A Force Against Inertia
By Dixxy Mouri
Chapter 05
The next day, Nami woke up in a room that definitely wasn't the holding cell.
She looked around, blinking in confusion. She couldn't remember being moved from the cell, though that had happened when she'd been given her first bath there. It was probably the sedatives that let them move her without her knowledge. It was a terrifying idea, not knowing what they were doing to her when she was unconscious.
The room she was in was plain – only bare white walls and a long window defined it. Several soft, squishy balls were scattered around the room. On the other side of the window several scientists were bustling about in the adjacent room, taking notes and conferring with each other over something. Nami swallowed. What did they want from her now? Obviously the shots aren't enough anymore. What are they going to test this time?
Nami looked down – she was naked. Normally that didn't bother her, but being in this place made her feel vulnerable, and she crossed her arms over her chest and curled her knees up to her stomach. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to try and calm down. Panicking wouldn't help – she just had to be patient.
Luffy was going to arrive any day now.
It was about then that Nami noticed she wasn't wearing her seastone collar anymore. She felt her neck – it was a little raw, but the restraint was completely gone. Why did they take it away all of a sudden? She looked to the single door in the room – it was probably locked, but depending on her power, that would be irrelevant.
That was when she realized she KNEW what her power was.
More importantly, she realized, she was starting to use it right then and there.
Sanji wasn't sure what to make of this room. It wasn't the holding cell, Nami wasn't there, he was naked, and even the seastone was gone. The room was bare, with only a long mirror that he suspected was one of those "fake" mirrors that was really a window, and there were several objects in the room with him: foam balls were scattered all over the room.
Sanji picked one up, squeezed it (it made a squeaky toy sound), and threw it at the mirror.
"I'm not your dog!" he yelled. He stood, stomped over to the mirror, and slammed his hands onto the glass. "I'm not an animal! If this is some kind of sick joke I am not amused!" Sanji snarled at his reflection, only to notice something in the reflection. He froze, not sure what he was seeing. He watched his expression fade from anger to awe, and he slowly turned around.
Several of the balls were floating.
Nami was mesmerized as her body changed shape and size. She grew taller, stronger. Her muscles tightened and strengthened with no effort. She whined a little as she felt her bones shuffling around, but somehow didn't hurt. She tried to take a few steps and fell to the floor, not used to the strange new shape her body was taking.
She sprouted a tail.
The tail grew longer from the base of her spine, and felt as if it had always been there – she could control it just as well as she could any of her limbs. It was long and slender, but too thick to belong to a mouse or a rat. Her head began to change shape, her skull stretching and squashing as her features shifted and the bones elongated. Nami felt her ears begin to migrate towards the top of her head, changing shape and growing fur as the process continued. She ran her tongue over her teeth and realized that most of them were now fangs and canines.
Nami saw her arms sprout orange fur with black stripes, followed quickly by her legs and her tail. Her stomach and chest sprouted a lighter colored fur, and her ears rounded in response. She fell forward – catlike – onto her hands (or were they paws now?) and feet, the transformation from woman to animal now complete.
Cat Cat Fruit: Model Tiger.
Standing now meant being on all fours, her tail – oh God she had a tail – twitching behind her. She looked at the window where the scientists were observing her. She cried out – her voice still sounded human. She collapsed onto the floor. She didn't WANT to be a tiger. She didn't WANT to have a Devil Fruit. She wanted to be human again – that was all she wanted!
She started to cry, this time letting out a roar. Internally, she shrieked. Nami was terrified – she tried to back into a corner. She didn't want anyone to see her like this. She wanted Luffy to find them right now and let her go back to her little room on the Sunny so she could try and forget about this and maybe figure out a way to "cure" being an ability user so she could just go back to the way she was before.
She howled.
Sanji turned to look at the balls in amazement. "How the hell are they doing that?" He let his jaw hang slack, crossing his arms as he observed them. They seemed to move up and down a little with each breath he took. He sat down, and the balls moved down with him. His eyes lit up in realization as he finally understand what the balls were doing.
At least these shitty scientists had given him an interesting power.
But why were the balls floating without him thinking about it? Sanji bit his bottom lip in concentration, trying to force himself to stop levitating the two balls. They dropped, but still seemed to be shaking with power. Sanji scanned the room for an answer, soon enough seeing a pipe coming into the room he had missed before.
What is THAT? Sanji tried not to focus in on it – he wasn't sure if letting the scientists know he knew about the pipe was a good idea. The pipe was coming out of a corner on the ceiling, whereas the other seven corners in the room were smoothed over. He narrowed his eyes – it may have been feeding something into the room that forced Devil Fruit users to use their abilities unwillingly.
The balls that were floating were slammed into the mirror. He glared at the window, flipped the scientists he knew were watching him off, and looked away. He didn't care if they didn't like his attitude – chances were they didn't care how much he liked or dislike what they were doing. It wouldn't stop them from doing it in the long run.
He hoped Nami was all right . . .
That evening, Nami and Sanji demonstrated their abilities for each other. Sanji had to improvise with a bar of soap from their sink, several wadded up balls of toilet paper, and himself (though that only lasted a couple of seconds and was barely a few centimeters off the ground) to use his considering the lack of objects in their room. Nami was a little shaky moving between her three forms and Sanji had the fine motor skills of Luffy's Third Gear, but they quickly had the basics down.
