AN: So I still don't have a solid schedule at work, but I have been managing to write more in my off time, and this is still two weeks from my last post (plus a day, but still). So that's good. :) Hope you guys enjoy!

Wickthorne Island

The crew sat around in Malthory's home, talking and messing around while she was taking care of Morkine in her office. They came back out and Morkine had his left shoulder wrapped in gauze. "Now make sure you keep that on and don't be struggling too much," Mal said.

"Yes, ma'am," Morkine said low. He sat down on a chair she had in her living room.

The others looked to Halcen or Grey to get them started. They didn't know what was in store for them next on this island. They were just going with their leader's decisions.

"Okay, so," Halcen began. "Where do we start?" he asked Mal.

"Well, I suppose the first thing I should do is tell you a little more about the island," she answered. "How much do you know exactly?"

"Nothing at all. We were tracking a hazy signal from our Demon Radar, which is supposed to track Devil Fruits. The problem is being in the Grand Line has been messing with the signals so we can't tell up from down."

"Sounds like the Grand Line, alright," she said in her sassy old woman voice.

"Thing is," Jin said, "we're still on top of that signal. I can't tell if it's supposed to be you, or if there's another Devil Fruit user, or even if there's an actual uneaten Devil Fruit on the island somewhere. So, we're kind of up a river without a paddle."

"That was actually a concern I had when you told me you were Devil Fruit Hunters. I was worried you were here to try to extract my powers or something."

"Actually," Fein said, "if we really wanted your Devil Fruit, we would just kill you and go find where it regrew. That's how we usually do it." He shrugged, not showing even an ounce of tact.

"Real nice, Fein," Jin scolded him.

"That's not going to happen," Halcen told Mal. "Sure, our main mission is to find Devil Fruits, but we also need a doctor. We need to have someone to keep us alive when shit goes wrong."

"Yeah, yeah," Fein said, casually waving them off.

"Plus, I'd rather have someone with Devil Fruit powers on our side for once. This Sick Sick Fruit, that's a Paramecia, right?"

"It is," Mal nodded.

Halcen took out his Devil Fruit book and began perusing. "Ah, there it is. The Byoki Byoki no Mi. It grants one the ability to inflict any illness onto anyone simply by touching them. That sure does sound pretty useful." He looked to Mal, realizing how that must have seemed. "Uh, I just like to have all the information available."

"What is that?" she asked.

"It's an encyclopedia of Devil Fruit."

She looked upon the book with awe. "That is an impressive resource."

"It's definitely come in handy, especially with the career we've forged."

"I can imagine so."

"So, anyway, about the island. What information can you share with us?" Halcen asked returning to their primary focus.

"Well, it's called Wickthorne Island. And as I'm sure you might have guessed; this is a swamp island. The weather fluctuates year-round. There's always something going on. But the people here have learned how to handle it and have become hardy, not to mention the wildlife as well. Also, this island has what I like to call its own spirit. Everyone thinks it's voodoo, but I can tell. I've been here long enough and seen enough to know there's something deeper here than just us surface dwellers."

She might be an Observation Haki user, and she doesn't even realize. "What else? Tell us about the village," Halcen said.

"Well, the village leader's name is Turoc. He's the man who tried to throw me into the fire."

"I figured he had to be the head."

"I helped birth him. And he still tried to kill me," she said, trailing off. "There's something dark going on here and they can't see it. They're blinded by fear."

"How long has this plague been going on?" Halcen asked.

"A few weeks. It seemed like nothing at first, an old man died a couple days after coming back from the swamp. We just figured it was his age. But slowly, everyone else started getting sick too. A few dozen people have died already. It's like nothing I've ever seen before."

"Do you have any clues as to what it might be?" Halcen asked. "Any one new on the island or something suspicious?"

"Not that I've seen. I can't find anything that could possibly have started any of this. There's nothing to go on. I feel like I'm just missing something."

"Probably," Halcen said. "Tell me about the victims. Is there anything connecting them?" Halcen asked, trying to put together some sort of thread.

