Thank you's to these adorable samurai time travelers: studentloans, NewCanvas, Lucinda M. H. Cheshir, lily, Tootsie, Guest, Minty, DreamsOfTheDamn, Peruna, BooksandBrownies, soda-kun, Guest, Kinjiru, Klexenia, Momochan77, Riley-Cooper123, starlight, sarge1130, Velonica14, Mari, and LittleMissUnknown!
Shout out to Kinjiru for beta-ing this chapter. You da best.
—
methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis #21
to carthage then i came
BURNING
BURNING
BURNING
BURNING
—
Teresa was going to die from all this bureaucratic bullshit.
Stacks of paper filled her ship's cabin; compensation reports for the damages incurred at her fists. She had to file documents to hassle HQ for more money after repaying the shops and houses on Kunlun that she had single-handedly wrecked.
It was, of course, all Strangways Sophie's fault. And Trafalgar Law's. Teresa couldn't do much to a dead girl, but she eagerly waited for the day she bumped into the Heart Pirates again to repay the mountain-of-fucking-paperwork debt.
Trapped inside with this boring bullshit was not good for her. It was not good for her impatience or her dry skin. Where were the pirate attacks when she needed them? Where were the meteors that coincidentally hit CP5 battleships? Where was literally anything else?
As Teresa seriously contemplated steering her ship into the Calm Belt and crashing into a Sea King, the Den Den Mushi rang.
"Teresa," Lettidore began.
She sighed, kicking her feet up on the desk. "Is it Hippo again? God, he's being so unnecessarily upset; he can adopt another kid if he wants—"
"G-13's on fire. They got Hippo."
—
Funerals were always the most troublesome part of the work. You make friends, and they die. Sometimes you don't make friends, and you still see them die. It never works out.
They carved the names of Hippo and a younger marine who was killed in the attack onto G-13's obsidian memorial wall (they were calling it a death, because that's how it worked with marines who went missing; ninety-nine percent of the time, they were right). Following the debacle, the higher-ups demoted Lettidore a rank and reassigned him to Marineford. She found his pale hair and inflexible, furrowed brow at the memorial, likely hiding from the interim Vice Admiral HQ sent. Faintly she could hear Garp the Hero bwahaha! from an open window somewhere.
Teresa slung her arm around Lettidore's stiff shoulders. "You can use this time to take up a hobby, Rear Admiral. Try baking or something."
"Even with a demoted rank, I can still kick your ass."
"No, Lettuce, you couldn't. But I'll let you get away with saying that. Just for today."
"Stop calling me that," he grunted, ribbing her in a way that might've been painful. They could've been two kids at the Marine Academy again, always butting heads without Hippo there to intervene. Whether they were fourteen or forty, some things never changed.
"I sent you after the kid because that was my Absolute Justice."
She glanced at Lettidore.
"I gave you my permission to kill her," he continued. "Hippo was never… right after that."
There was no handbook to cope for when your best friends kill your daughter. Family was just another euphemism for goodbye. Teresa would have to remember to speak in past tense about Hippo now. What a pain. What a fucking pain.
"Do you regret it?" Teresa asked, scrutinizing him for fragility.
He gave a merciless, scornful laugh, and the familiarity of it almost made her smile. A man of blood and iron, even as a disgraced ex-Vice Admiral.
Then he said, "Do you?"
If I regret, I am lost, she thought. But that was the shittiest of shit answers, so she just grinned back and told him that she was stealing some of his neckties before he packed everything away.
—
"Long story short, we intercepted a call from a Big Mom ship to Machinastein. It's about time for that yearly 'threaten islands with trade wards until they give us money'. We need someone to escort the bookkeeper."
In other words, babysitting duty. Teresa could feel the onset of a migraine. "The Vice Admiral of G-13 usually does this. Garp is G-13's interim Vice Admiral, send him there."
A scoff. "I'm not asking Garp the Hero to meet with an okama lost from the Kamabakka Queendom."
Scratch migraine, Teresa was about to pop a blood vessel. "This errand sounds beneath me, boss."
"Boo fucking hoo. You have your orders."
Okay; multiple blood vessels. "I'm actually long overdue for a promotion. I've killed every pirate I come across—"
"You couldn't even kill one rookie. The Surgeon of Death is still out there! I'll tell you what. Squeeze more money out of Machinastein and I'll promote you myself. Until then, you have your orders."
"But—"
"If you're too soft for it, then Laskey, perhaps. Or my own son, Spandam. Men of unwavering strength. Men courageous enough to pull a trigger or summon a Buster Call."
The Den Den Mushi smiled perversely. Spandine always loved hinting at the fall of Ohara, as though he was afraid his subordinates would forget if he didn't mention it in every conversation.
Teresa kept her expression composed, lest her anger appear on the end of the other Den Den Mushi. "After North Blue, I proved myself. I never again put a marine in danger. I never again let pirates escape alive." She gripped the edge of her desk—a Cipher Pol agent is above emotion—and snarled through her teeth, "I am no gentler than those Oharan demons you murdered."
There was a sound at the other end, like a cup of tea clattering, and then a loud yelp.
"You—what sort of tone is that? Be grateful that I bother to give you missions at all, Teresa! Now get going!" Spandine shouted, then added with a verbal lecturing finger, "Also, I don't appreciate it when a woman talks with that sort of language."
He hung up. Teresa closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
Then she grabbed the entire desk and flung it into the wall, shattering it into pieces.
—
Ixchel Ursa, the President of Machinastein, had the dignified air of a shriveled potato. She was wearing fluffy pink slippers.
Teresa barely paid attention as her agents made the standard polite introductions. It was too fucking hot and they were told to leave their weapons on their ship. She felt unsettlingly exposed. To add insult to her situation: there was a Big Mom warship sitting in the harbor and the Heart Pirates' yellow eyesore right next to it. All Teresa could do was grind her teeth. Diplomacy was a bitch.
"You don't look like average marines," Ursa observed, scratching her ear with the hook of her cane. "Why'd the Government send you?"
Teresa scrutinized her wrinkled face for signs of masculinity. It was harder to tell, when they were older.
"I was the only Marine ship in the area when my boss called." Better for this country to think she was a simple Government agent than Cipher Pol. "The seas have been rough as of late, and our bookkeeper needs to be escorted back to Mariejois when we're done here."
The bookkeeper was a man who carried around a heavy, black ledger. His eyes were empty and sort of bulging; Teresa thought he looked like an evil, dead fish when he smiled. And he was always smiling. When he bowed to President Ursa and introduced himself, his breath smelled like beli.
"We're here to renegotiate the trade deal between Machinastein and the World Government," Teresa continued, as they walked through the airy hallway. She could feel the hushed stares of her agents as they took in the luminous gold carvings on the walls. She felt the bookkeeper's stare most of all.
"Here's what will happen. I'll give you a tour of my temple, then you'll report back that we've treated you with hospitality and there was nothing you could change about our current trade arrangements."
