Thank you's to pirates who give me life: Bakagirl101, WastinmeWatchinGrass, luffys, Emerald Gaze, GreenLilly, Momochan77, studentloans, Lucy Jacob, DreamsOfTheDamn, Guest, ClosetCase, breeswalkingaway, Xielle Sky, Alkitty, BlackDove WhiteDove, TaintedLetter, AquilaAudax, peruna, sarge1130, Lucinda M. H. Cheshir, wise whale, and Like A Pro 42!
Guest: "I see a bit of myself in Sophie, and she means a lot to me personally—I think the world needs to see more female characters like her." and "The world is scary and complicated, and growing more so by the day, but reading MNP gives me this weird feeling of, I dunno—catharsis?" made me Feel Emotions. I hope you guys all know how freaking much your comments mean to me.
AquilaAudax: "You cut the violence but not the parental abandonment, 4kids?" I SCREAM!
—
methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis #26
yohoho and a bottle of event horizon
—
One principle, Sophie didn't gamble unless it was with loaded dice.
She had piss-poor luck and would much rather cheat her way to victory.
Amidst clapping hands and the bawdy tang of the mandolin, blunt fingernails tapped against cards and thick eyebrows wiggled. "Hey, Grapefruit-kun." She kicked the knee of the sleazebag to her right. "Do you like apples?"
"H-h-huh?" He'd been mopping up sweat on his brow all night and couldn't look any of the harlots in the eye. He couldn't be older than sixteen. His face turned pinker than his hair when the older pirates around the table cracked jokes about how it's never too early to get an education.
Taking another gulp of her beer, Sophie plunked her legs on the table that was crowded with alcohol, stacks of beli, and a game of cards shifting hands over her boots. Her eyes were hidden behind hot pink heart-shaped sunglasses, which might've been a stab at mysteriousness if she wasn't also wearing a tropical button-up shirt, an oversized denim jacket, and cutoff shorts that rode inappropriately high on her muscled legs. Less femme fatale, more seedy motel trash.
"I said, do you like apples?"
The other sleazebags yelled, "She's bluffing again!" and "Don't fall for it!"
"How 'bout these apples?" Sophie tossed her hand on the table. Seven, seven, seven.
The table erupted in disbelieving shouts.
Clearly, their daddies never taught them to count cards so they could help him swindle his friends out of their weekly marine allowances.
Grapefruit-kun pressed a hand to his mouth as she scooped up his beli. When she asked pityingly if he didn't get paid enough for this, he glanced at her and replied with a grimacing sort of laugh, "You have no idea, miss."
Rolling laughter and floral perfume enveloped the Spring Queen. Beautiful women took patrons to their rooms while smugglers shouted their wares; untaxed wheat, unlicensed firearms, and bones from critically endangered animals across the world. This pleasure house was so renowned that even a certain dark boss of the nearby Water 7 had purchased Adam Wood on its black market.
A roar went up at the table beside them. Men with twenty-twos on their backs and nines on their hips, laughing with their arms around women. Some of them even had the gall to wear their hats out in the open; white with a blue seagull.
"Do you often get marines in here?" Grapefruit-kun asked.
"All the time, baby," said a woman airily, dealing cards. "The owner, Fiorenza, is siblings with Commodore Dormio. It's a whole family business here."
Another boisterous uproar came from the marines' table. A man sitting at a different table whistled. "Our tax dollars at good use, gents!"
"Keep it to yourself and I won't arrest you for that!" a marine shouted back, two giggling ladies under his arms.
From the top floor, underneath a fresco of angels bestowing gold coins upon the devout, a voice boomed, "The bounty of the Spring Queen pays for St. Poplar's Heavenly Tribute! Without us, you wouldn't have these fine, elite marines! Our only wish is to serve the people!"
The man could only be Commodore Dormio, his coat of Justice draped over his shoulders like a cape. He looked to be in his forties with streaks of grey through his hair, and he had a shrewd smile that could make you forget the multitude of scars cutting across his face.
"Drink and play and plunder to your heart's content!" he roared. "Pirates! Marines! Fools and tricksters! Under this house, we're all merry men!"
Cheers and salutes followed the order, fists banging on tables, rum and beer sloshing over tankards.
A group of perfumed ladies began chanting off! off! off! as a marine, while standing on a table, stripped off his pants to roaring applause. Grapefruit-kun turned away like he couldn't bear to look.
"Smokes, liquor, women," Sophie remarked, baby blues peering over plastic hearts. "Three vices that make an excellent marine. Not so different from pirates."
"…Can't disagree there." A hand came up to scratch the scar on his brow. Properly dirty fingers from working on a ship. Nondescript clothing except for a flowery bandana. His shoes were eerily clean for a pirate, but then again, so were hers.
Another man arrived, tall and blond and with a heavy cleft chin. He bent down to the boy and muttered something Sophie didn't catch, because this was right when she flipped over her hand with a brazen smile.
"You fuckin' cheat!" Across the table, a pirate stood up and drew out a sword. "You're hiding cards!"
"Hold it!" Grapefruit-kun stood up, rushing to her defense for an inexplicable reason that left Sophie blinking. "Please step outside if you're going to be rowdy!"
"What are you doing?" his blond friend hissed. "This isn't what we're here for!"
Time to make like a banana and split.
As she slipped away, the nearest girl grabbed her shirt and plopped a kiss on her lips. Sophie was so flustered she dropped all her winnings onto the girl's lap as a thank you and threw herself beneath the table.
"I know your old sniper would've faced his enemies bravely," she whispered to Arsenic, "but I'm perfecting the sacred art I like to call Staying Alive to Cry Another Day."
Smacking the fresh coat of lipstick on her mouth, she crawled past the arguing men—pausing once to slip a fizzler inside the yelling pirate's boot, who then jumped so hard an extra deck of cards slipped out of his belt sash.
Now, now, now, where was her crew?
Bepo was dozing off in the middle of several young girls who were brushing his fur with their fancy combs. Far be it for her to interrupt. The rest of the Hearts had run off to enjoy themselves, and it would be hard enough finding them without the huge jolly rogers normally on their backs. Law had told them all to dress incognito, without drawing unneeded attention. Only Hai Xing stayed behind on the ship; he didn't like brothels. Bad memories or something.
As for the captain himself, who had been skulking in the shadows like he was plotting some nefarious scheme—he was nowhere to be found.
Law didn't seem like the type to enjoy brothels. He always had more of a… 'grimy alleyway' sort of energy about him. But sure, he must've seen his fair share of pleasure houses and didn't need her to stick close to him, which… was fine. He had his secrets. His skeletons all named Rosie Nonty buried in the closet. It wasn't like she was eager to be attached at his hip, either.
She just hoped he remembered syphilis could be fatal.
Out of habit, Sophie kept her eye on the doors and windows as she wandered around. She helpfully rearranged various illegal contraband on the smugglers' tables until they gestured rudely at her with their pistols cocked. Criminals were so unappreciative of orderly symmetry.
Squeezing past dice games and barboys serving rum to pirates throwing their beli into the air, she rustled for a cigarette in her jacket pockets. A woman with her bodice half-untied lit Sophie's cigarette for her while it was still in her mouth, which was probably the most erotic thing to ever happen to her, except for maybe Benn Beckman lecturing her after she kissed him, or when Law—
No, she wasn't going to think about all the times pressed up against her captain while standing in a building with many dark rooms furnished specifically for that very purpose.
Screw this! She was a pirate! She could partake in the revelry, too! She could probably find a beautiful woman who wouldn't tease her when she stuttered!