"It's a plague. It's not picky. It grabs onto whoever is nearby and just spreads. We've tried a quarantine and it had no effect. It spread through all our defenses and it's pretty much spread through the whole village. We've only lost a couple dozen to death, so far, but about a hundred have been infected."

"What exactly are the symptoms?" Halcen asked.

"Well first thing is nausea, then vomiting, intense fatigue, your joints begin to feel stiff, so most people are restrained to their beds, and finally death. It's been difficult watching all these people go through it, but I've done everything I can to help. No matter what medicines I use, I can only ease a little pain. Until I find out the exact nature of this plague, there's nothing I can do to actually help these people. And I've tried everything I could think of. There's just not enough information to create a cure. If I just… knew where it came from, I could do something about it." She sounded desperate. People's lives were in her hands and she wasn't able to do anything.

"Well, this sounds like a pretty intense situation," Halcen stated. "So, the first thing we need to do is gather more information. You yourself haven't noticed anything unusual, but that doesn't mean other people haven't. And that information they might have intentionally kept from you. You said yourself you've always been an outcast, right? So, we need to go talk to people who might know things you've been kept in the dark about."

"That would be Turoc," Mal said. "As the head of the village, if there's information, he knows about it."

"Damn," Halcen said. "Well, I guess we're going to have to go pay this asshole a visit."

The crew, aside from Morkine and Jory, headed out of Malthory's house. Morkine needed to rest his shoulder on doctor's orders, and they decided to leave Jory with him in case something happened.

Mal showed them back into the village, where the mess from earlier in the day had been cleaned up. The wooden podium had been taken down and the fire pit was gone as well. The town wasn't particularly fancy, most everything was just simple wood buildings set of slightly solid dirt ground. In this swamp, there were few places where you could actually put up buildings, and this was one of the solid earth places to do it. They continued on their way until she brought them to a house. It was Turoc's home.

Mal knocked.

There was no response.

"Is he not home?" Halcen asked Mal.

"I don't know. It's the middle of the day, he could be out doing many different things."

"Hello!?" Halcen shouted.

"Who is making all that racket?" a woman's voice from inside the house said. She came to the door and opened it. She was a tall, slender woman with dark skin and a beautiful face. She looked to be in her thirties.

"Well, hello," Halcen said.

"Maybell. I was looking for Turoc," Mal said. "You're home so early?"

"I had to come home to take care of Crona. She is ill."

"Oh, no. She isn't…?"

Maybell didn't say anything else on the subject. Just stared at Mal with contempt.

"You don't seriously believe I had something to do with all this, do you? I've known you since you were just a baby. I took care of you when you got sick. You know me. Why would I suddenly decide to change and start hurting people after I worked so hard to keep you all alive?"

"People say you snapped after Audra."

Halcen looked at Mal. Audra?

Mal's face flared with anger for a moment. Then she tried to repress her anger and it turned into swilling sadness. "What happened… to her… was a horrible thing. I loved her, and I miss her very much," she groaned. "But I would never use her death as a reason to betray my very nature and sacred duty as a doctor. I have looked over you all since you were children, and no matter what has happened, I could never do anything but feel a sense of guardianship. I only want what is best for you all."

Maybell sighed. "He's at Ligo's."

"Thank you."

The two parted as Mal stepped away from the door and Maybell closed it.

"Ligo's?" Halcen asked.

"It's a place where people go to drink alcohol and forget their worries."

"Oh, so a bar?" Halcen said. "You know, I always say if you're looking for something to start in the bar. They always have info."

"Not really a bar. The bar was closed down during the quarantine. People have flocked to Ligo's to drink. He's just a man. He doesn't own any businesses. But he wanted a safe place for people to culminate and try to forget in this dark time. His own wife passed as well."

"Hmm… people here are really in a bad spot," Halcen said. "Alright, let's head over there. Lead the way."