Ursa said it with such casual authority, and Teresa briefly contemplated how rare negotiating with a female leader was. Certainly uncommon among World Government islands. Especially in the Marines. But it was different for independent countries; Machinastein had Ixchel Ursa, Amazon Lily had the Pirate Empress, Totto Land had Big Mom, Momoiro Island had the gender-nonconforming Emporio Ivankov, and before her death, the Ryugyu Kingdom had Otohime. As for Teresa, she had Spandine.
…But not for long, hopefully. If she could just get that promotion and join the handful of women in the upper echelon of the World Government, she'd never have to hear Spandine's sniveling voice again. A higher rank, more power, and above all, respect…
"You're entertaining a Yonkou's crew, but you won't even consider talking with the World Government?" Teresa asked, carefully neutral.
"Eight hundred years ago, your people destroyed half our civilization and killed all our historians."
"We also brought the outside world to you, gave you trade routes, cleared Sea Kings, and allowed you access to other islands."
President Ursa laughed. "Why, we already had those things."
"How would you know?" Teresa said, before she could stop herself. "Your historians are dead."
President Ursa's smile vanished. Fuck. Fleetingly, Teresa wondered if Spandine threw her this mission because he thought women had some inner feminine talent for subtlety.
They reached the end of the hallway and Teresa could already hear Spandine's disdain that she couldn't get a frail old woman to break. Two guards opened the doors that led to an inner concourse area. She caught a brief flash of movement from the shadowed balcony above—a trick of the light? Ursa spoke again, reminding her that Machinastein was an independent, wealthy nation and would never pay tribute to the Dragon Perverts, as she called them, speaking directly to the bookkeeper (who was smiling so forcefully Teresa thought his cheeks would fall off).
Their conversation veered a hard left; Teresa didn't come here to discuss morals, or slavery, or history. She needed to regroup, return with another plan.
"This dialogue has come off the rails," she said stonily. "Perhaps we can continue it tomorrow."
The president scoffed and shook her head, and Teresa could see her hopes for a promotion crumbling into pieces—footsteps thumped across the balcony above, and there was a cheerful, "Sophie-san, there you are! Here, a new matchbox!"
She flinched, turning in the direction of the voice. A coincidence, surely…
Once more: "Oh, Sophie-san! I found a lighter!"
The yellow submarine in the harbor. The Heart Pirates were on this island, too.
It couldn't be. It was impossible. It was impossible…
Teresa braced her feet against the floor.
She leaped up and landed on the balcony, staring straight at the chemist she had once killed, her head attached to her neck, poised to flee with the Surgeon of Death beside her. Strangways Sophie was alive, rudely alive as she had been on Kunlun, and then the thought of Kunlun made a vein spasm in Teresa's forehead—
"You," she raged, pointing at both of them. "Do you know how much paperwork I had to do because of you?"
A blue sphere flickered and Teresa reached for a weapon on her back that wasn't there.
"P-President U-Ursa!" the girl shrieked. "She's a Cipher Pol chief—"
In the blink of an eye, they vanished. Teresa swore under her breath. What was Strangways Sophie doing here? What was Trafalgar Law doing here? If she was alive, then the incident at G-13—she must've been the one who—
"Cipher Pol," a secretary voiced. "Isn't that—"
"Get out of my country," President Ursa said darkly. "Right now."
Teresa was still staring at the empty spot in front of her. All at once, she saw a path to a promotion.
She hopped back down to the ground floor, her mind churning with the logistics of a declaration she was to pull straight out of her ass like a shameless magician, and proceeded, "How sly, Ixchel Ursa. Having pirates lying in wait. Ready to assassinate an emissary from the World Government."
"Hah!" Ursa barked. "Those two are under my protection! Don't you dare try to twist this into—"
"You've taken advantage of us," Teresa snapped indignantly, with as much false outrage as she could muster. "You've made a circus of this meeting and brought disgrace to all international diplomacy, everywhere. This is your fault." (How to Victim-Blame in Righteous Anger So Nobody Can Doubt Your Less-than-Honorable Intentions, written by Chief Teresa and a plurality of men whom she had taken notes from.)
The old woman looked shaken. "That's absolutely not—"
"If I brought this back to my boss, he'd rain hellfire and brimstone here like the Government did eight hundred years ago. He would say that no matter how many times you make flowers bloom in the desert, we'll stomp them back into the sand. He would say this—Remember Ohara."
Pause for effect. Aaaand now.
"Though, I suppose I can look the other way if you agree to a new trade deal." Teresa snapped her fingers. "Bookkeeper, draw one up for the president to sign. Agents, don't let anyone leave or enter this room. I have unfinished business to take care of."
Twenty years ago, Spandine had slammed a button that blew an island into the stratosphere and erased it from all maps forever. The World Government rewarded him, called that strength. Well, she could be strong, too. She could capture two wanted criminals and deliver a ship filled with gold to the World Government. If this was how she had to prove herself, then so be it.
"You have the audacity to call yourselves the World Government," Ursa said, her voice rising, "as though the world is something that can be owned!"
"Anything and anyone can be owned, given the right price." The bookkeeper cracked open his ledger. "Shall we begin?"
—
Law was not having a good day.
Which was saying something, because the day had barely begun when Sophie woke him up, and it had barely begun when she confessed that she didn't want to leave the Hearts, and it had still barely begun when he discovered he had zero fucking energy to say 'you have this chance to do something for Vira that I couldn't do for my country, and you're wasting it away like a goddamned pirate' and it was just. Exhausting.
There were things that he knew what he was in for when he became a full-fledged pirate and not a teenage criminal hustling on the streets of North Blue. This was not one of those things. This was so far from what he signed up for it had reached the opposite edge of the fucking universe.
It was all he could think of to just drag her over to light a cigarette. To help her think, recognize the importance of her situation. Honor was a great and terrible thing, and she had enough of it for Law to know she'd be haunted by her choice for every fucking night that she was a Heart, and he'd had too much of waking up half-whispering names of all his dead to want that for her.
Sophie was strong. Fuck, she was made of gunmetal and cigarettes and unadulterated stubbornness. She had killed a Dragon. She would survive the loneliness and all the demons that came with it. She was a half-step away from being a proper fucking hero. He'd be damned—far more than he was already—if he let her waste herself on a pirate with a death wish.
She had to leave. That was a fact.
It didn't matter what she said. It didn't matter how honestly she said it, even though he respected her for that. Even though he could understand down to his marrow. Down to every starry night in the wide expanse of the ocean, every footstep in white sand, every dinner in the mess—with his crew, his friends. She couldn't be a part of that. She had to leave. It didn't matter that she was staring down the long barrel of loneliness, and it didn't matter that she had fought so hard and long to get to the point where she could say, I want to be happy.
None of that mattered. Not the fact that he didn't know what the fuck to say except goodbye. Not the fact that it was taking an abnormal amount of effort to look her in the eye and say it. Certainly not the fact that it wouldn't come out of his fucking mouth, because you would think that a man of his trauma caliber wouldn't flinch at watching dizzyingly brilliant chemists leave. (Leave again—how many times had he watched her back disappear before?). It didn't matter at all.
And then CP5 appeared.
So, no. Law was not having a good day.
"Wait!" Sophie wailed. "My unlit cigarette!"
