Trapped

Characters: Shachi, Law, Penguin. Rating: T. Warnings: blood, injury

Landing on an apparently uninhabited island always posed its own challenges. They were usually in need of fresh supplies, so chief among them was finding something safe to eat (and preferably something they could keep for a while in the freezer). Most of the crew was put on foraging and hunting duty once the island was confirmed to be safe.

Confirming it to be safe required a scouting party of two or three people (one was too dangerous and more than three could draw unwanted attention). They wouldn't venture far from where the Tang was moored, just in case something came up that they couldn't handle, just far enough to make sure there was enough of a safe area to forage in.

This time, on a humid spring island, Penguin and Shachi had volunteered to be the initial scouts, cautiously setting out with a baby den den mushi in Penguin's pocket, a section of Law's vivre card in Shachi's, and knives concealed under both their tops. In the humidity, the boiler suits had been discarded for something lighter.

The island may as well have been a tropical jungle, if slightly cool, covered in large lush vegetation. Trees reached for the sky, large leaves and intertwining branches creating a thick canopy above their heads. They made note of the plentiful berries around, not recognising many but confident that when it came to gathering, their nakama would be able to collectively discern whether they were edible.

Bountiful crop aside, the island felt somewhat eerie. There was no birdsong. Nor were there calls of other animals, leaving the only noise to be the whisper of wind in the trees. Perhaps there was nothing edible on the island, but even if it wasn't fit for human consumption there was usually some animal or other that had evolved to eat anything. The absence of anything at all was unnerving.

On the edge of their agreed area was the mouth of a cave, set into a small hill. Caves could contain anything. With a shared nod, the pair edged forwards, crossing the threshold slowly and casting around with all of their senses for anything at all.

"Hey-" Shachi started, tensing, only to be drowned out by a loud rumble. It came from above and behind them, and they whirled around in time to see the first rocks fall.

They swore and tried to duck out through the entrance before they were blocked in, but the rockfall was too fast and violent, large boulders slamming down to the ground as they stacked together.

Shachi heard Penguin give out a yelp and reached out for him in the disappearing light, catching hold of his arm as the older man fell to the cave floor.

"Penguin!" he shouted, swearing as a trickle of large stones cascaded down the inside of the cave mouth towards them. Penguin didn't get up, so he dragged him backwards by the arm he'd caught, away from the rockfall. "Hey, Penguin!"

"Nnrgh," the other pirate groaned as the last of the stones fell, well and truly blocking them in. With minimal light to see with – weak rays of daylight tried to force their way past the rocks but failed to do more than keep the cave from being total pitch darkness – Shachi yanked his shades off, taking advantage of his sensitivity to light and subsequent semi-night vision.

It didn't do much, and he knew the moment any real light filtered into the cave he was going to regret it, but for the time being it permitted him to see the outline of his nakama, who was still lying on the floor of the cave where he'd dragged him. Kneeling besides him, he reached for his head to find a sticky lump – he must have lost his hat in the rockfall – and cursed. A rock must have caught him as it fell, and while Shachi was no Law, he knew enough to know instantly that Penguin had concussion, and probably quite a bad one.

Releasing even more profanities, he rummaged through Penguin's pockets for their baby den den mushi, finding the small creature and waking it with some urgent pokes. It gave him a reproachful look even as it dialled the Polar Tang, Shachi fidgeting on the spot.

Gatcha.

"Law!" he said hurriedly, before whoever was on the other end had a chance to say a greeting.

"What's wrong?" his captain asked, and he saw the baby den den morph itself to resemble his captain.

"We got caught in a rockfall," he said, forcing himself not to garble the words in his rush to get them out. "There was a cave, and now we're trapped inside."

"Are you hurt?" Law demanded and Shachi shook his head.

"I'm unhurt," he began, "but I think Penguin got hit by a rock. His head's bleeding and he's not responding to much."

"I'm on my way," Law said, "keep-"

Shachi's attention was snatched away from the den den mushi by a slithering sound, immediately accompanied by a clacking of something hard on rock. He turned around slowly and paled.

"Uh, Law?" he said, cutting off whatever his captain had been saying. "Could you hurry? Only… I don't think the cave's owner is too happy with us shutting its front door."

Two glowing cyan eyes glowered at him out of the darkness, easily at a level above his head. At least Bepo's height, Shachi catalogued absently. There was a strange sound, like a mixture between a snarl and a hiss, and he moved to put himself between Penguin and the creature.

He'd never seen anything like it before. Rows and rows of teeth revealed themselves in a maw most closely resembling a snake's. A matching tail slithered along the ground behind it. The rest of the creature more closely resembled what Shachi could only consider to be a bald lion, all muscle and claws bunched up, ready to pounce.

All he had was his knife, which he quickly palmed.

"-old on," he heard the baby den den garbling in his ear, the creature having crawled up to his shoulder at some point. "Shachi, we're on our way now." The growl-hiss sounded again, and Shachi tensed, watching it preparing to pounce with the certainty that he could not stop anything with that much mass single-handedly, and if he dodged he'd be leaving the vulnerable Penguin directly in the thing's warpath.

"Hurry," he repeated, voice somehow staying steady even though there was a quake to his knees he was attempting to deny the existence of. "There's no way I'm gonna beat this thing alone."