…Or she could eat her feelings out until she felt nothing but regret over a toilet.
This was how Sophie found herself at a bar on one of the upper floors of the Spring Queen. Around the circular floor, lush paintings were framed by marble pillars bedecked in garlands. Silk spilled out from shadows that lead down darkened corridors. A handful of men—possibly marines, most likely hired swords—stood on the perimeter, blending in so well they could've been stone-faced vases in the background. Were they there to protect the girls or the customers? Was that a trembling violin she heard or the relentless creak of a bed or a scream?
A commotion was happening at the bar. It was so crowded she couldn't see the menu; several men and women were gathered around one table, talking in excited murmurs.
There was a guy sleeping in a chair, one hand still gripping a fork with a spoonful of bigoli pasta wrapped around it.
The purple skull-and-bones and white moustache on his back…
She spat out her cigarette.
"Excuse me! Old f-friend coming through!" She shoved herself to the front of the crowd and slapped his freckled cheeks. When that didn't work, she stuck her finger into his snoring bubble and popped it.
Coal-black eyes flew wide open. He sat up sharply, wiping drool and pasta sauce off his chin. The crowd gasped.
"Where's my hat? Hm?" Pushing wavy black bangs away from his face, he looked up at the girl standing before him, at her messy ponytail of curls and hot pink heart-shaped sunglasses. "…Have we met before?"
A beat.
Ace reached out and lifted her sunglasses over her forehead, unveiling wide blue eyes beneath bushy eyebrows. "…Did I borrow money from you?"
How dare this superstar celebrity pirate not remember her. The gall!
"You… you… you pineapple!"
"…Fruit girl! From Idyll Island!"
Someone threw over an orange cowboy hat, and he caught it and stuck it over his head. Fire Fist Ace rose out of his chair and grinned at her, six feet of Whitebeard Commander muscles, a necklace of red prayer beads, a knife at his hip, and a misspelled tattoo on his arm.
"It's been a while," he greeted, his voice merry and without any regard to the crowd around them. "How've you been?"
How dare he be so casual! So cool! "O-oh my! I see a-all those rumors are true! Fire Fist Ace, p-pa-patron saint of the flesh! Caught in flagrante delicto!"
Ace had the audacity to look goofily surprised as he licked a dab of polenta off his finger.
"Huh? What's that? These folks were kind enough to drag me in here and feed me all this free food—oh, it's not free? Okay, interesting…" He looked around at the empty dishes on the table and dug his hands through his pockets. His expression turned sheepish. "Curls, you got any money?"
When Fire Fist Ace smiled, flowers bloomed.
But Sophie's smile once got her called 'a demented hyena, and not in a sexy way', so she was just offended. "Excuse me?"
"Leaving so soon, Fire Fist?" an airy voice called down.
A woman in a pale green dress with a huge, puffed sleeves decorated with butterflies appeared. Her face was caked with white powder and her eyes were as sharp as a falcon's as she glanced over Ace like she was searching where he stashed his beli. The Spring Queen's madam and Commodore Dormio's sister, Fiorenza.
"There's no rush! Stay a while and we'll have you sleeping away all your troubles. What's your type, boy? Sweet and innocent? Cool and mysterious? Buxom and flirty?" Her hand waved at the men and women. "We have them all."
Ace tilted his head. "Medium rare? Scrambled, if we're talking eggs."
He was so doing that on purpose.
"Sorry, he's broke." Sophie grabbed Ace by his belt and began dragging him away.
"Whoa!" He grabbed onto his belt loops before his shorts could slip down to his knees. "Curls, wait! I honestly can't pay for it!"
"I am n-n-not trying to get you in bed! This is the least naked part of you I'm trying to touch!" Sophie hissed, and immediately stepped back. Ace walked into her with a low, "Oof."
A man with a bandana wrapped around the lower half of his face was pointing his sword at her.
Fiorenza twined her hand around the guard's shoulder. "We can't have you leaving without paying your debt. Here in the Spring Queen, if you can't pay, you must work."
Sophie gaped. "Like, as a… slave?"
"Goodness no! Slavery is terribly gauche these days. However, Fire Fist, if you and your Whitebeard fellas are interested, we have a fine selection of premium…"
"Keep walking, Ace-san. Ignore them. What're they gonna do, try to capture you?" Sophie scoffed with a roll of her eyes. The sword blade missed her nose by a hair's breath. "WHY ARE YOU AIMING AT ME? IT'S HIM YOU WANT!"
She was picked up a by a firm, tanned arm. One hand tucked behind his cowboy hat, the other around her waist, Ace neatly jumped up to a windowsill and thanked them for the food. He kicked open the window and paused right on the ledge. Sophie stopped screaming long enough to register the cacophony of rain and wind that pounded the roof tiles of St. Poplar.
Behind them, two dozen swords and pistols pointed up.
"Ace-san, why aren't you moving."
He awkwardly tugged at his necklace. "I, uh, get a little performance anxiety in the rain."
They started shooting. Bullets flew through Ace's legs, leaving spots of fire in their wake. But Sophie, who was not bulletproof and had the scars to prove it, wasn't sticking around.
"Fine! I'm jumping!"
"Hey, wait—"
Ace tried catching her, and Sophie tried slapping him away, and this all culminated in her fingers twisting around his nipple and pinching.
"HEERK," the Whitebeard Commander squeaked and slipped off the ledge.
Sophie was prepared. She had enough of falling from high places and landing on her face. She threw down a small white capsule—hydrogen peroxide, a splash of dish soap, and a catalase enzyme from baker's yeast—and the concoction burst open like a three-tiered giant cake of rubbery foam.
They bounced on top of the trampoline-like substance and catapulted back into the air; Ace caught himself with expert athleticism on wet cobblestones. Sophie landed flat on her face.
So. Squishy-Squishy Bomb-Bomb still needed some tweaking.
She peeled her soaked bangs away from her eyes. He was steaming lightly in the rain. They were thoroughly drenched.
Ace chuckled at the sour look on her face. "Here, Fruit Girl." He reached out his hand to help her up. "Now, how've you really been?"
—
"…ahhh, I haven't visited Machinastein in years! Damn, I'm jealous!"
They shared a piping hot margherita pizza and a bottle of cheap wine beneath a canopy, sitting on the edge of a large, stone planter filled with daisies. Sophie was starving and Ace was hungry again; the boy had a stomach, and she was sorely tempted to figure out if his speedy metabolism was caused by his Devil Fruit. He let her use his hair to light a cigarette. He was like a radiator, exuding warmth.
She pulled back his eyelids, opened his mouth, and stuck her entire arm down his throat. Harmless flame surrounded her. When she asked, surprised, why it didn't hurt, Ace replied it's because he didn't want the fire to hurt her. Fascinating.
"And you met Yasopp, huh?" Ace said through a mouthful of pizza crust. "That's his gun on your shoulder."
"Eh? No, no, this—this is actually an ancestral rifle passed down in my f-family from mother to daughter for generations."
"It's got his star carved in the wood."
So that wasn't a random doodle. She didn't know Yasopp the Chaser had a brand. "Okay, fine, I stole it from his trash. But y-you know what! It's a special rifle! It's full of… history." It probably was. "And sniper secrets." Again, it seemed likely.
"You ever heard the saying 'a bad artist with a good brush is still a bad artist'?"
"…Mmmrhghshutup."
Ace's eyes screwed up in mirth, his freckles dancing. He'd shaken off rainwater off his hat, which was now hanging around the back of his neck.
Sophie bit through hot, melting cheese as she went back to reading History of the Sea Train. Her sunglasses were tucked on top of her head, because, unlike Shachi, she couldn't pull off shades at night without looking like a fool.
