Karmen and Pierce make their way from the beach down to the workout chamber and finish their stretches by the time Winston enters with a party of patients wanting to see what a normal training session entails. "Oh, we are in a treat this morning, aren't we?" Winston says with a chuckle. "We'd best stay out of their way while we warm up."

Karmen draws her quills and tosses her grenade belt aside. "I don't suppose I could get you to take it easy, considering the past two days?" Pierce asks, drawing his tonfa blades.

"The last two days are exactly why I'm not going to take it easy on you."

"Mistress, I… That's not what I meant."

She rolls her shoulders and slides her left foot back. "Oh, I know exactly what you meant." He thinks she's hiding symptoms like hearing voices and frozen muscles. He's afraid that if she pushes herself too hard he'll be running her to Saaresto and pacing the tunnels until she recovers. She'd show him that his worry is entirely unfounded… probably.

Iona blanches. "You can't be serious. Where's her weapon?"

"In her hand," Winston states plainly.

"She's going up against… that," she waves at all of Pierce, "with quills?"

"Poisoned quills."

"She'll be torn to shreds!"

"Oh ye of little faith," Bhoden says, stroking his beard. "You forget, he works for her."

"As a bodyguard."

"And who was it that rescued us?"

"We were stuffed inside barrels. We don't know who did what."

"So shut your gaping gob for two seconds and let's find out."

"Do you want to start or shall I, dearie?" Karmen asks.

Pierce rolls his neck. "Winston, sorry about the shirt." His wings sprout from his back, ripping through the fabric in a sound that echoes around the chamber, followed in quick succession by the thoom of a shockwave as he propels himself forward. Karmen grins as Winston does his best not to grit his teeth.

"Sync."

Pierce cuts off a curse as he takes his first swing, minding the children in the room. Karmen, synchronized and especially wispy, easily ducks the swing aimed for her temple and lightly slides her quill along his wrist. The sea stone momentarily weakens him and he stumbles forward, carried by his own momentum as he loses the balance of his wings. "If you're going to attack, at least break the skin."

"If you know I'm going to attack, at least try to use your haki." She does a little spin around him and plants her foot in the small of his back, sending his teetering form further off balance. "And I did break the skin. Just barely. If you didn't feel it then it means I made it correctly."

Pierce tries to adjust his hold on his tonfa as he swings his arms to stay upright only to find that he can't bend his wrist. "What concentration of deadbolt is that?" He jolts new wings backward to deliver a full body blow. She jumps high into the air and springs off them as he tries to recover. She is propelled far over his head, somersaulting and twisting like a gymnast before landing lightly with her hands in the air like a flamenco dancer.

"If you even come close to hitting me I might be inclined to tell you." She pulls into a low stance with her left hand by her left ankle and her right hand high in the air. "Would it help if I closed my eyes?" He reaches up to pull the remains of the shirt from his torso and hesitates, ears twitching towards the watching crowd. She drops her voice so that only he can hear. "Would you like me to cloak us both so this will be a private match?" Even after she says it, she wishes she hadn't. Yes, he needs to get over his aversion to others seeing his scars, but he knows that cloaking people without touching them takes tremendous amounts of haki, which could slow her down and therefore endanger her. He would rather feel reclusive than put limits on her.

There is an added tension in his jaw, but he rips the shirt off and tosses the ruined fabric aside. "That won't be necessary, Mistress." Fur sprouts along his chest and back, blocking most of his scars from sight. Still, she sees Aniyah's eyes widen as her eyes scan him, inches ahead of his cover. He transforms his right arm into a wing and is finally able to drop his tonfa. He raises his other one as he transforms his wing back into a stiff, if loose, fist. His ears elongate and his nose lengthens slightly. He may not have her observation haki, but his heightened senses will definitely help make up the difference. He swings at her with his viable tonfa to force her to back into a standing position before scissoring his wings at her. She barrel rolls between them, landing in a spiderish sprawl on the ground. She stabs at his ankle but it blackens with haki and, despite him still weakening and losing his transformations for a moment, he remains unscathed.