There was a hitch of breath from the den den mushi on his shoulder, and he faintly heard Law barking orders to the rest of the crew frantically. He couldn't listen, however, as the creature chose that moment to lunge. Bracing himself and pulling all the pathetic armament haki he could, he slashed out with the knife, trying to use the thing's momentum against it.

The frantic action worked, deflecting the charge so that it missed both him and Penguin, but as the creature pulled itself back together and regarded him with those cold cyan eyes again, Shachi's heart sank in his chest.

Those were intelligent, calculating eyes. It wouldn't be falling for the same trick twice. That made it smarter than most marines, Shachi noted idly but with a no small amount of trepidation. He didn't need a smart opponent.

The stalemate lasted maybe five seconds, before the eyes left Shachi to focus on something on the ground near his feet. Shachi followed its gaze instinctively to see Penguin's unmoving form.

The beast didn't need to be smart to know which was the easier prey. Its mouth opened in what Shachi could only call a victorious grin before it lunged.

"Oh no you don't," Shachi growled, meeting the beast head on with his knife, heading straight for one of the glowing eyes. He felt the hit, the unmistakable sensation of the blade sinking into something squishy, and the creature screamed, whipping its head side to side frantically.

There was a sharp pain in Shachi's left arm as a stray fang snagged it, and he bit back a yelp. The action itself was nothing outside of his pain tolerance, years of piracy raising it by necessity, but the fire that erupted from the injury was instantaneous and agonising.

He fell to the ground heavily, the impact forcing a pained grunt from him, losing his grip on his knife as he did so. The blade was still embedded in one eye, now red rather than cyan, and the other regarded him with an angered slit. Moving his left arm did nothing other than intensify the burn, and Shachi choked back the noise of pain.

"Shachi?" Law's breathless voice called from the baby den den mushi somehow still on his shoulder, and he realised dimly that at some point the call had been transferred to another baby den den mushi for Law to carry as he ran.

"I think I made it mad," he replied through gritted teeth, glaring back at the sole cyan eye. "And it doesn't play fair. Seems like its fangs are venomous."

He heard Law curse, but it was at that moment the creature decided to launch another offensive. Weaponless but all too aware of Penguin's limp form behind him, Shachi forced what armament haki he could into his arms, holding them up defensively.

He'd thought the thing would muscle him aside and head for Penguin – certainly, it had the strength for that – but its head twisted sideways at the last second, teeth clamping around Shachi's right arm unforgivingly. He couldn't bite back the scream, and faintly heard Law desperately calling his name.

"-chi! I can see the cave now, hol-"

The line went dead as Shachi felt the tail of the creature crash down on his shoulder. Looking up at the cyan eye, he saw a look of smug satisfaction and a realisation chilled him to the bones.

It was playing with him. It could have gone for Penguin whenever it wanted and there was really nothing Shachi could have done about it, but it hadn't. Instead it had targeted Shachi himself, even going so far as to use Penguin as bait, and now it had cut off his only communication. The teeth retracted from his arm and he stumbled backwards, but not fast enough as it snapped again, this time its fangs sinking into his abdomen. Shachi screamed, collapsing backwards and narrowly missing Penguin as he crashed to the ground, the creature not relinquishing its bite and instead letting Shachi's momentum pull it forwards until it was pinning him with one huge claw.

A translucent blue passed over them, and then Penguin was gone. In his place stood Law, Kikoku unsheathed and free hand poised to manipulate everything inside his Room.

Whether the creature saw a new toy or a threat, Shachi didn't know, but he was dragged to his feet by the bite still encompassing most of his abdomen and shaken around like a chew toy.

Law wasted no time, an Amputate and Takt combination finding Shachi laid on the cave floor behind his captain. Any efforts to find his feet were a lost cause as his limbs refused to respond, so he could do nothing other than watch Law dice the creature and scatter the parts thoroughly before kneeling down next to him.

"Sorry I took so long," he apologised, and Shachi gave him a toothy grin.

"You came in the end," he pointed out, voice slightly hoarse. Law shook his head fondly before there was a hand gripping his and the world shifted.

They materialised just outside the cave. Shachi winced at the sudden light – he knew he'd regret taking his shades off – and shut his eyes hurriedly, but he could sense several of his nakama surrounding him.

"Back to the Tang," Law ordered, and Shachi felt someone pick him up. His haki said it was Clione.

"Bepo already took Penguin back," Uni reported, probably to Law although Shachi appreciated the information.

"Good," Law said, sounding pleased. "No-one is going out in less than a group of five," he added. "We don't know how many of those things are lurking."

Even if he wasn't destined for a spell in the infirmary, what felt like his entire musculature screaming at him non-stop, Shachi would not have been volunteering to leave the security of the Tang again on that island. He didn't scare easily, but there was just something about the uncanny intelligence of that creature that rubbed him the wrong way.

Despite knowing that Law had incapacitated the creature, Shachi couldn't even begin to relax until he was back in the safety of the Polar Tang, lying on the bed next to Penguin's in the infirmary and listening to Bepo trying to persuade the other not to fall asleep.

I got a request for an injured Penguin and Shachi trapped in a cave... I may have decided that wasn't mean enough and threw in some random venomous snake-lion hybrid monster thing just to spice things up a bit.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari