Thank you's to these stealthy Wano ronins: Guest, AquilaAudax, Kinjiru, Peruna, Momochan77, DreamsOfTheDamn, LittleMissUnknown, bookdragonslayer, studentloans, Alkitty, Riley-Cooper123, AnguineYouth, ClosetCase, sahiarea, WastinTimeWatchinGrass, sarge1130, NewCanvas, iwaizoomi, stardust, Guest, luffys, Dragondancer81, Lucinda M. H. Cheshire, OwO, shishifearme, LurkingFish, Ghiro, and muffinfudger!
Happy New Year! As always, you can check my Tumblr blog (ohpineapples) for writing/fandom shenanigans. I've been wanting to write this chapter since, oh, about six incredibly long years ago? I peppered in several callbacks to previous chapters/chapter titles. Suitable, I think, to wrap up Act I of MNP. Congrats if you find them all!
Thank you for sticking with me so long and for your support and (incredible) patience. I love you.
—
methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis #22
sophie runs toward the ocean
—
This was fine.
(it hurts it hurts it hurts—)
This was totally, completely fine.
(SOME PINEAPPLE ACTUALLY SHOT ME—)
How ironic: for all of her neuroses with counting the exits whenever she entered a room, standing with her back to a wall whenever she could, flinching when someone brushed past her—they did nothing to keep her from getting shot in the gut. So much compulsive paranoia, wasted.
And the pain. God, the pain.
Law wasn't even helping her. No, the smarmy pirate doctor was muttering shutupshutupshutup like an unhinged lunatic. Well, even more of an unhinged lunatic. Law was not a naturally Hinged sort of person. (Sophie understood. She also wanted to scream into the ground, but perhaps he could do something productive and help her before she bled out?)
Her head lifted with a sharp tug. A pale hand gripped her jaw, turning her face left and right.
"You're G-13's traitor?" The thin, clean-shaven man peered down at her with a creepy smile—the same man who stood behind Teresa that morning, in the Jaguar Temple. "Wouldn't make business sense to waste that brain on Impel Down. I suppose we're taking you home. Mariejois, I think. We'll put you back to work, where you belong."
Sophie knew of the World Government's bookkeepers. She'd seen them when they met with Vice Admiral Lettidore to discuss the selling of G-13's chemical weapons. They were always different men, but they looked the same—plain black suit with a red quill tucked into their breast pocket, carrying a heavy black ledger—and they all smelled like beli.
She willed herself to move, spit in his face, do something. STOP IT YOU STUPID FRENCH FRY, the hole in her gut protested.
Sophie supposed she was going to get harassed by a skinny accountant and then die. Whatever.
"Now, the Surgeon of Death." Still smiling, the bookkeeper released her and grabbed the front of Law's shirt. He was totally out of it, muttering absolute gibberish under his breath. "Devil Fruit powers, strong body… seems to be concussed, but no matter. A Dragon will pay handsomely for a toy of this quality."
"…H-hey, you nasty man," her palms hit the dirt, forcing her body to move, blood be damned, "get your c-crusty hands off him."
She dragged herself onto one leg. Pain burst everywhere. Electric pain, brain-numbing, eyes-rolling-into-the-back-of-your-skull pain.
Instead of sobbing, she stood up. "Don't test me, you piece of garbage. I'll bite your head off."
He sounded amused. "You can barely stand—"
She stomped her foot with a war-scream, and the bookkeeper screamed, too. Only, his scream was because he was simultaneously punched and whacked in the head.
Hai Xing emerged from the dust and unclenched his fist, shaking it out.
Hippo was right next to him, clutching a broken plank of wood. "Get away from my kid, you—woah!" He almost tripped over the twitching bookkeeper, staring at Hai Xing.
Sophie's knees buckled. The luminescent black spines vanished and Hai Xing caught her before she could fall over.
Hippo registered that all the red splattered across Sophie's green dress was not, actually, a tacky fashion statement. "Shit," he said, running forward.
Hai Xing ripped off the bookkeeper's black suit jacket and pressed it to Sophie's stomach. "Marine, help me take these two to safety."
Hippo made a face at the order, but turned to Law—who had stopped muttering nonsensically and graduated to twitching like a frog mid-dissection—and slung one of his arms around his shoulders, lifting him up. The younger man was taller than Hippo, and the tips of his shoes dragged along the dirt.
"First I talk back to Teresa, and then I save my kid's dumb backpack, now I'm helping pirates and, damn it, I should've retired early…"
The summer heat abruptly felt ten degrees colder. A shadow dropped down from the spire of the Jaguar Temple, Machinastein's flag falling around her in green tatters.
The seven-foot-tall, musclebound woman dusted off her suit and raised her axe. "Hippo, Sophie, and… I know you. Kunlun, was it? I thought I killed you back then. You must know there's no point in fighting me, unless you've somehow become stronger since I last—"
"Get ready to move," Hai Xing said, and slammed his fist against the vacated, noticeably unstable house right next to them, sending an avalanche of stone and debris cascading into the street between them and Teresa. Wind burst in Sophie's face, whipping her hair all over, and she realized that the wind was Hai Xing moving at an incredible speed as he carried her.
He stopped on the rooftop of a still-intact house. Following behind them, Bepo burst out of the dust cloud with Hippo and Law on his back.
"Ahhhhh!" Bepo waved Law's nodachi around like a signal, as though Hai Xing and Sophie couldn't see the giant polar bear bounding towards them. "That was so close, I thought I wasn't going to make it!"
"I really should've retired early," Hippo gasped, his glasses sliding down his sweaty nose.
Hai Xing looked down at her. "Sophie, are you in pain?"
"Yes?"
"Okay, so you're used to it." He threw her out of his arms. Bepo caught her, muffling Sophie's earsplitting curses in his chest. "The others are close. Go. I'll keep the marines busy."
"Be careful!" Bepo cried. "That's an order from your senior crewmate, you hear me?"
Hai Xing gave a two-fingered salute and fell backwards over the edge.
The Civic Hospital was teeming with people evacuating. There was a large, smoking crater in the middle of what had once been a beautiful atrium. Bepo had grabbed Shachi and Penguin with one paw; Anko heard Hai Xing went off to fight Teresa alone and booked it in his direction, and there was nothing they could do to stop him. Their attention was distracted, anyway.
The chaos around them was making their captain worse. He was yelling like a madman now, fingernails scratching at his forehead like he wanted to claw his own brain out. Though Sophie had already seen him stab her with a needle full of parathion, this display of derangement was somehow more terrifying. Whatever was happening to Law, he was losing.
Sundae dropped next to them—all the pirates shrieked, and then tried to cough in a manly fashion—carrying President Ursa around her shoulders as she hollered, "The lad can't control it! Put him to sleep!"
"A tr-tranquilizer," Sophie whispered. "Fentanyl, e-eto-etomidate, and a pa-paralytic—su-succinylcho-choline, if they h-have it."
Penguin sounded alarmed, "Can you, uh, spell that out—"
"No! It'll be too late!" Bepo howled with the certainty of one descending into a void of irrational panic. "Captain, go to sleep!"
He punched his captain so hard Law did, indeed, pass out.
—
Law's eyes shot open and a hiss twisted out of his throat. Terror, grief, stabbing pain, movement churning and spinning around him, and voices, all these wretched voices that wouldn't stop—
"Concentrate on your own presence, Trafalgar." It was a distant echo, as though he was standing in the bottom of a well. "Focus. Let yourself sink into it."
