Hi! It feels like a long time since I last updated, but I just checked and it was a little over a month ago… I suppose that means it's been a productive month.
I wrote a short story about how Saki's parents met. If anyone's interested, it's on my tumblr, in the Scribbles section, tagged as Inky Fragments.
Aside from that, I've put 125 hours into Persona 5 in three weeks. If someone has to be blamed for the delay between chapters, it's the game. Yeah… I'll be hiding over there.
Actually, before hiding, I want to say that I've edited this chapter as thoroughly as I've been able to, but I'm 120% sure that I'll be tweaking things tomorrow because I've got the feeling that I've missed obvious things. The kind of really obvious, face-palmy things that you only catch when the chapter is out there and everybody has seen it. Sorry for using you as my guinea pigs. My schedule has gotten out of hand lately and it has turned my brain to mush.
Jag: Thanks! In the end I ended up not taking that break and working on my other story because apparently don't know when to quit, haha.
And thanks to everyone reading and reviewing! I hope you enjoy the chapter!
16. Falling into place
(Robbery, assault and battery, the felon and his felony)
Inside of the inn's dining room, without uttering a word, Felicia calmly took a chair, sat on it, put her hands together under her chin, glanced at the clock, and then stared at the group of seven men, one woman and one bear in front of them, five of them looking worse for wear and covered in some sort of white dust. She gestured towards the table, inviting them to take their own seats.
White powdery clouds went up as they sat.
"Someone please explain," she began when the air cleared, and the quietness of how she said it made her scarier, "what you did this time."
Mack, who was a little to the side of the group and nearest to her, only uncrossed his arms to point to the others and say, "They broke into Carpus's mansion."
Felicia's composure disappeared to allow her jaw to hit the floor.
"But you helped!" Penguin retorted.
"I was already inside!"
"Oh my God," Felicia said in a tiny voice, and she began thinking out loud. "He'll be looking for you everywhere. Did your Log Pose set already? And Mack, if he saw you—"
"He didn't see anybody because he's dead," Law said. Everybody except Bepo whipped their heads towards him, and he had to cut short the barrage of questions and curses that ensued. "He was dead when Bepo and I got to the studio, and someone had opened a safe before us."
"You're talking as if there had been more than one." Saki said, frowning. "I thought you'd opened it when the alarm went off."
"There were two. Ours was a dud."
Saki hit her head against the table in response, leaving a white circle on it.
"We've been played. Twice." Shachi groaned.
Law didn't appear concerned. "We got what we wanted, nonetheless. We had a message to get across, and we did."
"I can't think of any way to make it clearer and louder," Penguin said, and on second thought he added, "I mean, literally. A collapsing mansion is pretty visible."
"Exactly. And that Marine officer is probably alive, so he'll pin everything on us."
"Officers," Saki corrected him. "I overheard the other calling the hammer psycho 'Commander.'"
"Oh my God. Oh my God," Felicia repeated over and over holding her head in her hands.
"Carpus's… Carpus's mansion has collapsed?" Buzz cut guy asked.
"And we missed it?!"
"Amazing."
When the newly received information sank in, Felicia gulped and, with the face of someone who's suffering from a severe case of trainwreck syndrome and just can't look away, said, "So, assuming we have a few hours before law enforcement arrives guns blazing, will any of you tell me what exactly happened?"
—
Carpus lived in a estate located between the outskirts of the tourist complex and the financial district of the city, where the people who were far too distinguished to be bothered with expensive apartments in the city had their homes.
It was, incidentally, the area where Pomona Hazel lived as well, but that wasn't relevant. It was also the former home of the Pomona family before they had to sell it to pay the settlements to the victims of the explosion a decade ago, and that detail was relevant only as far as knowing the placement of a few things inside the manor, one of which was a concealed exit.
The night in which the Log Pose was going to set, a team comprised of Law, Bepo, Penguin and Saki went to find that secret exit with the purpose of getting back at Carpus and stealing the documents for Pomona. Bob had guaranteed them his support from the inside, which he couldn't roam freely because he didn't need to sneak into the mansion like a thief in the night, and since that was exactly what they were, the job had fallen on them.
There were to security guards in front of the main gate, but that wasn't where they were headed. Following Pomona's instructions, they walked to a block away of the place, where they found a square storm drain.
They let Bepo go ahead and take out the grate. It was rusty, likely because it hadn't seen use for its real purpose in a long time, and it creaked loudly when Bepo managed to get it unstuck after a slight struggle. Once removed, it revealed an opening and an old metal ladder.
"There was a time in my life," Penguin said flippantly, "when I thought that being a pirate was more about the adventure and the treasure and less about treading inside sewers. Silly, I know."
"But both things are so thrilling," said Saki, sounding bored and a just a little bit spiteful, "especially when you're wearing a skirt."
"That was a nice dress," was Penguin's reply. "You still got it?"
"Screw you too."
"This isn't a sewer," Law said as soon as he lowered himself down the ladder, and when he hit the ground the rest followed right behind. Bepo needed help when he got momentarily stuck in the hole, and they tugged at his legs until his midriff slid in and he almost dropped on top of his crewmates.
The tunnel was dry and made of stone masonry. There were grates on the floor that kept it dry, probably connecting to the actual sewer system, and the walls were lined with soft orange emergency lights, bright enough to see inside, but dim enough to not be noticed from the street above.
"Secret passages are adventurous," Bepo said to Penguin after he stopped panting from the effort. He inspected his surroundings with suspicion, trying to see if there were any other spots that could turn into a trap for him.
Saki walked a few steps ahead, somehow managing to be mostly silent despite her heels. "It doesn't look like it branches out."
"It should lead directly to the first floor, according to our info." Law said, glancing the direction they had to take, and then turned to look at his crew. "Is the plan clear?"
"You go to the studio with Bepo and we look for the basement," Saki answered.
"I cut the power from the generator and she whacks anybody who finds us while I'm doing it," Penguin continued.
"And we open the safe while the power's out so the alarm doesn't go off," Bepo finished.
Law nodded approvingly. "Try not to go loud unless it's unavoidable."
"And what do we do if we go loud?"
