Chapter 13: Fruits, Smoke and Beast

*purupurupurupurupuru*

*purupurupurupurupuru*

*purupurupurupurupuru*

*gacha*

"Hello, you're through to Cold Age Tech Workshop. How many I help you?"

"Yo, Lind! It's me." Augustus greeted.

"August-san, what happened to talking in code?" Lindbergh asked.

"The boy says it's safe."

Lindbergh raised an eyebrow. "That Chairman guy? Is he really an inventor?"

"Yeah, better than you even." Augustus smirked as he imagined the expression on Lind's face. "You'll get to meet him eventually. Where are you right now?"

"Oh we are here already. I have been waiting for your call for hours now. Are you guys ready? Are you sure you can trust that kid?" Lind asked with a bit of worry. After all, they were the ones responsible for cleaning up the mess.

"You wouldn't say that if you knew him. We are almost at the location. The boy says you'll know when to act."

"Alright, best of luck then. I'll be playing with my babies." The mink said as he closed the call.

"They're set?" Cancel asked as he walked up behind Augustus. His helmet was back in storage since all it showed now was the darkness of the underground space the clam was placed in.

"Yeah. Weren't you listening?"

"I wasn't paying attention." He answered.

Augustus brought the snail up to his face, getting a closer look at the golden-gray thing Cancel had attached to it. "You said it makes others unable to hear what's being said? How does it even work?"

Cancel just shrugged. "That's proprietary technology, though I could be convinced to share it with you if you teach me that move you just did."

Augustus shrugged back. "It's proprietary martial arts. Also, couldn't you have used your ability to chase it away?"

Cancel shook his head. "Not really. My telekinesis is technically strong enough, but I can't be channeling that kind of force with how weak my body is." He sighed. "Stupid legs don't even allow me to work out properly", he muttered.

Larry walked out from the kitchen. "It's done. How sure are you that this is gonna work?"

"75%. Depending on the type, boxclams self-destruct in one of a hundred and fifteen different ways. The one that the marines took is a type that emits a highly corrosive gas when forcefully opened. It reacts with even the most inert of substances. However, data says that 25% of all boxclams are … weird, to put it in layman's terms. We just have to hope that this one isn't part of the quarter." Cancel explained.

"What's even in it?" Eric asked.

Cancel looked towards Augustus. He was working together with Sorbet for this. Among the people on the ship, only the two of them knew what was in the box. Augustus thought for a while, but eventually decided that he could tell them.

"Devil fruits."

"Fruits? Plural?" Eric asked.

"Yep, two of them. We don't know which two though, only that they are special enough to be considered a national treasure." Cancel said.

"The Skyhorn people worshipped serpents. It's a safe bet that at least one of them is a snake Zoan." Augustus supplied.

"Can I eat it?" Eric had literal stars in his eyes as he looked towards Augustus. "I have always wanted to be able to transform!"

Augustus gave Cancel a look. Cancel shrugged. "I'll think about it. The fruits are mine."

"How did Sorbet and the RA agree to letting you have the fruits? What are you giving them in return?" Shirley asked. She and Soph were getting a tan on the deck. Soph looked really excited at the prospect of watching some Marines die.

"Oh I'm giving them quite a lot. The Revolutionaries get to take credit for destroying a Marine Branch basically for free. Without me, the Nostrade household would have gotten away with it all. Now, Sorbet gets to pretty much attack the Nostrades – a family with ties to the underworld. They also get me as an ally. I get the fruits, I make new connections and I get the satisfaction that comes from watching a bunch of horrible people die a slow, painful death. Isn't that right, Soph?" Cancel's lips curved up into a terrifying smile that Sophia mirrored, though she was still unable to look him straight in his eyes.

104th Marine Branch

A man was strapped to the contraption in the interrogation chamber with some thick leather straps. He looked frail and thin, with scars all over his body. His rough long hair covered his face as he lied tied to the board.