Law didn't know what the hell Ursa was saying, but he was too far gone to question it. The people—or rather, the impression of people around him faded away, and he was left alone with himself, and he felt like snow. He felt like a barren snowfield where there was not a single living soul but him. The bitter wind slashed his cheeks. His breath came out painfully, like the air itself was trying to pull the life out of him.
"Now let it go."
There was a door in the back of his mind. He reached out, his hand settling on top of the handle of—no, it wasn't a door anymore, but a treasure chest covered in snow. Icicles formed on the rusted lock. But the top of the chest was cracked open. Law knew, with unerring certainty, that whatever was inside had to be quiet. It couldn't make a sound. It couldn't even move.
A hand shoved through the crack and it whispered, "Cora-san."
Law slammed the chest shut.
He jackknifed into a sitting position and grabbed the two shadows leaning over him, hard enough to throttle.
"Ow! Cap, it's us!"
He let go of Shachi and Penguin, disoriented as he apologized. His chest hurt. His cheek really hurt. Law assessed the damage. There was a shallow axe-cut along his ribcage that someone had bandaged up. Other than that, aside from a few bruised bones here and there, he felt… okay. The pressure in his head was gone.
The air in the Civic Hospital was heavy with smoke. Ursa was helping her citizens who had been hit by the rubble, Sundae was sitting away from them, speaking into a Den Den Mushi, and there, propped up against Bepo, was Sophie.
"We'll talk about this later, Trafalgar," Ursa said. "Right now, she needs your—"
He was at her side in an instant. Sophie's eyes were closed, and there was a transfusion tube next to her, a red line from a blood bag to a needle in her elbow.
She was mumbling something to herself. Law leaned closer. She was counting backwards in sevens. Her eyes peeled open; they were eerily blue in her dirt-streaked face. Law's vision spun again. What was wrong with him. She was shot in front of him and he straight-up dissociated into a motherfucking hellscape—
"You're alive." Sophie shot him a faint, lopsided smile. "Well d-done."
"That's my line," Law retorted. He rubbed his aching cheek, remembering the impact of a white paw. "Thanks for punching me, Bepo."
"Just doing my duty, Captain."
He lifted some poor bastard's jacket off her wound as tenderly as possible. What a bloody fucking mess.
"Found the needle, thread, and rubbing alcohol." Hippo set the items down with a clatter. "Finally awake, Trafalgar? Move aside, I can handle this—"
Power flared from Law's fingertips. Being knocked out recovered a bit of his stamina, enough to Room her organs out of her body to check for shrapnel and damage. Hippo's jaw dropped. Sophie lit up like a kid at the candy store.
"A clean hit," Law said. "The bullet didn't fragment in your body. Your large intestine was nicked by the shot, but that's fixable. I'll do this fast."
"On the u-upside, I do like things clean." Sophie was grinning. She was probably going to stop grinning when Law told her she needed at least half a dozen stitches on her stomach and back.
"Leave it to you to be optimistic about something dumb," Shachi snorted, even as he twisted his hat in his hands.
"Or w-what, be pessimistic a-about dying? Boring." Her eyes were glassy and her brow was shiny with sweat. She was resilient enough to be cracking jokes, but he'd wager that stubborn humor would one day be the end of her.
"Cap, weren't you also hurt?" Penguin asked. "I mean, what was up with the…"
The screaming and the fainting, yeah, he had no idea how to explain it to his crew. Law did a double take, momentarily distracted as he counted heads. He sent Manta, Valross, and Kamasu to the sub, so— "Where the hell are Hai Xing and Anko?"
—
Hai Xing, having spent a large part of his life hiding his fishman genes, was very good at being sly. He emerged with his spines behind Shachi and Penguin, and promptly ditched them as a mortar flew through the street and dust covered their vision. He was good at being alone. He preferred it, usually.
That begged the question: why was this happening.
"…I was going to distract the marines," Hai Xing muttered.
Anko issued him a fed-up glare as he held the cook by his side, hiding around a corner of a demolished alley. "I know, dumbass, that's why I dragged you in here. Look, I ain't interested in cleaning fishman guts from the street."
"…No one would ask you to clean—"
"Shut up. You know what I mean."
"…You'd probably take forever, if the laundry was any indication."
"I am this close to shoving you out the—"
"The western end is clear," came a CP5 agent's voice. "No sign of the pirates or President Ursa."
Rather than shoving Hai Xing out into the open, Anko's grip tightened as though he thought the cook might dive into the street and rip open his shirt while shouting here I am, take me now!
"This is the most hectic day at work we've had in a long time," another agent remarked.
"Hey, Chief, is this… really something you have to do?"
Teresa's voice rang out. "The men I answer to only value one thing as currency. Violence."
"You never used to care about making them happy."
"And where has that got me? Ten years of being stuck in the same damn place while other agents get promoted before me. If I want Spandine's job, I have to show I can be strong like him. Him, Fleet Commander Kong, Akainu… they've wiped out entire islands. So can I."
The rubble beneath Hai Xing's foot slipped out. Anko yanked him back before he could tumble—but since Hai Xing was already deftly moving back, Anko only succeeded in creating more noise as they bumped into each other. Stones spilled out of the alley.
The street outside was abruptly quiet. A shadow drew closer, raising an axe.
Hai Xing and Anko met eyes, expressions mirrored: Run.
—
The fresh stitches seared, but Sophie was getting used to the pain. She gripped the fur on Bepo's back as he carried her. Her backpack was heavy, but she didn't trust Hippo to carry it, even if he did tell Teresa to go eat a blueberry earlier. Figuratively.
Sophie wasn't given a role in the plan, but Law did toss her an objective: "Stay the hell alive."
He was asking a lot out of her, wasn't he…
(The plan was this: The pirates' submarine had disappeared from the harbor, but no one called to let Law know where they fled to. It quickly became apparent why. The marines were scrambling all the Den Den Mushi waves in the city. Unable to communicate, they had to grab Anko and Hai Xing, hightail it to a working train, and decide what to do from there.
Or as Sophie summarized, "Let's blow this popsicle stand." Law wasn't impressed by her wise, ancient proverb. He said it lacked gravitas. And that she was a black hole where gravitas went to die. She couldn't argue with that.)
After Ursa herded the last few patients to the part of the hospital barricaded by beds and nurses gripping IV stands like baseball bats, she caught up to the pirates and was running beside them. "Listen up, Trafalgar. What happened to you is something only few people ever experience. Observation Haki is the ability to sense spiritual energy, but it's a dangerous power. Some people, when they awaken it, go mad."
A marine shot Ursa in the chest. The bullet glanced off her metal body. With one look at the humorless old cyborg, the marine aptly chose to flee.
"As I was saying," Ursa continued, flinging a piece of rubble that knocked the marine unconscious, "to control it, peace of mind is necessary. Inner chaos can cloud it, can poison it and turn it into madness."
"So I have to stop feeling," Law said seriously, which was just. The most Law thing Sophie had ever heard.
"The opposite of uncontrollable emotion is not the death of all emotion."
"Is there any way you could say that more vaguely?"
"Mastering the observation of others will not happen until you first learn to observe yourself."
Law scowled and Sophie cut in, "There's a-another Haki. The armor one."
"Ye get hit," Sundae said, intently focused on her Den Den Mushi. "Nigh a-plenty, to shake it from sleep. Armament is the easier one to awaken, I'd say, and you can go toe-to-toe with the strongest Devil Fruit users out there."
She leaped away from them and onto a higher rooftop, raising the Den Den Mushi as though searching for a signal.
"I might've felt Observation Haki before," Law muttered. "A long time ago, as a kid."