Dimly visible over the rooftops was the huge, glass pink rose sitting at the top of the Spring Queen. She hoped her crewmates were having a swell time, but she was going to head back to the Polar Tang when the rain let up. Hai Xing had the right idea.
"Fuck this rain," her companion said. "It makes the world look miserable."
The scenery that Ace probably thought was dreary seemed solitary and enigmatic to her. The streetlights turned the wet road into a glistening oil painting. The rain on St. Poplar was different from the rain on Cat's Eye was different from the rain on Vira, and it was all different from the rain that came down when she clambered onto the rocks below G-13, pretty shells clutched in burned hands and in nothing but her underwear, counting the million droplets rippling over the ocean. "I find this weather beautiful."
"How? Everything's bloody drowned."
Well, that had to be the Devil Fruit speaking.
"Sh-shall I entertain you, then?" She tapped the page, a little section about the history of the Galley-La Company. "There was this shipwright named Tom. A fishman who built the Oro Jackson. Gold Roger's ship."
"Heard of it," Ace said, still looking up at the rain.
"It's so tragic. His carpentry company built the Sea Train, saved these islands from ruin… and all because he built one ship, the World Government executed him."
He washed down the pizza with a swig of wine, and said, "'s a heavy price to pay, being related to the Pirate King. And no one from Roger's crew fought to save him?" His tone turned sarcastic. "Not even the great, immortal drunk, Silvers Rayleigh?"
"Um, no, that's not in the book… sorry, Silvers R-Rayleigh is still around? H-he's a drunk?"
"Bastards," he said, remorseless, "the lot of 'em. Fuckin' old men who don't know a damn thing about family."
Sophie digested that. A harsh insult about the Pirate King's crew, but it pleased her that Fire Fist wasn't a pirate who idolized Gold Roger. She spent her whole life adoring the World Government, no matter how much it hurt. Fathers and legacies; both had lost its shine.
"So, then," she reasoned, "take the crown for yourself."
Ace grinned again. It was a strange way of grinning. All in the mouth, nothing in the eyes. "I don't want it."
She shook her head and insisted, "You should. Find his gold, take One Piece…"
His smile tensed, eyes shadowed by ink-black hair.
"…burn it all to the ground…"
His hands twitched.
"…and grow something better out of the ashes. Destroy Gold Roger's legacy. Make his name disappear from history." Sophie blew out smoke, gesturing carelessly to the direction of the sea, a cigarette burning between two fingers. "It's the New Age, and you're Fire Fist Ace. One day, this ocean will be yours."
They sat side by side, listening to the tinny ping from rain hitting metal pipes, the steady drip-drip of water that slid down the canopy and hit Ace below his left eye. He didn't so much as blink as he observed the chiaroscuro of the wet curls plastered across her forehead to the mutilated scars on her hands.
"Until the rest of us catch up, I mean. A thousand rookies are chasing after your shadow." Sophie nudged her shoulder against his misspelled tattoo. "Don't trip."
"…Is that a threat? Are you threatening me? That's cold, Curls." He belched, flames licking off his tongue, and laughed brightly.
"Sophie. Strangways Sophie. Nice to meet you." Instead of shaking her hand, Ace slung his arm around her as though they were actually friends. The sudden warmth was jarring, almost as much as his face near headbutting vicinity. This was so weird. "You know, I—I used to read about y-you in the mess hall of G-13. Breakfast, newspaper, Captain Ace of the Spade Pirates over coffee."
"You've been a fan for that long?" he said, sounding pleased.
"You were an adorable rookie, Ace-san. You had some of the younger recruits doubting their careers." Not me, of course, never me…
"Yeah, yeah, all right." He rubbed his nose, looking at her from under his eyelashes. "Really?"
…His handsomeness was starting to grate on her nerves.
"No, not really," Sophie muttered, and stole the pizza in his hand.
"Hey. I was eating that. Hey hey hey." Ace flopped over her, resting all his warm weight on her back. "This is very rude of you. Can I have it back, please?"
"Stop doing that. Do you bully the rest of the Whitebeard Commanders like this?"
"I'm the youngest, so I'm usually on the receiving end. It's a big brother thing."
Sophie didn't care. She proceeded to stuff the entire slice of pizza in her mouth with the frenzy of a hamster awaiting a bitter winter. Ace watched her eat with morbid fascination.
"Evil," he remarked, still using her like an armrest. "Anyway, I'm still on the hunt for Teach. I heard he's found a crew and—"
Her eyes bugged. She almost choked and Ace had to thump her on the back. She grabbed his arms like a madman, bits of pizza spewing out of her mouth. "B-Banaro Island! Go to Banaro Island! He said he'll be sailing there! I met him on Toa Sang Bay and—wah!"
Broad hands lifted her up from under her armpits and Ace stood up, raising her high in the air. What was it with insanely strong pirates holding her like a misbehaving cat!?
"Banaro Island," he repeated seriously. She nodded, swallowing. A wide beam broke out across his face. "Thank you, Strange Sophie!"
He got her name wrong, but she didn't care. This opportunity was too good to waste. "S…sp-spin me!"
"Yo ho! Yo ho!"
"Th-throw m-me up and down in gratitude, Ace-san!"
He tossed her in the air. "Yo ho ho!"
"STOP STOP STOP," Sophie screamed, because just then a blue flash appeared on the empty street, and her captain was striding towards her with water streaming down his hat.
Ace set her down, peering quizzically at the new arrival. Panicking, Sophie avoided looking at Law as he came closer. Wait, why was she doing that? She didn't do anything wrong. He's the one that went cavorting around while she played cards in a corner all night! And what was he doing out here anyway?
"Portgas D. Ace," Law said lowly.
"Scary dude who could use some sleep," Ace cheerfully greeted.
Finally, Sophie looked up.
Oh.
Bad mistake.
"You have my crewmate there."
Ace patted Sophie on the head. "Well, she was lookin' a bit chilly."
Telling Law 'he squealed when I pinched his nipple' would probably not make this situation better. He was carrying a bag over his shoulder—a bag he didn't enter the Spring Queen with—and when it slipped down his arm, she saw three heavy, leather-bound journals inside.
"…Oh, Captain, what exactly were you doing at the brothel?"
He adjusted his bag. "I should be asking you that." His searing gaze, half-shadowed beneath drenched black hair, flashed to Ace and back to Sophie. "…I was looking for you back there."
The flash of blue alerted a squad of marines in a bar across the street. They stuck their heads out and squinted through the rain.
"Funny, because you disappeared first," Sophie reminded him. "I thought you'd at least take Bepo for company, but clearly you went off on your own mission."
"It needed to be clandestine. Anyone else would've drawn attention."
"Hey," Ace said as the marines started shouting, That's Fire Fist Ace!
"You could've stayed on the Polar Tang," Law continued, focused so intently on her that he seemed to forget a Whitebeard Pirate standing right next to him. "I didn't ask you to force yourself to come with us—"
"Oh, no, no! I had a great time." Sophie crossed her arms, fingers drumming. "So h-ho-how was it? How was a-all the sex? Was it good? On a scale of one to ten—"
In a split second, Law unsheathed Kikoku. Ace blasted fire from his fingertips.
"Shambles!"
"Higan!"
The bullets aimed at them were simultaneously cut in half and melted. Her mouth still open in mid-rant, Sophie looked down at the molten metal cooling on the sidewalk, then back up at the two monsters standing in front of her. Incredibly, she felt a genuine flash of pity for the World Government.