Law gave a shrug and a small smirk. "Whatever. Do what you thought being a pirate was about. We'll be leaving tomorrow anyway."
Penguin grinned at that.
The path was straightforward, and in no time they found themselves staring at a narrow staircase that led to a trapdoor above. Once again, Bepo went ahead and opened it, this time with less difficulty than before, and the Heart Pirates surfaced in such a pitch black room that they wondered if the other team had already pulled out the district-wide blackout, but as soon as they got squished against the oddly narrow walls and even Saki managed to hit her head on the ceiling, they realized they actually were inside somewhere much smaller. They pushed each other in a pathetic attempt to get some space while a bear tried to make its way into an already cramped space, and Saki fumbled with her hands on the wooden walls until she found a doorknob and turned it. The three of them were sent forward and tumbled into a plushy dark red carpet as Bepo managed to finish squeezing himself up, and Saki's hand went to where she was hiding her newly acquired tattoo, because she had fallen on that arm and it hurt.
It was a lavish hallway, with beige walls and golden lamps, and they had just come out from a cupboard under a flight of stairs.
To their right, there was a dead end decorated with a small palm tree that only a miracle had allowed to stay upright after they had hit it with the cupboard door. To their left, the corridor split left and right, and the windows along the way showed the lights coming from the lamps and the neighboring homes. The other team hadn't cut off the district's power yet.
They kept quiet for a few tense seconds, taking in the location, until Bepo's confused but judgmental stare made them realize they were sprawled on the floor and wasting time like the bunch of awkward idiots they were, and they got up right away.
"I can't hear anybody nearby," Bepo informed them, ears twitching.
"There isn't supposed to be much staff at this hour. Security should be low too." Law eyed the stairs next to them. "Bepo, let's get going. We'll reunite here when we're done."
"We should wait inside the cupboard, at least," Saki said. "How much time until the first blackout?"
"They should be cutting the power in about…" Penguin pulled out a pocket watch from his boiler suit to check the hour. "…Ten minutes."
"Ten minutes to find the studio and the generator, plus turning it off," Saki said to herself, "plus opening the safe, plus another few to get back here… What will it take, twenty to thirty minutes?"
"Ideally," Law replied. "Let's assume that if we aren't all here by then, someone, somewhere has fucked up and needs help."
"I like that way of thinking." They had a long chain going on, and it could go wrong at way too many points.
"Let's be fast," Law said. "The longer we're here, the easier we'll get caught."
"Right. See you in half an hour."
"Come on, Bepo."
"Aye! Later!"
Saki watched them take the steps up, which creaked painfully loud in her former sneaky hitwoman ears. Penguin passed her and walked towards the fork silently but way too casually for someone who should be on high alert. She rushed to catch him, feeling grateful that the plushy material was muffling their footsteps. Then again, the same could be said for those of the people they wanted to avoid at all costs.
"Crouch down a little at least," she whispered as she pulled him down. There was no doubt in her mind that if this had been Shachi, he'd be complaining about her trying to literally drag him to her level. "Anyone outside can see us through the windows."
"Huh." He looked back and forth between the windows and Saki. "Right. I'll be careful."
"Listen closely before turning any corners. Walk close to heavy furniture whenever possible; there's carpet, but the floorboards will creak less anyway and you'll be able to duck behind them in a pinch. And if you really, really need to take out someone, either knock them out with a single blow or go for the throat to minimize the noise."
Penguin stared at her blankly and said, a bit impressed, "You know, Shachi's been right all this time. You can be fucking scary when you aren't being dumb."
Saki wanted to say that she had learned all that because she had needed to, not because she wanted, but time was of the essence and that wasn't the moment to start caring about what others thought of her, even if it stung a little.
"Let me walk ahead. You're the one who knows how to operate the generator, and if someone has to soak up hits it should be me."
Penguin looked like he wanted to say something, too, but he swallowed and only uttered an unenthusiastic, "Fine."
Saki nodded at him with a more serious expression than she usually wore, and doing her best to remember the directions they had been given, began to guide Penguin towards the basement.
—
Fifteen minutes later, Saki and Penguin had made the trip back and forth from the basement without any hold ups, which surely had to mean that all hell was breaking loose upstairs while they huddled up together inside a cupboard, hiding from three Marines they had just seen coming out of one of the many, many rooms on the hallway.
"This isn't a good place to be," Saki said, equal parts nervous and concerned.
"We're fucked," Penguin replied succinctly.
"I was trying not to say it."
Saki remembered the joy she had felt when, for once, she had been able to take her sword with her before heading headfirst into danger, rubbed her cheek against it and even whispered sweet little nothings into its hilt. Now, in a cramped corner of a cupboard shared with Penguin, straining their ears to hear what was going on outside while they sat in complete darkness, it felt more like a bother, because swords had a tendency to be good for fighting and a burden to lug around, which was why hers tended to end up stored in the sub more often that it should.
Then again, she thought side-eyeing the spot where Penguin was, even if she couldn't see a thing, it wasn't as bad as a spear. Who in their right mind used spears anyway?
The sound of steps near the cupboard made them hold their breath. Boots pounded on the plushy carpet of the hallway, and they seemed to be all over the place. What was nearly sure was that Law and Bepo had been found out already, or the soldiers wouldn't have been moving that hastily.
It was supposed to be just them, a few security grunts, and Bob keeping an eye on Carpus, not a Marine contingent roaming the mansion doing who knew what.
"We should try to reunite with the others," Saki said. "And this place is huge."
"They'll be easy to find. Just listen for the sounds of scuffle."
"I'm not sure 'scuffle' is the right word for what Captain usually gets into."
"Then just listen for the cries of terror." Penguin shifted, presumably to look through the gap under the door, but it wasn't like he could see anything from there with all the lights off.
Saki crawled from her spot to where he was, and as quietly as she could, opened the door a fraction. There was no one in sight, but more importantly, she couldn't hear anyone.
It was eerily silent, and if those two had really been found out, it didn't make sense. The inconsistency put her on edge.
"Are we clear?" Penguin whispered.
"I think so," Saki replied, opening the door all the way and stepping outside to stretch her legs. "But we aren't going to find them by ear."
