Chapter 15: What's White as Milk and Cracked All Over? Broken Bones and Magnets!

Kidd struggled. "No! Nonono, not a bed, not a fuckin' bed! I don' wan'! Hate bein' strapped down! Noooooo!"

Zoro laughed at last; he couldn't help it. Law was known for literally forcing his more stubborn patients to obey Doctor's Orders.

"Then simply stay put," A pale hand literally marked with death reached up and grabbed a handful of crimson hair and pulled, "don't give me a reason to."

Sanji smirked and leaned into his lover, "As if you have room to laugh, moss-head."

"Yeah, but Kidd knows: The second Law gets him ON a bed, a real bed, he will be tied as a 'preventative measure'. You don't live with a man for a couple decades without knowing what tricks they use and the hallmarks that indicate one is coming."

Forced bed rest drove him nuts after two days at most. So, Kidd wailed as his head was yanked around. "FUUUUCKK! DON' LETTIM TIE MEEEE!"

Once again a single eye was visible in the shadow under Law's hat and it twinkled dangerously as he pulled the reluctant other out of the room. "Come, Eustass-ya~."

The cook gave his swordsman a withering look, "I'll remind you of that when you're laid up the next time."

Zoro made his best innocent expression as an explosion of curses came from the other room, Kidd too weak to resist. "Well Law isn't my doctor. That's Chopper."

"Be thankful," The blond snorted. "Chopper doesn't usually resort to physical restraints, just guilt trips."

"He doesn't have to. His Heavy Point's got the physical strength to hold my ass down."

An anguished wail replaced the curses to indicate Law's success.

The color drained from Sanji's face. "I should probably change the name on the billboard. We have entirely too many patients to be a restaurant anymore."

Zoro chuckled, pecked Sanji's cheek, and went to go train some more. His anger was still boiling just under the surface... he needed to pulverize something. And then kill some sea kings.

With that the cook tucked his cigarette in the corner of his mouth and began clearing up the dishes left over from dinner. Luffy helped, somewhat, by licking the plates clean first, though with less enthusiasm than normal. The second attack on Nakama seemed to have sent the rubber man into deep contemplation, which he declared required vast amounts of food to keep going, but still, it left him more subdued than usual. Usopp seemed to be in the same sort of mood, because he quickly stole away into a corner of the communal room to tinker with explosives and ammunition for his weapons, in spite of the still healing state of his body.

Robin was sitting on the railing, staring out at the sea's endless waves. Her face was expressionless, but her thoughts churned. Bellamy was metal. But he'd resisted Kidd's control somehow... but if Kidd's magnetism was going haywire there was the distinct possibility he'd managed to magnetize the son of a submariner...

The quiet that was the rumble of background noise filled the empty sea restaurant. It was just like being back on the Sunny so many years ago. Metal clanging, curses thrown about, footsteps, and a general air of purpose hung about the place. It was oddly comforting in all the upside down insanity that had happened over the last few months. Strangely enough, things almost seemed normal, at least if one didn't poke too closely at the surface. It continued for several hours before a cry rang out gathering everyone's attention.

"OI! There's a ship! No colors!" Franky, perched high on the repaired mast of the Flying Pan, called out with a deep frown.

Sanji froze in his chopping, Usopp looked up from the bullets he was making with one lens of his goggles raised, Luffy stretched an arm to fling himself up to the cyborg's vantage point, and Law poked his head out of the bedroom he'd been given.

It was Robin who realized it first, and she grabbed Zoro by the shirt and dragged him out to utilize the gift he had been given at the end of his training with Mihawk. "Look in that boat and tell me what you see."

With deliberate movements, the swordsman closed his right eye, gathered the Haki necessary, and opened his left. Beneath the scarred, normally closed lid, the orb was a bright gold. Much like his predecessor's 'hawk vision' the eye that was usually hidden gave him the ability to see greater distances.

