Two stingrays pull up to Little Garden. "Ah!" Vivi exclaims. "You beat us!"
Karmen chuckles. "You won the first two races, so victory is yours, nevertheless." In truth, Karmen had been too excited by the sight of the island to remember to put her weight on her heels this time around. She looks up at the jungle and basks in the muggy humidity that pours out of it as the other rays begin to catch up. Carue quacks indignantly at being left behind for the third time. Karmen smiles apologetically and pats his hat. "Sorry. You can show off your speed on land." She ties two barrels to his saddle and makes sure his drink is filled.
The jungle is just as vivid and wild as she remembers. She can hear dinosaurs roaring from inside, see snakes slithering through the trees, and instantly spots deadbolt vines and Plucharon sprouts. Maybe she could even find that bug that bit Nami while she's here. She cups her hands around her mouth. "Dorry! Brogy!" Usopp would want to know how their never-ending battle is faring. He'd want to hear about the continuous honor of the giants and how they'd recovered from their injuries left by Mr. 3 and 5 all those months ago. No one answers her call. "I guess they're further in, or maybe they're dueling," she says.
"You still think they're fighting?" Vivi asks.
"They're warriors to the core," she responds with a fond smile as she pulls the vial containing Sherryl from her shirt and dumps the spider carefully back onto her head. "Anyone who could inspire my little brother like they did will continue to fight until the day they die."
"Which one do you think will win?"
"Old age, probably," Karmen says truthfully. "Either that or they take each other out. They're too evenly matched, know each other's techniques too well. Their honor and friendship denies any foul play."
The other rays break the surface and Kamren begins unloading her supplies. She immediately secures root balls around deadbolt, sunblade, and Plucharon and places the plants inside large glass pods. She secures these to the back of one ray and it immediately swims off to the Northwest. "You're sending those back to your island?" she asks.
"Yep," Karmen responds. "Camilla will have them in the locked garden for me by the time I get back. She works wonders in a garden. From now on, I'll never run out of any of the basics." She bites into a Plucharon plant, feeling the familiar tingle on her tongue, and thinks. She remembers how Ikaika's arms had turned black and rotted into nothing in front of her eyes. It had taken mere seconds. She had thought she'd feel victorious in that moment. Instead, she'd felt like if she let it take more than his arms she would become a monster. She would become like him. This plant can be used for good, but it can also do terrible things. It was up to her how she wanted to use it. While she still plans on having the Plucharon on her island, she'll never make that particular version of it ever again. Something inside her tells her that she hasn't yet unlocked its full potential quite yet. Something about it doesn't seem entirely destructive, she just hasn't found the right combination, the right dosage. She feels Sherryl moving in her hair. She has a lot of research to do. They shouldn't waste too much time standing around on the beach.
As if reading her mind, a large, toothy dinosaur with a long, spiky tail bursts through the trees and roars at them. Splinters of wood fall over them with its warm breath. Its glistening green and orange skin rises menacingly above them and its five-foot long claws push trees aside as it advances. Karmen carefully sets a large pack on her back. "Let's run and go find our giants."
"Agreed," Vivi breathes. She jumps on Carue's back and they take off into the forest with the monster right behind them. Karmen feels movement on her hair but doesn't bother to stop to see what Sherryl is doing. They run until they come to a mountain. "There's a cave!"
Karmen looks to where Vivi is pointing and aims for it. They burst through the entrance and land hard in the dirt, just outside of the range of the gnashing teeth. She gives a content sigh. "That was fun."
Vivi slides off the duck, staying on her hands and knees and groans. "I forgot what traveling with you guys was like." After a few more deep breaths she begins to laugh. "Can we even get out of here?"
Karmen looks around. The cave is barely deep enough to keep them safe. The entrance is sturdy and completely made of stone, so there's no danger of the creature breaking through, despite the sound of its jaws echoing all around them. "Not in the slightest."
"So what are we going to do?" Vivi asks.