"It typically awakens through high levels of emotional stress," said Ursa. "If something happened to you as a child… the brain has ways of repressing memories. You may have forgotten."
"How do you know if you got it?" Penguin wondered.
"Sometimes it's immediate, sometimes it takes longer for one to be aware. Haki manifests itself uniquely in every person. It lies dormant within every living being on this world, though most don't notice it. Controlling it, however, is a different story." Ursa blinked, attention shifting. "Ah, I see several of my citizens trapped in a burning wreckage! Excuse me!"
A line of marines blocked the street ahead.
"Up we go." Penguin and Shachi grabbed Hippo and, ignoring his protests, jumped onto the rooftops. "We'll meet you on the train, Cap!"
Law didn't stop his pace. In one fluid motion, he slashed the marines apart, flicked the blood off, and re-sheathed his sword. Show-off.
Sophie squinted through the hazy film of dust. "Do you see them? Should I try shouting?"
"I'm sure that'll do it," Law said sarcastically.
"Hai Xing-saaaan! Ankooo!"
Distant screaming answered her, growing louder and louder until the two pirates were flying over Sophie's head and collided smack-dab into their captain. They rolled to a stop on the ground, sprawled over each other, groaning and rubbing their bruised limbs. Law, the non-believer, leveled Sophie a flat, Do Not Say a Word glare.
Bepo didn't get the memo. "A cleaning witch sure is powerful," he observed.
"Indeed, Bepo-san, indeed."
"I think I cracked my ass," Anko spluttered, clutching his butt. "Oh, hey, Cap!"
"Captain, your foot is on my windpipe, but it's okay, I'll just die…"
With a sigh of relief, Law propped himself up on his elbows. "Idiots."
The three of them were on their feet in an instant as Teresa landed before them. A blue Room appeared.
"Running away again?" Teresa mocked. "I expected more from you."
A chill ran up Sophie's spine. "You stupid pineapple, don't—"
The Room vanished. The stupid pineapple drew Kikoku, snarling.
"I hate men who don't listen to good advice," Teresa tsked, and they ascended over the buildings in a series of bright, flashing metal blows, sword against axe, until they crashed into a pyramid-temple in an explosion of dust and straight out the other side.
A giant hammer made of melting, gloopy ice cream slammed into Teresa. Ursa whirled into view, smashing an uppercut into Teresa's chin. Flying through the air, Ursa grabbed Law's hand and spun, using the weight shift to catapult him back at Teresa, sword raised, blinding—
Sophie watched the mind-blowing fight shatter the clouds. It wasn't too noticeable, but the pink dot that was Charlotte Sundae seemed to be struggling to keep up with Law and Ursa. Of course, the desert wasn't exactly optimal for an ice cream woman. She was dripping ice cream all over the city. Sophie inspected the puddles of leftover dairy on the ground; it was steaming, curdling in the heat. Hm…
A marine lunged at Anko, sword raised. Before anyone could react, a rolling pin slammed against the marine's head.
It was the chocolatier who had stolen Sophie's backpack. They locked eyes for a split second, and he clobbered another marine.
"Come and get some!" he yelled, waving his rolling pin. More chocolatiers came out of the woodwork, raising whisks and baking pans to defend the streets. They weren't doing it alone; Ursa's secretaries were fighting right beside them, two green whirlwinds with silver daggers, and Charlotte Sundae's crew were taking particular delight in shooting down marines.
Law was still locked in combat with Teresa, because he was a Man with Something to Prove, with the ol' chip-on-the-shoulder and other dumb phrases that basically meant he had a deep-seated, masochistic yearning to get his butt kicked. Sophie looked around, wondering if there was a way to help, and grinned; they were in the market district! Ingredients galore!
"You three," she said to the pirates, raising a handful of slimy milk curdles, "let's do some science."
Using broken metal pipes, Hai Xing, Anko, and Bepo furiously stirred Sophie's concoction of white vinegar, baking soda, and Charlotte Sundae's milk curdles in a barrel that previously held a bunch of live crabs that Sophie set free into the street. Run into the wild! she mentally called to them. Roam to your heart's content!
"Will this work?" Bepo asked, worried.
"Ho-ho, my sweet polar bear." Sophie shook her finger with a knowing smirk. "I have no idea. Now throw!"
"Captain, duck!" Bepo wailed, and Hai Xing hefted the barrel and launched it at Teresa with the precise aim of a half-fishman with ridiculously good hand-eye coordination. A bit of smoke hissed from the friction of his follow-through.
Law's eyes widened and he Roomed Ursa, Sundae, and himself out of the way.
The barrel hit Teresa full on, the homemade bomb of glue encasing her limbs, and she was flung across the other side of the city, her screams echoing behind her. Sophie was hit with a flash of déjà vu: a peach-tree monastery, mercuric thiocyanate, and the same scream of fury. Teresa had quite the vibrato.
"You're one strong fucker," Anko commented, shielding his eyes from the sun.
Hai Xing shrugged. "It's all in the wrist."
Hippo, Penguin, and Shachi had made it to the train; they were in the conductor's compartment, shouting loudly over the controls. They leaned out the shattered window and waved, yelling for them to hurry. How the mangos were they supposed to—
"Nicely done," came a murmur in Sophie's ear. She closed her eyes in the flash of blue.
They appeared inside the train compartment, suspended in midair, and hit the floor with a crash. Sophie landed daintily on Hai Xing's lap, who fell on Anko, who bounced on Bepo's belly. Law sprawled over a seat, out-of-breath, blood dripping down his forehead.
Sophie rolled onto the solid floor, thankful to have something stable under her hands. She heard footsteps run in from the conductor's compartment, and then Penguin and Shachi were helping her and their crewmates up. Hippo wasn't far behind.
Blobs of ice cream whipped inside the speeding train. Ursa, her secretaries, and injured chocolatiers who were about to be made into marine target practice were dropped inside. Sundae followed right after them. There was a moment of silence as everyone took a breath. And then started speaking at once.
"What the hell do the marines want with Machinastein?" several people shouted over the cacophony.
"Heavenly Tribute," Ursa said. "The more prosperous a country, the more riches will go to the Celestial Dragons."
"CP5 wants to make their bosses richer?" Penguin scoffed.
"Oh, not at all," Hippo said. "Teresa wants the promotion for being the one to bring Machinastein into the World Government Alliance. Like how whoever kills the biggest pheasant gets a trophy."
"I can also imagine there's benefits to capturing Ursa-ya alive," Law said mildly from his prone position on the seat. "To torture her to sign an agreement. And if she knows any information or history the World Government doesn't want Machinastein knowing, that can also be tortured out." He raised a brow, noticing the stares. "What."
Sophie could practically hear the chocolatiers mentally ask themselves how many bodies has this man hidden.
"You lot protected President Ursa," said the chocolatier who had stolen Sophie's backpack, clutching a beat-up rolling pin. "Thanks."
"We're not the most upstanding citizens, but nobody messes with our country," said another.
There was a tiny pricking at the back of Sophie's mind—why did she feel so off about the chocolatiers being in the same space as the pirates?
"And the fishman was badass," a chocolatier remarked. "Good thing you have him in your crew."
"The what," said Penguin, and Sophie considered mass annihilation.
"That one." The chocolatier pointed at Hai Xing, standing in a dark corner like a horrifying statue. "The pirate we fought before."
Shachi burst out laughing. "What? No. He's just a little weird, is all." He yanked Hai Xing over to the group. The cook flopped around like a boneless jellyfish; to everyone watching, he was merely a short, thin man with funny scars on his head. "Look at him. He's never even beaten me in arm-wrestling."