Then he gasped and swore so loudly Kidd's crewmembers jerked to attention. "BROOK!"

Laying on the bottom of the tiny boat he'd managed to commandeer, a bleached skull smiled. He'd finally drifted back to where he belonged.

"BROOOOOOK!" Luffy hollered, and snagged the boat, which left Franky to grab a hold of the captain's hips for fear of the rubber man flying off of his perch while still over open ocean.

Law stepped out onto the deck next to Sanji and Usopp, who were both still somewhat tense and ready for a fight, "Does this mean Chopper is here now as well?"

"No," Zoro said, his voice thick and harsh, blinking his good eye to clear the after effects of the altered vision. "No... 'cause Brook never made it ta Chopper. There 're missin' bits ta his bones. Bleached spots an' dirty ones. He looks like old bones. He has cracks an' chips an' teeth missin' like after Thriller Bark. He's hurt bad, an' if he'd managed ta get ta Chopper he wouldn't be like that."

The green-haired man threw off his shirt and boots, and jumped overboard with a rope in his teeth. As he had with the Merry II he was towing the dinghy in!

Robin grit her teeth for a split second as her emotions tried to escape from the box. No! No. Just more anger to add to the ice-wall. More cold fury and rage to galvanize her. She couldn't afford an emotional investment.

A silver-handled cane slowly rose up and waved 'hello'. He lived, even if he was rather weak.

"For God's sake..." Sanji dared not speak the next sentence on his lips.

He simply turned on his heel and made for the refrigerator. He wasn't sure if it really worked but the skeleton had always felt better after drinking milk, so it was worth a shot at least. What he didn't realize, however, was Law tapping out sparks that flew from the cook's body with an almost concerned expression on his face. Things were much worse than he feared when the letter from the Strawhats had informed him of what was going on. The question bothering him most was just how much stronger was the imposter now?

As soon as Zoro was close enough, both Law and Usopp grabbed hold of the rope, helping to haul the small boat in spite of the sniper's still bandaged hands. Luffy made short work of the rest of the process by rocketing himself from Franky to the deck of the All-Blue, never letting go of the edge of the craft.

The swordsman gathered the half-clad bones in the tatters of what had once been a fine suit and jumped up onto the deck with the gentlest and most careful of movements. Slowly, bone by bone, Brook reassembled himself. When he was together the way he ought to be again, he gave a tired sort of smile, and patted himself down, briefly mourning the loss of his suit.

"Ah, Law-kun. How nice to see you again. I do hope your redhead is in better shape than this old bag of bones?" He leaned heavily on his cane as he hobbled inside, in desperate need of food, drink, and—please God—some good news.

"Sorry to disappoint, Brook-ya, he's not much better off than you. It seems the Joker's plaything has gotten around more than we originally thought." The shorter man tipped his hat back and without hesitation reached up to twist the vertebra into alignment, just as he used to do for his father. "Is there some explanation for how you came to be in this state?"

"Oooohh, you have some fine hands, Law-kun," Brooke sighed before nodding. "Yes... the quickest way to reach Skypiea with the sky roads out of order as they have been since the Great War, as you are aware, is via Knock Up Stream. Unfortunately for me, while I was waiting for the stream to erupt... Bellamy found me. And he knew who and what I was immediately and how to stop me from escaping. He has taken over all of Jaya and made it his base of operation, with his ships constantly circling like a swarm of sharks to prevent others from getting past him either into Jaya or up into Skypiea. He held me prisoner for... I do not know how long. However, I got lucky. He employs some very stupid subordinates."

"That certainly explains why we haven't heard from Chopper either." Sanji returned with a carton and a large glass. "I only hope things can be sorted out before—"

The cook broke off as Luffy entered the room again. All eyes were drawn to the Pirate King, and he rubbed the back of his neck before looking away. Silence reigned and the rubber man, uncomfortable under the scrutiny of so many of his friends rolled his shoulders, then stretched himself to snap back up to his perch above the restaurant. Usopp sighed, and returned to his munitions. Franky shook his head, cast a glance at Robin helplessly, and followed Luffy back to the Flying Pan under the pretense of continuing his repairs. Law looked around him and the confusion in his eyes drew his brows together.

