Ch. 37 – En Garde, Your Majesty

"Has anyone seen Zoro?" Nami asked. They'd been walking for a while, and getting apparently nowhere.

Gloriadne, who stood in the lead, turned back to look at her. "He went left when I told him not to go left, didn't he." she said flatly.

"That's Zoro for you," Nami replied with a sigh.

"Should we go back?" Gloriadne asked. "I think I can remember when that turn-off was…"

"Don't bother. He always finds his way eventually," Nami replied.

"Not in a place like this," Gloriadne murmured.

Nami could see her point. The endless, dark walls seemed to go on forever. Even though the ceilings soared high above them in this part of the labyrinth, it was starting to feel claustrophobic. She paused to think for a moment, only to have one of the idiots walking behind her run into her.

"As I was saying, I will be the one to rescue Queen Helena-Chan," Paris was saying. "…Oof! Sorry, Nami-San." He walked past her, clearly too engrossed in his argument with Menelaus to care much if he was being rude. "I am going to be Head of Palace Security. This is how I can prove to her how clever and handsome I am." He paused, posing majestically with his lantern for a photograph that wasn't being taken.

"Clearly I will be the one to rescue Queen Helena-Chan," Menelaus grumbled through his beard, also pushing past Nami. As he was more oafish than his interlocutor, he did not stop to apologize to the navigator when he nearly knocked her over. "And I will be the one to win her hand in the end. At least I actually know how to fight with a sword."

"I'm sorry? Who beat whom in the tournaments?" Paris pointed out. "My sword-bowmanship got me into the semi-finals, unlike a certain red-headed buffoon that I know. Oh, not you Nami-San," he turned to look back at her with a would-be charming smile. "You made it to the semi-finals too. I meant this idiot here."

It was obvious who he meant. And Nami had had just about enough of their ridiculous squabbling. It was as annoying as it was pointless. It wasn't like either of them was half as good as Zoro.

A wicked idea struck her at this thought, and she grinned evilly to herself. This was the perfect way to shut them up. And after all, what could it hurt? Zoro had made up his mind to sail out with the crew, right? And Helena had promised not to take him.

Nami strutted up between the two bickering boys, lacing an arm through either of theirs.

"I'm afraid you've got it all wrong, gentlemen," she told them with a tragic sigh. "You are both brilliant fighters, but once Roronoa Zoro has his sights set on a woman there's no rescuing her. I'm afraid he's stolen her heart forever."

"Roronoa…?" Paris asked.

"But didn't he turn her down…?" Menelaus grumbled through his bushy beard.

"Didn't you see them kissing at the ball?" Nami insisted. "He's been playing hard to get. He does it to all the respectable ladies!"

"Huh?" Menelaus rumbled. He seemed a little lost.

"But you don't mean…!" Paris looked slightly horrified. With an ego like his, he was probably something of a player himself, so he was quicker on the uptake.

"He's got a reputation in every port we've passed through," Nami said, lowering her voice confidentially. "They call him the Hurricane Lover, because he comes in like a storm and leaves nothing but broken hearts in his wake."

Up ahead, Gloriadne snorted. Yeah, it was obvious to any female that Zoro wasn't the type. However, by the shocked expressions now gracing the two soldiers' faces, they were much more gullible.

"We've been here, what, four days?" Nami went on, "That's plenty of time. There's probably not a respectable family in town whose daughter he hasn't messed with by now. And they never recover. How can they?" Nami let a few tears well up in her eyes. "Even Robin and I have let ourselves fall under his spell in the past. There's no moving on."

"You poor thing," Gloriadne said, sending Nami a sly wink. "I can see the appeal. He's generally respectful of us married women. Generally."

"You've heard the rumors too?" Paris uttered.

"Oh, yes," Gloriadne replied with a doleful air. "We women talk."

"The point is, you may win Queen Helena's hand," Nami continued, grateful for Gloriadne's timely input. "But you will never win her heart. She is Zoro's forever, just like so many poor women before her."

"What a cad!" Paris exclaimed.

"Yes, but what can you do? He's stronger than even the Queen. You'll never be able to match him, or avenge her. It's best to just let it go," Nami said.

This effectively silenced Menelaus and Paris. –For a moment anyway. Nami marched off ahead of them, thoroughly pleased with herself, but then she heard them both burst into the most unmanly of tears.

"Poor Queen-Chan!" Paris sobbed. "In the clutches of that horrible Casanova! We must try to do something to heal her wounded heart!"

"Yeah!" Menelaus sniffled. "Only I will be the one, not you!"