She turns to find Karmen sitting on a blanket with a full tea set out. Carue gives a loud quack of surprise. "I say we get comfortable and wait twelve hours."
Vivi gives her a dumbfounded look. "Where did that come from?"
Karmen inclines her head towards her pack, now resting against the cave wall. "I packed everything I thought we might need."
Though this doesn't explain the already steaming pot of tea on the blanket Vivi feels there are more important subjects to discuss. "You just want to wait it out?" she asks. "What if it doesn't leave?"
Karmen taps the place above her ear where a certain fruit-shaped arachnid is no longer sitting. "Sherryl has things covered."
Vivi stares at her. "Y-your desert strawberry is taking on that thing?" she asks.
"Oh, I believe she's already dealt with him, we just have to wait." Karmen finds a trail of spider silk leading off her ear and towards the cave entrance. She gives it a flick and reels it in, carrying the spider back to her along with it, landing lightly on Karmen's outstretched hand. She catches a fly out of the air with her free hand and feeds it to the spider, who wraps it in the piled silk around her and bites into it readily. "What a helpful dear you've turned out to be." Carue, seeing nothing better to do, settles down next to Karmen and looks up at the princess.
Vivi sits and takes the cup of tea offered. "We're really just going to sit here for twelve hours?" She and Carue take a sip and nod their approval.
"Do you have a better idea for getting past those teeth?" Karmen asks. "And I plan to train some. Maybe take a nap, read a book. There's always the chance that one of the giants will hear and come to our aid. Its skin is too thick to pierce with my weapons and I don't plan on jumping into its mouth in search of softer membranes. So unless you have a better plan, that leaves waiting for Sherryl's toxins to take effect."
The princess sighs. "You really did think it all out, didn't you?" She looks towards the dinosaur. "Even if you were able to poison it safely it would still block the entrance. But if it's still trying to eat us in twelve hours, it'll block the entrance anyway."
Karmen hums tunelessly. "That is true."
"You don't seem worried at all."
"With the plants I've gathered already I could eventually synthesize a poison that could take care of the problem. It would take a day at least. However, I have a technique that may be able to help us. I've never used it for this purpose or at this range, though, so I don't know if it will actually work."
She sets her cup down and sits in a comfortable position with her chin lowered and hands in her lap. She focuses all her haki in scanning the island. Giant life signs are everywhere, but two in particular stand out to her. There they are, resting together after what must have been another duel. Dorry and Brogy, the two honorable Elbafian giant captains. She knows they are able to use a bit of haki, she just hopes at least one of them can use the observation type. They're distant, but all she has to do is shift their perception slightly.
Far away on the island, Brogy looks down. "Did you see that, Dorry?" he asks.
The taller giant adjusts his dented helmet and looks where his rival is pointing. "What?"
"I thought I saw a nymph or a sprite. I'm not sure exactly. It looked like a human woman, but she was glowing."
Dorry gives a throaty laugh. "I must have hit you over the head harder than I thought. Have you let your helmet go soft?"
"My helmet's fine," Brogy states. "Look! There it is again!"
Both men stare at the tree line to see a woman shaped glimmer gesturing at them, pointing towards the mountains. "I think it wants us to follow her."
"I think you're right." Brogy looks at Dorry. "Should we?"
He shrugs and gives his companion a toothy smile. "We don't have anything better to do until the volcano erupts again."
"A very true statement."
Both giants stand and follow the glow. It doesn't move like a normal human. Once it sees that they are following it disappears from the ground and instantly appears on the highest branches of the trees, not really using them for support, but floating a few inches above them. This makes it easier for them to follow it and after a few minutes of travel they can hear the snarling of one of the island beasts on the hunt. The figure stops once they are in sight of the dinosaur and points to where it has its head stuffed into a cave, signaling at its raised haunches. Its claws scrape the stone and dirt, leaving deep gouges, and its tail sweeps from side to side, splintering trees in its wake.
"What do you think it's after?" Dorry asks.