Hebinu nodded to Fuzz, who barked out orders to his subordinates. When he received the A-Okay from the team, Fuzz moved towards the back wall. The roof parted in the middle as a giant red-tinted glass dome dropped down from above and covered the contraption and the man in it.

"It has begun", he said as he walked back towards Hebinu.

Hebinu just nodded, his whole body shaking in excitement as he watched the scene. A sharp hiss was heard from a corner of the room as the contraption started doing its thing. The liquids in the test tubes slowly started draining as the metal limbs moved to stab their needles into the captive. The man screamed as his body was pumped full of whatever chemicals the scientists had prepared. His eyes shot open; they were shining with a red light. Red smoke started coming out of his nose and mouth as his breathing got faster.

Fuzz pressed another button when the dome was completely filled with the red smoke, causing two small tiles on the floor inside the dome to separate and reveal a vent. Within seconds, the smoke was sucked into the vent, the captive now unconscious.

"Now to wait while the fruit does its thing", Hebinu spoke as he watched the smoke drain into the ground. His face sported a manic grin as he waited for the boxclam to open. Only when he saw the glass crack and the captive look straight at him with his glowing red eyes did it dawn on him that he had made a huge mistake.

Inside the mind of a very angry captive

Carabara was home to the worst dregs of society. I remember one time when I woke up to a stinky pirate putting his thing in my mouth. That necrophile thought I was dead. Weak as I was, I still had enough strength in me to bite it off and run away with the bag of food he was holding. It wasn't the best of decisions, since I was forced to spend the rest of my energy running and hiding from his crew.

I was close to dying of hunger and exhaustion when I finally shook them off. The world was a blur around me as I took out whatever was in the bag and put it in my mouth. It tasted worse than that pirate. The feeling in my mouth made me regret eating it, but I would have died otherwise.

Whatever it was, I passed out while eating it. When I woke up, I was surrounded by corpses and rubble. It was as if a captured beast had finally gone wild. I was scared. I was hungry. I ran.

I ran into people. I stole food. Sometimes I managed to get away, sometimes I didn't. But something changed after that day. Every once in a while, I would wake up surrounded by corpses. For the first couple of times, I immediately ran away. I was afraid that the beast was just playing with me, and would return to finish the job. On the fourth time however, I noticed something.

All those bodies were of people I knew. That bitch that spat at me for "touching" her when she bumped into me; the bastards that tried to gangbang me; that group of kids my age that took my food away and beat me up; they were all people I wished were dead.

I wanted to meet the beast. I wanted to try and talk to it. I wanted to ask it why it only helped me when they beat me unconscious. I was already tired of my life. I wanted it to kill me as well.

I laughed. It was funny. The people who tormented me kept dying but my life never improved. I could never be happy in Carabara. I cried. It was sad. There were people who had escaped Carabara, but I was stuck here. I screamed. The beast wasn't helping me. With the strength it had shown, it could have easily taken me out of Carabara. But it didn't. It was toying with me.

I sat there, cycling through different emotions as I slowly lost grip on my sanity. But something changed when I landed on the emotion called anger. I thought I was dreaming. I thought I was mad as I saw a wisp of red smoke come out of my nose when I breathed out. But I wasn't mad. I could feel it. It was real.

People started milling in. They started to look around for things. One guy shoved me away as he and his gang inspected the quality of the body I was sitting on; the body of that bitch. I snapped out of my daze as I landed face first on the floor. My anger suddenly rose, but I tried to hold myself back. They were big. I was small. They were many. I was one.

More and more smoke came out of my nose and my mouth as I started hyperventilating. I was angry; angry at these people for treating me like I was nothing; angry at the world for being so cruel; angry at myself for being so weak. But there was nothing I could do. I was weak. I was starving. I was tried in body and mind. I was about to pass out again.

It was then that I saw it. As the world started blurring and spinning around me, I saw the red smoke move towards the men. I saw their expressions change into one of pure rage as they suddenly lashed out at each other. I saw them biting and tearing each other apart like wild animals.

As unconsciousness wrapped me in its sweet embrace, it dawned on me.

I am the beast.