She flips backward as he sets his transformation back in place, the ball of her right foot aimed for his chin. He dodges backward and takes to the air, scanning the ground with his echolocation. She grins and cloaks herself. "Good luck, dearie." She removes the darts from her quills, not bothering to remove the poison capsules from them. Pierce hangs there silently, mouth slightly open as he gives calls too high for the human ear to hear. Karmen lets him hover just long enough for him to start circling nervously.

The darts start flying. One cuts into his cheek and another narrowly avoids brushing his wing. She's trying to bring him out of the air. Once he realizes her plan he starts dodging. She forces him back against the ceiling and he mutters a child-friendly oath. He attaches his remaining tonfa to his belt and flipping around to face the rocks above him. His feet and hands extend into claws and he latches onto the ceiling, crawling and leaping around as he dodges her darts. He's considerate, where he can be. He knocks her darts back down when they get lodged into the rocks, careful not to touch them, lest it sends him falling to the floor in a reversal of his transformations.

Another dart sticks in the rocks between his thighs, not high enough to put him in danger, but close enough for him to become hyper-aware of her implications. "Worry about my darts hitting you, not where I lodge them." She throws another one and the flat side hits him in the back. All his transformations disappear and he falls. He quickly turns over in the air and his bat features return, wings snapping with a powerful crack.

"She's going to kill him," Iona says breathlessly.

"You should really pick who you feel is stronger," Bhoden teases. When she glares he continues. "Obviously these two have more trust in each other than you can see. She trusts him to be strong enough to survive her attacks and he trusts her not to kill him outright. It's a training match, not a brawl."

"But if he was dumb enough to let her get a good shot in, she might very well kill him... for a few seconds," Winston adds in. "Nothing permanent."

"Your vote of confidence is inspiring," Pierce mutters over the sound of his own wings. "She may be able to disappear, but she still has her own disadvantages."

Suddenly Karmen is in front of Pierce, planting both her feet square in the middle of his chest. How she was able to jump that high, he isn't sure, but he coats his chest in haki just in time. Her momentum pushes him back a couple feet, but the beat of his wings keeps him in the air and sends her springboarding off his chest. Her butt hits the dirt floor, skidding to a halt, and she groans. "Ok. I'll give you a point for that one."

The watching crowd gapes at her. "She's weak."

Pierce lands in front of her and extends his hand. Karmen acts like she's going to accept his help but pulls him towards her, planting her feet in the exact same spot, and flips him over his own head instead.

"But smart," Winston adds in.

Pierce gets up and brushes himself off. He rushes forward, propelled by his wings, with his fist raised. He plunges it towards Karmen's head and she spins out of the way, wind from the blow glancing off her back. On her return, her quill brushes his ribs with feather-light contact. His hand comes up and touches the now stiff set of muscles. "Do you know how weird it feels to move my arm now?" he asks.

She senses the muscles with her haki. "Since I'm synchronized with you, yes," she says, flipping a quill. "You can do better."

He rounds on her with a kick, causing her to fall into a back handspring. When she comes up again he releases a flurry of punches that rival a slower version of Luffy's Gatling. Karmen weaves and ducks around his fists, focusing more on the flow of her own muscles than locking up any more of his. When she's fallen into a set rhythm, she adjusts her stance and grabs his wrist, heaving his body forward with his own momentum.

She pulls his arm down her shoulder and flings him over her back, sending him flying. He flips mid-air and, as he nears the ground, his visor catches on one of the darts she'd left embedded in the dirt. It slices through the leather by the latch and it falls away. Karmen darts forward and throws her veil over his face. He was already self-conscious about his scars. He'd be even more so if his eye sockets were exposed without his express desire to share that part of himself. He lays there, pressing the square of cloth to his face, jaw strangely tight. "Sorry," she says as he sits up and faces the wall. The sea stone had disrupted his transformation and he didn't seem to see a point in growing more fur or wings. He'd been beaten and there was no point in wasting calories. "I didn't mean to ruin your visor. Winston probably won't mind the side project though." She admires the bear paw tattoo on his back before turning and finding most of the patients staring at the scars on his back and arms with mixed expressions of horror and shock. She looks to her left. "Camilla, may I borrow your cloak?"

