tabart replied, breaking the fraught silence, before putting his blunt back in his mouth. "I don't got the key though. Apparently you fucked some guards up, so they don't trust me with them no more. Thanks for that by the way." He stood up from his chair, gesturing the guards to come into the room. They undid her chains, freeing her from being held captive by the mineral sea.

"Follow me out of here."

It felt good. To be free. To let him know just how she felt and the minute the cuffs came off she felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. "It is what they deserved." She spoke softly, getting up from her chair and preparing to follow Tabart. Last time she had attempted to escape she ended up roaming the halls for hours before eventually she was caught and restrained, she didn't want to bring this up to Tabart, in fact, she believed that he had made sure it ended up that way!

"May I ask, when will you call for the army?" Helen questioned. Would it be weeks? Months? Years? In truth it did not matter all that much to her, so long as the debt was repaid. To have a lingering deal with a dragon was not something she desired. To be in debt to someone... for them to hold onto that until she had more resources, a larger army, greater islands, it was strategical and being a woman of her word, no matter the time, she would not be able to resist.

"Huh?" Tabart inquired rhetorically. "What do you mean? It's not my army to call or command. I'm going to give you the map, and let you target them yourselves. I got nothing to do with you anymore."

Helen had misunderstood! "Very well then." Helen extended her arm, which landed somewhere above him due to her height, her hand asking for the map as she continued to follow him through the prison of a maze.

Tabart placed the map between her fingers, and continued walking forward, smoking his joint moderately fast.

"Yeah, you're too high maintenance for me. You're good and shit. I can't do that. So many restraints you got on yourself."

It was an awkward walk but they finally made it ourdoors! It was the first time Helen had seen the sun in weeks and it was bright, she held her hand over her eyes, staring out into the horizon only to see Tabart's boat. There was no way she was riding with him! But she had to get out of here. It felt strange asking for help but she swallowed her pride for her people. "Could you, perhaps, lend me a boat?" She pondered.

"I'm not loaning you anything," Tabart replied, turning around to face her since they had left the prison. "I'm giving you that boat I came here on. The one with all the money, and the women. Sorry about that, but I needed some incentive for the guards to make your life shit this week. They love women..even the women." He panicked. "Not that there's anything wrong with that you know, it's the 16th century you know. People can do whatever they want."

Tabart paused, inhaling and exhaling deeply to calm himself. "The point is, I need you to actually make it back to your home country, and I need your people to be strong. Take that boat, take that money, and fix it up for me. It's the least I can do for trashing it."

The man sounded apologetic and though his actions were noble, Helen could not forgive and she certainly would not forget. The least he could do. She stopped herself from scoffing. The least he could have done was treated people as if they are living beings and not animals or pawns on a board of chess. Her country was not a piece in a twisted game and it was not a boar to be served to the World Government like a silver platter, he would learn this soon enough.

A sigh escaped her as she walked down the docks and towards the ship, briefly turning to give Benjamin Tabart a proper farewell, seemingly ignoring his previous remarks. "I meant what I said before, Giant Slayer, so you be weary of where your seeds are planted and should they ever grow into my garden again...." Helen only turned forward, boarding the ship which would take the princess home, to Illium.

Tabart smirked, sliding the blunt back into his mouth.

"Whatever you say princess..."