A Force Against Inertia
By Dixxy Mouri
Chapter 24
Several months later, after acquiring more Devil Fruits (eight this time, just in case something unfortunate happened to 0541 and 0542), Tesla was still frustrated that things weren't quite going his way, but he was rather stunned at the results he'd gotten this time – three days in and his experimental subjects were alive.
Technically. His subjects hadn't officially died – their hearts were beating and their lungs were forcing air in and out of their lungs, but they were completely unresponsive to all outside stimuli, and it took several moments for him to realize they were completely comatose. Since then, the pair had been moved to the operating room's recovery room, where they were being carefully monitored to see if they could be brought out of their comas.
"Do you think they'll wake up?" asked Curie.
Tesla watched them sleeping with interest. "Hard to say. It's possible that I may need to focus the fusion process longer, to make sure they are completely and totally fused. What is acceptable for normal food may not be acceptable for the Devil Fruits. Regardless, it's been three days and they haven't expired. Something went right this time, but whether or not either power – never mind both of them – were to manifest is impossible to say."
Weeks passed. 0541 and 0542 didn't make it.
That left the remaining four Devil Fruits.
"This is it – our last ditch effort," said Tesla. "If this fails, we'll move on to the next experiment."
Curie nodded. They'd brought the four fruits out, and she had the illustrated guide to the fruits in her lap. It was her job to identify them before they starting fusing any of the fruits together. Tesla arranged them on his desk, assigning each a small tag with a number on it before returning to his notes. They would need to choose which fruit pairs to choose to get the best possible results.
"Fruit #1 is the Neko Neko No Mi: Model Tiger," said Curie.
"Powerful Zoan – we got a good deal on this."
Curie shrugged and continued flipping through the book. "Fruit #2."
"Yes?"
"The Tere Tere no Mi – telekinesis."
Tesla nodded slowly. "We're going to need to make sure that once we find them, 0543 and 0544 are kept under tight seastone control, otherwise we're going to have some nasty problems on hand," he said. "See what you can do about hunting down more seastone restraints – anything you can find would be helpful."
Curie made a note of the request.
"Fruit #3?"
"Inu Inu no Mi: Model Fennec Fox."
Tesla nodded. "Far less dangerous than the tiger or the telekinesis . . . make sure it's paired with telekinesis – I feel there's a good chance we would end up with some kind of hybrid zoan if we paired it with the tiger, and although that would be interesting to investigate that's not what I want to do right now," he said. He turned to her. "And Fruit #4?"
Curie flipped through the book, paused, and then went back to the beginning and tried again. "I can't find a picture of it. There's a list of about thirty Devil Fruits without pictures but there's no way we'd be able to figure out which one of them we've acquired," she said. She picked up the fruit, looked at it, and sighed. "Should we try to find another fruit and use this for something else?"
Tesla shook his head. "We've spent enough money on them for now – no use wasting it."
"We don't even know if it's a paramecia, zoan, or logia class."
"Well it's not as if we can use it for anything else."
0543 felt her heart race as she realized she was another room, sprawled on the floor by one of the exam tables, and naked but still clutching her hospital gown. She wanted to start crying, because none of it made any sense to her. Why was everything around her solid one minute and . . . not . . . the next? She buried her face in the gown.
"Are you okay?"
She knew that voice – it was her friend, her only friend here. She started to whimper. She needed to talk to him. 0543 turned her head to the source of 0544's voice and nearly screamed. There, instead of 0544, was a little yellow fox with big ears. It walked over to her, looking down from its perch on the examination table.
". . . it happened to you, too."
0543's eyes widened in horror. 0544. But how?
"Oh God," she said. She scrambled to her feet, then watched as the little fox slowly started to grow, eventually stopping in a half human, half animal form. 0544 looked at his hands, or paws, or whatever they were, and looked at his companion in panic. 0543 felt herself shake. "This doesn't make any sense. But it's too real to be a hallucination. What did he do to us?"
0544 shook his head. "He did something to the Devil Fruits."
"What?"
"He said he did something to the fucking Devil Fruits. He made us freaks."
0543 stepped back and looked at her stomach. It was starting to make sense. If she wasn't dead and she could pass through solid objects . . . it was like a Devil Fruit power. But she already had a power. She closed her eyes. She focused on trying to change into her half-tiger form, and felt the familiar sensation of shooting up several inches in height, growing a tail, and sprouting fur. 0544 watched her as she examined herself, then shrank back into her human form. She placed her hand over the examination table, and pushed down.