Camilla unhooks the latch and slides it off her shoulder. Iona sneers at the three layers of clothes underneath, but the girl pretends not to notice. She hands it over silently and watches while Karmen drapes it over Pierce's shoulders. He lifts the hood low over his face and returns the veil. His hand comes up, feeling the way his horns warp the natural shape of the thick cloth.

Tucking the veil into her pocket, Karmen moves to retrieve his visor and stops halfway stooped to pick it up. The gentle expression on her face fades, replaced by her emotionless cowl. Camilla gives a dark chuckle. –What has he done now?- Pierce hears the words her hands form and stiffens.

Karmen picks up the visor and inspects the inside closely. Pierce's hand flies beneath the hood to his eyes, hunching as he realizes what she's seen.

She steps back around him, deliberately slow. When she stands in front of him she throws the hood off and forces his face towards her by pulling on one of his horns. His wide eye sockets are filled with a white cottony substance. "Pierce, dearest," she says in a low, dangerously calm voice, "have you been neglecting your medication?"

Sweat trickles down his temple and drips down his neck. He has the urge to crawl backward, but smartly stays where he is. "I may have forgotten to bring it on the mission, M-Mistress."

Her hand slowly closes around visor until components of the gas mask inside crack. Pierce flinches at the sound. She removes a key from her belt. For a moment it looks like she's going to throw it at him like a dart, but she drops it in his open palm instead. He still looks like he's been struck. "My workroom. Now. I'll be down shortly." She wrenches the hood back over his face and releases him. It's all he can do to stand up in a dignified manner and not scamper away. He keeps his shoulders squared and his chin level, and walks from the room.

When he's out of earshot, Karmen sighs. Camilla picks up her ammunition belt and tosses it to her. She catches it and gives the girl an appreciative half-smile. -I'll train with you later.- She signs.

-Make sure he washes my cloak before he gives it back. I don't want it smelling like sweat,- comes the response. -And tell him if his horns leave holes in my hood he has to buy me another.-

-If I don't kill that idiot first.- It had been a joke, but Camilla grins as is she'd been serious. Karmen rolls her eyes and adds. –Kidding. Bruises tops.- She slings her belt over her shoulder and turns to Winston. "The workout chamber is yours. It may be best to keep them off the lower levels for an hour or two. I don't plan on holding back."

Winston pales, but smiles. "It sounded like a simple mistake. Surely he'll do better next time." Karmen doesn't say anything, just fixes him with her emotionless stare. It only takes a few seconds for him to become nearly as uncomfortable as Pierce had been. "Right. We'll stay up here."

She waves Pierce's ruined visor at him. "He'll be requiring a new visor and gas mask."

"Yes, ma'am."

Despite the distance between the two rooms, the sound of Karmen yelling at Pierce in ancient Elbaphian echoes down the halls enough that Camilla can pick out words and phrases.

"I think she might actually kill him this time," Saaresto says casually as he steps into the room. He has a smile on his face, but he flinches at a particularly violent sounding string of words.

Winston looks pale, just as distracted as his co-veteran is as they walk through their martial arts form routine with the patients, but he shakes his head. "This is just a product of how she was raised," he says. "She would never raise her voice this much about someone she didn't care for. This is her version of tough love."

Something crashes far below.

"How is this any kind of affection?" Iona asks.

"The nobles who raised her would often kill anyone she showed any kind of kindness towards," Saaresto explains. "Sometimes she'd have to be cruel in order to save someone's life. In some ways, she has just as much to work through as all of you. She has vowed to never take a life and Pierce has been through far too much for her to leave any lasting damage." Something else crashes as if in opposition to his words. The yelling only gets louder.

Camilla grimaces and Winston makes polite conversation to try to distract her from what only she and Pierce can understand. "Maybe we should send down a hot meal, just in case," he suggests. She falters her next mimed blow as another phrase floats up. "And some tea." More yelling. "And a whole apple pie."

She makes a few motions that he takes as agreement with his statement.

"We should also probably keep Karmen far away from the kitchen until she calms down," Saaresto adds. "No sense letting it all catch fire." This time it's Camilla who pales. She nods. She doesn't have enough growing in the gardens to completely replace the pantry, especially not in the next week or two.