"Don't know," Brogy says. "But I think the glowing lady wants us to dispatch it." He looks at the small woman. "Is that right?" She nods vigorously and gives a little spin, ending in a deep curtsy. She leaps down from the trees and disappears mid-air. "Well, shall we?"
"It sounds like we just found our dinner." Dorry catches the creature's tail and pulls. It rears around to bite him, but Brogy's sword is faster. It cuts deeply into the back of its neck and with one more swing, decapitates it.
Karmen, Carue, and Vivi step out of the cave, everything repacked, and wave. "Thank you!" they call.
The giants give surprised chuckles. "Well if it isn't our little pirate friends!" Brogy states.
"What a wonderful surprise," Dorry says. "Are the others in there too?"
"It's just us, I'm afraid," Karmen says. "I'm glad you got my message. We couldn't get past the teeth."
Dorry heaves the creature's tail over his shoulder. "Would you like to join us for a meal?"
"Absolutely!" She pats the barrels Carue is carrying. "I brought some ale, just for you two." Karmen digs in her pack and pulls out four syringes, two much larger than the others, and a large bottle of pink liquid. Carue quacks with shock and backs away quickly. "Though I'm afraid my spider friend may have poisoned the meat. This will make it safe to eat, but it won't exactly be pleasant."
Vivi gasps. "You mean you actually made an antidote for desert strawberry venom?" she asks, slightly awed. "I remember you staying up all night before we left but I never imagined you'd pull it off that quickly."
"Oh, did I forget to tell you?" Karmen asks. "Sorry. I was tired after I finished. I know it seems rushed but I tested it twenty times to be sure, all trials successful. Remind me to tell your palace doctors how to make it when we get back. It should prove useful for them." The giants lean down and Karmen gets to work, carefully measuring each dose according to body weight and muscle mass. With a little coaxing even Carue let her inject him with the antidote. Once they could all eat the kill safely the three new arrivals hitch a ride on the dinosaur's corpse as the giants drag it back to Dorry's camp. Brogy had collected the trees the monster had felled and use them to create a smoky and roaring fire to roast it on. "Are you two still tied?" she asks them once they'd settled in.
"We are," Brogy confirms heartily. "We had another draw just this morning. I'm going to have to make a new shield again."
Dorry leans down. "Was that a new technique you used to bring us to the cave?"
Karmen nods. "I've been developing it over the past few months," she says. "It's called Soul Splitter. I make a form out of haki. It's usually meant as a distraction but it has other uses, as you saw." She makes the haki Karmen again and lets the form dance over the fire. She changes its form to make it look like the Straw Hat sniper. "Usopp will be very happy to know that you're doing well. He really admires you." She tells them about meeting two of their crewmates at Enies Lobby and how they had gotten their revenge and joined the Galley-La shipbuilding crews of Water 7. She makes sure to tell of Usopp's significant role in their change in allegiance and how much they still cared for their captains. The giants sit and listen misty-eyed. When she's finished they thank her and tell her of adventures they had with those two crew members, the trouble they found, the creatures they'd come across, the battles they fought. Karmen records all of it in a notebook so that she can bring their stories to Usopp when they meet again.
"There was something I was hoping to ask you," she says as they begin to divide up the meat and the giants dig into the ale. "What is life like for half-giants on Elbaf?"
Brogy and Dorry look at each other, barrels pausing just before passing their lips. "Well, it depends on where you grow up, really," Dorry says. "Just like with humans, giants are born of all different sizes."
"Some giants feel the bloodlines should stay pure and mistreat those who don't. Others believe that it doesn't matter who or what your parents are so long as you are honorable. We have those who would rather not live a life of battle, criminals, and outcasts, much like any other race."
"That being said," Dorry says. "Most half-giants tend to leave the island."
"Why do you ask?" Brogy says.
Karmen blows on her food to cool it. "I've known a half-giant all my life, but he never spoke of his home. I'm not even sure if he was born on Elbaf. We always had… more pressing matters to discuss."