"Then let's head to the studio. That's where they should be, anyway."
"This is gonna be fun."
"At least the blackout went right. That should buy us time."
Saki was about to say that something was bound to go right sometimes when the lights came back on. She stared at Penguin with a sad face that he returned, and both sprinted towards the nearest staircase.
—
Although Shachi considered himself more of an action man, he couldn't deny that he was acquiring a taste for ninja jobs, especially now that he had his own particular minions to order around and supervise. This was how Bepo tried to feel, probably, though they thwarted his attempts by ignoring him on a regular basis.
These guys, though, they were different. They were enthusiastic. Eager to prove themselves. The perfect mix of thrill-seeking, useful, and indifferent to a degree towards human life, that attitude one tended to acquire when repeatedly fucked over by superiors who just wanted to you to work for the least amount of money and only had the decency not to crack a whip at you because they didn't want a union man breathing down their necks.
Strolling under the streetlights, as if they weren't about to commit a city-wide crime, Shachi's team headed for the posh district in search of a way to cut off the power. The one leading the group, Uni, was the most energetic of all, and Shachi wondered how he was able to see with that mask in the middle of the night, never mind the irony that he was wearing sunglasses in the dark.
"It's around the corner," he explained for Shachi's benefit, repositioning the bag with his welding materials on his shoulder. "We'll get it done in a moment. Tuttu, get ready."
Said man nodded and patted a finger against a crowbar he was carrying. "Already ahead of you."
Shachi only paid passing attention to the exchange. He was busy looking around, searching for people who might be watching them. "I was wondering the last time I was near here," he said. "Is this place this empty all the time?"
"At night," said the buzz cut guy, also known as Asuka, donning a pair of rubber coated gloves. "Lots of housekeeping staff running up and down during the day, but everyone's sleeping at this hour. There's no reason to be out."
"Sad, don't you think?" Uni asked, stopping before an electrical box in an alley and fumbling with a ring of keys. "They're so fancy they don't have a frigging bar in their neighborhood. Those are for poor people."
"They've got the complex."
"If they want to sell a kidney for a beer," he replied, sliding the key into the lock that kept the box closed. It opened easily. "Guys, in position. Shachi," he turned to face him, puffing out his chest in pride and signaling to a spot in the box. His voice was grinning. "It's this button. You can do the honors."
Shachi grinned back. "Sure. Whenever you're ready."
Tuttu inserted the crowbar in a small crevice on the hefty-looking manhole cover and pulled it open with a grunt.
"Now." Asuka said sternly, and Shachi pressed the button. The streetlights flickered for a few seconds and then went off. Whithout missing a beat, Asuka took out a huge cable cutter and nipped a few select ones with an amazing degree of mastery. He removed himself from the manhole as the cover fell back in place.
"My turn," Uni said, taking a welder first to the manhole, then to the box lid to seal it completely.
The only light on the street now was that of the sparks, thankfully concealed from view between the buildings.
"No reaction," Shachi said.
"Not here," Tuttu said once he stopped panting. "But you'll see in a minute."
They waited patiently for Uni to be done, watching out for anyone who might approach, but the area was quiet. At last, they left the alley, went to a nearby park to watch from a higher spot, and Shachi was treated to a magnificent view of the area and half of the faraway complex with its lights out.
"I give them 30 minutes before the generators die," Asuka said.
"With all those neon signs? Make that 15," Uni replied.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Tuttu asked to no one in particular.
"Hell yes," was Shachi's reply.
—
Carpus' studio was heated by an electric fireplace that had absolutely no use in a summer island other than looking pretentious and casting hypnotic light patterns on the brown leather couches. Its owner was contentedly sipping wine like an evil overlord that knows his plan has gone off without a hitch while his impending doom loomed over him unexpectedly, and Bob was standing by the wet bar like a well-trained watchdog along with a man so burly that he only fit through the doors sideways. He was inspecting a bottle of coconut liquor with a distrustful stare, and he had leaned a war hammer against the wall, much to Carpus' disapproval, who was sure that was going to leave a mark.
It was a small price to pay for the security he provided, though. Carpus hadn't been bothered by that pirate crew of nobodies, and if they had been waiting for their last day on the island to strike, he had taken the appropriate steps to ensure his own safety.
Said steps took the shape of a commodore and a commander of the Navy that were looking into the restaurant incident.
"My apologies for coming here with such short notice," the commodore, late fifties or early sixties, said to Carpus. He had neatly cropped black hair, with a goatee in the shape of a triangle and broad sideburns that curved up in a pointy end just frustratingly short of becoming a moustache, creating the distracting illusion that there were three arrows pointing at his nose. He wore his Justice coat over a plain hot pink shirt and sandals, donned for the sole purpose of giving off a more tropical feel. The formal black pants with pinstripes killed the effect nicely. "I understand that you are a busy man. But between the reports and what happened earlier this week, I thought it necessary to meet."
"No need to apologize, Commodore Curtiss." It had ben Carpus who had insisted on that night, after all, when he had expressed his wish to visit. "My only grievance is that, had not been the restaurant closed for the investigation, I wouldn't have had time to book for tonight the best cook our island has to offer."
Curtiss hummed appreciatively. "The dessert was lovely. Is there a recipe?"
"He won't give it to anybody," Carpus replied with a smug smile. "Trade secret, he says."
"Understandable, but a shame. The food at the base could use an improvement." Curtiss replied, scratching his goatee. There was a glass of wine in his other hand, but he hadn't even smelled it yet. "In any case, we should get to the matter at hand. The investigation at the complex isn't turning up any suspects, which would point to the staff. I have heard that there are new waiters on the floor often."
Carpus fiddled with his glass nervously. "Yes, that is true. You know how these entry-level jobs are, people come and go." He took a large sip for courage.
Curtiss hummed. "That constant influx of new people, considering who the target was, leads us to think that someone influential in this city ordered a hit on Miss Pomona Hazel."
The wine of a well-executed plan went down a wrong pipe, and during the coughing fit that ensued, managed to drip from Carpus' nose to his cravat. "E-excuse me?" He wheezed. "Wasn't this the work of thugs? Heaven knows there are more than we can hold in the more… modest neighborhoods."