Charlotte Sundae made an irritated noise. "First of all, yer both thicker than rocks," she told Shachi and Penguin. "Second, I'm gettin' word from Mama. This here snail is incapable of being intercepted, but the marines were jammin' Den Den Mushi waves. Seems like reception is a little better out of the city."
"You're calling Big Mom?" The Hearts gathered around the white Den Den Mushi to gaze reverently/breathe loudly at it. Ah, the distraction power an Emperor's name had on young, upstart rookies…
"I've made my decision, Sundae," Ursa said. "If you help get them off of our land, Machinastein will produce chocolate only for Big Mom."
Every Machinastein citizen in the compartment stopped talking and stared at their president.
"Yer askin' for territory protection. That changes things. You'll deliver us chocolate for free, every month. Big Mom's tribute, instead of the Dragons'."
After a tense silence, Benetnash said, "This is a catastrophic emergency. What other choice do we have?" The other secretary, Dubhe, nodded.
"Have faith," said Backpack-Thief Chocolatier. "We're a scrappy bunch, our people. We've taken worse licks and have gotten back up."
This seemed to bolster Ursa. "I accept the terms. I'll also have to convince my ministers and the representatives, but I don't believe they'll fight me on this. Mostly because I don't know how many of them are still alive." She closed her eyes and sighed, looking very old. "Well, then. You'll be my liaisons," Ursa said to the chocolatiers. "You've all been dealing chocolate to Sundae for some time now, yes? If we're becoming a land of criminals, then we best be number one."
The chocolatiers vigorously raised their fists. Ursa's secretaries looked tired but pleased by the display of fighting spirit.
Charlotte Sundae was the only one who was conflicted. "You know how Mama likes to sign her pacts, sugarplum."
"Ha. You finally have me in your claws, dear."
"I didn't want it t' happen this way."
"It might not happen at all unless we get out of this alive. I need your help for that."
"I look forward to doin' business with ya." Sundae held out her hand. She hesitated, then said in an undertone, "I woulda married ya even if Mama never asked me to. I woulda married ya even if there was nothin' to gain, even if ye were the president of a pile of dirt."
Ursa's smile was dark-chocolate-bittersweet. "No, you wouldn't have." She gripped Sundae's hand. "But thank you for saying it."
Sophie watched them, something twisting in her chest. There were a million and one words in the gaze they shared. They loved each other. She knew awfully little about romantic love, but it seemed to her that Sundae and Ursa, despite their combative relationship, had loved each other very much. But it was something that never lined up the right way. Something that… never had the right timing…
She didn't notice that Law had sat up, and jumped slightly when he muttered, "This is pirate country now. I assume you're disappointed?"
Idyll Island had done the same thing. It had once been nearly decimated by the plentiful qava root that grew on the island; the black market loved a powerful sedative drug. Whitebeard's flag gave them protection from those wanted to harvest the root for themselves. It was no different from Machinastein and many other islands across the sea.
"Not at all," Sophie said honestly. "It's the best option they have at this time. If anything, it's admirable." She turned her head toward him. "And I'm no stranger to forging alliances with pirates."
He grinned a little at that.
"Ah, a desert storm," Ursa said, calling Sophie's attention back from places that may or may not have been the crook of Law's mouth. "This will be a sight to see."
The Machinastein desert stretched out around them, far and wide, an unbroken mass of hot, parched earth. Massive clouds loomed over the sparse plains, anvil-grey, so low to the ground that they could see its huge shadow moving over cacti and desert marigolds. The train fell quiet; they all watched the rolling clouds blanket the sky. There were days like this in the trenches, silent spells where she gazed at the red sunset wavering over the horizon, cigarette dangling from her mouth, wondering if it was the last beautiful thing she would ever see. She glanced at the Heart Pirates. She didn't have to worry about that anymore.
Just then, a heavy thud came from the top of the train.
"The beldam," Sundae uttered.
As they were looking up at the ceiling, Teresa exploded through the side of the train, ripping the metal apart with her axe.
Ursa was the first to rise, one-armed, shining. "May the gods smile upon Machinastein."
"The only gods in this world live in Mariejois!" Her axe-blade swung. Ursa dodged; the blade caught the train wall and cracked it apart like an egg.
This was not a fight Sophie wanted to be in close-quarters with. More marines burst in from the other compartment. She ducked a swing of a sword, and Shachi and Anko leapfrogged over her, kicking the marines back. The chocolatiers sprang into action.
"Trafalgar, watch out!" Hippo punched a marine that ran at Law with a sword, and then screamed as the marine collapsed. "Oh my god! I'm sorry!"
"Hippo, you traitorous slut!" Teresa roared, blocking Law's nodachi with her axe.
"Eat my shorts! You almost killed my student again!"
Sophie snorted into her fist. If she closed her eyes, she was back in G-13's mess hall, listening to Hippo, Teresa, and Lettidore bicker about nothing and laugh uproariously in their own bubble that was impervious to everyone else.
Teresa set her jaw, glaring. The mess hall was a memory; nobody was laughing now.
Penguin jerked. "Sophie, watch ou—"
When she wasn't paying attention, hands reached around her and yanked her through the window.
"This belongs to the Government," said a gruff voice behind her.
She was thrown to the top of the train. Her teeth scraped against hot metal, she felt hands tugging the backpack away from her. She heard Penguin swearing, and she kicked up in a rising handspring, ramming her feet into his face and leaping upright.
Sophie grabbed her backpack as Penguin shoved the agent off the edge, his screams fast disappearing as the train sped on. More ravens were climbing on top, their sharp black coats whipping in the wind.
"There's no end to them," Penguin muttered. She supported herself on his arm. She could stand, thankfully, but just the one kick made pain flare through her body.
"I have complete faith in you, Penguin."
"Thanks, but you are in no way helping." He scanned the ripped, bloody scrap of a dress she was wearing. "Unless you have a bazooka hidden under there."
Sophie pinched his ear. "Eyes up or I'll make you eat your own kidneys."
"Can I watch?" Shachi clambered on top of the train, wiping blood off his face that was definitely not his, if the wide grin was any indication.
"Disgusting bastard." Penguin shook his head. "Now, tell me the exact details of how you'd make me eat my own kidneys."
"You two are as bad as your captain," Sophie complained, as Shachi twirled her out of the path of the bullets.
"Did you just figure that out?" Shachi quipped.
"Uh, no. But I can't march up to two strangers at a bar in Crawfish Island and tell them they're both ne'er-do-wells, can I?"
Penguin disarmed an agent with two strikes of his fist and threw the pistol to Sophie. "It would've made the whole search for Cap's missing scalpel a lot easier."
Sophie checked the safety and groaned, recalling the harassment she endured from Law in the swamp. "You two did perfectly well without my help."
Shachi swept an agent's legs out from underneath them. "Aw, she called us perfect!"
"I knew she liked us on the inside."
"Come on, it's so obvious."
"Can you two pick a better time to mock me?"
"Sure," Shachi agreed, and the three of them stood back-to-back, fists and gun raised, as the agents surrounded them. "Hey, we look pretty cool."
Penguin flexed his fists as the train sped beneath roiling desert-storm clouds. "Hell yeah, let's—"
"Down!" Sophie threw herself on top of the two pirates as Anko and Hai Xing leapt onto the scene, cutting through the agents with several of the chocolatiers' baking weapons, which both ruined the moment and saved their butts.
Penguin rolled over on his back. "At least buy us dinner first."