"Something's not right," Nami said, sitting on her bench and looking at her hands. Sanji was lying down on his, his hands behind his head and his eyes on the ceiling. "Wouldn't it make more sense for Tesla to have given us . . . weaker power?" The cook turned his head to look at her. "I'm a tiger – those are big cats! With big claws and fangs! And you can lift things with your brain!"
"And?" Sanji asked.
"We can fight back – can't we?" she said. "I mean, I don't know a lot about hand to hand combat but I probably have claws – if I just tried to whack someone I'd scratch them, right?" She made a pawing motion with her hand, trying to demonstrate. Sanji closed his eyes, taking a few moments to think about it before shaking his head.
"Well, it could be one of two things," he said.
"Oh?" Nami said, skepticism dripping from her tongue.
"Devil Fruits are hard to come by. Maybe these were the only ones he could find." He opened his eyes, a sad, sullen look in his eyes. "Or Tesla is so confident in the security on his ship that he thinks it doesn't matter what Devil Fruits he fed us." He turned his head to face her a little. "They use a lot of seastone restraints. He's prepared to hold Devil Fruit users."
"Then he obviously hasn't met Luffy."
"He doesn't think Luffy's a threat," said Sanji. "He thinks Luffy is going to abandon us, find a new navigator and a new cook, and move on." He shifted a little. "In his mind it doesn't matter what we can do." He sighed. "I just hope he's underestimating Luffy and the others. Better yet, maybe he's underestimating us."
"So you're suggesting we use the powers to try and make a break for it?"
"What choice do we have? I have no intention of staying here if I can find a way out." Sanji winked at Nami and grinned. "And of course you'll be coming with me, Nami-san. How could I possibly leave you behind?" Nami rolled her eyes – Sanji was still Sanji, for better or for worse. And even if it was his dopey love cook attitude it was SOMETHING familiar.
Still, he had a point. It wouldn't be fair to either of them to leave the other behind if a chance at escape arose. At the very least they had each other to lean on at night – if only one of them escaped, the other would be even worse off than before. "Same," said Nami. She stood and padded over to Sanji, sitting on the floor by his head. She smiled weakly. "I can't leave without you."
"Nami-san . . ."
She narrowed her eyes and held up a finger. "We're in this TOGETHER. Don't think you need to play big macho sacrifice man with me. Not here," said Nami. She rested her hands on the bench and her chin on her hands. "Sanji-kun, look at it this way – do you want me to feel guilty over your fate for the rest of my life if I found an escape and I couldn't get you out of here?"
Sanji thought about it. She had a good point. Causing a woman emotional pain (other than the hundreds, no THOUSANDS of hearts he would break should he settle down with one woman?)? No, that wasn't in his character. He nodded, closing his eyes. Nami-san knew him far too well – she'd found the exact thing to say to ensure that he would do everything to keep both of them alive, except for laying his life on the line.
Besides, if he died who would guarantee she successfully completed the rest of the escape?
Nami extended a hand. "Shake on it."
Sanji gave her his hand without a second thought. "Deal."
"I mean it. No sacrifice bullshit."
"No sacrifice bullshit. I promise."
Nami rested her head on her hands. "Good."
Tesla sighed, reading over the observation reports. He turned to Curie, who straightened her glasses. "Is that it?" he said. Curie nodded, and he sighed, rubbing his temples. "Continue their daily regimen. At least 0543 and 0544 are still alive: most of the other specimens died by this phase in the experiment."
"Of course, sir. Shall I change any of their dosages?"
Tesla closed his eyes and drummed his fingers together. He shook his head. "No, not yet. I'd rather not waste our efforts with an overdose of anything. If nothing changes in the next month try adding another ounce of Quinzine. If that fails, remove the extra ounce of that and replace it with Byrozine. If that doesn't work we'll have a meeting and see where that takes us."
Curie nodded and left his office. They were going to get their results one way or another.
Author's Notes:
Yes. I decided to publish early. Progress on the next several chapters is looking pretty good - I'm pretty sure everything through Chapter 08 is good to go (though I'll inevitably give 06 another look before I publish it next week). 09 is a little short and I have chapters beyond that done BUT I do not know if there will be content in between those chapters - some of them are tentatively numbered but others, including and especially the last few before the epilogue, are NOT numbered. My biggest concern right now is doing too many time skips and as it stands there are a lot of gaps I would like to fill up. That's not saying I want to drag this out so you get an inside peek at everything that happens every single day they're there - if we did that we'd never get to the second story (which, as it stands now, there will probably be a break between the epilogue for this story and the prologue for the next story). So currently things on my end are looking pretty sweet as far as getting updates out at a reasonable time.
Sanji's abilities come from the Tele Tele Fruit, or the Tere Tere no Mi (essentially telekinesis), and Nami has obviously gotten something from the Neko Neko no Mi: Model Tiger.
A note on Sanji's powers: Yes, at first I thought that Gold Lion Shiki was going to Joss this power, too. It seems I've lucked out TWICE on similar Devil Fruit powers between the DFs I come up with for Fanfics and what Oda comes up with (the other character would be Sanae from the Angel of Death Fruit series, whose fruit is REALLY close to Don Achino's fruit but I found a way to BS around it).
For Sanji's fruit, there are some key differences (and some of these were decided after STRONG WORLD came out):
One: Sanji, unlike Shiki, CAN lift living things (including himself).
Two: Sanji cannot lift as much as Shiki can and when he lifts heavier items it does strain him. For example, Sanji can't lift an entire island.
Three: Sanji can only lift a limited number of items and this probably depends on the size of the items. For example, he can probably lift many marbles but only a few bowling balls.
Dixxy