Curtiss shook his head. "This was too well coordinated to be a spontaneous attack, and too risky for a simple robbery. Besides, the restaurant staff claims they didn't see anyone suspicious. It could have been one of them or a customer, I suppose, but a customer couldn't move around as freely. Hence our deduction."
"And what about the dead man?" Carpus said in hopes of diverting the subjet. "Do we have a name yet?"
"No. Miss Pomona insists that he was supposed to be a merchant, but we haven't found him in any registries. Truth be told, there is a possibility that the target was him."
Carpus saw the ray of sunshine that theory offered. "An unknown man meeting with Pomona for business? I'd hate to suspect of a colleague with such a good reputation, but couldn't the hit have been her order?"
"It is a possibility," he conceded. "There have been concerns about the legality of some of the trade in this island, as you know. If she had been involved, and wanted to cover it up… Ah, but this is all speculation for now. I just thought you should know that it is very likely that foul play between the members of your association was involved. We'll need your cooperation to investigate further. Could you give us a list of—?"
The lights went off.
"A general blackout, I'm sure." Carpus said, trying to sound calm and failing. A chill ran down his back. He had a bad feeling about this whole situation. "The basement generator should start in a moment."
A moment, two, even three or four by the most generous standards passed, but as they waited in silence, the lights didn't come back on. Carpus got up from his seat, fear of being arrested overruled by annoyance that something of his wasn't working like it should, and was reflecting on him deplorably. "What in the blazes—"
Then, the door to the studio opened quietly, and Carpus' face drained of all color, not that it was noticeable, when he saw two shadows cast by the moonlight. No one in his staff was that big and wide, and no one else either carried a menacing-looking stick taller than a person.
"Who is that?" Curtiss asked.
They were gone in the blink of an eye, and Curtiss, conditioned from decades of chasing after guilty people whose first reflex when they saw him was to run, took off after them.
"Emil! Take the lower floors!"
"Yes, Commodore, sir!" The hammer-man exclaimed, and disappeared into the hallway after his superior, closing the door behind him with a slam.
"B-Bob?" Carpus called. There was no reply. He looked all around him, but there weren't any windows in the studio, so there was only pitch black darkness around him. "Bob?"
The carpet kindly muffled the sound of his wine glass and his body hitting the floor.
—
Pomona was in her bedroom, reading over customs documents, when the lights in her room blinked and went out. It lasted only a few seconds, until the generator she had home picked up the slack, and then someone knocked on the door.
"Hazel?" A deep woman's voice called.
"Come in, Layla."
The woman that had been abducted in her place stepped into the room carrying a small, untraceable Den Den Mushi. Former maid, childhood friend, and now right hand, Pomona had wondered many times how much Layla would put up with in her quest of recovering what the Pomona family had lost when the factory exploded, or when she'd grow weary of hiding while suitors hounded Pomona in a futile effort to grab at the prestige the two of them, along with Fitzwilliam, had worked together on regaining.
Hopefully, years of work would pay off that night.
Layla placed the Den Den Mushi on Pomona's desk, and Pomona gave her a fond smile that she didn't return, not because she didn't appreciate it, but because she wasn't keen on such gestures.
"Thank you," she said. "Can you stay here?"
Layla's expression softened somewhat, and she took a chair near the window and scooted it close to Pomona. "Nervous?"
"Elated," she replied with a demure smile as she dialed a number on the untraceable Den Den Mushi. It rang a few times before someone picked it up and a yawny voice replied on the other side. "Good night, Director. Tonight you will receive documents proving Mr. Carpus' involvement in a fraud related to the Cocopocalypse. I suggest that you prepare to print a supplement for tomorrow's edition."
"Who is this? How did you get this number?"
She ignored his questions. "Please wait for the delivery, and thank you for your cooperation. I assure you that it will be worth your time."
Pomona hung up, let out a small sigh and stretched on her chair. "Now we wait."
—
There were many things going through Law's head as he was faced with a dead end in the shape of a closet broom on the second floor of a mansion: that he had done well telling Bepo to split at an earlier fork, that the other two hopefully had been able to sneak into the hidden passage before they were discovered, that in the worst case he could jump out of a window, that Bob was still nowhere to be seen, not that that was remarkable in and of itself, and that he didn't want to find out what was the whitish substance that the Marine commodore was trying to aim at his feet.
A scream from the floor below made Curtiss hesitate, and that was all the time Law needed to extend his Room and switch the Marine with one of the brooms.
He unsheathed Kikoku with the intention of dismembering him, but the man recovered surprisingly fast and threw at him a punch covered in the aforementioned goo that he dodged narrowly, and when he sidestepped to put distance between them, he moved right on top of one of the failed throws from earlier. Curtiss lunged at him again, and when Law tried to dodge this time, his feet didn't move, and he got a fist to the face that unstuck him and sent him to the floor.
The man seemed to be dripping glue from his arms, but Law was fairly sure that he was a Paramecia type. As long as he had a physical body, Law knew he could stand up against him, especially when he was so familiar with a similar Devil Fruit.
Law moved his nodachi through the air, aiming to slice the Marine in half, and as the torso began to slide from his lower body, more glue came out to hold it in place.
"So you really are that Trafalgar Law," Curtiss said, unfazed. "I heard you gave one of my old subordinates trouble in North Blue."
"I wouldn't know who that was," Law replied, smirking, watching out for every twitch, every possible cue that hinted at the next attack. He needed to dodge until he could stun him long enough to cut him in several pieces. At the rate he was able to put himself back together, single slices weren't going to do the trick, and he had wasted a precious opportunity getting out of the way when he had sent him into the closet. "I gave trouble to a lot of people back there."
That answer didn't seem to sit well with the Marine. "And are you proud of it? Of all the people you've hurt along the way?"
"Get off your high horse," Law sneered. "Your side has much more blood on its hands than me."
"Don't compare yourself to justice, kid!" Curtiss bellowed, and lunged at him suddenly.
This time Law didn't dodge and tried to cut the hand Curtiss was trying to punch him with, but instead of slicing through it, the sword got stuck on the glue, which hardened and turned rock solid upon contact. He was flung around and tossed to the floor again, but he didn't let go of Kikoku.