When they got around to the new area of the village, Mal led them inside the building. She knew nobody wanted her there, but this was important. Saving these people went beyond making them comfortable with their paranoia. She had to expose them to the truth, no matter how difficult it was to get to. Halcen and the others followed her inside the house. It was small on the inside. There was a narrow entrance that was pushed against two walls on either side. They walked in single file line to the end of the hall and ended up in the kitchen. Mal looked around and saw just one person inside the house. Ligo. He was about average height, but he had muscular arms, long blonde hair, and he was covered in tribal tattoos. He was in the kitchen scraping some ice into a tin bucket from a giant block in his cold room to the side. He hadn't heard anybody come inside.

"Ligo," Mal said.

The man turned, startled. "Oh shit!" He dropped the bucket, but held onto the icepick. "Please don't hurt me. I was… caught up in it all, you know. I… I'm sorry," he said, panicking. He slowly backed up.

"I'm not here to hurt anybody," Mal said. "I just need to talk to Turoc."

"Oh, God, you're here to kill him. Listen, he was just looking out for us, okay?"

"I just said that I'm not going to hurt anybody. I swear, you people need to learn how to listen. You get up in arms over every little thing. Every time I even sneeze, you all jump. Just calm down and tell me where Turoc is."

Ligo was mum.

"Ligo!"

He jumped in place. "Oh…kay. He's out in the back. That's where I serve the people. I don't have much room in the house, and when people get drunk they get rambunctious and break things. I wanted a safe environment for people to blow off steam."

"I'm not here to scold you either," Mal said, rolling her eyes. "I actually think you're doing a good thing for the people, especially after all you've been through."

"Yeah…" Ligo said, drifting off in his head.

"Take care of your ice before it all melts," Mal said. Then she walked toward the back door, opened it, and they followed her through this one as well. Mal saw Turoc sitting alone at a table, apart from another table full of people. He was downing an ale in a glass mug.

Mal turned to Halcen and said "Give me a minute alone with him."

"Okay." Halcen motioned for the others to follow him to a separate table for themselves. They all sat down and began talking about the situation.

Mal walked over to Turoc and sat down in the seat across the table from him. "Drinking alone?" she asked with concern. "Doesn't seem like you."

"Crona's sick," he spat.

"I heard. I'm sorry."

"Is that an admission of guilt?"

Mal sighed. "Why does everything have to be so difficult with you?" she asked. "From the moment you were conceived you were nothing but problems."

"You sound like my mother."

"Well, someone ought to, God rest her soul." Then she started reminiscing. "You know. you gave her quite a scare a few months in. The moment you got your legs, you began kicking like a maniac round the clock. And one day it was so severe that she started bleeding and then you just stopped. We were terrified she'd lost you. After having tried for so long to conceive, that was your parents' worst fear. You were fine of course, but your mother needed medication. Then when it came time to actually be born, you stuck your ground for forty-six hours. It was a nightmare. Your poor mother." She began shaking her head. "And as a baby, you would scream and cry all the time, never stopping for a moment. And you were just so fussy about who you'd let hold you. If it was anyone but your mom or dad, you'd cry just so much harder. I have to say I took it a little personally when you wouldn't let me hold you," Mal chuckled. "And when you were two, you broke your arm, and we tried to figure out how but all you said was 'I don't know.' To this day, we still have no idea how it happened. I think you were probably doing something you knew you weren't supposed to and didn't want to get in more trouble."

"I still have the scar," he said, looking at his right arm. He rubbed his elbow.

"And at six, good grief, you were missing for two days and then just suddenly popped back home while your parents were out looking for you. We had spent all night and day searching for you, and again you wouldn't tell us what happened."

"I actually remember that. I was in the swamp. I was…" he began trying to recollect his memory through his drunken state. "I had followed this buckrabbit away from the village and deep into the swamp. Then I found this whole beaver colony was out there. I just spent all my time just watching them. They were so interesting."