Law grabbed onto the back of her dress and hurled her into her bedroom. She grabbed her dead lighter from the bed, and then screamed, "Law-san!"
He barely dodged the knife she hurled at his face. It slammed in the wall behind him. He stared at it, then at her. "What the fuck."
"I-I thought you'd catch it!"
"What the fuck," Law repeated with a growl, Rooming the knife into his hand. He'd left his nodachi with his crew; this would have to do.
He followed her into the fancy, tiled bathroom. Sophie reached behind the bathtub and took out a wooden box with a hefty lock on it, then stuffed that inside her backpack.
"G-13's research," she said sheepishly, after catching Law's expression. Fifty million beli, shoved behind a bathtub. "I had very few options."
"You said the research wasn't hidden in your room!"
"TECHNICALLY, THE BATHROOM DOESN'T COUNT."
The aggravated snarl Law found himself responding with was cut short by the bedroom door flying off its hinges and skidding across the floor. The seven-foot-tall agent barged in, her pinstriped coat fluttering behind her.
Law flipped the handle of the knife around his wrist. He wielded the knife as Kikoku, bisecting her body from head to toe.
Teresa stopped in her tracks and patted her un-bisected chest. "Ooh, that tickles."
Haki, the bane of Law's existence.
"Are mature women your default weakness!?" Sophie yelled, which, well.
Law decided to just fuck it, hurling the knife at the agent. Smirking, Teresa caught it in mid-air ("See, like that!" Sophie said, unnecessarily) and hurled it back, and it would've sliced through his nose had Sophie not jerked him backwards right as they vanished—
The road outside was beginning to bustle with morning pedestrians. He hauled Sophie to her feet as she hastily tugged down her dress to her knees. "I'm taking you to the harbor, your ship to Vira—"
"I have to go back to the lab! The Red Sky research!"
"You left it back there?"
"I-I didn't think I'd b-be in a rush!"
"Sophie, you picked the worst day to be a dumbass!"
"I'M SORRY I DID NOT FORESEE THIS IN MY THIRD EYE AND ALSO IMAGINE HOW MUCH FASTER WE COULD BE RUNNING IF YOU STOPPED YELLING AT ME."
Another Room spun out of Law's palm as he reached toward the University across the city, pushing his Devil Fruit further and further. If he had looked up, he would've seen Teresa watching them from the balcony of Sophie's room. He would've seen her gaze flicking to the temples where the hazy blue glow stretched towards.
They appeared in the basement lab. Sophie began shoving everything within eyesight into her backpack. Law braced himself against the table, taking a moment to catch his breath. He knew where his limit was, and hadn't reached it yet. But at the same time… if he always knew how far he could be pressed, then that meant he was still the same kid. The same useless kid hiding inside of a treasure chest.
"Hey, you pineapple! Let's go!" Sophie was yelling.
He followed her up the stairs and into the courtyard. The grass rustled in the breeze. Alarm, or fear, or foreboding crawled up his spine. Distantly, he felt Sophie tugging on his arm and shouting, Sweet mangos, what are you waiting for? He felt her right next to him, but he also felt a much stronger presence, breathing ice right down his neck.
Far away in the back of his mind, there was a sound like someone pounding against a door.
He saw it: a raven blur flying over the golden spires of Machinastein, jet-black eyes, and a grin.
There was the briefest instance of déjà vu—incense, altars covered in peaches—before he whirled around and grabbed Sophie. "Move!"
—
Law crashed like a badass through a window, his arms raised in an X over his face. Sophie crashed through far less spectacularly, and landed on her belly on top of Law with the elegance of a walrus. She might've thrown up a little bit in her mouth.
Cygnus and a few other scientists looked up from their microscopes at the surprise intrusion.
"G-get out," Sophie wheezed, avoiding the shattered glass. "The W-World Government's attacking!"
The lab did not evacuate in fleeing, screaming droves. The lab mostly just stared at her and said blandly, "Wait, what…?"
Teresa soared through the broken window and landed with a thud, sending test tubes rattling and beakers crashing to the floor.
"GET OUTTA HERE!" Sophie grabbed the closest beaker and threw it to the ground. "RUN, YOU STUPID SHEEP. OR I'LL COOK YOU ALIVE AND TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB WITH MY TEETH."
Now the screaming started.
Of course Teresa would be the emissary the Government sent to Machinastein. Of course Sophie would be fighting for her life while wearing a short dress and sandals, because screw proper, civilized society where people wore boots for this sort of thing! This was just how the universe worked!
Of course her and Law's conversation would be interrupted by a vengeful Cipher Pol agent. It was only the most excruciating, soul-baring thing that had ever come out of her mouth, so no big deal! Genre-shifting from 'passionate eye contact with a snarky pirate' to 'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE OR DIE' was the most predictable plot twist ever. The only thing that could make this more predictable was if someone buried her alive in a coffin.
"So you were alive after all." Teresa yanked her up by the backpack and ripped open the flap. "What the fuck—is that a rat—"
"That's n-not yours—get your h-hands off—"
"Ah, I see now," she said, scanning the Red Sky notes. "This is the property of the World Government. And the Revolutionaries will pay us a hefty price for your research."
There was a slight tug on Sophie's body that was the telltale sign of a Room, and her backpack fell into her arms as she fell into Law's arms. Because Law was carrying her. Carrying her with his hands under her knees and around her back and, and—
"P-put me d-down, y-you g-godless charlatan!"
With a flat look, Law dropped her unceremoniously on the ground. Right as Teresa charged.
"Pick me up, Law-sama!" Sophie hopped on Law's back, wrapping her limbs around him like a jellyfish with separation anxiety.
He staggered slightly before balancing himself, stuffing his hands—rather angrily—under her knees, as though he, too, realized there was very little time to do anything else. Then having a bright idea, Law spun her around in his arms and tried to use her legs to hit Teresa.
"I AM NOT A SWORD, TRAFALGAR," Sophie wheezed beneath his sweaty armpit.
"I'm improvising."
"This is revenge for carrying you like a blushing bride on Kunlun!"
Law did not deign to reply, but he did throw her a furious That Never Happened glare.
"I know you attacked G-13. You killed Hippo," Teresa snarled, the closest thing Sophie had to an aunt in her life. With lightning speed, she shattered a table of bubbling chocolate as Law backpedaled as fast as he could.
Sophie grabbed two fistfuls of Chocolate Dials from a workbench Law passed by, and she pointed them over his shoulders. A spray of chocolate jalapeño blasted into Teresa's face. She clawed at her eyes, screaming.
Law glanced around the lab. "Make a bomb, chemist!"
"You fool, I cannot just make a bomb on command—oh, sugar! And a butane torch!"
Teresa lunged at them, jalapeño tears streaming down her face.
A flock of green quetzals fluttered by the window. In a quick Room, Sophie and Law appeared outside in the air. Teresa broke through the wall and leaped after them. Law twisted to see the encroaching vortex of doom and swore.
A gloved hand whipped by his face. Three bags of powdered sugar burst apart in Teresa's burning red eyes, followed by the butane torch.