"Are you sure he's a half-giant?" Dorry asks.
"Well, he's much taller than any human I've met but much shorter than you two," she says. "I figured it was the obvious explanation, though he's never claimed it himself. He likes to keep personal matters to himself." Before the conversation can continue a volcano erupts. The giants look at each other, eyes already alight with the thrill of battle. Karmen gives a soft laugh. "Perhaps another time, then." She picks up her pack and nods towards the forest. "Vivi, Carue, we'd better get to work and stay out of the way while they fight."
They step into the trees as the first metallic rings of sword against axe sound behind them. Karmen samples leaves and stalks as she walks, looking for tell-tale signs of poison such as tingling or burning on her tongue. They move cautiously, keeping an eye out for anything that could possibly try to eat them and being wary of any unusual animals or insects. She finds and pods the flowers that went into her perfume and the one that caused blinding and another that causes itching. She finds a small shrub that she'd discovered caused a person to lose the use of their voice for a few hours. Luckily it has no effect on Karmen as she chews on one of the stems. She sneaks up on a sleeping dinosaur and gains a bottle of venom while Vivi and Carue cheer her on quietly from the distant tree line.
About two hours into their search Karmen gasps and rushes forward, sliding to her knees and scooping two small objects into her arms. "They're still here!"
"What are?" Vivi asks.
Karmen holds up two grimy red leather sandals. "The shoes I lost to Mr. 3's wax attack! Remember? I had to melt the wax around my ankles with scalding tea thanks to that jerk. My sandals were still stuck so I had to leave them behind. The heat here must have melted the wax off them or his powers have a time limit but I get them back so I don't care how it happened. These shoes cost me 30,000 berries."
"Are they still… functioning?" Vivi asks.
Karmen's eyes sparkle with determination. "If they aren't I know someone who can make them so." Her eyes soften as she rubs her thumbs over the still tea-stained leather. They'd been rained on and were still oily with waxy residue, but they were whole and unmarred in Karmen's eyes. They had been so important to her once. "These were the first pair of shoes I bought as Valentine." Though the leather is practically trashed, these are her first shoes that weren't ruined by the blood of dying slaves. When she had left them behind and limped barefoot to her crew it hadn't been because she'd been ashamed to wear them in the presence of her friends, not like the hundreds of times she'd approached Kuma as a child with nothing but her naked feet. After he'd rescued her, Kuma had given her a large chunk of change to live off of until she could decide what she wanted to do. It hadn't been enough to get back to Valcour, something she's sure he was very aware of. She spent most of it on these shoes and isn't ashamed to admit it. She'd still been angry at the time and had no real concept of money and saw it as a slight to him. In the end, she hadn't need Kuma's money to reach Pierce at all. Over time, her reasoning behind wearing these sandals changed. By the time she'd lost them she'd considered them an indirect gift from her pawed protector, and that made them even more valuable. "Even if I can't wear them again, I consider them a treasure."
A giant dragonfly swoops down and snatches the shoes out of her hand. Nobody moves until Karmen stands, doing so very slowly, eyes in shadow. "Sync. Carue, it's time to show me how fast you can run." Vivi jumps on his back and holds her arm out for Karmen, but the Secretary had already started running. The duck takes off, surprised to find Karmen keeping pace with him no matter how fast his webbed feet slap the jungle floor. Vivi draws her peacock spinners and slices up foliage to clear their path. Soon the dragonfly is in sight again. "Burning cage!" Karmen throws a feather dart at it but it performs a barrel roll and dodges gracefully. Vivi keeps her eye on it but she can't reach it from Carue's back. Karmen scoops her dart up as she runs, expelling the now empty cartridge before clicking it back into the quill. She growls with frustration. The insect is aerodynamic and air pressure sensitive. Distance attacks won't work. This leaves one option if she wants her shoes back.