Shachi raised his hand. "I want primo seating at the kidney feast."
"Less talk more fight, please," Sophie requested.
"Who says we can't multitask?"
As they ran to catch up with their crewmates, Sophie wobbled to her feet. Three compartments down, Law burst through the train top, thrown into the air by Teresa. Ursa grabbed Teresa's ankle before she could slice Law apart and hurled her back into the compartment; the entire train shook. Sundae was holding marines at bay with a wall of melting ice cream as she shouted into her Den Den Mushi.
Sophie took one look at this fight and knew that she didn't belong.
For any sane person who had a hole ripped through their gut, their bodies would naturally relinquish the pain and throw themselves into the river of blissful unconsciousness. But all Sophie could think about was how she wasn't indestructible like the other godforsaken, unfairly overpowered scumbags on the Grand Line. What an embarrassment that one dang bullet put her out of commission.
Her own weakness pissed her off. Cutting through the pain, sweat, and blood was a stubborn, knife-blade of a thought: Hell has to work a lot harder than this if it wants to drag me down.
Instead of lowering herself into the safety of the compartment, Sophie backed up toward Charlotte Sundae, firing off her recently-acquired gun. Sundae was still yelling into the Den Den Mushi, her makeup melted off in dripping blobs, leaving her face white and wrinkled. The closest marine eeped when he saw her. Sundae did not take that noise kindly.
"Jackanapes!" Sundae walloped him with a giant, gloopy spoon.
Sophie could've sworn she heard Ursa mutter, "my future wife, everyone," as she broke a fistful of rifles on her knee. They snapped like sticks.
Bepo was dealing with his own group of marines, swinging his arms with the velocity of an inebriated koala. Sophie eyed him, worried at the copious amount of sweat that was forming a puddle at his feet.
"It's a guy in a bear suit," a marine said to his comrades. "I think he's supposed to be the Heart Pirates' mascot. Or some kind of pervert?"
Hearing this rude talk, Bepo decided to chase the marines at the pace of a very determined banana slug. Sophie should've expected this. They had an ice-cream woman, a fishman, and a polar bear fighting in the desert. Hai Xing was slowing down, the others covering most of his hits, and Sundae was already just a talking blob of dairy. They were getting overpowered.
Sophie shot at the marines surrounding Bepo until someone pulled the backpack from where it was hanging off one shoulder. Pain flashed. She thought she heard Goliath's squeaks and staggered after it. Her fist met jawline, her backpack flew through the air, and she must be going crazy because there were green birds in the corner of her vision—
She reached for her backpack and slipped off of the train.
"Shit—" Law turned, and Teresa used the distraction to kick him across the mouth.
"Sophie-chan!"
"Do you see her!?"
"No, I—holy shit."
A flock of Giant Quetzals rose up, flying alongside the train in an emerald wave.
Don't fall, was Sophie's first thought as she clutched her backpack to her chest, astride a giant bird. She felt every beat of its wings underneath her and adjusted her balance on the feathers. She looked behind her at the young woman she was riding with and shouted over the wind, "That was awesome!"
Celaeno gave a quick thumbs-up, then narrowed her eyes as she steered the bird into a nosedive right into the marines. Sophie gripped the bird as tight as she could and braced herself, wind roaring in her ears. The marines scattered, some leaping over the train to avoid collision, as they rocketed like a green bullet over the battle.
Celaeno pulled out of the dive and rose up into the air again, laughing silently.
"Scratch what I said earlier," Sophie gasped. "That was awesome."
"That was so hot! My girlfriend is amazing!" Norma crowed from her Giant Quetzal, chucking a basket of avocados at the marines. "Also, we should've grabbed real weapons, why did we think throwing snacks at these guys was a good idea?"
Musca disagreed. "You destroyed my house and killed my succulents, asshat!" he yelled, pelting Teresa with corn.
Giant Quetzals surrounded the train, Charlotte Sundae's crewmates among them as they rode beside the Machinastein soldiers. They flung spears at the agents and shouted as they spotted President Ursa.
The battle slowed as all sides of the fight assessed their numbers. Law still looked grim, aware that a cavalry meant nothing to Teresa.
Sundae threw down the receiver of her Den Den Mushi, a pleased grin on her face. "We're finished here, marines!" No one paid her any attention. "OI, YA BLEEDIN' BILGE RATS! I SAID, IT'S OVER!"
"You think these count as reinforcements?" Teresa retorted coolly, loosening her tie.
Celaeno maneuvered her bird right next to the train, close enough for Sophie to hear Sundae shout, "Three man-o'-wars near Applenine Island, commanded by a Vice Admiral Momonga."
It was a warning. A threat. And it worked, judging by how Teresa froze.
"My siblings' warships have already been deployed." Sundae tapped her Den Den Mushi. "They say they can reach Applenine in half a day. Won't be enough time for the Vice Admiral to run. If you stand down, so will they. This is Big Mom country now."
"President Ursa—" it was amazing that Teresa still had the gall to address Ursa civilly, Sophie thought, "—you're not even going to fight your own fights?"
"I did what you forced me to do," Ursa said, as Sundae cackled. "I chose a side."
"You chose the wrong side."
"KISS MY WRINKLED ASS," the supercentenarian bellowed. "Will you put a Vice Admiral at risk? Be a marine killer?"
Teresa went unnaturally still. She lowered her axe, her gaze firmly on Hippo, waiting for him to say something, do something for her. Sophie knew that look. She was overly familiar with it when it came to her teacher; betrayal.
"Let's move," Hippo said to the pirates, jumping back to the other compartment. Sophie released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
Law swung Kikoku, cutting the link between the conductor's compartment and the rest of the train. Celaeno waved her arm to Norma and Musca, and they followed after the lone compartment. Between each wing-beat, Sophie watched the figures on the train grow smaller, and then they were gone.
"I can't let ya murder her," Sundae warned, as the Heart Pirates vanished from sight. "The balance between Big Mom and the World Government is thin enough."
"My city has seen enough bloodshed. I'll let you leave Machinastein." Ursa patted her armless shoulder, where Teresa had ripped it straight out of its metal socket. "But not without dislocating an arm."
—
Whatever was jamming the Den Den Mushi waves didn't reach this far outside of the city. The Hearts finally got through to Manta, and he reported that the submarine was fine and they'd meet them at the north end of the island. In the meantime, as the train chugged on, Law bandaged any wounds on his crewmates that needed immediate attention. He did a quick check on Sophie's stitches and was satisfied when he saw she hadn't ripped any of them. He also spared her a glare when she moaned if anyone had a working cigarette lighter and said icily that he'd Room her cigarettes into the ocean if she kept asking that.
Cigarette-less and moody, Sophie half-listened to the conversation around her as she rummaged through her backpack. The contents of her backpack had become disorganized during the fight. She arranged her notes neatly on her lap and stretched out her hand distractedly. "Sensei, hand me the cage."
Hippo and Law reached for the rat cage at the same time. A vein bulged in Hippo's forehead.
Law pointed at himself. "I'm a doctor, too."
"Only an idiot with an atom-sized brain would ever call you sensei."
"Sophie, did you hear what he called you?"
"Never mind, I'll get it myself." She pushed past the doctors and peered at Goliath. "Still alive?"
The rat, undoubtedly used to being tossed around at this point, gave her a look like, you muffinfudger. Yeah, she could tell. Celaeno, Norma, and Musca immediately came over to coo at the adorable test subject. The Hearts also drifted closer, though they seemed more interested in talking with the nice-looking students who sort of helped save them from marines.