Sophie squeezed her eyes shut and slapped her hands over Law's to shield him from the light.
In midair, they exploded.
—
Bepo held Kikoku in his paws and remarked, "That doesn't look good."
Penguin was sitting on Shachi's shoulders, who was sitting on Bepo's shoulders. "Yep," Penguin said, squinting, "definitely looks like Cap's in a fight."
Small clouds of dust were rising from the direction of the University. Distant rumbles accompanied the sight. The Heart Pirates were gathered at the edge of the very tall rooftop garden, essentially stranded with no way down.
Another distant explosion came from the Jaguar Temple. Bepo raised his paw to block the glare from the sun. It looked like something was flying over to the University, but what, he couldn't tell…
"So," Shachi said, looking at the long drop. "How do we get down from here?"
"I found our ride," Anko called, as from a distance, the train whistled. The elevated railway would pass right beneath them.
"Wait a minute," the other pirates said immediately.
Anko grabbed the closest pirate to him—which happened to be Hai Xing, who said, "Ah."—and saluted. "Stay sexy, fellas."
The others shouted, but he disappeared off the ledge. Bepo jumped after him, Manta was kicking a snoring Kamasu off the ledge, and then altogether the pirates were leaping through the air, screaming at the top of their lungs.
They landed on the speeding train and gave a great sigh of relief.
"…WAIT, WE'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY," Penguin realized.
"How could a bunch of pirates be so clueless about directions!?" Shachi wailed.
(Somewhere on Grand Line, a moss-haired swordsman sneezed.)
—
The force of the explosion thrust Law backwards and he landed on the College of Medicine, brushing off his singed t-shirt. He smelled like burning sugar. Like caramel. Sophie was surreptitiously sniffing the back of his neck when he said to her, "You're batshit, you know that?"
"Shucks."
Teresa bulleted out of the sky and hurtled towards Law. He leaped back as the force of her landing broke through the temple walls.
Law moved at a breakneck speed, almost flying through the corridors with the wind pressure behind Teresa stripping doors off their hinges. Tears from the wind pricked at the edge of Sophie's vision. Students blurred underneath them, Celaeno gaping at Law and Sophie, who was clinging to his back like a terrified baby koala—
The white ceiba tree flashed in Sophie's mind. Void Century. The murder of historians, of an empire, of a people. A legacy of violence in her blood—and also in Teresa's. She sucked in a huge breath and, with enough volume to rip her vocal chords, yelled, "WORLD GOVERNMENT!"
Her voice barely echoed over the uproar of alarmed students, but Celaeno had heard her, and she was signing to her friends. A wave of hatred roiled across the hallway, all the way up to the students watching the bedlam from the higher floors. Voices resounded from everywhere, fingers pointing at Teresa, shouting, "World Government!"
Teresa dodged the influx of chairs, desks, coffee cups—and a plastic skeleton, courtesy of Celaeno and her anatomy classroom—thrown her way. Of course, this did nothing to deter her.
With one fist in Law's chest, she launched him straight across the College of Medicine—
("Hold tight," Law ordered, and Sophie nodded quickly. He released his grip under her knees.
Teresa's military-precise strikes were quick, but Law blocked her just as fast—his right arm flashed in and struck Teresa in the jawneckfacejaw, like rapid-fire bullets—she grabbed his arm, rearing back her fist—a chunk of stone was swapped in his place and broke apart under her knuckles—
"Oh my god, I'm flashing everyone!" Sophie wailed, feeling the wind brush way too close to edge of her buttcheeks.
"Nobody said you had to wear a dress," he said tersely.
"But I am trying to convey a sense of carefree summer-lovin' happy fun time—" Sophie shrieked as Law did a supremely sick butterfly kick, spinning sideways in a flying cartwheel and catching Teresa across the chin. For a moment, she felt airborne.
His fighting style looked almost like Bepo's style, but it had the relentless brutality of the marine's. It was amazing how Law moved, how he used his body as a finely-honed weapon, tensing and easing and shifting easily from one stance to another.
Sophie, for her part, contributed by yelling fruit names.)
Through the College of Mathematics—
("Sacred geometry, give me strength!" Norma shouted as she attempted to spear the agent with calipers.
"YOU ALL WEIGH NOTHING," Teresa roared, flinging the students aside as she smashed through wall after wall like an unstoppable javelin.
Sophie gave a tiny, muffled shriek and her legs tightened around his waist. It reminded Law of a different night, a dark bedroom, and her hand on the crook of his elbow, smelling of ash and alcohol. His fingers ran across the hem of her short silk dress, and he knew if he looked down it would be riding up along her thigh.
He looked up instead, blocking Teresa's hits, getting accustomed to the speed that she was fighting at—his arms flashed out on instinct, reflexively grabbing her ankle as she kicked. Law grinned, and the agent's black eyes flashed at him before she whipped her other leg around and kicked him so hard he crashed through the wall.)
Through the College of Ecology—
(Flowers from all over the Grand Line were crushed beneath running feet. Musca hiked up his skirt for Maximum Lunge and chucked coconuts and potted cacti. Ecologists threw coconuts at Teresa's head, and she was distracted long enough for Law got in a solid kick. She flew into a row of Kunlun bamboo trees, decimating it.
"There!" Sophie pointed at a broken window; an escape. "We have to get her away from the University—"
It was like he had forgotten Sophie was on his back. It was like he couldn't even hear her. Law lunged at Teresa with his arm outstretched to bash her face in—she ducked, grabbed him by the ankle, and flung him through the greenhouse.)
And into the College of Astronomy—
Glass shattered around them and students jumped aside, screaming. A quiet groan into his ear—Sophie's cheek drooped on his shoulder, her hands slipping from around his neck. He didn't have time for this. Law forcefully tightened his grip on the backs of her knees, and she shot up from semi-consciousness, yelping and grabbing on tighter.
Brass telescopes and scrolls of parchment flew everywhere as the students scrambled away. Behind a massive sundial, the med student—Celaeno—was jumping up and down, trying to catch his attention. We'll throw her off, lead her that way, she signed, pointing to the other end of the university grounds. Once she's distracted, you attack!
Not a bad plan. Law nodded and looked for Teresa's pursuing figure—
And was shocked to see her not searching for him in the bedlam, but watching the med student. She focused on her intently. Her narrowed eyes had been following Celaeno's hand movements the whole time, and—
"Sophie-san! Trafalgar! There you are!" Norma and Musca shouted, running in a different direction.
—a little smirk tugged on Teresa's mouth.
She can sign. He furiously motioned for Celaeno to STOP!
Too late. Teresa followed Celaeno's gaze to Law. Leaping over, she dropkicked him so hard he blew backwards. Law blinked away stars—no, the stars were still there, and they were flying past the sundial—
They collided on the stone floor. Sophie was flung from his back and she rolled to a stop several feet away.
They had fallen into a large, open lecture hall. Constellations around the world were carved onto the walls, everything from the sun lion in South Blue to the crown and the dragon above Mariejois. It was by pure chance that when Law raised his head, he looked squarely at the constellations in North Blue.