"I feel something has not been entirely explained to me, Sanji-ya. Your message informed me of Ms. Nami's pregnancy, but it seems that you left something out." He ran his nimble fingers down the skeleton's spine again, making sure each joint was connected properly.

Brook shuddered and his cane trembled. "Ah... yes. There has been some... contention over the child. A matter of who betrayed whom, if there was a betrayal at all, such inconsequential details that have apparently become important since I have been cut off from the world. I see it all as rather silly and nonsense, but these younger folks have had rather strong feelings about it. That is why Nami is... elsewhere. It is good I did not know where. Bellamy questioned me constantly... I told him nothing. But it was a close thing. He kept throwing... throwing me into... into a tank of seawater and fishing out my bones after disconnecting my head so I didn't drown."

Law actually frowned up at the skeleton. "That's ridiculous." He would have continued but the general feel to the air about the room stalled his tongue. So, collecting his thoughts, the surgeon pressed forward, "Well, if it keeps them safe then by all means, we must do what we must do. Do you have any stiffness? Salt in your joints at all? It's a fair distance between here and Jaya, even if Eustass's magnets brought you back more quickly than normal."

Brook winced and nodded. "I have salt in every joint, crevice and vertebrae, Law. It's layered on so thick I have an extra inch to every bone. It's quite painful. But what's this about Mr. Kidd's magnets?"

The trademark smirk broke across his face for the first time since he'd arrived at the All-Blue. With a deft flick of his wrist, the shorter brunette snatched the musician's top hat from his hair. He lifted the edge of the band just enough to display the small, round disks attached to the fabric. "After the Great War, it was determined that should any one of us be separated for any reason we would always have a way to return to friendly waters. If you were to simply fall into a lifeboat and drift, eventually these," He tapped the disks, "would bring you here. It's how the All-Blue travels in a straight line from Raftel to Whiskey Peak and back again every year."

The magnets wiggled and vibrated for a second, sparked purple, and resumed sitting innocently.

Brook blinked. "What... was that? I appreciate it, but what just happened to them? Did they go dead?"

Law looked at the door off to the side, and exhaled with a slight frown, "That… would be someone not doing as he was told and needing be reminded why he's strapped to the bed naked. Excuse me."

He handed the hat back to the older man and made his way through the door. Sanji snickered and poured Brook a second glass of milk while Usopp chuckled into his work with a wistful air, and the sounds of banging reached through the open doorway.

Swearing resumed but in spite of the altercation a duplicate purple spark flashed on the end of Wado's hilt, the necklace around Robin's throat, and the strike pads on Sanji's shoes. There was a small lull, and for a moment it seemed all was over, but then, outside the spark occurred again on the band of Luffy's hat, Franky's nose, and somewhere far off, beyond even what the surgeon thought his lover could reach, the navigator's Clima Tact and the buckle of the reindeer's backpack.

That brought another loud swear and a whine, and Law returned looking entirely too smug carrying something that really, really shouldn't have been brought out of the room without its owner. Thankfully, the surgeon did have it wrapped in a cloth and tucked under his jacket, though that didn't stop him from stroking it in a rhythmic fashion where his hand was unseen. In response, Kidd snarled curses in five different languages from his prison, one of which made Zoro turn white, then red, then white again and rush to protect his cook.

Brook laughed, the calcium already helping to mend his bones. The master of magnetism was going to have a very uncomfortable recovery. But it had been worth it to strengthen the magnets again, if this ever happened again help was needed to come and quickly. The skeleton focused on his milk, thoroughly amused, as a purple spark on Usopp's goggles where Law wouldn't see it was an indication of the redhead's continued defiance.