Ace cracked his knuckles, giving Law an assessing once-over. They were almost the same height. "How about I help you rookies out?"
"You are at least responsible for seventy-five percent of this," Law retorted, plopping his hat over Sophie's head. It fell over her eyes as she blinked. She was demoted to hat rack now?
"Math! What are ya, a doctor?"
"Ace-san, how'd you know!" Sophie gasped. Her captain rolled his eyes skyward.
As the marines readied their weapons, Law said, "Does the rain turn you into a wet match?"
Ace grinned cheekily. "Oh? You sound worried."
"Don't flatter yourself."
With one crook of Law's finger, cobblestones flipped over and the marines slipped off their feet. Ace reared back his fist and sent them sprawling backwards in an arc of fire. Meanwhile, Sophie was frantically strapping on kneepads, gloves, and her gas mask.
The cowboy whistled. "Not bad, doc."
"Spare me," the surgeon shot back.
Was it just her or was their sexual tension off the charts? Wait, it made perfect sense. They both had huge, gaudy tattoos of their jolly rogers on their backs! Oh, she'd have to call them Heartburn before running away to the circus to cope with her sorrow—
A saber plunged into her denim jacket.
The marine grinned in triumph, but it quickly faded away when Sophie yanked out History of the Sea Train from inside her jacket and gasped at the hole in the cover.
"I was reading that!" she howled and walloped his head with the book. That's right, Hat Rack could also take care of business.
She blasted through marines with her three-barreled rifle. There was something different about this gun. Its design and the quality of the metal made it markedly more durable in water than the usual flintlock, but on the downside, it went through ammunition faster. When Sophie ran out, she found herself using Arsenic like a staff and blocking attacks until her back hit against Ace's.
She grasped blindly for the knife on his waist and stabbed it into the arm of a marine about to cut her down. Quick as a whip, the knife was in Fire Fist's hand and he launched it at a marine firing bullets at Law. It cracked the skull.
Law promptly bisected a swordsman before he could try to attack Ace, as though to say, I'll fucking kill you if you try to do me any favors.
"Whoo! Man, I get damn exhausted in the rain," Ace sighed suddenly, bending down to rest on his legs in the middle of a freakin' battle. A marine swung their sword and it passed right through him.
"Light, please!" Sophie waved a bomb at Ace. He lit it with the tip of his thumb. "Bet my TNT is hotter than you," she egged on.
The way he smiled felt like a snarl. "You're on. We'll see who burns brighter."
She slid on her kneepads, throwing sizzling explosives at their feet. Pop pop pop—flares, marines stumbling with their uniforms on fire, don't want to do too much, this was still a town—
Ace reached his arms around a marine, hugging him from behind, and exploded in a pillar of fire. It was so hot the rain turned to steamed. A barbequed marine fell out of the fog and thudded to the ground. Embers blazed in Ace's eyes; he smelled of charred flesh and when he opened his mouth, his throat glowed like a pyre and reflected in Sophie's vision as she stared, bewitched.
If only she could make fire that beautiful someday.
She twisted off a flash grenade with her teeth and signed bright to Law, fingers splayed like light rays spreading. She flicked her plastic sunglasses over her nose and he turned into his shoulder.
The light flattened everything into blinding white.
When the brightness faded, they were surrounded by groaning marines.
Ace stumbled, eyes squirmed shut. "What the hell was that?"
Sophie rested Arsenic over her shoulder. "Oxidized aluminum and saltpeter. You're a monster, so give it a couple minutes and you'll probably be fine."
"Oh, you're smart. Smart smart." He said it with dawning revelation. "Hey. Why don't you join the Whitebeard Pirates?"
"…You u-understand you just fought alongside my captain, right?" She patted the furry hat over her head.
"Yeaaaah…" He tilted his head in thought, weighing that fact with his own offer. "…But I think you can do better."
To any man on the seas, this was an invitation of the highest order and called for the breaking of champagne bottles. For Sophie, however, the offer was about as appreciated as a needle poking into her butt.
She saw Law glance sharply in their direction and deadpanned, "As a nurse, you mean." The Whitebeard medical team. Those leopard print thigh-highs had fans even among marines.
Ace cheerfully affirmed her suspicions while he found his knife in a marine's head. He cleaned it off on his shorts and stuck it back in its sheath.
"Why don't you offer me a spot as a f-fighter?"
"Ah, well… Pops doesn't like women getting hurt on the battlefield."
"Yeah, I'm aware." That was common knowledge to anyone tracking the escapades of the most famous pirate crew in this era. Whitebeard had sons, not daughters. "Let me get this straight. If you were a woman, you would've never been a Whitebeard Pirate and you would've died in obscurity in whatever shantytown you're from. Does that sound right?"
Ace stuck his hands on his hips and leaned down until he was looking her square in the eye. "Anyone ever tell ya you're a mouthy girl with anger problems?"
She smiled back. "I'm told it's part of my charm."
"All that fame's gone to your head, kid," Law said. (A bit rich since she didn't think Ace was that much younger, but if he could call them rookies, this was deserved. Anyway, she took her captain's side.) "Whitebeard isn't the only crew around worth joining. You should get out of the rain before you melt."
Instead of returning the swipe, Ace just smiled. He gave them a flaming salute and leaped over the rainblasted belfry, grimly shadowed specters with windows momentarily illuminated by that fireball of a boy as he went.
And then it was just Sophie and Law.
She perfectly fine with using the not-inconsiderable girth of his shoulders as an improvised awning, but he dragged them to the covered sidewalk.
"So," she said, her vexation coming back. "You were in the middle of explaining to me what the pineapples you—"
"You're a pirate all of two minutes and you met with Fire Fist Ace and Red Hair Shanks?" Law interrupted. There was something about her that was a magnet for trouble. Probably the invisible neon sign dangling over her head that shouted HELLO, TROUBLE! TAKE ME INTO YOUR ARMS! And the last time she mentioned Fire Fist Ace, she wouldn't shut up about his freckles. He wanted to nip that in the bud.
"H-hey, don't change the s-subject! What did you take from the Spring Queen?"
"Logs of the black market. Everything they're selling or trading. Nicked them from the Commodore's rooms."
Sophie gaped. "What? Why?"
Law kept scowling. "There was also that Blackbeard fucker—"
Oh my god! She screwed her eyes shut. "Okay, let's go through this. One doesn't let women join his crew unless they're nurses, one is a bunch of alcoholic old men, and one is a nobody crewmate-killer. I do not particularly aspire to their levels!"
His glare lessened slightly.
"Don't worry," Sophie added, because she was a good crewmate and an even better friend. "You're still my favorite murderer."
Law grabbed her jacket and for a deranged moment she thought he was going to throw her against the wall and do to her all manner of dirty things she imagined in the Spring Queen—it's raining, Law-san, she was about to protest, and I know you're a grimy man but this setting is much too unsanitary for my liking—but a blade came from the shadows and sliced between them.
Reality was always meaner than her imagination. Droplets splashed over the deadly silver edge, directly in front of Sophie's eyes.
The brothel guard—the swordsman with the bandana over his mouth—growled, "You have something of ours."
Law grasped Kikoku, but Sophie stopped him. She tossed back his hat, her face screwed up in fierce determination. "Let me take care of this."
The swordsman turned to her, raising his sword over his head.
Watching Ace and Law fight with their awesome Devil Fruits made her eager to prove herself. Prove that it wasn't a pipe dream to one day be able to fight on their level. She didn't reach for Arsenic or a grenade; no, all she needed was sheer grit and pluck. "I can feel my Armament Haki! It's awakening! Come on! Haaaaaa—"
He cut Sophie's arm off. Blood spewed from the end of her elbow like a broken spigot.