His eyes found the stars his mother had so often pointed out to him, and it was strange, suddenly, to think there was something about Flevance that still endured. He had always figured everything about it was wiped from existence. His chest twisted in pain—fuck, no, that was real pain, he was really hurt there, shit—
"Are w-we d-dead?" Sophie whimpered painfully.
Law opened his mouth to shoot back a wry response—then clutched his side with a stifled groan.
"You're h-hurt."
"Yeah," he sighed. "Know any good doctors?"
"No, but I'll tell you when I find one." Sophie cracked a tired grin, her sweaty bangs sticking to her forehead.
She wobbled as she stood, and he could still feel the impression of those soft, sturdy legs twined around his waist. Law didn't know why his brain decided to focus on that. (But between her legs or the stars over his dead homeland, he supposed she was the safer concept—though the margin was slim.)
"Get to the harbor."
"Okay," she agreed. "We're escaping now, th-that's a good plan—"
"You're escaping. This is my fight."
"Wha—you want to keep fighting?"
"I have to," he snarled. "I have to win. If I can't win here, there's no fucking point."
An involuntary shiver raced up her spine. His face was contorted in anger, teeth grinding, blood dripping down his jaw. What was he looking at? What was he thinking about? Why was he trying so hard to win on his own, like his life depended on it? She was close enough to grab Law if he started to fall, but for a moment, Sophie felt that she couldn't be further apart from him.
"What are you gonna do, fight until you die?" she tried to joke. This couldn't be the same pirate who called her an idiot for attacking G-13 on her own.
"Until one of us dies," Law uttered with grim determination, and she was this close to taking off her sandal and slapping him across the face with it.
"Dra-ma-tic slow clap," Teresa narrated as she emerged from the shadows, clapping. She shrugged at the stares her theatrical malice had elicited. "Might as well play the part, right? Now, I finally have you in my nefarious clutches…"
"Can you just!" Sophie burst out, and pointed at the smoking ruins. "Just for a second—l-look at the destruction you've c-caused!"
"I'll pay for it. With my pay raise after I get promoted, I think I can afford it." Teresa tapped her chin. "Do you know if this country gives out loans?"
"What is wrong with you," Sophie breathed, and she didn't mean for Teresa to hear it, not really, but she did.
"Okay, look. I'm trying to enjoy myself because I can't look at your face without wanting to rip it apart. You grew up with a home, a father—everything. And you gave it all away to be a goddamn pirate."
"Yes, because a roof over your head and a guy who calls himself your dad constitutes 'everything'," Law said.
Teresa held a finger up, warning him to keep his mouth shut. "Do you know what other women have had to do to get this far?" she shot at Sophie. "Do you know what women who grew up with nothing have had to do? You were given a wonderful life. I—" She broke off, shaking her head. "…I just want to know one thing. How did you kill him?"
Sophie wanted to say she shoved Hippo in shark-infested waters and watched them rip him apart, she wanted to say she slit his throat and stabbed his dying body so many times she lost count. But Teresa looked so desperate for an answer, and Sophie wanted to cause her as much pain as possible. "I didn't."
"Tell me the truth, you fucking little—!" A telescope hit her in the head.
Teresa spun around. Celaeno, Norma, and Musca were bruised and bleeding, but they looked plenty enraged as they clutched makeshift weapons.
"Really?" Teresa said flatly. "I've never seen a cavalry look more pathetic."
Celaeno spoke with her hands in a way that even Sophie knew what she was saying. She flipped Teresa off.
A wizened old laugh burst out from behind them. "Splendid! Just what I expected from a citizen of mine."
Teresa seemed startled, then quickly relaxed. "Have you signed the new trade deal?"
Whatever this trade deal was, President Ursa walked in empty-handed.
"Maybe she'll pull a baking pan out of those robes and smack Teresa with them," Sophie whispered hopefully. Law did not look convinced. Great, now they'd be forced to watch Teresa beat up a senior citizen.
"I didn't want it to come to this, but you can't be reasoned with," Ursa murmured. "You've committed a great crime against Machinastein today."
Teresa examined her fingernails. "I'm not leaving without the money. I mean, look. There's no one in this country who can match my strength. So unless you want Machinastein to be obliterated again as it was eight hundred years ago, move aside."
Sophie prepared herself to run between them and carry Ursa away. Whilst crying uncontrollably out of fear, but nonetheless.
"No," the president said.
The whirrrr of a machine resounded within her. With a metallic kching, like the sound of several guns cocking, her back vertebrae aligned and straightened up. She grew, and grew, and grew until she was as tall as Law. Her hunchback was gone. The old woman cast off her outer robe; her body was corded with large, thick muscle, like a young warrior at her prime.
Ursa exhaled steam from her mouth and nose, and behind her on the wall of constellations, the stars of the great bear shone above her head. She clenched what few teeth she had left, the sun-beaten wrinkles on her face contorting in a scowl of rage.
Sophie gasped. Law's jaw dropped.
Her body was covered in glowing, solar-powered Lamp Dials. She was a—
"Cyborg," Teresa hissed in shock.
"You move," Ursa snarled.
Kicking off the ground, she slammed into Teresa and they burst through the stone walls into the sky.
—
There were stories about Ixchel Ursa that stretched a century back. There were stories of her fighting giants and inventing wonders and romancing the most brazen pirates of the sea. Stories that conflated her into a myth and a legend with every whispered retelling.
Out of all the stories, there was only one that was the most agreed upon. The story of Ixchel Ursa in her greener years. In search of new resources to help her ailing country, she arrived on a sky island, gathered all sorts of marvelous Dials in her arms, and plummeted back to the Blue Sea in a terrible fall that broke nearly every bone in her body.
Then, out of bolts and metal parts and solar-powered Dials of her own invention, Ursa built herself anew.
Sophie had heard of the story in passing. It was one of those rumors she wasn't sure whether to believe—like, Gold Roger and Silvers Rayleigh were lovers, or all of Whitebeard's commanders were actually his illegitimate children. She had disregarded it, back then.
Sophie ran after the white contrail in the sky, made by the force of Ursa's flight. She was trying to catch up to Law, who was limping with impressive speed and shouting, "Ursa-ya! She's mine!" at the sky like the village madman.
"Sophie-san! What the hell!" Norma cried. Oh, pineapples—she hadn't noticed them running up from behind.
"This can't be a war," Musca was rambling, "I mean, there hasn't been a war here in over a century so this isn't a war, right?"
"I—this isn't the time to—stay back, foolish blueberries!"
Celaeno signed frantically. "What's happening? Who are you?" Norma yelled.
Fine. If they really wanted to—fine. "I'm an ex-World Government scientist. I'm from G-13. You know that one? It's the Marine b-base nearby. Now stay here; stay away from the city!" she shouted over her shoulder, outpacing them in a sprint.
"What—Sophie-san, Trafalgar! Wait, you assholes!"
She left them behind, catching up to Law. "You didn't have to tell them the truth," he said.
The brief glimpse of Celaeno's expression—the shift in her eye, of flat horror— "No," Sophie muttered, feeling her tics doing the cha-cha-slide across her face, "I did, actually."