She synchronizes with a nearby tree frog and leaps fifteen feet in the air onto a tree branch. She leaps further forward until she's higher than the dragonfly and only a few feet away. Karmen dives after it and catches it around its long abdomen. It curls that section of its body around, pulling her close to its mandibles as it tries to bite her head off. She dodges, throwing her head side to side to avoid its carnivorous jaws while trying to wrench her shoes from its netted legs. "Let go!" she yells. "They're not even food!" She punches at its thorax and knees it wherever she can get a good shot in. The dragonfly bites a few centimeters off her bangs. She gives a cry of fury and grabs one of its wings, forcing it to spiral out of control. Air friction threatens to tear her off the insect, but she holds on.
The dragonfly shoots upwards in an attempt to correct its flight, remaining three wings beating frantically to keep itself in the air. She didn't care if it killed her. She would be taking those shoes. With this determination, she hooks her foot around a wing on the other side and gives it a hard yank. The air is hot, but she can't make out anything in the spinning world around them. It's all moving too fast, her vision is too focused. She bites into one of its legs while stabbing wildly with one of her quills. Her complete lack of combat training growing up is evident on her. She curses Gallowcomb for making it a part of the arrangement that she couldn't be trained to fight. She curses Mihawk and Kuma for not teaching her anyway. She curses the world government who'd forced them all into the agreement. She'd come this far self-taught. She wasn't going to lose to some stupid bug. She tries to remember Zoro's constant training, Sanji's precise foot placements, Luffy's powerful punches, Franky's wild style, Usopp's incredulous aim, Brook's frantic attacks, Nami's precise calculations, Chopper's dutiful protection, and Robin's steady hand. Something clicks together in her mind. With one final kick, she wrenches the shoes away from the dragonfly and gives a cry of triumph. She is thrown from the insect and it zooms away into the distance. Her celebration is cut short when she realizes that she's falling, the air temperature rising rapidly as she does, the changing scents making her nauseous. She doesn't have any rope. She has nothing to use to pull herself to safety. She's going to fall headfirst and die, straight into the open mouth of the bubbling volcano.
Pain shoots through her as something snags her ankle and holds hard. The sudden stop jars her, making her grip loosen slightly. She manages to keep hold of her quill but a shoe slips from her fingers and burns up instantly in the lava. Her fingers tighten on the remaining sandal. One is enough. "Thanks for the save, V-" Her voice trails off as she looks up and realizes it's not Vivi and Carue who hold her ankle, but a three foot tall, stone colored Venus fly trap growing from the volcanic rocks. It raises up and sets her on a ledge. She tucks the shoe into her bag and her quill into its holster. "Thank you." It seems to grin like a praised puppy. Karmen can smell the shoe melting and the hot air is making her lightheaded. "Would you like to leave this hot place with me?" she asks it. It nods vigorously.
The rocks are scalding, the air suffocatingly hot, but she digs her fingers into the burning volcanic soil and sets enough soil to support its roots in the front of her shirt. She carries it out this way, over the volcanic rim and down the mountainside, and it seems to enjoy feeling the cooler air with each step she takes. It spreads its fringed leaves out towards the sun and stretches its neck-like stem, shaking its flat face free of soot and grinning up at the sunlight. She chuckles. "You like being out of there, don't you?" It flops its head down onto hers and nuzzles her already disheveled hair. She glances around its large brown form. "I have friends around here somewhere. We got a little separated when I leapt onto that dragonfly." It gnashes its mouth. "Trust me, dearie. If I ever see it again I'll happily let you eat it for lunch." Still not feeling well, she sets it down. They really had come a long way. She can't believe she'd almost gone up like a barbecue pig for a pair of ruined shoes. She looks down at her hands. They're covered in brownish gray dust. She hadn't seen this kind of soil since…
She steps away from the plant and tries to brush the dust off her shirt, only getting more of it on her hands. Her face goes blank but she feels like she should be trembling. No one is around to see if she did. But no. The response is too instinctual for her to ignore and she can feel herself hollow out into an empty shell as she sits down. The memory of the smell of grapes overpowers her mind and she falls forward and vomits on the ground.