"—aAAAAAAAA OH MY G—"
—
"So what did we learn from that experiment."
Sophie muttered something as she investigated the healing scar around her reattached arm.
"What was that?" Law prodded.
"MAKE SURE YOU ACTUALLY HAVE SUPERPOWERS BEFORE YOU TEST THEM OUT IN BATTLE."
It was morning, and the Hearts had staggered back from the Spring Queen, stinking of alcohol and with glitter all over their clothes, when Law showed them the stolen logs and the bodyguard tied to a chair, stripped of all clothes except his boxers to make sure he wasn't wearing a spying mushi. Bepo, Penguin, and Shachi had to grab Manta from falling flat on his back.
They were all hungover. Hai Xing had buckets of icewater ready, and he and Sophie lined up their crewmates on the deck execution-style and drenched them. They moved the Polar Tang around to the northern port where there were less marines hanging around, and kept the sub mostly underwater except for the top deck.
"He works for the brothel owner," Valross said after a pleasant fist-to-face meeting with the bodyguard. He wiped his bloody knuckles off with a napkin, his headband around his neck and silver-white hair drooping over his eyes. "Name's Uni. That's all I got out of him."
Under her breath, Sophie said to Penguin, "Law-san didn't tell you about the logs, either?"
"Yeah, but he's always been like that. Running off to do something crazy."
"Oh, really," she scoffed.
"Spent two months researching a disease with you, didn't he?"
She had no way of replying to that, and Penguin just rested his elbow on her shoulder. He was still sopping wet. She allowed this because friendship.
Law ripped the bandana off the mercenary's bloody face. A deep scar slashed across his mouth, down to nearly the bone of his jaw.
"That's so cool," Anko muttered angrily. "Let's kill him."
"Fuck you. Cut off my fingers, tear off my nails, waterboard me, I don't care. Fiorenza and Dormio saved me, I won't—"
"Room." Law tore his mouth off his face and gripped it in his hand.
"—WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FU—"
After an appropriate length of time, the bodyguard got over his hysterics. He still wouldn't budge an inch when Law brought out the Spring Queen's logs.
"Only someone well-versed in classified World Government code can decipher them!" the mouth shouted. "You're piss outta luck!"
Law tossed the journal to Sophie, who cracked her neck and flipped through the pages. Numbers instead of words. Possibly a substitution cipher. "This looks similar to the one G-13 uses. It might take me a while to go through it all, but I can do it."
Uni stared. "…Who the fuck are you?"
She slammed the journal shut, glaring. "A janitor, you mango."
—
"This is what I said ya gotta see." Anko unfurled the World Economy Newspaper, shaking rainwater off the pages. "Something insane happened on Water 7."
As the News Coo flew off to continue its delivery route, the Hearts gathered around Anko. They stood on the top deck, just inside the door of the control room because he'd shouted for everyone to get up here. They did, after locking Uni in Law's organ storage room.
Something was clearly wrong: Anko had abandoned the crosswords section for the front page.
"Didn't the Straw Hat Pirates try to kill the mayor?" Manta demanded, recalling the previous week's news.
"It's bigger than that!" Anko yelled, and there, right on the front page— "They went to war against the World Government!"
Sophie hopped on her toes to try to get a look, but all the annoyingly tall men of the crew (Law, Manta, Bepo) were clustered too tight. A bounty poster slipped free from the pages and out onto the deck; she hurried out into the light downpour and picked it up. Droplets plopped onto the paper as she gazed at it in pure disbelief.
Black hair. Scar under left eye. Huge, stupid-looking smile.
Straw Hat Luffy. Three hundred million beli bounty.
Un. Freakin'. Believable.
"Nice, Luffy! That's my little brother!"
The Hearts looked up at the new voice. "FIRE FIST ACE?" they bellowed. Manta fell over right on top of Anko, who screamed out of pain and possibly excitement.
"Little… brother?" Law repeated, his eyes widening.
Sophie wasn't able to appreciate the view that Ace must've struck, sitting on his haunches on the Polar Tang's railing, because his palm came down on her head and ruffled up her hair as he leaned over to inspect the bounty poster. It should've surprised her more that he had a younger brother, but—well, it sort of explained a lot of his personality, didn't it?
Ace waved at the Heart Pirates, a bright yellow umbrella shaped like a duck resting on his shoulder. "Oh, hey! Look at this guy!" He pointed at Bepo. "You're a long way from Zou, huh, buddy?"
Zou? Sophie glanced at Bepo. The mink looked surprised, rubbing the back of his head.
Ace hopped off the railing. "I wanted to say thanks properly." He took off his cowboy hat and to Sophie, bowed like a real gentleman. "You helped me find Teach. I'll remember it."
"Oh! In th-that case… one day, l-let me run some real experiments on you. I wonder if your Devil Fruit can generate blue fire…? The possibilities… oh shoot, I'm drooling—"
Ace voiced his agreement, laughing.
"Oi, doc," he said, nodding at Law. "You're strong, I'll grant you that. But out of all the rookies about to enter the New World, I'd still wager only Luffy's the closest to competing on my level. Do you have what it takes to reach the summit?"
"Two D's in the coming storm," Law said. "When monsters war, I'd rather observe from the sidelines."
"Sure." Ace plopped his hat back on and gave him a weighty look. "But you're a freak yourself, you know."
"Don't mess with us! Get off our ship!" Shachi yelled boldly, then squeaked, "Please don't burn the Polar Tang, my baby isn't fireproof."
"Strange Sophie. Next time, treat me to food again!" Ace gave her a flaming thumbs-up. "Because I am dirt-broke!"
"You're the famous pirate, treat me to—" Sophie shook her head. "Never mind. One last thing. Cherry Pie Man—I, I mean, Teach is… different." (Black coat, bejeweled rings, shadows twisting behind him in the sunset—) "There was something about him that was… darker. Scarier. Be very careful."
A brash smirk spread across his face.
His swagger was unparalleled: cowboy hat, allergy to shirts, tattoo with a crossed-out spelling error.
"Whitebeard is the strongest pirate in the world. The ocean quakes in his rage and it won't be quelled by anything but blood." Ace lifted his hat with a finger, eyes blazing. "Teach will meet his destiny on Banaro Island."
They watched him paddle Striker with an oar, hunkered down below his duck-shaped umbrella, away from the rain on St. Poplar.
—
Since the weather was bad, the Hearts, exhausted by their nightly revelry, lounged around in the mess. They were underwater and the ocean surface was visible through the portholes; it was a slate of hypnotically rolling, bubbling glass.
Manta, Anko, and Valross were playing a card game at the opposite end of the table, and Kamasu was snoring on the bench with his head in Manta's lap. Law came in and announced he's made their hostage comfortable in solitary confinement, and sat down with a book next to Valross. The galley smelled like rosemary and bay leaf. Penguin and Shachi were helping cut up veggies. Cooking pasta, Hai Xing sourly reminded Sophie, "What've I said about leaving your C4s in the fridge?" and she replied she'd take them out soon, it was just a convenient storage area, sorrryyyy.
Sophie sat down across from Bepo, getting to work decoding the Spring Queen's logs. After scribbling in silence for a while, she looked up at the bear. He was watching the rain patter underwater.
"What was that word Fire Fist said earlier? …Zou?"
Bepo blinked at her slowly. He said in his deep voice, "It's… home. My country."
"Oh." She did a double-take. "Oh? You weren't born in North Blue?"
"It's been… twelve years since I left Zou. There are many things I've lost since then." His paw shifted on the table. The air seemed to crackle around it before vanishing. He smiled a tiny bit. "But it's alright. I'll find my way back."