Her hand passed through the table.
"So that's it."
". . . more than one Devil Fruit ability."
They stared at each other in silence, realizing the magnitude of what had happened. This hadn't happened in the history of science – Tesla had done something no one else had figured out how to do. They weren't sure HOW he'd done it, but somehow, someway, he'd gotten a second Devil Fruit into each of their bodies, and did it without killing them or even making them consume a second fruit.
". . . but how?" said 0543.
0544 stared at her, thinking about everything that had happened to them for the past year. He cared about her more than anyone in the world, and it dawned on him that this moment was special. This moment, the only people who knew what they could do was just the two of them, and as soon as Tesla and his cronies figured out what had happened . . .
This is . . . this is it. This is our big chance. We can . . .
0544 pushed himself off the table, and struggled to get back into his clothing. "You know what? I don't fucking care how he did it, because now we're stuck with it whether we're in here or out there and there's nothing we can do to change that," he said. 0543 watched him, then remembered she was carrying her own gown and struggled to put it on over her head. "He was talking about getting rid of us in six months. He's almost at the end of his rope with us, but if he sees this, there's no telling what he'll do next."
"Oh God," said 0543.
0544 took her hands. "This is our chance. This is our ONLY chance." He swallowed. "Ever since we stepped onto this ship, we've gotten nothing but bad cards thrown at us. Well, this time we don't exactly have a royal flush but I'll take the full house. This is the only real chance we've had this whole time, and once Tesla finds out what's happened he'll never let us go." He gripped her hands. "No one knows about this yet. We're not tied down. And the shock collars are gone. We can do this. We're standing here with nothing holding us back, and there are four Devil Fruit abilities between the two of us."
"But we're on a boat surrounded by water, and everyone here wants to hurt us," she said.
"We both know that our captain's not coming for us – we can't keep pretending he's going to walk through the door and come save us anymore. If it was going to happen it would have happened a long time ago," he said. He tried to smile, but it was almost like he'd forgotten how. "We can steal a lifeboat. We can try to make it to dry land."
"And if we don't?"
0544 swallowed. He wasn't sure what to say to that.
0543 put her hands on his shoulders, tears in her eyes. "We'd be free. And even if we don't make it, we're leaving this ship on our terms. Not his." She grabbed his hands. "We can be pirates again. We can go sailing. Even if we can't make it to land or a boat . . . we'll be sailing. The wind, the salty air, just like before . . ."
0544 pulled her into his arms and rested his head on hers. "It'll be better than here."
"Yeah. It will be."
"But we have to try to live." 0543 nodded at him, but they both knew that chances were their attempts at survival would end in failure. Two Devil Fruit users (regardless of how many extra powers they had) in the middle of the open ocean on what could only be a lifeboat had a slim chance of surviving.
". . . yeah."
They would be escaping Tesla to die in peace.
They stood in silence, looking around and trying to figure out what to do. 0543 took 0544's hand and concentrated, then pressed their clutched hands into the examination table. She her lips cracked into a slight grin when his hands passed through with hers, although he didn't share in her enthusiasm – at least, not the same kind. His face had gone paler than normal (at least what counted as "normal" on this ship) and he was shaking a little.
"This is our way out," she said. "I can walk through walls, and if I'm holding onto you, so can you."
"I think my stomach is in my throat," he said, still shaking.
She pulled him into an embrace. "It's okay. But we can't stay here much longer."
They held each other tightly for a few more seconds before 0543 took 0544's hand and started walking towards a wall. She pressed her ear to the wall to listen for voices and when she heard none, she passed through it like it was nothing, and pulled 0544 through behind her, leaving the room empty and their hope renewed.
Don't give up hope.
Whatever you do, don't give up hope.
You have to draw your map.
You have to find your ocean.
Rubber captain and the others would be sad if you died.
Please . . . please survive . . .
Moments later, a scientist tried to check in on 0543 and found the room empty.
Author's Notes
Update may have happened sooner but Anime Boston happened and it kicked my ass. It was fun, but exhausting and I got Con Plague (I may have been Patient 0 because I got sick early).
The Voice's identity will be revealed soon-ish but at this point you guys might be able to piece together who or what it is.
-Dixxy