Under his coat, where none could see what he was doing Law pressed his thumb against that hidden object, if the patient wasn't going to behave, then he was just going to have to suffer the consequences. Having the vas deferens disconnected was going to make it very difficult for his lover to achieve completion until he determined that the redhead had suffered enough, and in the meantime, he was perfectly content with stimulating the removed flesh, knowing full well that the man to which it belonged could feel everything. So, with an air of both superiority and unconcern, Law reclaimed his seat next to Brook.

"We were discussing magnets, were we not?"

The musician inclined his head, mostly to hide his entertainment, "We'd just finished the magnet discussion, I'd thought. It was how I got here?"

"We did, but to cumulate it, we can use them to find each other as well. See, each one has a specific polarity, and should we need to, we can attune a log pose to direct for that specific polarity. Especially with Eustass here and cooperative." The surgeon punctuated his sentence with another brush of his thumb.

An animal snarl came from the bedroom that made Zoro stick his head in it and snarl back, bristled up like a cat. Next to Law, Robin shook her head with a tiny smile—such devious minds and foul-mouthed brutes they had. It made life so interesting.

Sanji walked past carrying a try of tarts for Robin and the females among the Neverlands' crew, giving the swordsman a chastising smack on the back of the head as he did so. "Behave, or his won't be the only one being tortured. Law can remove others' body parts too, you know."

"Cook, do ya even know what he's sayin?!" Another animal snarl came, and this time Zoro blushed beet red and slammed the door. "HELL NO!"

"I don't need to know what he's saying to know what you're saying. And you shouldn't be saying such things in front of the ladies." Sanji chastised and moved off.

Brooke tipped his hat. "I see. I don't suppose that in Mr. Kidd's attempts to control Bellamy's metal body, he managed to magnetize... him?"

An evil chuckle rolled out from underneath the door that had a touch of demented laughter in it. "You bet yer fuckin' foot bones I did, Deadman!"

Law chuckled as well. "Yes it was amusing somewhat. Though he was controlled, and I fear it may have something to do with the plaything's ability to render his flesh metal and the metal back to flesh. It makes it rather difficult for the two of us to keep up given our agreement. However, now that someone is laid up for a while to deal is off." The last was said just loud enough to be heard in the other room.

Rumbling growl and the door popped back open. "Oh no, lovey, concernin' Bellamy an' any other middle ground, deal is off—first dibs to whoever gets 'im first!"

"Usopp gets first dibs as sniper. He kidnapped his wife," Zoro reminded quietly.

Kidd fell silent for a moment. "Yeah. Sorry, Sureshot. You do get first crack at 'im. But he goes metal an' I'm turnin' him inta slag."

The jovial atmosphere died somewhat at the reminder of that pain, and the long-nosed man hunched his shoulders, the muscles he'd developed while working with Zoro to regain his mobility rippling with tension and fury. His voice was quiet and shocking to those who remembered the over-the-top liar from years past, "If there's anything left when I'm done with him, he's yours."

There was some general shifting of weight as the sniper's words made the whole room uncomfortable, but then Law cleared his throat. "Yes, well, be that as it may, we have the problem of getting in there to get to him. Can you tell us anything, Brook-ya?"

"Other than he's gone quite mad? Mad as a hatter, actually. Literally. He calls his new ship The Wonderland, and in it everything is themed. He even has that infamous tea-room in which a variety of nasty and occasionally deadly concoctions are drunk. It is in there he keeps Kaya, whom he has cast in the role of 'Alice'. He fancies himself the Mad Hatter, the grand composer of this demented fairy book." He turned to the sniper in an attempt to be reassuring. "Kaya looked well, when I saw her. A bit thin from stress, tired from lack of sleep, but she did not appear to be physically harmed. And though she was bound to her chair, with her mouth covered to keep her from speaking, she was never given any of the same food or drinks that may or may not have contained poison the rest of the crew was forced to consume. For being in her terrible situation, Usopp, your wife was looking remarkably well, glowing even. If rather horrified when Bellamy questioned me."