There were few, if any, books on the mysterious Mink Tribe. "Where… is it? If it's okay to ask?"
Bepo's eyes shut and he chanted, "Past the Red Line, in the New World. On top of an elephant that never stops walking." They were words he had kept repeating to himself, in the darkest of nights. Words that had kept him going through twelve years.
"I hope you get there," she told him, and wished she had something better to say. She wished she could carry the entire elephant to Bepo.
"Of course! And I'm bringing the whole crew with me!" Bepo declared, chest puffed out. He could so easily flip between thoughtfulness and childlike silliness. She was enamored by it.
"You better," she lightly teased.
"So you wanna visit home? Before we cross into the New World?"
Sophie looked at him blankly. She burst out laughing. "What are you talking about? I can't go home again. I burned—"
"I don't mean G-13. I'm talking 'bout the home of aaaaall marines around the world." He raised his arms over his head, paws touching, like he was making a house. "We'll be sailing near it after Sabaody Archipelago."
"Marineford?" She leaned her chin on her palm, head raised in contemplation. "Marineford, huh… what would I even do there?"
"Give the Marine top brass a smack on the head," Bepo proposed, and the idea of someone as small and inconsequential as her confronting Fleet Admiral Sengoku or Commander-in-Chief Kong was so absurd that Sophie had to laugh again.
In the mess, in the underwater rain, with Valross winning at cards and Manta jumping up and Kamasu falling onto the floor with a thunk and Law dragging up his swearing mechanic as Penguin and Shachi and Anko laughed, Hai Xing announced food was ready and maybe someone should check if the hostage tied up in the organ storage room needed to pee, it was so warm and pleasant that Sophie was perfectly content.
—
The rain let up for a short while the next morning, but came back with a vengeance in late afternoon. There was a street performance in the backstreets that Shachi and Penguin saw and came racing back to the Polar Tang to drag out the rest of their crew.
A man with hair styled into bull horns called for people to come watch. A wolfman jumped through hoops of fire. An enormous, pink-haired kabuki actor shouted a dramatic tale. A giraffe slid children down his neck, as a grinning man with teeth like a zipper collected money. Soap bubbles overflowed on the city rooftops.
A crowd of young and old gathered as the performers passed around a tin can to collect beli in. Windows creaked open as people in the warmth of their homes watched, holding out beli to put in the can. The Hearts eagerly fumbled around their pockets for beli, though Law had to hold onto Anko and Bepo from hopping onto the giraffe's neck, reminding, "They said kids only. And Bepo, you'd break him."
Sitting across the upbeat performance outside a café, underneath an overhanging, Sophie was still at work decoding the logs.
The illegal black market goods were labeled as 'imports' delivered to and from the Sabaody Archipelago. The Spring Queen operated as a rest stop for smugglers and slavers, a key port in trafficking throughout the entire Grand Line. Each ship paid Commodore Dormio and Fiorenza a small levy (labeled 'lodging fees' in the log) to use the brothel as a base.
There was so much listed between the pages. Rare eggs from animals she'd never heard of. Firearms. Cursed swords. Gold, silver, jewels. War refugees (Vira and Alabasta were big ones, tricked onto a slaver ship). Barrels and barrels of giantsblood. Mermaid eyes, to be used in soup. Fishman organs, to be dried and powdered as a natural herbal remedy (see also: section detailing organ harvesting).
This would've been a lot more traumatizing had Sophie not already been well-acquainted with the worst of humankind.
(After all, she dipped a toe in that pond every once in a while.)
After a while, Law ambled over and sat his lanky body across from her. She was deep in the logs and didn't notice at first, scribbling with one hand and twisting Odin's dog tags with her other (it stayed on her at all times, even sleeping and showering; it was probably turning her neck green at this point).
"Marines are scarce this side of St. Poplar. Good thing, after the show we gave them."
Sophie couldn't help but glare at his posture. He was sitting with his feet on the table, leaning on the back two legs of his chair. What a miscreant. She couldn't believe she liked him.
As she kept scribbling, she murmured, "Dormio's marines are what Vice Admiral Lettidore would call 'leeches who use the World Government's flag to wipe their feet'." She straightened, adopting her best impression of her intimidating ex-superior. "They're always the first to run in a war, Strangways." She slapped the table. "No conviction! Swords without blades! Remember it, because one day it'll be your job to get them in line!"
His lips twitched. "That didn't age well."
"I'd be hard-pressed to find anything about my life that did," she replied, going back to reading the logs.
He watched his crew cheer as the wolfman backflipped through the burning hoop. "How can marines do it, do you think," he mused, like an afterthought. "They say they're protecting the ocean. Meanwhile, they obey World Nobles. Is it all delusion?"
Delusion is just another form of love, she wanted to say. "If the top brass say protecting World Nobles is the same as protecting the ocean, then that's how it goes."
"I guess not everyone can have your self-awareness to turn pirate traitor."
Sophie smiled wryly at his comment, and he thought that was the end of it.
But when she replied with, "It brings us closer to… something. When we kneel and kiss the dirt, it's because we're pretending its God's mouth. What else can we do? We've been hungry for so long," without so much as a blink or a shift in her casual demeanor, he—
He found himself torn between finding that completely goddamn lovely and thinking, what the hell.
He should be used to it by now. He was used to it by now. But whenever she spoke like that, Law could scarcely believe it was the same person who stuttered fruit names like curses. It felt like puncturing through the paper veneer of her smile and glimpsing the constant introspection beneath.
And maybe it was because Flevance was a religious town. Maybe it was because he once believed in a divine judgment, and now only believed in its absence.
But all he could do was watch Sophie press her knuckles against her cheek, wisps of yellow curling over her ears, observing the crowd like she measuring the worth of objects in her pitiless gaze. In the crucible of defying the World Government, she had forged a pensive, unflinching sort of beauty that he found inescapably fucking alluring.
(One more thing to add, next to burned hands, wicked cleverness, that untamable hair—)
"Ah, but we're pirates." She pushed back a strand of hair behind her ear, the thirteen on her wrist stark-black, and grinned. "We ought to be praying to the Devil for luck."
Law swallowed (when did his mouth get dry?), his hands unconsciously clenching beneath the table. An uneasy feeling rolled in the back of his mind, a small, urgent voice that said: this isn't good.
"Hold on," Sophie said sharply, drawing his attention, one burned fingernail tapping the page. "There'll be some sort of delivery during a carnival in San Faldo tomorrow."
For a millisecond, he was almost grateful for this knock back into reality, dispelling whatever the fuck took over him.
She scribbled for a few seconds, then triumphantly jabbed the point of her quill into the log, leaving behind a black blot of ink. "It's with someone called—actually, I don't know if it's a person or a thing, but there's a word that keeps popping up."
"What is it?" There was a part of Law that knew even before she said it out loud.
"Joker. And something called… SMILEs." Sophie squinted at the journal. "Huh. What a cute name for something illegal."
—
Something was wrong. Of course she noticed.
How could she not?
He fell silent after their conversation, then stuffed the log she was working on back into his bag and stood up, murmuring that he was going back to the ship.
She thought about asking about the black market. Or Rosie Nonty. Or just, in general, what the pineapples he was planning. But she doubted she'd get a straight answer. She wondered if she told him, if he knew how much she cared… would it even matter? Law would always have his secrets.
Sophie reached for his hand, felt it flinch and tense at the contact. Noticing it was her, Law loosened. But that was replaced by a look of alarm, as though he thought her touch was due to an enemy nearby.