Mal laughed "That's much different than I had assumed happened." She shook her head in disbelief. Then she got solemn. "And then, at twelve you started getting into fights. You were so angry over losing your mother. You just wouldn't let anyone tell you anything. You shut off emotionally and started thinking with your fists. But of course, you were the strongest kid on the island so everyone started getting in line to be your friend. I could never tell if it was because they were scared of your or because they idolized you. But I'm not sure you really cared, as long as you were on top and didn't have to talk about it. So, you just kept punching your way up. And when I tried to tell you what a was going on with people getting sick, you just wouldn't hear it. And when they came to you for leadership, you decided to make more trouble."

Turoc's face twitched.

"You knew I hadn't hurt anyone, but you also couldn't actually fight this enemy. So, you resorted to other means of violence, seeing as how it's always gotten you what you wanted in the past." She was getting choked up and cleared her throat. "And even still, after all these years, after everything you've done, I still love you."

Turoc fought back a tear. He knew he had been in the wrong, and he knew she knew. But he couldn't admit it. He couldn't let her in. He couldn't take the chance and lose everything he had built.

"And I can still save your child. I just need your help."

He looked at her with glossed eyes and tried to maintain his composure. He couldn't let himself hope… or could he? "What can I do?"

She was very gentle with her words. "I need to know if there was anything unusual to happen before all this broke out. I need you to think very carefully. Any little thing that was amiss. Anything somebody in the village might have mentioned in passing. Any little clue that might point to what started all this."

"There was some chatter…" Turoc said. "Someone said they saw a man in a fancy suit come through the village about a month before."

"A man in a fancy suit? That's peculiar. What does that even mean. Who was he? What was he doing?"

"I don't really know. It was up at the north end of the village near Bern's place. They said they saw him heading north into the Forbidden Swamp. They had been following him, but once he headed up there, they had to stop."

"The Forbidden Swamp? Yeah, it's dangerous in there. No normal person would willingly go in there."

"Yeah…" Turoc swallowed another swig of his ale.

"Well curses," Mal said, not actually swearing. "This is the only lead we have?"

"That's all I heard about. And most people tell me when they hear something."

"Yeah, that's why I had to go to you. I wonder if this man is connected to the plague."

"I have no idea. But it's the only weird thing I've heard about."

"Well, I guess we'll have to go into the Forbidden Swamp."

"What?! Are you crazy?! You know how bad the stories are. That's one absolute rule about living here: You don't go into the Forbidden Swamp. It's forbidden for a reason."

"I don't have a choice, Turoc. We have to find out what this man was after. This is our only lead and if there's even a slight chance he's connected to what's going on here, I have to risk it."

He sighed. "Fine. Just please, be careful in there."

She stood up from the table. "Thank you, Turoc. I'll do everything in my power to save this island. You just keep them alive until I get back."

"I'm trusting you," Turoc said.

"That's the first smart thing you've said since you were a child."

He just shook his head in annoyance.

Mal went back to Halcen and the others at their table. "So, we have a lead. But you're not going to like it."

"Why?"

"There was a man in a suit about a month before the plague started. He headed into the Forbidden Swamp."

"Forbidden Swamp?"

"It's an area of the island we've learned to steer clear from. It's haunted."

"Haunted?" Halcen chuckled. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"Oh, how I wish it weren't so," Mal said. "But it's true."

"All of these apparitions always have a logical explanation."

"Yeah, I'd have to second that," Jin said. "More than likely it's swamp gas and wind. Actual phantasma are just a myth."

"I don't know about that," Grey said. "In my travel's, I've encountered a lot of things that don't come with reasonable explanations."

"Not to be insensitive," Halcen said, "but you're not really the best judge on what works logically. You're a good dude, but you're not super intelligent. So, it makes sense that you would struggle to find meaning in more complex situations."

"If you want to call me dumb, just do it. But at least have the decency to hear out what I say. I've been around much longer than you and seen things that would make even your mind twist. So, I've learned how to be open-minded. If you go through all this without even considering the other possibilities, it's not going to go well for you."

"Well, I guess we'll just have to go and see for ourselves then, huh? We need to know what this man was doing out there, and going ourselves seems to be the only way to make that happen."

"I swear this adventure gets weirder and weirder," Bo said.

"To the 'haunted' swamp we go," Halcen said.