"No, clearly I am meant to be a balm for her troubled soul," Paris cried. "She will find some consolation in my charm and good looks!"

"But not your swordsmanship," Menelaus grumbled.

"Here they go again," Gloriadne chuckled. "Nice try, Nami-Chan. I don't think they can be prevailed upon."

Nami sighed a heartfelt sigh. "It was worth a shot. Hey…where's Luffy?"

"Gomu gomu no BAZOOKA!"

Luffy blasted through another wall, thoroughly pleased with himself. He'd lost sight of the group a while ago, but as far as he was concerned, he was navigating the maze just fine on his own. After all, if he ran into a dead end, all he had to do was knock it over. Easy peasy.

He was starting to get a little annoyed though. He'd been at it for a while and still no sign of the Sword-Princess. If only there was a way for him to knock through walls faster. Cracking his knuckles, he placed the ring of his mushroom lantern in his mouth and started another wind-up.

"Gomu gomu no…GATLING WRECKING BALL!"

He charged, using his Gatling attack until he burst through one wall, only to keep going until he burst through another, and another, and another. He thought he heard something like a yelp as he went, but it wasn't until ten walls or so later that he finally stopped for a breather. It was then that someone burst out of the collecting pile of rubble he'd pushed in front of him during his rampage.

"What in Hades is going on!" Hector spluttered, molding in and out of tree mode to get himself free of the rock pile. "Captain!" he cried, recognizing him.

"Wood-Man," Luffy replied. "How'd you get there?"

"I was separated from my group, then you came along and blew the wall down, taking me with it," Hector replied testily.

"Oh. Sorry," Luffy said. "Have you found the Sword-Princess?"

"No, I haven't, thanks to you!" Hector bristled. "Your Doctor said he'd sniffed out a friend who could probably lead us to her, but then you…"

"Nevermind, I found her myself," Luffy said, pointing.

Hector's jaw dropped when he caught sight of what Luffy had seen first. They'd blown into a large chamber with an altar at its center. Pinioned to the altar was none other than a luminescent Helena. Zoro stood over her, covered in shadow. His hands were still clasped around the hilt of the katana pinning her down.

"Zoro, you idiot, what'd you go and do that for?" Luffy called out.

Hector bonked Luffy's rubber head with an impatient fist . "It's obvious he's under Nemo's control, idiot," he growled, pulling out his injection. "I must assist Her Majesty."

"Wait a minute, I want to use that!" Luffy insisted, stretching for it as his head boinged back into place like a bobble-head.

Hector used his wood powers to stretch it out of Luffy's reach. "No you fool. Do you have a suicide wish?"

A deep, rumbling voice made them pause in the midst of their antics. "What's this?" Nemo asked. "No one else was supposed to make it this far…"

By the crazed look in Zoro's eyes, Helena was fairly certain the only thing that was keeping Nemo alive was the fact that the swordsman couldn't move. It wasn't for lack of trying either. While Nemo remained distracted by Luffy and Hector's rather dramatic entrance, Helena could see the shadowed muscles in Zoro's arms tensing and shaking as he tried desperately to retrieve the blade.

From there what did he intend to do exactly? He'd need to eat one of those mushrooms or something, but that would mean suicide right? There was no way he could get to sunlight in time.

"Zoro…" she murmured quietly.

He didn't respond.

"Zoro, calm down, ok? I'm fine."

"I don't care if you are immortal…" Zoro started.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Helena cut him off in a harsh whisper. "Zoro, you missed."

His eyes flickered down to the Kitetsu. It looked like it was going through her side, and while it had grazed her, it had caught mostly fabric. The sword had passed through her bodice and sleeve, but she had come through mostly unscathed.

"Don't stare at it, just trust me," she whispered, drawing his gaze back to her face. "Don't let him see. The longer you stay this close to me, the sooner you can break out of his control. Just, don't be stupid ok? When you're free, stay by me and let me do the fighting."

Zoro finally relaxed, but the storm in his eyes did not subside.

"Remember, you told me this is my fight," she reminded him.

"Yeah, well, he's made it personal," Zoro growled.

He was right of course, which alarmed her further. Through a dark film she could see more of him now, more colors – the dark grey of his vest, his white dress pants, the amber ascot he'd left hanging untied around his unbuttoned collar. He had his signature black bandana tied around his upper arm, bunching the sleeve of his thin white dress shirt. He was halfway free.

"It's not worth losing your dream over," she told him. "Zoro, you need to live though this and become the world's best swordsman."

It was the only thing she could think of to dissuade him. She had no idea if her words had any affect, for her attention and Zoro's were immediately drawn by a sudden glow.