But she was just holding his hand, and then she was dragging him out into the rain without an umbrella.
He shot her a furtive glance beneath his hat, equally wary and uncertain.
Obviously, something was bothering him. But friends cheered each other up, right? Like, say, Shachi grabbing Penguin unawares and giving him a noogie. This was just… her version of it.
One thousand percent sober, Sophie started bopping her head and grooving to absolutely nothing. The look on Law's face was priceless.
She pulled at his hand with a choked-back giggle, motioning for him to come dance with her.
He shook his head with a persecuted look, like she was subjecting him to the worst form of torture. The mango had fun by sticking needles into eyeballs; he could suffer a few minutes of bad dancing.
Her boots splashed through puddles, kicking up water. Her open denim jacket swished behind her. Sophie raised her arms over her head, moving in what could only be described as 'an interpretive cry for help.'
The obstinate grimace on his face melted away as she laughed at herself, drenched to the bone, wet hair flying across her face as she twirled in a graceless art.
The saying went 'good fighters make good dancers', and maybe that was true; at the very least Law had the balance not to slip as he took her burned hands and finally, finally had the decency to spin her around and stop her from looking like a total fool dancing by herself. And then they were standing so close she could hear every quiet laugh in his chest, which either meant 'she's back at it again with her idiot antics' or… actually, that was the most likely translation.
Sophie craned her neck up—he was a whole head taller than her, it wasn't fair at all—and he found himself mirroring her grin. Her hands were strong and rough like she never handled anything nice in her life. But they were still smaller than his, enveloped within his fingers. This isn't good, the little voice whispered once more.
He ignored it.
He started their silly little dance again, but this time he moved slowly and she followed. And it felt like they were barely dancing at all.
Law was… a little bit stunning. His tired eyes, his languid shoulders, his hair that was probably having its first wash in days. The water dripping down the sharp ridge of his nose and falling between his lips. Sophie had to fight every bone in her body to not lift her hand and trace his mouth to feel where the rain kissed him.
There was no Flevance here. No World Government. No music playing except for the rain.
In about ten seconds, he would stop and tell her you've had enough fun, and clench his hands to stop them from missing her scars as he headed off to the Polar Tang, and Sophie would slink under Bepo's umbrella as the Hearts watched the street performers, her face burning—but for a brief moment, their hands were clasped, and they were swaying, and nothing else mattered.
—
San Faldo was only a couple hours' sail away from St. Poplar. They didn't even need a Log Pose; Anko followed the swaying railroad floating underneath the ocean surface in the direction of the City of Festivals. Along the way, a Sea Train crossed paths with the yellow submarine, steam billowing behind it like a white wave.
"G'mornin', travelers! Issa fine day, no?" the conductor hollered with a sticky burp, halfway out the window.
"Is she… drunk?" Shachi asked. "It's barely ten in the morning."
"My kinda lady," Manta said approvingly.
A little girl with yellow pigtails and a rabbit-like creature dragged the conductor back inside before she could fall into the ocean. The Puffing Tom went on its way, filled with passengers that pointed at the Polar Tang as they passed.
Sophie flipped through History of the Sea Train. "The book says there should be some kind of frog around here—oh, there he is!" She pointed, and the rest of the Hearts leaned over the railing.
A huge frog was swimming beside the Polar Tang, his breaststroke in perfect form.
"Why is he famous, Sophie!?" Penguin shouted excitedly.
"I—I think he's just a really b-big frog!?"
"Cool frog!" the boys all roared. "Cool froooooog!"
Soon, the multicolored buildings, soaring bell towers, and white bridges of San Faldo appeared beneath the bright blue sky with not a cloud in sight. The Hearts eagerly began clamoring.
"Let's steal some black-market goods!" they hooted. "We'll show those wannabe marines who the real villains are!"
Law stood in the back, assessing the small bursts of his Observation Haki that he dared to try. It was easier, out in the ocean with no one else but his crew. Everywhere else had so much… noise. Here, at least he felt something familiar. Something like home.
A spark of hot gold, like a shivering candleflame.
Their eyes met. Sophie was watching him, a look of scrutiny on her face. He could hear the gears whirling in her mind, trying to connect the dots between him and…
…and he missed the rain, her hands, the droplets clinging to her eyelashes, the utter buoyant lightness in his chest…
That's over and done with. Focus.
"We need someone to stay on the Polar Tang with the hostage," Law said, looking to his other crewmates. "Any volunteers?"
Kamasu's hand shot up, and the other Hearts rolled their eyes. "Of course," Penguin said.
"You all can go get shot at, I'm taking care of my baby," Kamasu replied, scratching his forehead with a wrench that he pulled out of nowhere. "Have fun."
"Our baby!" Shachi, Penguin, and Valross reminded in a shout.
Kamasu was a great engineer, but rarely did he inspire confidence in Law. "Hai Xing, make sure the hostage doesn't escape or kill himself."
"Oh, death, sweet death, the nothingness that comes for us all," the cook intoned, which portended certain doom. Then Hai Xing brightened a tad. "Oh, but I can finish knitting my scarf."
—
The San Faldo Carnivale was in full swing. Balloons drifted up over the city. Rainbow ribbons and flower wreaths were draped through the streets bustling with dancers, jesters, and musicians. The air steamed with sweets: Fried frittelle stuffed with cream, chocolate, and apple slices, little fried balls of castagnole clutched in children's hands, baked ravioli filled with ricotta that Penguin and Shachi bought handfuls of and the rest of the Hearts devoured.
(Despite the pressing urgency to Cause Havoc, every proper pirate knew how to enjoy themselves.)
Sophie took a bite and was almost knocked flat onto her face. Delicious. Mangos bless her decision to leave G-13. How could she have lived her entire life oblivious to such wonders of food!?
Looking around, Anko whistled sharply at his crew. "Marines," he muttered.
Sure enough, white-and-blue navy soldiers were also partaking in the festivities. Several were dancing in the crowd. A group of marines sat around a table across the street, carousing around with women who were trying on their hats for fun and laughter burst out as one of them called, "She wears it better than you!"
Shachi jerked his thumb at a street stall selling masks. "Costume change, anyone?"
A couple minutes later, the Hearts were casually strolling among the crowd, tying their boiler suits around their waists (or wearing a cloak, in Bepo's case). Masks covered their face; stark-white, gilded with gold, or colorful jesters.
Sophie followed after Law's pale-grey plague doctor mask, Bepo just behind her with a golden bear mask. Wanting to stay as on-brand as her crewmates, she just stuck her gas mask over her face.
Every time she passed by a marine, she flinched. She hadn't been around this many marines who didn't outright want to kill her since… before Vira, at least. At least Arsenic was a comforting weight against her back, and she nervously tapped the wooden stock of the rifle by her hip.
"Keep close," Law called to the rest of the Hearts, and his gaze flickered to her before turning back around.
She wanted to reach for his hand again.
But then Sophie found herself stepping alongside a young man with light pink hair, glasses, and a flowery bandana, pushing through the crowd with a blond guy right behind him—
Grapefruit-kun?
He glanced sideways, his own reflection staring back at him through the lens of her gas mask.
A dancing woman in blue silk ran between them, chased by other laughing girls with huge, floofy skirts, and when Sophie looked again, Grapefruit-kun and his friend were gone in the direction of a magnificent white cathedral.
"Don't those boys know the church isn't open today?" a woman nearby chuckled.
"Why not?" Sophie asked.
"Commodore Dormio's got his marines inside. Must be praying before a World Government campaign."
The Hearts glanced at each other. Prayer. Must be. Steeling themselves, they pushed through the crowd until they reached the end of the street.