Law didn't respond to that, but he gave her a challenging smirk. "Tired?"
Her back straightened. Sure, she hadn't been doing any intentional physical training on Machinastein, but Sophie had done a bike marathon through the whole city, fought the Heart Pirates' own helmsman, fought a bunch of chocolate gangsters, and fought a Big Mom pirate. Her muscles were in fine shape. She snarked back, "Not even close. You're talking to a war vet, Trafalgar!"
When they reached the main street, it was filled with confused turmoil. Pedestrians and Giant Quetzal carts and bicycles weren't moving; traffic had come to a full stop. Heads poked out of windows. Café-goers stopped sipping their iced chocolate drinks and looked up. Everyone was watching the explosions in the sky. Machinastein had a small standing army, mostly soldiers that patrolled the city. They were banging their spears against their shields and ordering civilians to get inside the nearest buildings.
"EVERYONE!" Ursa was a speck in the clouds, but her amplified voice boomed clear over the city. "TAKE SHELTER! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!"
"What now?" Sophie asked, moving to follow Law.
He grabbed her elbow. "Now you get your ass to Vira."
"Y-you still want to fight Teresa, don't you? I'm trying to help, you ungrateful mango!"
"I never asked for that!"
"Yeah, well, I can't sit back and watch a suicidal friend run off to his death," she muttered sourly, then beamed. "Not without popcorn, at least!"
He didn't laugh. "You have to see this through to the end. Even if it takes ten, or twenty, or fifty years, this should be the only thing that matters—"
"You want me to go this much?"
Law's hand fell away from her arm. "I wanted you on my ship after Kunlun. You chose different. You left. You've always made the choice to leave, not me."
Sophie opened her mouth to retort, but his words sank in. Her backpack felt like it weighed ten thousand pounds. "I…"
A Mach soldier went flying between them and crashed into a tamale store. The remaining pedestrians on the road screamed and shoved past Sophie.
"Hey, kid," said the Cipher Pol sniper, rounding the corner with a dozen other agents behind her. A gold tooth winked between her mouth. "How ya been?" She punctuated the word by yanking a bloody spear from the hand of an unconscious soldier.
Sophie shrieked. She whirled around and almost hit her nose on another agent and shrieked again.
She stumbled back until her spine hit Law's. No Rooms appeared; he must still be recuperating his stamina. The train rumbled on the overhead railway. The wind whipped Sophie's dress around her knees and blew several black hats into the air.
"B-before we get started, does a-anyone have a cigarette lighter?" Sophie ventured. She heard Law sigh. "I'm just s-saying, I'd like to have a smoke b-before I get shot."
The agents took a collective step forward, shadows from the passing train flickering over their faces.
Or not! Sophie squeezed her fists tight, wild-eyed. "Come and get some!"
A pair of boots, sunglasses, and red hair swung past her head.
Leaping from the train, Shachi tackled an agent to the ground with a loud whoop. More feet landed around them. Anko laughed maniacally as he socked an agent across the face. Bepo grabbed another by his jacket and threw him into a fountain. Law ducked as Penguin leaped over his back and sent an agent flying backwards with an uppercut. Manta charged at two and bounced them off his belly with a loud laugh.
"You're late!" Law called; he was grinning.
They answered with a collective, raucous, "Sorry, Cap!"
Sobbing in relief, Sophie hugged the closest pirate. Who happened to be Penguin, and he shouted kind of exasperatingly, "Okay, okay! God!" as he wiggled free. "Hey, is it just a coincidence these guys look like the CP5 fools we met on Kunlun?"
"I'll explain later," Law replied, roundhouse kicking an agent across the jaw.
"Ha-ha! I didn't get a chance to fight on Kunlun, but now's my chance!" Valross said. "I will show you all!"
"Nobody's asking you to prove anything!" several pirates yelled back.
"I said I will show you all!"
"Captain! Got your sword!" Shachi shouted, raising Kikoku over his head. He was immediately shoved in the back.
Before the agent could punch Shachi again, Valross rammed a dagger into their eye. Whistling cheerily, he pulled it free and flicked the blood off. Kamasu was drinking from a bottle and slurring unhelpful advice from the sidelines, like an alcoholic cheerleader.
"I still got it!" Shachi said, picking up Kikoku. Manta accidentally rear-ended him with his butt and they went sprawling on the ground.
Someone hit Sophie in the head, which was rude. "Ahhh my brain cells! THAT'S MY LIVELIHOOD, PUNK." She flailed her fists at the agent. "PUNCH ME AGAIN AND I'LL SUE."
"Yeah! Fuck 'em up, bitch!" Anko cackled, catching the sword that had fallen out of Shachi's hands.
"What d-did you call me?"
"I meant bitch in a good way!"
Sophie glanced at a spark in the sky, opened her mouth in warning, thought better of it, then tapped Bepo and pointed at the two women who were hurtling towards them. Wailing in panic, Bepo tackled Anko to the ground.
Moving at a hundred miles per hour, Teresa slammed Ursa into the hospital with the force of a meteorite. The force of it launched debris into the plaza; pirates and agents alike dove aside to evade. Huge smoking blocks of white limestone shattered the road. Palm trees smashed into the fountain and beheaded decorative jaguar statues. All was silent for a few seconds…
"Bepo, get your tits out of my face," Anko wheezed.
The ground lurched tortuously as Sophie struggled to her feet. She heard Shachi shout, "The scary marine lady from Kunlun!" as there was another deafening burst of noise from the ex-hospital; a golden streak was Ursa flinging Teresa back into the sky with an enraged yell.
Cries echoed down the road. Civilians pointed out their windows. She followed their line of sight to the harbor, where a stretch of merchant vessels and humble fishing boats were floating. Just beyond them was a massive warship sailing closer to the harbor. A world-class ship of the line, loaded with three hundred broadside cannons, bearing the blue-and-white flag of the World Government.
Under Machinastein law, it was illegal for a World Government vessel to sail within a mile of their waters. The three Machinastein ships that had been guarding it were now flotsam, smoking in the ocean, as the Government battleship plowed forward.
"So, Law-san?" Sophie said faintly. "You still think getting a ship to Vira is an option?"
"It's nothing we can't handle," Law retorted.
There were little pop-pop-pops, like fireworks, and then the first house along the harbor exploded under artillery fire—then the second—and third, and fourth. The ground quaked. Clouds of smoke ripped apart the sky. There was a split second where the general populace just stared, aghast and motionless… and then the screaming began.
"Ah," Law said. "Yeah, never mind. Anko, move the sub!"
Only two brown legs were visible under Bepo, who appeared to be drooling and mumbling about tuna mayo onigiri. "I'm trying!"
"We'll take care of it!" Manta grabbed the nearest two pirates and taking off. ("Nooooo I want to fiiiiight!" Valross cried, being carried on Manta's shoulder next to Kamasu.) Penguin and Shachi dragged Bepo off Anko and slapped the bear awake.
Sophie was frozen. Wasn't Hippo-sensei living in a tavern by the docks?