"Hector!" Helena gasped. A beautiful white laurel tree filled a quarter of the chamber with light and branches, growing larger and brighter by the second. The bark itself was so thick it couldn't glow, but the cracks between the outer bark, and the leaves were so radiant it hardly mattered.

"What is that idiot thinking?" Zoro breathed. "He's killed himself."

"No…he won't get to sunlight in time," Helena murmured. "Hector…"

"Quintilian!" Hector bellowed, his face an angry mask in the trunk, "You will pay for betraying His Majesty the King, and for turning on his daughter! I will see to it personally that you are brought to justice!"

"Ah! Now I see how this works," Nemo replied pensively. "You have some sort of a glow injection. So there are two of you little lightning bugs now. We can't have that. Here little puppet."

Helena could feel Nemo pulling on Zoro, trying to take him away. And he was so close to breaking free too! She lunged forward, tearing away from the Kitetsu pinning her down as she threw her luminescent arms around Zoro's neck.

Zoro released the katana, leaving it in the altar as he reached a tense and straining arm around her instead. His clawed fingers dug into her back as he tried desperately to fight Nemo's control.

Helena was finally grateful for those stupid, flowing white sleeves, which had come untied in the course of events. They wrapped around Zoro like wings, forming a protective white barrier against Nemo's power.

Or so she thought. Zoro's upper body had come mostly free, free enough to hold on to her like a lifeline, but no matter how bright her light, his dress shoes remained black. Nemo didn't hesitate to yank Zoro's feet out from under him, dragging him back into the dark half of the chamber that Hector had not yet filled.

"You're out of swords, Quin," Helena called with would-be confidence. Without looking, her fingers found the Kitetsu where it still resided deep in the side of the altar. She decided not to pull the sword loose, but all the same she kept a hand on the hilt to protect it further from Nemo's power.

"Not exactly," Nemo replied.

From the darkness came the rasp of a blade coming free of its sheath. Helena gulped. Zoro did still have one more blade; he had her sea stone dagger.

"Careful Hector!" she warned, eyes tuned to the dark side of the room.

"I will fill this place with light," Hector cried, undaunted, "You will have nowhere left to hide, Quintilian, whatever you do to try and stop me."

As his luminous branches climbed along the walls, Helena could finally see that this was no simple underground cavern or oubliette as she had supposed. High walls, ornately carved, swept in intricate patterns above them into a domed ceiling. At the center of that ceiling was an oculus that must have let in sunlight before the great temples of the ancient world had been buried in a great cataclysm hundreds of years ago.

As Hector's branches continued into the darkness, they wrapped around the statue of a goddess. Helena easily recognized her by her peacock-feather headdress.

"The ancient Temple of Hera," Helena breathed. "That makes this…" her hand brushed the altar at her back.

Zoro reappeared, newly covered in a black shell that still dripped from his fresh dunking in darkness. Nemo forced him to charge, dagger at the ready. Though Hector's light prevented him from disappearing into the air as he'd done previously, he disappeared into the black stone of the ground. He reappeared a moment later, then disappeared and reappeared, disappeared and reappeared, making him difficult to pin down, and keeping his darkness coating fresh. Though Hector strove to catch him in his luminescent branches, Zoro eventually made it to the trunk, stabbing Hector where his heart might be had he still been in human form.

The General let out a cry. Leaving the dagger in him, Nemo dropped Zoro, or perhaps the light was too much to retain his control on the swordsman now. Helena winced as Zoro fell to land face down among Hector's roots.

"Yes," Nemo purred, ignoring Zoro and Hector now as he turned his attention back to Helena. "That is the Altar of Dido, Your Majesty."

His voice emanated from the small portion of the room still left in darkness on the opposite side of the altar. Helena turned her back to Zoro and Hector, facing the enemy with her mouth set in a grim line.

"But why would you bring me here?" she asked. "This is the altar for star-crossed lovers. The altar for the desperate, the love-sick."

"Yes, according to legend a couple need only kiss across the altar and they will be married in the sight of the gods," Nemo told her. "No contract of man required. – No marriage license or priest or ceremony. Of course, Queen Dido married Aeneas here. And you know what happened to her…"

"Aeneas left her to become a famous adventurer, and she went mad. She immolated herself," Helena replied. "The altar is cursed. At least one member of any couple wed here is destined to end in horrible tragedy while the other rises to greatness."

"Indeed. Now we come to my real purpose in bringing you here, Queen Helena." Something stepped out of the darkness; a shadow, tall with inhumanly long arms. Its surface burbled, dripped and moved like liquid; like ink.