Tiny sparks shot around his hand as he prepared to attack. "Counter Shock!"
The electricity traveled through the sword and struck Curtiss before he was able to fall on Law, and when he stumbled back, the glue softened for a second, which enough for Law to take back Kikoku. The only problem was that, when he had fallen on the floor, his left shoulder had landed once again on glue, he did the most effective thing he could think of in a split second to get out of the way before Curtiss recovered: he cut off his own arm.
Wisps of smoke were coming from Curtiss, and the look of pain on his face and the way he held his abdomen as he got up told Law that he had fried him enough to hurt some internal organs, but not to keep him still. He was going to prioritize working on that when he was back at the sub.
He tried cutting again, and this time he hit Curtiss' right leg above the knee and the other at the hip. The glue haphazardly fixed it once more, and though it didn't seem to hinder his movement by much, Curtiss looked like a broken action figure that had been put together by a particularly unskilled preschooler.
The sounds of fighting coming below that he caught made any hopes he had that his crew had safely gotten away vanish, but he couldn't afford to get distracted by that while he still had to find a way to hold up the Marine long enough to cut him into tiny pieces. Kikoku weighed heavily in his single hand, and he knew he wouldn't be able to move it fast enough without a really good opening.
Curtiss, however, wasn't wiling to give him one, and instead of going back to close combat, glue started shooting out from his fingers, intertwining and creating a web similar to a spider's.
"I'll bring your head to Mari, pirate," he spat the word in the same way Captain Marina did.
Law tightened his grip on Kikoku and got ready to slice at the glue strings coming for him.
—
Penguin stared dumbfounded at the kitchen he found himself in, where a dishwasher cowered behind a counter, and a very annoyed cook, who had been busy scrubbing a stove, glared daggers at him.
"What are you doing here?" Penguin asked when he found his bearings.
"That's my line," Mack said. "Can't you stay out of my business for one blasted week?"
"We, uh," he began uncomfortably, "we didn't know you'd be here."
"Get up from there, you're going to stain your uniform," Mack snapped at the dishwasher, who immediately straightened up, then turned back to Penguin. "Do you know what hour it is? Do you know how long they're going to hold us up again because you came here to break shit?"
"We didn't come tomhhpfffffhhhhh—!" Penguin's retort was cut short by a wet scourer to his mouth. While he spat it out and hacked, Mack kept going.
"You know what," Mack said in a fed up but decisive tone, "I'm done here. I'm done working for this asshole, I'm done with working on kitchens that aren't mine until the wee hours of the night, and I'm done with all the goddamn airborne coconuts in this island." He took off the white cap he was wearing, tossed it aside, and did the same with his apron, but flung it at Penguin instead for good measure. "And you are going to take responsibility for this. Bring me to your captain, now."
"W-wha—"
"Did I fucking stutter?"
Penguin gulped. "No, sir. R-right away, sir—I mean, I was trying to find him."
"Then time's wasting." And with that, he took a handful of knives from a drying rack and stuffed them in his belt, grabbing Penguin by a sleeve on the way out and stomping with the fury of an angry lapahn.
—
Saki had lost Penguin at some point during the scuffle, when a stray Marine had gotten the jump on them and called reinforcements, and when most of them had gone after him, she had been left to deal with a couple of guys that were too green to pose a problem. She dispatched the last one when a voice boomed down the corridor.
"There you are!"
A muscled man, wide as he was tall – and he was really tall, not just by Saki's standards – with a large hammer appeared from a little further up, blocking Saki's way to the floor up.
She looked around for alternate paths. There were a few doors around, but they were far more likely to lead to rooms than potential exits, and no windows in sight guaranteed that the only way to get out of there was through that man. She was going to have to fight seriously for the first time in months, and look at how well the last time would have gone without Law's help— Ah, but it wasn't the time to be insecure. The Old Man would have clobbered her if he had heard her thoughts.
Wherever he was, he was going to show him that all he had done for her hadn't been for nothing.
"Would you mind stepping aside?" She said, because in her mind there was always time to be cheeky with somebody that scared the clovers out of her. "I need to go upstairs."
"Yeah," he grumbled. "I would."
"Had to try."
Saki lifted her sword and ran towards him, but she had to dodge before she could strike, because the man was surprisingly agile for his size. The hammer fell, leaving a melon-sized indent on the floor and Saki's eyes on the brink of falling out from their sockets.
She made an effort to compose herself and regain her stance quickly, and aimed at the man's arms in hopes of making him drop the hammer, but she only scratched him with the tip of her sword, and he turned around to swing the hammer at her head. Saki rolled under his legs to avoid the hit and get behind him, and she managed to cut the man behind one of his knees.
He hissed in pain, but it didn't stop him. He swung around so fast that she wasn't in time to fully dodge, and was struck in the stomach by the handle of the hammer. She broke the fall on reflex with her arms, careful with her sword's position to not to get cut by it, and got on her feet with a fluid motion.
The man flinched when he rested his weight on his injured leg, but he didn't pay it much mind. Instead, he looked at Saki clinically. "Where did you learn to fight?"
"I wasn't aware I knew how to."
"Playing dumb won't hide that you know what you're doing."
Saki stared at the man in silence. He was right handed, which meant he could swing more easily to the left, and he was leaning most of his weight on his right leg. It was all the info she needed to charge. She feinted to the left, and crouching low to avoid the hammer directed at her head, went right to slice the Marine's leg upwards, near the crotch. His leg gave in, and Saki took the brief opportunity to kick his knee with her heel and bring the sword down on his left hand. Thankfully for the Marine, the edge wasn't what it used to be, and though it cut deep, it didn't sever it from his arm.
"Give up," she said. She was aware of the sounds of fighting coming from above and the ruckus below, and she needed to get out of that hallway before reinforcements came from somewhere unexpected, or Law and Bepo got into more trouble than they were currently in. She trusted that Penguin could, if worst came to worst, make his way through the passage and get out, though she doubted he would.
"I didn't get where I am running with my tail between my legs!"