The colorful houses of Machinastein blurred into the cobblestoned street of Anatole, sunflower petals caught in her hair, a heavy crown weighing down her hand, Dragon's blood sprayed across her face—the desert heat stifled, pineapples, she needed a cigarette—
Someone shouted her name, and two hands roughly jerked her around. Hippo was gasping for breath, his face shifting in the dust like a fever dream. "Finally! I was looking all over for you! We have to go, the World Government has declared war!"
Before Sophie could coherently understand that this wasn't another strange delirium, Hippo really was standing there, the two mechanics were manhandling him away from her with a loud, "Back off, dingus!"
"I knew you'd get my kid into trouble, you over-tattooed, over-pierced, annoyingly tall punk!" Penguin and Shachi were struggling to keep the fuming doctor away from Law, who looked deeply indifferent. As Hippo continued ranting, Sophie heard a shout from a rooftop.
"Delivery!" A marine flung down flintlocks and ammunition to the agents.
They were standard-issue marine pistols; .22 caliber, solid grip, minimal recoil. Sophie narrowed her eyes. She wanted one.
Hippo flinched as blood sprayed across his face; Sophie was shooting at the agents with two shiny new flintlocks. The agent she'd tackled and stolen the guns from was on the ground, groaning. "For fuck's sake, Sophie—"
The downed agent grabbed her ankle. Sophie sank more bullets into him, and then frowned at the resulting blood stains on the hem of her dress. She shot the dead man again, as his rudeness necessitated.
President Ursa crashed down into the middle of the road. A black streak landed before the crater, loosening her tie.
Hippo peeked out from behind the rubble. His eyes widened. "My god… Teresa?"
Cipher Pol agents, their arms laden with weapons they must've picked up from the warship, tossed over something shining—Teresa rolled up her sleeves and caught the axe. She hadn't noticed Hippo; she was trained purely on the Hearts. Her muscular arms flexed as she gave the axe a few lazy swings.
Sophie fired until one gun ran out of ammo; she threw that over her shoulder and held the other gun in both hands, squeezing her right eye shut.
Sophie emptied the pistol at her, BANG BANG BANG—Teresa charged, blocking the bullets with her axe with expert precision—
"It's revenge time, asshole!" Anko yelled, and then Teresa punched him in the face. "Ow, my eye!"
"And War rode in on a red horse," Hai Xing muttered, "bearing an upright sword—" He, too, was flattened into a pirate pancake.
Teresa smashed through the pirates, her long black ponytail shivering behind her. She ripped the backpack off of Sophie's shoulders and kicked her in the gut, she hit the ground, heaving acid—("Get that backpack!" Law yelled, clutching his bloody nose)—Bepo charged in and managed to rip it out of her grasp, just barely—it flew into the air.
Hippo leaped from the rubble and caught it.
Teresa stopped mid-swing and swore. She stared at Hippo some more and swore again. "God." Her voice was equal parts stilted, confused, and full of wonder. "God, you're alive." She laughed, a quick exhale of a sound, still staring at Hippo. "You look like shit."
"Yeah. Hi. It's been a weird couple of weeks." Hippo glanced down to the backpack. He knew what those notes were, what that rat was for. He knew it was Red Sky. Now he was going to give it to the World Government, and at this point Sophie was seriously considering eating a cigarette and getting her nicotine fix that way.
Teresa stepped forward, raising her arms. He stepped back.
Her tiny smile vanished. "…Hippo?"
"Please, my friend. Just once in your life, look away. You don't need to kill every pirate you come across."
Teresa glanced at Sophie. "So you just want me to take Trafalgar's head—"
"No. Not him. None of the Hearts. Can't you just… leave Machinastein?" He said it so quietly Sophie was sure she heard wrong. Though even if he shouted it from the rooftops, she'd still be sure she heard wrong.
Teresa chuckled in a bemused sort of way. "Don't do this," she said, half-grinning. "Don't do this," she said again, and when Hippo didn't move, her eyes dimmed. "Please. Don't do this."
Nausea bubbled up in Sophie's chest. This wasn't happening. She made eye contact with Law. Blue light spluttered from his fingers and faded; he pounded his fist on the road, as though breaking his bones might somehow help. This wasn't happening.
Don't make me defend you, Sophie thought furiously. "Run—please, just run! Don't a-act like a hero!"
"But that's what marines are." It was a declaration. It was a choice; with bony shoulders and glasses all cracked to shit, Hippo stood with two feet planted on the ground, facing the black-clad herald of death. "We're supposed to be heroes. Justice applies to all, not just to the enemies of the World Government. We were supposed to be a generation better than the ones that came before us. How did we end up becoming exactly like them?"
"Stop this," Teresa said. "You're embarrassing yourself."
"What have we done to each other?" Hippo said, his voice cracking.
"Good q-question, sensei, but godawful timing—"
"Don't talk to me like that!" Teresa's voice rose to a crescendo. "Would you say that to Lettidore? Would you try to appeal to his sentimentality, like he's weak? Like he's susceptible to emotion?" She pointed her axe at Hippo, at her oldest friend in the world, probably. "Give me the fucking bag."
"You don't have to do this—"
"I can't turn back." Teresa trembled, and for a moment she looked almost like Law, beads of sweat dripping down her forehead, her faraway gaze, if I can't win there's no fucking point. "There's nowhere I can walk now but forward!"
She braced her feet against the ground, ready to hurtle forward. Hippo seemed frozen, his chest rising rapidly, his eyes focused on her, only her, in disbelief, in fear, in grief—but then the dramatic tension was broken as an ice cream hand wrapped around Teresa's ankle and flung her into the air.
—
A very pink, very loud distraction arrived in the middle of the plaza-turned-battlefield. Sophie took this opportunity to shove her teacher into a half-collapsed habanero kiosk for shelter.
The Hearts started booing Charlotte Sundae, who responded, "SILENCE, WHELPS."
"Do you know how much ice cream we had to clean off our ship because of you!" they shouted back, shaking their fists.
Ursa pushed aside the heavy rubble. Her metal joints sparked as she exhaled steam through her nostrils. Sundae clasped her hands together and sighed. "A sight for sore eyes, my sweet nougat. Now, how's about you turn Machinastein into Big Mom territory?"
Teresa clambered out of the Teresa-shaped pothole in the road. "This island belongs to the World Government!"
"Pull your heads out your asses!" the President of Machinastein thundered. "In all our history, we've never been someone else's territory!"
"Sweets, that's what Fishman Island said before they became Whitebeard's."
"This is why I never married you," Ursa snapped and Sundae gave an offended huff. "Soldiers! Clear the streets! Protect our people!"
"Yonkou!" a CP5 agent cried. "Boss, we gotta alert HQ that we're fighting a Big Mom pirate!"
"Not yet!" Teresa barked. "Not until we've won." She tongued a small, bloody cut on her lip. "I'll make this quick."
Law barely evaded a swinging axe. He twisted through the air, glimpsing flashes of cannon fire exploding along the harbor. Teresa shot after him and kicked him down onto a rooftop, where he landed in a bush of achiote flowers.
"This ain't yer weight class, boy!" Sundae crowed. "Best sit this one out!"