"I know what this is."
Sophie lifted her head. Hippo was staring at the—where did the notes in her lap go? Oh, you gotta be…
"You never had access to those documents," Hippo said slowly, flipping through her Red Sky research. "We'd gotten rid of them after… you wouldn't have known about how they…"
"Hi." Sophie snapped her fingers. "Science, please."
"The gigantification scientists had difficulty moderating how fast the kids' lungs grew. There was compound used to stabilize their breathing, an anticholinergic drug that blocked the acetylcholine in their nervous systems, keeping the neurotransmitters calm instead of erratic. In the seventh generation, the one Odin was born in, the subjects were able to reproduce the molecules themselves."
"He evolved new molecules to stabilize the breathing process?" Law joined in on the conversation, brow furrowed.
"It does sound like a way to treat Red Sky's symptoms, how the lungs can't stop contracting because of the acetylcholinesterase overload," Sophie murmured.
"It makes sense, there were signs of immense stress on his lungs."
"…Why do you sound like you've have seen his organs?"
"I have them back on my ship," Law said blithely.
Hippo was undergoing immense stress himself. "You experimented on—"
"Not just experimented. I killed him."
"You—"
"Hey, we're all bad scientists who've made poor life decisions," Sophie said firmly. This was a good reminder that if she ever mentioned she killed a World Noble in front of Hippo, he would combust and that would not be an exaggeration.
"Some more than others," Hippo added.
"Don't talk to Law-san like that. Of all the scientists and doctors in the World Government, the only people who bothered to work on a cure for Red Sky were a traitor and a pirate."
Hippo looked down, chastened. Looking amused at her sudden defense of him, Law agreed with her suggestion to try it out when they got to the submarine.
Hai Xing and Bepo were the first to spot the ocean. The rest joined the navigator and the cook at the window and watched the coastline surge into view. The Hearts cheered when they spotted the yellow submarine on the horizon, and Law asked the students if they knew how to operate the train back into the city. The three of them glanced at each other, unsure, and Norma proclaimed that they'd never been on a pirate ship before.
Sophie replied that the Heart Pirates were a hospitable bunch of pirates—but they had to watch out for random beheadings.
Hippo found himself tentatively grinning as he watched his kid. But she moved away from him, leaning out the open door with her arms around Idiots A and B—no, Penguin and Shachi, those were their names—and Hippo's hand fell back to his side, his smile disappearing as an uneasy realization came over him.
—
"What the absolute fruitcake blueberry muffins."
"Said scientists everywhere as they discover a cure to a debilitating nerve agent," Law remarked.
"What scientists say everywhere is 'I don't know how this happened.' Which also applies, in this case."
There was a fully healthy rat sniffing in front of them. Combination dosage of 2-PAM chloride, mandrake, and whatever was in Odin's molecules. The secret ingredient from an atrocity G-13 committed… was the cure to another atrocity they committed.
The universe was a giant joke.
"Naturally, there has to be a more detailed investigation." Law looked up from observing Goliath's tiny organs underneath a microscope and Roomed them back into the rat. "But the lungs are working fine again, and the Red Sky molecules have been killed off."
Sophie didn't even have time to celebrate this surprising turn of events as she jotted down her notes. Though if she had time for anything, she really wanted to lie down and take a nap. Law went off to supervise his crew as they made last-minute adjustments and preparations for the oncoming storm.
"It's brilliant work," Hippo said. "I can't begin to describe how surprised I am that you and Trafalgar managed to… maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. You're excellent at chemistry and he's…" Hippo's expression strained, "…a doctor, technically."
"Hm," Sophie said, her thoughts drifting. She left Celaeno, Norma, and Musca in the galley with Hai Xing, the only pirate she trusted to cause the least amount of trouble with an audience. (Valross and Shachi already ran by, stripping off the top half of their boiler suits, shouting if there was anything heavy in the galley that needed lifting. They also stuck their heads in the operation room to check if Sophie was okay with her teacher, and that was far more of a surprise.)
"I actually met him once." Hippo pointed at the embalmed lungs that once belonged to Saint Kasimir's right-hand man. "As a kid, I mean."
Sophie stopped writing and fiddled with Odin's dogs tags on her neck. "He was sold to a—"
"A World Noble, I remember. Twenty years ago. I couldn't stop it."
That was something Hippo hadn't mentioned before. "You were there?"
"I couldn't stop it," he said again, quieter. "I was a junior doctor, and—no, maybe that's what I just kept telling myself. When I found you, I thought it was a sign. I started loving G-13 because I loved you so much. I wanted to raise it well for future generations. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that I loved you more."
Sophie squeezed the quill until it hurt. "What do you want me to say to that?"
He looked at her for a long moment. "Nothing. I… nothing."
The pirates' shouts were audible down the hall, breaking the tense silence.
"What a rowdy bunch," Hippo said, and Sophie blinked at the lack of disapproval in his voice. "But they look out for each other. Reminds me of my old platoons."
She had an urge to tell him about Anko. How he threw a tantrum and left the crew for a few days. Just up and left, of his own free will. How pissed she was; how she much of a coward she thought he was. How fools like him would get killed by their squad before they ever managed to die in battle. How when he came back, and they smacked him around a little and went on with their lives, and it was one of the strangest things she'd ever felt envy for.
She realized Hippo was watching her as she gazed at the hallway, where the pirates' voices were.
"You don't have to sabotage your own future, kid. You could be free. I wouldn't blame you."
Even someone as selfish as her sometimes had eye-opening epiphanies. Sometimes those epiphanies come in the form of pirates with wry smirks and one hell of a traumatic backstory. She had chosen to walk down this path of brambles, and now it was time to see it through. It was like Ursa accepting Sundae's help and Big Mom's protection. This was the best thing, the only thing, that Sophie could do now. And she had to do it without the Hearts. As she thought it, Sophie wasn't afraid. She had gained a greater perspective after her many adventures on Machinastein, and it felt like armor.
It would not be like this morning, when she almost burst into tears at the thought of voluntarily choosing to leave the—no, it would not be like that anymore. She could handle this alone. G-13, Saint Kasimir, even Law, when she had first met him—Sophie had overcome them all by herself. She could do it again. What else had the World Government taught her, but that her life was a worthy sacrifice for a greater cause? "I made my decision to fix G-13's mistakes."
"They aren't your—"
"The gigantification experiments weren't your mistakes, either. But you stepped up because nobody else did."
"It wasn't an act of altruism. I had someone I wanted to do it for."
"So do I," said Sophie automatically, and wasn't sure if she was talking about herself or… well, didn't matter. She tapped her hands on the steel operation table, then nodded. "Anyway, I won't ask you to come to Vira with me, but I won't say no, either. You could help a lot as a doctor. Go back to G-13, stay on Machinastein, stick with me—do whatever you want, sensei."
She gathered her notes and bumped into Law outside of the operation room, who was on his way back.
"You good?" Law asked as she neared and started walking with him.
"Better now. It's weird being in that room without being tied down by leather belts."
"I meant your wound. But it seems I may have awoken something immoral in you."
"Yeah, yeah. It hurts, but not as much if I ignore it and push it into the back of my mind." She was rather good at that. "Hey, did you talk to sensei at some point?"
Law investigated the handle of his nodachi. "Did he say something?"
A small smile crept over her face. "Thanks, I think."
He didn't reply.
"You did something nice for me," she added.
"I'm a nice, decent person."
"That sounds worse than a swear coming from you," Sophie said, not even joking a little bit. "Hey, we cured Red Sky today. This deserves a victory dance."