With a huge howl, the man rose, and the blow he gave in Saki's direction struck a wall and made a hole that opened to a room, making bits of brick and plaster fly everywhere. Seeing a door on the other side, Saki leaped through the hole, too small for the man to pass, and ran straight through a bedroom to grab the doorknob. When she crossed the door, she stumbled into a hallway with windows and more stairs at the far end, which she made a beeline for before the Marine could make a bigger hole to pass through.
She was too busy with the immediate danger to appreciate that, for the first time in her life, she could fight and run for her life without her heart weighing her down.
—
Penguin and Mack ran upstairs, whacking a couple of Marines out of their way as Penguin tried to make sense of what was happening.
"What the hell are they doing here?" He wheezed after using his spear like a baseball bat to hit a Marine.
Mack dodged him elegantly and the Marine fell over the stairs' railing. "They've been snooping around the entire evening."
"And you haven't told security?"
"I don't get paid to talk."
"Dude."
"What? Nobody likes Carpus. You think the rest of the staff hasn't noticed? If he's being investigated nobody's going to stick their neck out for him."
Penguin had the impression that if they had asked the right person at the door, they would have been let in with no need to sneak through a tunnel. "I'm starting to pity the guy," he said.
"Save the pity for yourself, you need it more."
"Are you always this cranky?"
"I wonder whose fault that is."
As soon as they set foot upstairs, Penguin saw a blur coming towards them that his brain at first registered as a Christmas decoration launched at high speed. Upon closer inspection, in was Saki, running like her life depended on it while sounds of mass destruction that made the building vibrate went on in the background.
"UP! GO UP!"
"That's what we were doing," Mack replied.
"THEN STOP STAR—!" The wall next to Saki her exploded, and the shower of construction materials would have caught her had she not tripped on the carpet and face-planted a few feet away when she saw Mack. "The fuck are you doing here?!" She said, scrambling to her feet and looking back, only to see the Marine officer making his way towards them. The only saving grace for their group was that he couldn't run, but damn if he couldn't turn them into pirate pancakes if they didn't hurry.
"More vermin?" He said to himself, and without further warning, he lifted the hammer and threw it at the stairs. They crumbled, cutting off their only way upstairs as the Marines who had been hot on Penguin's trail showed up as well.
Penguin, Saki and Mack ended up surrounded and back to back with several firearms pointing at them and a giant man stared them down.
"Your luck is disgusting and contagious," Mack said, disgruntled, but as he spoke, his hand went to the knives in his belt.
"Nah, I think it's genetic." Penguin said. "We all had it from before."
"Seriously. I'm having flashbacks of Lymes," said Saki with an exhausted voice. Still, she tried not to let her fighting stance drop as she eyed the enemies, searching for a small opening.
Penguin gripped his spear and pointed it outwards, creating some distance between them and the soldiers, not that it was going to help much it they wanted to gun them down. The officer took this chance recover his hammer.
That seemed to pique Mack's curiosity. "Ran into trouble there, too?"
"I think your sister ran into us, actually—"
"You've got a sister?" Penguin asked at the same time Mack said, "How do you know I have a sister?"
"There's a lovely photo in your living room—"
"—I knew I should have burned everything—"
"What picture?"
"—and I wasn't sure but that dress—"
"That dress? The dress? What does it—?"
"That does it." As he spoke, Mack threw four of his knives in quick succession and stuck them in the barrels of the Marines' weapons. "Try and fire those now, assholes."
Penguin was able to exert enough self-control to not waste time staring at what just happened, and jumped the Marine closest to him. He saw from the corner of his eye Mack doing the same, somehow taking back his knife and a rifle from an enemy to whack him on the head with its butt.
The two remaining Marines were unsure what to do at the sudden reversal of the situation, and they looked at their officer hoping for orders that never came, because Saki had run straight at him as soon as there weren't guns trained on her to keep him busy while the others took care of the soldiers. She was breathing heavily, but the man was in worse shape, and there was a glint of determination in the way she looked at her opponent that Penguin had never seen before. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen her fight other than that bar brawl in North Blue, but her posture didn't look like that of someone who had learned to fight on the streets.
Penguin then redirected his attention to the Marines and stared down at them with a smirk, and the shadow the cap cast over his eyes gave him a sinister aura when he said, "Come try us, amateurs."
—
Law watched as the glue net closed in on him after he had cut it with his powers again and again, and the thing had just put itself together each time, when something slammed into a window from the outside, smashing the glass to bits, and a polar bear came in with flying kick to Curtiss' face, who ended up embedded into a wall.
Bepo landed gracefully and went into a kung-fu stance as he growled menacingly at the commodore, who was already dislodging himself from the wall. "Captain, are you alright?" He asked, and then he did a double take and panicked. "Your arm's on the floor!"
"Hadn't noticed," he said as he picked the offending limb with a tug and reattached it. Immediately, he cut the Curtiss in several pieces, and as soon as the glue began to put them together, he said, "Shambles," and switched a fragment of debris that had broken off from the wall with Curtiss' head, then flung it out the broken window.
The shrill scream he emitted reverberated across the neighborhood.
"Time to break into the safe," he announced, and Bepo followed after him without a word.
The studio, which they haven't been able to see while it was occupied, was not what they had been expecting. Carpus lay immobile on a pool of blood, and the rug had been shoved aside to reveal a hidden safe on the floor, already open.
"What…"
"Someone got here before us," Law said, approaching Carpus, careful not to step on the blood, to check his pulse. "He's dead."
"B-But why? This isn't even the safe we needed to break into, is it?"
"They used us as a distraction. Which means that they knew there would be Marines in the house."
Law rose and went to the one of the paintings on the wall. It wasn't the biggest, but it was the one they'd been told to look behind, and when he did, he was surprised to see that there was indeed a safe, a small one, hidden behind the frame. He tossed the picture aside, said, "Room," and immediately cut the safe's door open.
The alarm was set off, but it wasn't like they cared at this point, and Law refused to leave the place with their hands empty, aside from being curious.
—
Pomona and Layla were making eyes at each other when the bedroom window broke with a crash and a scream, and a severed head with glue coming from its neck rolled on the desk and finally got stuck on it.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH," the head cried.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH," they replied.