"Over there, Carue!"
No. Not now. She needs to compose herself. She needs to erase all signs of emotion. Or else… or else what? She takes a breath. This isn't Valcour. This isn't Galaval.
"Are you alright?"
"I need a minute." She walks herself back on her hands and crawls away from her mess, wiping her mouth on the back of her wrist.
"Are you hurt?" Vivi comes into focus as she approaches.
Karmen shakes her head. "Sensory memory trigger," she says. "It'll pass." She stares down at the dust covering her hands. "The vineyards where I grew up," she starts when the nausea begins to leave her, "they were fertilized with new volcanic soil every five years. The Gallowcombs would send slaves to collect it. Children and fishmen mostly. Ikaika liked sending the ones he knew wouldn't come back. Even if they survived the temperatures their lungs were blackened with poisonous fumes and soot. Most didn't survive a week after returning to the island. Those that did had chronic ailments that prevented them from completing their work well enough to satisfy the Gallowcombs. They ended up strung up around the vineyard or flayed alive in the basement, their blood causing the infertility that drained the land of its life. The lucky ones got to deal with Willow. A few bullets and it was done. All over a little dirt." Vivi sits next to her. "Sorry. Not the best conversation starter, is it? I don't expect you to have anything to respond to it with. I don't even know why I brought it up. Chopper said it's better to talk about it, but it doesn't bring them back."
"Do you want to talk about it anymore?" Karmen shakes her head in response. "Did… did you get your shoes?" she asks softly.
"One." She holds up the shoe briefly and returns it to her bag.
"Carue and I… thought we saw you fall into the volcano itself," she says after a while.
"You did." Karmen motions to the Venus fly trap who is still sunning itself. "This guy caught me before I fell into the lava." She stands and pats it on its head. At the same moment the desert strawberry crawls from the underside of its face. Sherryl must have climbed aboard when Karmen had been nuzzled. She walks to the top of its head and sinks her teeth into its planty flesh. "Sherryl, it saved our lives, don't bite it!" To her surprise the plant turns red with little black specks, spreading out from the bite site and down to its roots. It shakes its head and all of the teeth like fringes around its mouth fall out and are replaced by new black ones. "Oh." Karmen takes hold of one and it comes away in her hand before being quickly replaced. It's a little thinner than the poison capsules in her quills and is hollow like an urchin spine. She bites into it. Sure enough, it contains desert strawberry venom. "You're a camo-morph." It grins happily at her.
"A what?" Vivi asks.
"Essentially a mimic. It changes its biology to adapt to its environment," she says. She turns back to the plant, wheels turning in her head. "Would you and some of your friends like to come back to my island with me?" she asks. "My island gets a lot of sunlight and it's in a nice, cool environment near the ocean. Would you like that?" It nods vigorously. "I think we're going to get along quite well."
Author's note: Hello everyone! Some of you may have noticed that I've been trying to become more involved with my readers. I've started responding to more reviews and sending a small message for follows and favorites. To those of you that I did not do this for in the past, I appreciate you. Some people message me and ask questions and I'm always happy to answer so long as it doesn't spoil anything. I'd also like to thank the guest who gave me that nice review on the last chapter. It made me happy.
I said that I wasn't officially back when I came out of hiatus in December but updating twice a month (on the 1st and 15th) is working for me so I think I'll keep this schedule for a while. My life has been a little crazy recently. I've been trying to find a new job. I love where I work now but it's only part-time and it doesn't pay all the bills. I have some certification tests that I'll be taking this upcoming month that will improve my chances. Unfortunately, this means I need to study instead of write. I've got a few chapters already written and ready to upload so the posting schedule won't change. That being said, if there are a few grammatical or spelling errors this coming month it was because I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off instead of editing.
A family member offered to take a writing sample to a retired editor friend that they know. I sent that off yesterday and I'm super nervous and excited. Keep your fingers crossed.
As always, thank you so much for reading!