"Yeah, rather not."
"A hi-five, then. That won't damage your reputation as a ruthless pirate, right? I know you have to be careful about that."
Shaking his head, he took his hand out of his pocket and lifted it. The satisfying smack! of a hi-five rang out in the hallway, and Sophie beamed as she looked at their hands. It was kind of funny how much larger his was compared to hers. If she moved her fingers, she could slip them between his and lace them together.
She let go. "When you leave, don't say goodbye to me," Sophie told him. "I've had enough of that. Actually, don't say anything. Just go."
"Why so dramatic?"
"I'm not kidding. If you call my name, I'll come running."
There was probably a better way to phrase that. But she was too tired to think of syntax. Sophie gave him a friendly pat on the arm and hoped that conveyed the depths of her appreciation for the strange ways their lives intersected. He didn't move at all, looking at her with a furrowed brow that was so very much Law. She wondered how she could already miss him if he was standing right next to her.
"Well, anyway," Sophie said cheerfully, and puncturing the awkward end to the conversation was a dark shadow that passed over the porthole. A Machinastein ship pulled up beside them and dropped anchor.
—
"We lost the city, but perhaps it's not all gone to waste."
Teresa ground her teeth, careful not to move her shoulder as she rested her weight against the railing of her ship. Her arm was on fire, but the pain of resetting it would fade. Eventually.
"Your reputation precedes you," the bookkeeper continued, smiling that creepy fucking smile. "And yet you've been stuck at the same job for over a decade, while those weaker and less experienced than you have risen higher."
Teresa ground her teeth harder and glanced at her crew. They hadn't lost many numbers, which was fortunate. But losing numbers at all was never good. Not to a neutral island, not to a Yonkou, and definitely not to a Yonkou that claimed said neutral island as its protectorate.
"It's simple. Show your superiors that you're not another weak-willed woman." The bookkeeper steepled his pale hands. "Win, please. Trafalgar Law's head, Strangways Sophie, G-13's research. Win and expand our coffers. Win and earn the respect you deserve."
—
"It's as they say," Ursa rasped weakly, like she was on the verge of death, and burst out laughing, "AIN'T NO SCHOOL LIKE THE OLD SCHOOL!"
The crowd of soldiers and chocolatiers parted for the Hearts as they came aboard. Their president was back to wearing fuzzy pink slippers, in her miniature, hunchbacked form that deceptively hobbled around with a cane. Sophie was the first to ask if Machinastein was going to be okay after exporting all their chocolate to Big Mom.
"Only our chocolate exports," Ursa corrected. "Machinastein doesn't just cultivate cacao, though that's what we're most known for. Do you know what this is?"
They leaned forward. She held a long, thin, stick-like bean between her fingers.
"Vanilla," Ursa said cheekily.
The President of Machinastein had an ace up her sleeve the whole time.
The chocolatiers intermingled with his crew in some post-battle conversation, laughing as they recounted the battle against CP5 like it had been some epic, one hundred-day war. Celaeno pulled Sophie over, and Law was about to follow when Ursa said, "I forgot to mention the last Haki. The disposition of the Conqueror."
He turned.
"It cannot be learned. Only one in a million people have it, this strange power can wipe out armies with a single glance. The ones who are born with it are said to be touched by the gods, chosen as kings."
"Does that have to do with the will of D?" Law inquired, and her eyes glimmered.
"Indeed, Conqueror's Haki appears to be a common trait of those who bear the name of D. Great things have followed them throughout history. Great and terrible things. The Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, was one of them. There's been a boy in the newspaper recently…"
"Monkey D. Luffy. A one hundred thousand bounty for some exploit in Alabasta."
"Yes, and what a familiar straw hat he wears," Ursa hummed. "You've awakened one Haki, Trafalgar. What you're able to do with it is up to you. Your crew will always be welcomed back to Machinstein."
He tipped his hat. "You have my thanks."
Law caught bumblebee hair in the corner of his eye; Sophie was blinking as Penguin and Manta pulled her aside to ask if she was okay after talking with her teacher, and when she nodded quizzically they gave the other pirates a thumbs-up.
If you call my name, I'll come running. There were so many more important things to think about, especially concerning Haki, yet he couldn't get a few damn words out of his head. The simple way she said it was the furthest thing from Kunlun, when she implored him to consider her as a Heart Pirate. She was different now; she knew what sort of bastard he was. She knew, and yet… I'll come running.
He drifted closer to Sophie, thinking that he had to leave as fast as possible. Or else this was going to hurt, in a way he really fucking hated things hurting.
He barely made it a couple more steps when Hippo accosted him in the shade of the mast.
"Do you have a minute?"
Law raised a brow. Hippo sighed.
"Waterboarding, screwing needles in your feet, pulling your nails out, starvation, psychological torture… I was a medic out in the field, but I was also the guy who kept prisoners right on the brink of death. Break their spirit and they start asking you to put them out of their misery. There's a whole twelve-step method for it. Anyway, if we happen to benevolently toss them out with the rest of the garbage, they'll never recover. They'll spend the rest of their days half-dead, unable to function, and wither away."
"…You're into some kinky shit, huh."
The weathered marine sighed again. "I understand pirates get hurt. She loses an eye or a leg, you know—awful, but understandable. Can still live a fulfilled life. But so help me, if Sophie dies?"
His entire countenance changed and he stepped forward into the light, and Law actually took a step back.
"I will hunt you down and put the fear of God in you. Don't fuck this up."
—
Charlotte Sundae's frigate appeared around the cliff, searching for their captain. Following after them at a safe distance mortar shells couldn't reach was CP5's battleship. The moment the Hearts sailed past Machinastein's waters, they would undoubtedly try to arrest them. 'Try' being the key word. Sophie was sure the pirates wouldn't go down easily.
"You seriously held out on us, Sophie-san," Musca hissed. Sophie blinked. She was surrounded in an instant.
"I'm… sorry?"
"He's talking about the pirates," Norma said. "Specifically, Trafalgar Law. I don't see it, buuut…"
Celaeno emphatically raised her eyebrows and nodded at the tattooed, broody figure who was minding his own business and probably didn't appreciate being ogled at. Which Sophie wasn't doing at all, ever, in the history of her life.
"Catch ya later, asswipes!" Anko shouted as he passed by them, throwing up a peace sign.
"That guy is the worst, though," Musca commented.
"It's how he shows affection. Also, here. He should go home with you guys." She passed Goliath's cage to Celaeno. "Um… so, about me being from the World Government, it's a long, boring story…"
Celaeno smiled and shook her head. Sophie didn't need a translation. It's okay, she'd said.
"Yeah?"
Yeah.
Sophie hugged them so tight they all wheezed. After that, Ursa urged her citizens onto Sundae's warship; it was safer there, with CP5 close by. Sundae's ship would sail back to the city port, while the clipper—the medium-sized vessel they stood on, built for speed over capacity—would head to Vira with Sophie and a small group of sailors. It was starting to drizzle lightly. The storm was reaching the shore.
She searched for the pirates and her stomach dropped. They were leaving the way she asked them to. Silently, without a glance in her direction—even Law, who didn't turn his head as he hopped the railing. They boarded their submarine, leaving her on the Machinastein clipper. This was fine.
(it hurts it hurts it hurts)
This was totally, completely fine. The last thing she would ever hear from them was "Catch ya later, asswipes." Cool. Thanks, Anko.
Sophie picked up her backpack… and found it suspiciously lighter. Her G-13 projects were all inside, but— "Sensei, where are the Red Sky notes? And the test tubes?"
"I put them in the cabin," he said breezily.
She slung on the backpack with a sigh. "So you're coming with me?"
"Nope."
"If you want to stay on Machinastein and play Go and drink until you die of alcohol poisoning, that's your prerogative." She rolled her eyes at his silence. "You can say something, you know."
"I'm going to Vira on my own."
Sophie stopped.
"I missed out on your birthday. I owe you something big."
When she finally remembered how to speak, she stuttered, "What are y-you saying? G-13 is your home. You…" She frowned, confusion and suspicion gnawing inside. "This is a joke. You're trying to p-pull a fast one on me again, I won't fall for—"
"You have every right to leave and never speak to me again," Hippo said calmly. "I'd just like for you to listen to my last etiquette lecture."
"I—hold on—"
"Live for yourself. When you sail with those pirates, remember that you're also strong without them. This is your life. Not Trafalgar Law's. Not G-13's, not mine, or anyone else's. Don't ever again live on the fumes of someone else's dream. You'll fight a lot of marines. Win against them. Survive. Live. Keep living."
A shaky breath left her. The bitterness ebbed away, like a low tide out to sea. It left behind uncertainty. There was a lot she had seen on the Grand Line over the past few months. But this? This was the one thing she couldn't believe.
"You don't know how hard it is to leave your home," Sophie protested.
"I know—"
"No, you don't. You can't go home again." He didn't understand. He wouldn't be offering if he did. "You can't ever go home again! You can't be around your friends again, you're leaving everyone behind—"
"Sophie," he said in that same calm tone. "I need you to keep listening. Back when Teresa was stationed in North Blue—she never told me the details, but a marine died because of her. Her reputation for killing all the pirates she finds is to compensate for that one mistake."
When Ursa called Teresa a marine killer, she froze up completely. Sophie didn't think there was an unluckier sea than North Blue.
"When you fight Teresa, you need to know her strength masks vulnerability. She isn't unbeatable, and…" Hippo bowed his head and exhaled. When he looked up, he was smiling even as his eyes were overbright. "Ah, maybe this is a mistake. Should you come with me after all?"
"Isn't it too late for that?" Sophie said viciously, and broke apart, covering her face in her hands. "You're never on time for anything, sensei."
He hugged her and years dissolved in Sophie; she was six-years-old again. He still smelled like whiskey and rubbing alcohol.
"I understand," Hippo said into her hair, "what you meant by being alone on the Grand Line."
How long ago was it when she shouted at Hippo in the hospital, that night she met Law and Bepo again? An eternity, probably.
"You must have been lonely without a home."
"It wasn't that bad," she choked out. "I found these really weird pirates."
Her hands shook as she wrapped them around him, and remembered what it was like to be young. There was a part of her that never wanted to pull away. The part of her that was a child, that waited so long to hear this from him. For a moment, Sophie prepared herself to feel like she was back on the fortress' white battlements, and the ensuing wave of nostalgia and sadness.
…But that didn't happen. They were still standing on the deck of the clipper, the salt-wind around them. With her cheek resting on Hippo's shoulder, Sophie wasn't reminded of the past. She only thought of the present, and how people could change. Like a chemical reaction, undergoing synthesis. From one matter to another. From lead into gold. Chrysopoeia.
Hippo struggled with something much greater than goodbye, and said, "Crazy kid. Why'd you have to grow up without me?"
"I'm still shorter than you."
"That's not what I meant."
Six-year-old Sophie stayed in his arms, would always stay in his arms.
Twenty-year-old Sophie let go with a wry smile. "Yeah, old man, I know."
She caught Ursa's gaze, who was standing a mindful distance away. Ursa, who had expected good things of her, who had done so much for her, and here she was, running off to be a pirate.
"I'm sorry," Sophie said softly. It felt like she was apologizing to Nellie, too.
Ursa chuckled, gap-toothed. "I'm sure I'll get over it. Now, as us old-timers say," she slammed her cane, "get off my ship, rookie!"
"Sophie!"
There it was: a piercing, strident voice louder than the rain, calling her name, reminding her of her word. Law wasn't alone. All the Hearts joined in, shouting, Sophie and Sophie-chan and Strangways, get your ass over here between the two ships.
Live, Hippo told her. Keep living. Yes. She was going to live until she burned into a shooting star, until every bit of her matchstick-self was chewed up into ash. She was going to live like drinking clear clean water out of the palm of her dusty hand. Until she wrangled everything out of herself, everything. She would not forget. "There's so much more I—"
"Me, too." Hippo nodded. "One day."
"One good day," Sophie promised, and ran towards the ocean.
—
"Hurry up, Sophie!"
"Hold on, I'm trying to button this dang—okay, coming!"
Gone were the Machinastein silks and the sandals; Sophie stepped onto the deck, clad in a Heart Pirate's boiler suit. Well, in one of Anko's boiler suits, since they were the same height (five feet eight inches; a small woman she was not). It was loose in the chest and snug around the waist, softer than she expected but still durable. Her feet were stuffed in a pair of Hai Xing's old boots, and she tied her hair up with one of Manta's ribbons he used for his braids.
She had wrapped fresh bandages around her gunshot wound extra tight. She felt some of the pirates' worry, but no one insulted her by suggesting she stay inside. They had seen her fight and knew she could handle herself, or else why was she there? If she was with the Hearts, then she was with them 'till the end of the line.
Teresa's battleship was waiting for them, and the dark woman was standing at the bow. The waves churned, splashing onto the sub's deck. It was the perfect backdrop for her first fight as a pirate. Gale force winds whipped the Heart Pirates' flag; not a skull, but a weird smiley face. Sophie's weird smiley face.
Everyone was at the ready, stretching their limbs and waiting for their captain's orders. She stepped in place beside them. Her crew, her captain.
"Never in my life could I have imagined this," Sophie said aloud. She couldn't be dreaming; the cold spray of the sea would've woken her up.
Law laughed and leaned in. "You just got to the good part."
His smirk was dark and dangerous and full of things she wanted to know.
"It all begins now."
—
Hippo recalled that final, horrific day in Vira: crammed onto a ship of screaming refugees and limbless marines, realizing he forgot his own student, and watching her shove through the pier, hand outstretched as the ship left her behind. But it was different this time; he was watching her walk fearlessly into the storm.
"The thing about homes…" Ursa looked up at the rain. "There will always be another. And, one hopes, better than the one before it."
Hippo nodded, taking off his glasses to wipe his eyes.
The storm was quickly moving out to sea. On Machinastein, it was merely gently falling rain.
When they got back to the city, Celaeno, Norma, and Musca sought shelter underneath a café canopy and opened the cage Sophie had given them.
The rat known as Goliath ran through the rain-soaked streets of Machinastein. He ran past the crowds forming to help lift rubble, large, strong-armed women carrying baskets of tamales and steaming rice to share with their neighbors, children shouting as they located their favorite toy in the debris. He ran past the Jaguar Temple, where a new Machinastein flag was being raised—and beneath it, the infamous Jolly Roger of Big Mom, Queen of Totto Land and an Emperor of the New World.
He ran and ran and ran until he arrived home, where he recounted to all his friends the most peculiar adventure he had with a horrid girl who poked needles in him and a wicked man who studied him and their much nicer friends who fed him lots of fruit. He recounted it all until he got tired, and curled up and took a very well-deserved nap.
to be continued
trivia
vanilla bean: despite all the hubbub about chocolate this arc, chocolate and vanilla both originated in mesoamerica. machinastein's going to recover and rebuild just fine with their new export.