This went on for a while, up to and including when all the remaining staff in the house went to the room to find out what was going on with the mistress.
—
Saki didn't know how long she had been fighting the guy – rationally, she was sure that no more than a minute could have passed, but it felt like hours when an unholy noise started to blare through the house. Not that it mattered anymore, but it could complicate matters when – haha – if they managed to get out of the mansion.
She dodged on autopilot a blow from the man as Penguin and Mack rushed to her side to help, and the hammer struck the nearest wall to them, but when the Marine lifted it again, the walls shook, not just that one, but every single one in the building.
She only heard Penguin say the words, "master wall" and Mack's "shit" before fissures began forming from around the spot the hammer had hit, and the mansion started crumbling before their eyes in a sort of domino effect helped by the damage already done to the structure. Everybody present stared dumbly at the walls coming down and the situation didn't fully sink in until a great crack appeared of the ceiling, and the plaster that fell on their heads was the last warning they had before it came down on them, too, dragging with it all sorts of material, furniture and their two missing crewmates.
The floor also broke when the rubble hit it, and Law and Bepo continued their downwards descent, leaving the other three again on their own against the Marines until Saki said, "That's convenient," sheathed her sword and jumped down the hole without looking back. The other two caught on quickly and went right behind her.
She looked for her two companions among the rubble and discovered them nearby, getting rid of the debris on them and looking disgusting, but not grievously injured, which was probably how every single one of them appeared at the moment.
As soon as Law saw his crewmates jump through the hole, he yelled, "Go to the passage!"
Mack, who didn't know what the coconuts he was talking about but was finally in front of the Captain, thank goodness, got dragged along by Penguin to a closet under the stairs, and with a superhuman effort that no one should ever be asked to do, three adult men, one woman and a polar bear fit into it before the Marines gave chase.
A few moments of tension were lived when Bepo couldn't get through the trapdoor, and while Saki didn't generally approve of abusing animals, much less him, this was a situation that required drastic measures, such as shoving down with their feet until the poor beast stopped blocking the passage, which would have sent them to certain death or arrest. They ran the length of the tunnel as fast as their feet allowed, and when they were outside they kept going, trying not to draw the attention of the onlookers that had gathered around Carpus' mansion (at a safe distance, though – nobody wanted to get caught in another Cocopocalypse), and made for the working-class district through the unlit streets.
They only stopped to catch their breath when they were right next to Arnold's inn, and a scarce few seconds had passed when the other team opened the door and began to bombard them with questions, with Felicia looking at them curiously from behind.
"How did it go?"
"Did you find the safe?"
"You look like ass."
"Something happened?"
"Why did the lights come on again?"
Mack, however, when he saw those four appear before them, so enthusiastic, so innocent, so infuriatingly clean, took that chance to say exactly what he had been keeping inside for the last hour.
"You pack of soggy noodlebags!"
"Wha—"
"Do you have any idea of what it's like to be cooking for prissy douchecanoes day and night without pirates barging into your workplace every other day?"
"We didn't—"
"You didn't know? That's what you're going to say? Would knowing that I was there stopped you?"
"We might've—"
"Asked for more help, huh? I'm done with this. I demand compensation for fucking up my night shift twice—"
"Compensation?" Shachi said skeptically. "Seriously?"
"—keeping me awake again after I opened that door for you and hid you out of the goodness of my heart—"
"Dude, do you even know who you're talking—"
"—and since you have absolutely nothing I want other than, presumably, a functional kitchen, I'll take that, because after tonight there won't be a soul left in this island who'd hire me."
There was a moment of silence where everybody stared at Mack, and somehow Mack stared back at them all and almost made them feel guilty for existing.
"Um, what?" Penguin said.
"I think he's asking to join your crew," Felicia translated, a little disconcerted but mostly amused.
"Nobody's asking anything. This is non-negotiable."
"Sure, dear."
"Don't 'dear' me."
"We don't need a cook," Law intervened.
Saki's eyes shifted from Mack to Law nervously. "Actually, Captain, no offense but we kind of—"
Law took in a deep breath and sent her way a glare. If mind reading had been a thing between them, Law would have probably said something along the lines of, 'His sister is a Marine, dumbass,' and Saki would have replied, 'And isn't that a beautiful way of getting back at her?' But it wasn't, so that exchange didn't happen, and Saki backed out of the conversation, suddenly very interested in the coconut flakes still stuck between the cobblestones.
"I don't mean to be rude, but can't you have this conversation inside? You look pretty conspicuous," Felicia chimed in with the understatement of the century, and they followed her and decided to resume the argument once they were past the inn's threshold.
—
Somewhere in the island, the editorial staff of the local newspaper cursed the Heart Pirates, Mr. Carpus and their entire lineages as they typed nonstop to get the amended issue ready for print before the morning edition came out.
—
Felicia stared at the group before her with a blank expression. The wall clock, which had been pointing at midnight when they had begun their summary of the night's events, now announced that it was a half past one.
"You have to get out of here," said Felicia with a deadly serious expression as soon as the story was over.
"I was hoping for a shower, to be honest," Saki said, smudging white dust across her cheek when she scratched it.
"I mean the island— There'll be Marines everywhere in a matter of hours – your ship isn't very subtle, you know—"
Shachi bristled. "Hey, you got a problem with our ship, you got a problem with—"
"Oh, hush!" She cut him off, annoyed. "Go up, shower and get out. All of you. You'll get Arnold in trouble if they find you here, and if you do," she leaned slightly over the table, locking her eyes with Shachi menacingly, "I don't care who you are. I'll make you regret you ever set foot in our home."
And with this, she managed to kick the maintenance crew out and the pirates up to their rooms, though Law lingered behind to hand her some money.
"For the stay," he said, though Felicia hadn't prompted him for an explanation.
"Don't think I would've allowed you to leave without paying," she said, taking it from his hand way too fast.
The corner of his mouth curled up as he watched her count the bills with a frown. "I would've liked to see you try."
"Don't get cocky, Mr. Falafel," she replied, but the edge in her tone was gone. "People like you are a dime a dozen in this sea."