"If he's harmed a hair on her head, he'll wish Luffy was the one in charge of his beating." That same dangerous tone and dark foreboding energy that made everyone nervous, even more so as they noticed the absence of the aforementioned captain.

Trying to distract them from the killing intent, Sanji twirled a tea cup. "Perhaps we could use that to our advantage. Tell me, Brook, does he have a Cheshire Cat yet? Or a Caterpillar?"

"Your train of thought is intriguing, Sanji-ya." If there was one thing the Surgeon of Death enjoyed, it was creating insanity out of normality. He liked to think of it as a sign that his adoptive fathers had rubbed off on him just a little bit.

The musician was quiet for a moment in contemplation, "A Caterpillar I couldn't say, but, he… um… did have someone he referred to as the Cheshire Cat... I never saw who it was though. I think Bellamy may have suspected one of his men would fail him and I would escape and didn't want to reveal them."

"Hm... Well, as our course is currently set for Ryuunosu, I think it's safe to assume we'll find out everything in due time. If we can I'd like to have someone within his ranks, but not at the risk of someone's life." Sanji wrapped a hand around his goatee, thinking hard.

Law folded his hands together on the table, "I'm inclined to agree. Whatever it is that has made the plaything stronger is bound to have made him more wary of those he knows to be associates of Luffy-ya. Our best course of action is to simply heal and plan our assault. Though there may be more of a help for us than at first glance. On our way here, our lookout observed two vessels heading for Water Seven. One was Marine in nature, and the other bore Dragon's mark. As per the treaty we avoided them, but I find it entirely too coincidental that Coby-ya and Dragon-ya would be moving at the same time."

Zoro drifted in. "Law? Can I ask you somethin'... in private?"

"Ah... of course." The surgeon climbed to his feet and put his hands in his pockets. Any sort of walking was a good excuse for further teasing his poor laid up other half as he followed the swordsman.

When they were out of sight, and more importantly out of earshot of the rest of the crew, the green haired man fixed him with a firm worried stare. "...What else did you see around Water Seven?"

It was subtle. For Zoro. The question itself implied something Law wouldn't have normally seen, that there was something missing.

"We weren't there very long..." The doctor seemed to think something over before looking up at the Strawhats' first mate, "There was another ship. Small, could only have held six or seven people and only for a short while. It flew no flag, and the sails were nondescript, but it was odd, nestled among the larger vessels. Why do you ask?"

That eye knew something as a sharp grin flashed across the wide mouth.

"Oh. Just wanted to know. And… this'll seem odd, but... any... unusual things in the water? Strange animals?" Like bananadiles was what he was thinking.

That was when it hit the genius doctor. "Oh. Yes. They were there. Very close. Circling the ship often. They seemed agitated, and impatient. Perhaps they were waiting for someone."

The look on Law's face demanded that when this was all over he be given the explanation as to how such a thing could have happened, and why he'd had no knowledge of it.

"Ahh. What I suspected then. Thanks." The swordsman promised no answers, but the smile that flashed again indicated that, when it was all over and there was time again, he could be persuaded.

A single dark eyebrow arched; challenge accepted, though he suspected that if things were as he thought they were, he'd be getting answers from a different side of the situation rather than returning to the swordsman. After all, why go to a friend when family was so much closer? "My pleasure. Was that all you needed?"

"Mhm. Just wanted to know how... erm… close that particular ship was to the situation." Zoro slipped back off, humming happily.

"I see, then I believe I'll take my leave of your company for the moment." His eyes drifted up towards the roof, where a suspiciously shaped shadow had plastered itself against the curve of one of the eaves. He gave a small bow and left the captain and his first mate to talk if they so chose. "My patient needs me."