"Quintilian…?" Helena ventured. He was a lot taller than she remembered.

"I admit that torturing you and your pet swordsman was merely for my own satisfaction," the ink-man said, taking a few shlopping steps toward her. It left glistening sable footprints in its wake, which faded into the black stone of the cave floor soon after they appeared. "Well, I really had hoped to weaken you in that way before challenging you head on, but unfortunately your little glow injections have complicated things, especially this stupid tree. Ah ah ah! Don't touch that!"

This last remark was directed at Zoro, who'd made to retrieve the dagger out of Hector. Darkness caught him by his shoes again and tossed him away from Hector's light.

"You mean to duel me for my hand?" Helena asked, gripping Peleus more firmly.

"Indeed," he replied.

"What of Troy?"

"That traitor no longer deserves my help," Nemo seethed. "He betrayed me."

"But you are not a swordsman, Quin," Helena pointed out.

He flicked his strange, long arms outward. The ink suddenly solidified around him in the shell she'd seen on Zoro, and she realized that the arms weren't just arms; he carried a pair of sharp, short swords.

"You will find that I know more than you think," he replied. "Let us duel, Majesty. If I win, I will wed you here, thus becoming king. And then I will insure that the one who ends in tragedy…" he pointed a sword at her menacingly, "…is you."

"That's not much incentive for her to accept your challenge alone," a voice said, accompanied by the tell-tale sound of cracking knuckles. "Especially when she's got us to help her."

Helena glanced behind her. She had forgotten all about Captain Luffy. There he stood on her left, his Straw Hat on his head and a wicked little smirk on his face.

"Stay within her light, Luffy," another voice said.

Helena turned to her right and saw Zoro retrieve two of his swords from the altar. He left the Kitetsu alone.

"You two don't do anything stupid," Helena warned them.

"Just let us borrow your light for a while," Zoro replied with a smirk. He flicked his wrist, playfully making one of the blades reflect a gleam back into Helena's eyes. "Your light and Hector's."

She was relieved to note he'd gotten rid of the black shoes. Like her, he stood barefoot against the cold, stone floor. But he hadn't ditched his signature bandana. The idiot…

"It's not going to work," she breathed. Luffy had ditched most of his party clothes before he'd arrived in the temple, but he still had on a pair of dress pants and a vest. The dress pants he'd rolled up into capris. They were black.

"A noble sentiment, you two," Nemo purred. "And you are right. She hasn't got any reason to fight me, her honor aside. However, now…" Zoro found himself yanked back by the bandana on his arm, and Luffy literally by the seat of his pants. Dark chains appeared from the blackness, pinning them to the large stone pedestal at the foot of Hera's statue, just barely brushed by Hector's light. "…you've given her one. Fight me, Queen Helena, or watch me crush your friends within their own skin."

The chains tightened around Zoro, and wrapped around Luffy more fully to keep the rubber man from stretching. From the chains, darkness spread across them like ink on water, starting first where the colors they wore were at their darkest; Zoro's vest and tie, Luffy's pants and hair.

Helena looked from their struggles to Hector's beleaguered wooden face above her dagger. She took a steadying breath, assuming her courtly composure before turning back to Nemo, who stood expectantly at the edge of the darkness.

"Truly you have misjudged my character, Quintilian," she said calmly, walking slowly around the altar that stood between them. "You don't need to resort to hostages or threats. I would have accepted your challenge based on my honor alone."

Her vision went blurry for a moment, but she quickly blinked it away. The poison was starting to take effect.

"I see how your power works," she went on, continuing her casual pace as though nothing had happened. "Just as you can manipulate ink on white paper, you can manipulate anything that is 'colorless' as you call it, even if it is within my light. But you cannot manipulate me, a source of light."

"Indeed, the irony is not lost on me, Sun Queen," Nemo intoned impatiently. "I should have fought you before letting that pirate scum find you."

"Yes, your sadism may have outdone you. But then again, without my friends, you wouldn't have any witnesses, and our duel would be void," she replied, coming to a stop in front of the altar. "Whatever the outcome of our duel, you must let the witnesses live."

"Making provisos, Majesty?" Nemo chuckled. "I'm glad to see that you are not confident in your victory."

"On the contrary, Quin," Helena pointed Peleus at him. "I am not afraid of you." She tossed the sword in the air and carved her usual line in the ground, taking a step over it.

A rip across the ink-man's face indicated something of a smile. "Allow me to change your mind," he simpered. "En garde, Your Majesty."