Ursa glanced at Law and Teresa smirked. He glared, feeling absurdly like a little kid surrounded by aunts. Or, aunt-like women. Aunties who wanted to kill him, in Teresa's case and possibly Sundae's.
It didn't matter anyway; the two women continued bickering about the politics of sovereignty as they went after Teresa. Law angrily yanked red flowers from his shoulders and wiped his still bleeding nose, scanning the horizon.
Machinastein sloops-of-war and Charlotte Sundae's frigate fired back at the Government warship, but they were overpowered and, one by one, began sinking in the harbor as their crews dived overboard. Ursa gave a terrible cry of rage and charged toward the harbor; she was blocked by Teresa, who punched her backwards into Sundae—
Marines marched through the streets, flintlocks blazing, mowing down Machinastein soldiers. The Hearts were fighting in the chaos, surrounded by Cipher Pol agents. The air tasted like smoke and burning grass. Houses toppled to the ground. People were running onto the street and away from the battle epicenter, carrying precious belongings in their hands, clutching children.
Lami cupped her hands around his ear and whispered, Flevance, Flevance, burning bright.
"Captain, watch out!" Bepo shouted.
Law realized he was standing completely still. He didn't see Teresa until her axe was slicing through the side of his ribcage. He tumbled from the rooftop and hit the road, pain lashing through his body.
He cursed himself for his carelessness. How was that agent so strong? Cipher Pol was nothing to scoff at, but it was an intelligence agency, not a branch of warfare. Her strength was like a marine captain's—no, it had to be higher than that, if she was going toe-to-toe with both a Big Mom pirate and President Ursa. Law reached for Kikoku—and remembered it was somewhere in the rubble.
The desert earth was blistering and unyielding under his fingers. The ground crunched against him, resisting, and his entire body protested. He lifted his hand in the air, then touched his chin with his thumb, middle finger to the sky. Up, motherfucker, he signed.
The earth cracked—broke open—a wall of rock jutted upwards, catching Teresa on the side with a groaning thud. It felt like lifting a boulder, and Law fell onto his palms, struggling for breath.
Teresa caught her balance, a look of disdain quickly masking her surprise. "'Motherfucker', really?"
Using his powers beyond his limit was like an elastic band getting stretched longer and longer. He was bound to snap.
Once more, Law thought, because he was also pissed as hell.
Another block of earth slammed into her leg, and Teresa stumbled back, swearing. Law's nerves crackled with mind-numbing pain, and he doubled over on the ground, his vision blazing white. Ursa swooped in and rammed into Teresa, shouting, "I'm tagging in, Trafalgar!"
He wanted so badly to lie down and sleep, but then a bullet grazed his cheek, red slicing along its path. Before the CP5 sniper could shoot again, Sophie whacked her with Kikoku a lá baseball bat.
"Oi, don't hold it like that."
"Sorry, Law-san!" she chirped, bouncing to his side. "Those some new moves? I think you leveled up!"
She still wasn't running? Shit. "Sophie, I suspect you have a bad habit of always picking the wrong choices."
"Objection, I think the choices I've made have worked out for me so far. After all, I believe in you! Just do your Room! Shambles! Bam! Cool! Fabulous! Strike a sexy pose and win!" Sophie held out Kikoku out. "It's time for the counterattack!"
A laugh escaped his mouth. He was losing this argument—though, he'd been losing a lot of arguments with the chemist ever since they met—but he felt strangely alright with it. Law grinned. Sophie smiled back.
Then she inhaled, her entire body stiffening. Her face went slack in confusion. Kikoku rolled out of her hands.
A motion behind her drew his attention. The rifle the Cipher Pol sniper was holding up was still smoking. She mouthed a soundless swear, adjusting it back to Law. A big white paw kicked the sniper across the face. Bepo spun around, and something was wrong, he was crying out…
Simultaneously, Law and Sophie looked down to the hole in her stomach.
Her brow furrowed in a semblance of annoyance as she complained, "I wanted a smoke…"
Law grabbed her before she could fall over. His breathing was grotesquely loud in his ears. He had to stem the bleeding, he had to quickly, quickly… Sophie's eyes fluttered, her curls spilling from her ponytail and down her grimy neck… quickly… do something… move… move your stupid fucking hands—
Across the city, Teresa grabbed Ursa's right arm and ripped it out of the socket. Wires snapped apart. Steam hissed from her body as the president fell amongst the ruined statues of her gods.
move your fucking hands move your fucking—
Teresa leaped up to the top of the Jaguar Temple, to where a green flag emblazoned with a yellow sun flapped proudly. The fighting paused for a split-second as heads turned to watch. On another street, Musca roared President Ursa, get up! and Norma wrapped her arms around Celaeno and fought to keep her from running into the chaos.
As the city watched in horror, Teresa ripped their flag down.
If the only thing about Flevance that remained were its stars, then so it would be for Machinastein. Law was ten-years-old again in the ruins of his country. Soldiers of a foreign land sprayed bullets and washed the streets with red. Churches exploding in blazes of unglory, bells tolling to angels who had long turned their backs. Flevance, Flevance, burning bright.
you useless piece of shit, you're letting her die like you let them all die, you let them all die—
How many times was he going to let someone else take a bullet meant for him? You'd think a decade's worth of suffering was enough; the cycle would've stopped. The wheel would've broken. He was still the worthless kid Cora-san sacrificed himself for.
She should have gone to Vira. She shouldn't have believed in him.
(Somewhere in the back of his mind, a door creaked open.)
Nothing changed, he thought.
Nothing would ever change, he thought.
Pain, someone else thought, someone who felt like gunmetal and cigarettes and unadulterated—Sophie? Pain pain PAIN—
He gasped, clutching his stomach as though he himself was shot, Sophie's agony coursing through him—he could feel her, not just her physical body but her, every scorching excruciating molecule of her—what the fuck IS THIS—
Sophie's pain disappeared beneath a swell of other emotions—his crew's, the man down the street being crushed by rubble, the children hiding under their beds, the soldiers and the marines, down every street, through every alley, in every house, in every room, it was like he could feel every single terrified soul on this damned island.
Fuck, was the last cognizant thought Law had of his own, before he, too, drowned under the tidal wave of screams.
—
The Heart Pirates froze at the sound of Bepo's cry. Hai Xing followed his crewmates' gazes until it landed on the man crumpled in the center of the plaza, the chemist bleeding out next to him, and the panicking polar bear.
Hai Xing sighed. Then he said, "Alright, fine."
Starfish spikes ripped out of his forehead.
to be continued
trivia
to carthage then i came, burning burning burning burning: lines from ts eliot's the wasteland (part iii, the fire sermon).
the bookkeeper: added this character because the world government's military strength is shown well in the manga, but not it's economic strength. a massive government like that needs a lot of money to support itself, so they probably have an army of bookkeepers to carefully count its coffers and tally up debts made by allied and foreign islands alike.
law's haki: some might be surprised that i'm introducing haki so early, but it takes a long time to train and seeing as how luffy took two years to get his haki up to snuff (which is a ridiculously short amount of time, according to rayleigh), i'd say it's realistic for other pirates to have developed theirs sooner.