A gilded façade with arched, marble portals towered over them, adorned by stone gargoyles that leered down at the visitors stepping into the shadows of the cathedral (yet their hideousness didn't stop Anko from making a crack about stone dicks). Bell towers began to chime. Huge wrought-iron doors were shut and locked.
Law Roomed his crew into the vestibule of the cathedral. The space around them was suddenly, starkly vast. Even a drop of water would've echoed throughout the cavern-like interior. Seven pairs of clomping footsteps did much more.
"Oh!" A terrified old priest staggered back, clutching his chest and staring at the masked men (and the woman wearing a suspicious gas mask).
"We're here on Joker's orders," Law said, slicker than ice.
"Please… I… I only agreed to help Commodore Dormio for the good of San Faldo," the priest whispered, and pointed to a darkened entryway to the left. "If you're looking for him, he said to only let his marines down into the catacombs."
Manta patted his shoulders with a beatific smile. "Thank you, Father."
Then he knocked the priest unconscious.
As the Hearts underwent an argument on where the best place to rest a man of the cloth would be, Law ripped off his mask and wrenched open the stone door.
Before he could dive into the darkness, Sophie grabbed his arm. She shoved her gas mask up over her head.
"You know who this Joker is," she hissed up at him. It only took one look at his face— "I knew it. It's Rosie Nonty, isn't it?"
"No." His eyes flashed in anger. It was only yesterday when they danced in the rain without a word. "And I asked you not to say that name."
"It's not just me who doesn't know," Sophie went on, frustration swelling inside her. "It's e-everyone. The whole c-crew, except maybe Bepo-san. How long have you been keeping this secret? What are you afraid of?"
Law's gaze was like a knife.
"Bepo! Take her!" With that order, he brushed her off and vanished down the dusty stone steps.
Paws wrapped around her and Sophie lurched backwards, teeth gritted as she struggled not to shout, unable to follow Law. She hated him. Hated him. Something about love was grotesque.
The cathedral bells were still ringing. Outside, timpani and trumpets played on. Suddenly there were shouts, and the tell-tale bang of pistols. Commodore Dormio had marines posted as guards. Manta dragged the unconscious priest out of the way, and Penguin shouted to take cover.
"This is a sanctuary, you sick fuck!" Valross yelled, leaping through the air and whacking a marine square in the face with a silver candle stand.
"Go after Law-san!" Sophie urged, wiggling free from Bepo. Whatever infuriating mission her captain was up to, he should at least have his crew to back him up.
"Manta, Val, Sophie, follow us when you can!" Shachi shouted as he opened the door to the catacombs. Penguin, Bepo, and Anko went off with him.
Arrows pinged off the hallowed walls. There was an archer up in the rafters. Seriously? A bow and arrow in this age? The last person she'd seen use one was… Her hand clenched the dog tags around her neck.
Manta picked up Valross like a puppy dog and dragged him behind a pillar. "Great day to not be long-range fighters," Valross joked with a frantic laugh.
Taking cover behind an archway, Sophie loaded up Arsenic with fresh ammo.
"I'll take care of it," she snarled, and went off.
—
The catacombs were lined with bones and darkness, and Law held out one glowing blue fist to light up the way. Down here, the air smelled like death. The noise from the festival had vanished. The underground passageways were insulated by layers and layers of dirt and bedrock.
His piece of shit Haki pulsed ever so slightly. Guards. He couldn't tell how many, but they were moving around. He slowed his pace and quietly stopped, pressed against the wall.
Around the corner, a marine shouted, "Let's move that money, boys! We'll be feasting on the Commodore's coin tonight!"
With one slash of Kikoku, body parts flew into the air.
Stacks and stacks of wooden crates and barrels. A crossed-out smiley face surrounded by yellow markings stamped across containers. The Sabaody Archipelago's Human Auction House symbol. Cloth sacks with dried blood soaking through it. Piles of gold. Piles of bones labeled 'Wotan' and sawed-off mermaid tails.
Anger. Pure, vicious anger.
Another cut of Kikoku and everything was shorn in halves, then thirds.
No, it wasn't the desecration of living beings that Law was particularly furious about; all that mattered was how much ruin he could bring to one of his houses of filth. After looting everything of value, he was going to this rip this fucking place apart.
Down another cramped corridor, he passed marines who were… already on the floor, knocked out. At the end of the hallway was a second entrance to the catacombs, a heavy wooden swinging loosely from one metal hinge as though someone had kicked it down.
He closed his eyes, concentrating. Was there two men still moving about?
Law turned the corner, Kikoku raised.
They froze in the middle of taking photos of the crates and treasure chests with a cameko mushi. The pink-haired boy was the first to react, leaping backwards, his eyes wide in recognition at the pirate.
"Shit! Oh, shit!" the blond one yelped, grabbing the knives at his waist. "Koby, you were supposed keep watch!"
A tall shadow descended over Law—
No. Three.
Commodore Dormio spread his palms out, his coat of justice flaring behind him. In a voice that pierced through Law's mind like a spear, he uttered, "Sleep."
—
The high, heavy bells clanged, echoing down to where Sophie was chasing after the shadow of the archer.
Arrows flew at her, and one of them drew a gash on her leg. She fired one, two shots back, consciously aware that she was inside a place of worship. Yeah, if Heaven was real she sure as heck wouldn't be going there, but still, firing a gun where people prayed for world peace or whatever left a little to be desired.
The archer disappeared into the main area of the cathedral, where rows of dark and silent pews sat and the domed ceiling was painted with frescoes of angels.
She stepped inside, Arsenic raised, her eyes darting around. Her breathing echoed. The only light streamed in from the enormous stained-glass rose window behind the altar, glowing across stone-eyed angels and the firearm in her hands.
Up on the alter was an open treasure chest. Sophie stepped closer, glancing around for the archer.
The chest was empty, and there was nothing but chunks of wet fruit on the ground. Dark, round, red, glistening with juice. A half-eaten apple, patterned with an orange circle and a smaller yellow circle inside. Odd. What sort of fruit was that?
An arrow shot past her like a thunderbolt.
It lodged in the stone mouth of an angel right by her head. Motionless, her blue eyes shifted and stared at the feathers still vibrating from impact. A few more centimeters to the left and she'd be down an eye.
She spun around, lifting Arsenic.
The archer stepped into the golden light coming through the stained-glass window.
A plain grey dress reached her knees, a quiver of arrows on her hip and a wooden bow in her hands. She was beautiful in a haunted way. Hollow lilac eyes. Short, ragged copper hair. Scars on her arms and legs. She was beautiful like a ghost. The young woman took another step, and the light spread over the dusty-yellow ears lifting up over her head. Between her legs, a lion's tail swished.
Sophie's lungs tightened, submerged in the suffocating press of the deep ocean. Waves crashed in her ears, roaring louder and louder and—
—silence.
"Princess… Lisbeth…?"
Upon her gaunt face came a fanged smile.
to be continued
End Notes: *Lisbeth voice* Surprise bitch, bet you thought you'd seen the last of me.
High School AU part two (on FRUITPUNCHED) is coming up! And if One Piece ain't enough to sate your appetite, I have a new BNHA fic called I Carry Your Heart! Check it out if you like healing Quirk shenanigans and a funny scumbag for a protagonist.
trivia
event horizon: in astrophysics, the gravitational sphere of a black hole within which the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. by extension: a point of no return. absolute blatant reference to sophie telling ace about blackbeard on banaro island. it also has something to do with a piece of foreshadowing that was made this chapter, buuuut i can't give it away just yet!