His only reply to that was an unimpressed glance, and he left for his room as well. The only remaining people were Mack and Felicia, and she wasn't looking at him when she asked, "You're leaving for real?"
"Might as well," he said tiredly. "I don't think I'll find a better chance."
"I don't think you will, either," she admitted. "They're pretty decent."
"I noticed."
"I'll miss you," she said quickly, just to get it over with, because she didn't want to get sentimental.
"Right back at you."
She looked at him and smiled, sweetly, sadly. "You better say goodbye to Arnold before you take off."
"You don't have to tell me. Is he in his room?"
"Yup."
Felicia watched Mack make his way towards the innkeeper's bedroom, leaving her on her own as she sat in the empty dining room, feeling acutely lonely all of a sudden. She then rose from her chair, and not minding how many guests she was going to wake up, she yelled, "I won't forgive you if you don't write at every port!"
She didn't get a response, but she knew she had been heard. Closing her eyes and taking a deep, deep breath, she decided that in the end, things had worked for the best for everybody. Mack was going to have another chance at a life he liked, and she had this place. Her place.
She resolved to keep it in tip top shape in case he ever came back, not that she had ever considered not to. She wasn't going to let him be the only one to gloat, after everything was said and done.
Whistling a happy tune, she set out to get a rag and a mop to wipe the dusty trail the pirates had left in their wake.
—
Three, four, five hours passed. People packed, some said goodbye in a hurry, some didn't need or want to.
Saki watched from around the corner as the new guys carted their luggage in and made themselves at home in the men's quarters. They were chatting so easily between them, so happy and making everything look so natural that, after the initial shock, she felt a little sad thinking about how much their lives must have sucked to be so willing to give them up like that. Although, to be fair, those three seemed to be buddies already. It was like Penguin and Shachi all over again; good friends starting a new life together and leaving nothing they'd miss behind.
She ignored the pang in her heart at that last thought and decided to go to the galley to make something for breakfast. She put on the apron hanging by the door on autopilot, but she stopped when she was short of opening the fridge door and realized that she didn't know what the new guys liked or even if there was something they couldn't eat. It was silly, but in that moment it made her feel incredibly out of place. Just when she thought she had gotten used to being around the others, the newcomers had sent her back to the start.
It wasn't like Saki thought she was bad with people, if by people one meant acquaintances. However, having to see someone on a daily basis was different altogether. She hadn't been close to anybody but her family before leaving Asteria. She wasn't sure she even knew how to.
Her hand dropped to her side, and she stared at the door of the fridge with no energy as if it was going to give her life advice, or at least solve the breakfast dilemma, but she turned around immediately as she sensed someone approaching from behind.
Mack was there, staring at her with his eyebrows raised.
Saki guessed the incident in Qaryn had made her twitchy. "Hey," she said, thinking that saying 'sorry, I got kidnapped and drugged by a cultist in this very kitchen, nothing personal' was probably not a good way to make the situation less awkward.
Mack let it slide, and instead he told her, "This is my job now."
With an inaudible sigh, she said despondently as she tugged at the string of her apron, "Sure, all yours. I'll go somewhere else…"
What was she even supposed to do on the sub from then on, anyway? Scrub the toilets? Stay put and look pretty? She didn't know if she could get the last one right.
Mack looked at her with a curious expression. "I don't mind if you stay. I could use an extra hand."
"Oh," she said at first, then perked up when the words got through her brain. "Thanks. I'd like that."
"Don't want to stay idle?" He said as he opened the fridge.
"Yeah," she put her hands behind her back and looked over his shoulder to see what he was picking. He was around her height, and that automatically gave him bonus points in her books. "Something like that."
"I understand that you were in charge of cooking before?"
"Mm-hm."
"I don't intend to kick you out of the kitchen, so relax."
"It's not like that. I'm glad you're here," She scratched the back of her neck sheepishly, and said, "I couldn't have kept up when the crew got bigger. I just gotta get used to it."
"That should be my line."
Saki smiled at that, but then something she had been wondering about came to her mind, and she guessed it was a good moment to ask. "You really don't mind that we gave your sister trouble a few months ago?"
"She's given me trouble for years," he said with a trace of fondness. "How is she?"
"Ah, well… Dismembered, last time I saw her," then she added quickly when she noticed how close Mack was to the good knives. "But it's very easy to reattach the pieces! Captain's power is handy, haha…" She tried to joke to diffuse the tension, but Mack was still eyeing her suspiciously.
The moment was thankfully broken by Law walking into the mess hall and heading towards them. "There you are." He stopped at the doorway when the same look Mack was giving Saki was directed at him. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing at all!" She said too fast, unconsciously resting her left hand on the spot where her newest tattoo was. "What takes you here?"
Law gave her an odd glance that she thought lingered for a bit too long, but then he turned to Mack as he dug out an envelope from his pocket. It was crumpled and stained with liquid, and he probably would have thrown it to the sea had he remembered he still had it, but it had remained abandoned in his desk drawer for months.
"I didn't even remember it had it until now. It's for you."
Mack was taken aback at that. "For me?" He took the envelope and inspected with clear disgust in his face.
"It's from Mrs…" He trailed off when the name didn't come to mind.
"Angie," Saki whispered.
"Right."
The disgust in Mack's face only grew. "My mother. You just gave me a letter from my mother."
The other two waited for him to elaborate, but instead of that, he searched around for a match, lit it, and set the paper on fire, dropping it on the sink and turning on the faucet to wash the remains away.
"Thank you for the delivery. Now that that's settled," he said casually, "what do you want for breakfast?"
Law blinked a couple of times, said, "Anything's fine," and then to Saki, "Don't think I haven't noticed the thing on your arm just because your sleeves are longer," and left the kitchen.
She noticed then the edge of the bandage peeking out the slightest bit from under her sleeve. "Oh well, it was time to let it in the open anyway," she muttered to herself. As soon as Law was out of hearing, she said to Mack, "He lied. He won't touch bread with a ten foot pole."
Mack contemplated for a few seconds the implications of that and resumed his forage into the fridge saying, "What a weirdo."
Saki had to smile at that. "Like you wouldn't know."