Steel Heart

Ch 1 - The First Employee of Galley-La

A/N: This is an independent story that is completely separate from my other ongoing Fanfic (Free Heart).

I do not own One Piece. Just this OC and Pygmy.

I will be sticking solely to canon so no fillers and no original arcs. This starts off with Water 7 and I'll leave it up to Oda-sensei to see where it ends.

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Ch 1 - The First Employee of Galley-La

- 9 years ago - 3 years after the Puffing Tom was built and 9 years until Straw Hats come to Water 7 -

"So what seems to be the trouble?" 29 year old Iceberg asked coolly as he stuffed his hands into his beige pants pockets. His focus was not on the pudgy, old stationmaster, who had called him over. No, Iceberg's attention was on what was behind Puddy-san. Iceberg's eyes scanned over the sea train, the Puffing Tom, as crowds of waiting passengers stared at him expectantly to solve a problem he had yet to figure out.

"It's like I said," Puddy-san exclaimed, throwing his hands wildly in the air. He was in a frenzy because this delay would inevitably cause a snowball effect to the rest of his well-crafted schedule. "It won't start!"

"Tch, obviously..." a high but snarky voice interjected from the sidelines.

Iceberg perked his ears and looked over at the source. He saw a little girl with a leather aviator helmet that was too large for her head. It covered her light brown hair that stopped right at her shoulders. On top of the helmet sat shiny, metal goggles with leather straps. She wore dark denim overalls with a grey tank top underneath and heavy, leather boots. She had her arms crossed and was leaning against a pillar, with an annoyed look on her sunken face. She didn't look like she had had a decent meal in months and she was dirty all over.

Large pliers were in her hand. She had a white cloth laid out in front of her feet and on the sheet, she had placed small,metal figures made of wire . A torn piece of cardboard stood next to the cloth and it had "7 bellis" scrawled on it in bold, black ink. The penmanship was horrible.

"Hey, you brat!" Puddy-san shouted as he marched over towards her, "I thought I told you that you couldn't sell your junk here. This is a train station, not a flea market!"

"You know what's wrong with it?" Iceberg called out to her, stopping Puddy-san right in his tracks. The station master looked over at Iceberg in protest but was ignored. Iceberg's attention was solely on the girl and she reciprocated his eye contact with just as much focus.

She smirked at his question. "No."

Iceberg rolled his eyes and started to turn away from the girl but then she said something that made him pause. "But I have a theory."

He turned back towards her with his eyebrow raised. "Oh?"

The girl scratched her nose. "The steam sounded off when the train first pulled in. The pitch was low. I think there's a blockage in the smokebox. You might want to check the valves."

"Oh my..." Iceberg said as he stared at her with amusement. "You know trains?"

"I know boilers," she replied.

His eyes fell on the metal figures and he squatted in front of her mat. He picked up one of the figures and brought it to his eye level.

"Hey, Iceberg!" Puddy-san protested, "Don't entertain this brat or else she'll be coming by again!"

Iceberg continued to ignore the stationmaster. "Not bad metalwork, kid. You're pretty good with the pliers," he mused as he noticed how intricately the wires were wrapped around each other to create details of muscles and even hair.