The patients stare between them, unsure what to make of Camilla's silent communications and them acting like Karmen's reaction to whatever she had seen on that visor as an expected reaction. Finally, Bhoden asks.

Camilla and Winston exchange a look. "He doesn't talk about it," Winston answers. "Something about what happened while he was locked up."

Iona blanches. "He was in jail? She has a convict as a bodyguard?"

Camilla stops her routine and wheels on the woman. "What kind of stu-"

"Camilla!" Winston's retort echoes around the chamber and she grits her teeth, finishing the comment with a hard glare. Winston takes a deep breath and turns on the woman much calmer than Camilla had. "Pierce was tortured for two years before Karmen was able to rescue him. That's how he got all those scars. If you want more details, you'll have to ask them when they feel like sharing."

"As for you," Camilla looks her up and down with a disgusted expression, "I think you'd be safer keeping your trap shut."

Winston sighs as more yelling floats up the tunnels. "We aren't getting any anywhere like this. Camilla, would you go pick something from that special garden of yours for the pie?"

Down in the workroom, Karmen scrubs the inside of Pierce's eye sockets with a rough sponge. She knows it hurts and, yelling aside, she's trying to be gentle. Despite taking things slowly, she practically has to remove a layer of skin to rid him of the sprouted growth. He doesn't even flinch as she scrapes out the tufts of white fungus from the crevices.

Because of her concern and frustration, she seems locked into speaking Ancient Elbaphian. "Didn't I tell you that the stupid mask would hold in moisture? I told you to be extremely cautious with your medicine and what do you do? You leave it at home! What would you do if this spread to your brain?" she yells as she mixes his fungicide medication and antibacterial ointment. She throws the sponge aside and begins spreading the solution inside his sockets, making sure every millimeter is coated. "And even worse, you didn't tell me. You knew it was coming back and you didn't say anything!" She slaps the flat of her palm against his chest. She's sure the sting she receives from the blow is more than he feels, but it helps her to release some of her frustrations. She knows there are better ways of venting them, but she can't seem to stop herself from trying to jar him into taking her words seriously.

"You'd been ill on the way back," he says, attempting an explanation. "I was in no place to-"

"I could have made you some while we were out there! I could have sent Raja back to fetch it for you! How are you supposed to protect me if you're acting erratically and expending so much energy that you'd eat us out of house and home? Maybe faster than we can supply?"

"You don't know that-"

"Neither do you!" she hits him again. "Law said that White Nose Syndrome in bats-" Her voice trails off as she imagines the scenarios in her head.

He grasps her wrist. "You're shaking." She looks away and doesn't say anything. He pulls her towards him slowly, putting his other hand in her hair at the nape of her neck. She lets him cradle her to his shoulder, hands pressed against his bare chest as she tries to control her breathing. The heat radiating off him calms her and she takes a deep breath, the scent of him filling her nostrils and the sound of his rapid heartbeat pounding in her ears. She tries to use these signs of his health and stability as a means to calm herself, but her breath catches in her throat and there's a pressure in her chest that threatens to smother her. "I know I've worried you, and I'm sorry," he whispers in her ear, hot breath sending her hair rustling against her skin. "I did try treating myself after we got back. I thought it would go away after a while, but it must have been too far gone. I thought I could take care of it and not have to bother you. I'll ask for help next time. I promise."

Next time. How long had they been gone? Four, five days? It shouldn't be this advanced for that amount of time. His medicine only seemed to be keeping it at bay, not curing it. Law had said there was no definite cure, but he'd seemed sure that the drops would prevent flare-ups. It isn't working. He needs something different or else next time they may not catch it until it's too late. "You're ok," she says, mostly to herself. "You're ok. You're ok." His hold on her grows tighter.

"Are you?" he asks gently.

"You're not taking this seriously enough," she growls. Her fingers find the round scar under his left collar bone. He curls around her slightly in response. It's as if he's trying to absorb all her anxiety and fear. "If this progresses too far you could die. If what Law says is true then I may have to…" She buries her forehead in his neck. "Don't ever put me in that situation."

He draws her back and turns his ear toward her. She briefly thinks that this is the equivalent of him looking her in the eye. The slight humor of it doesn't do much to the panic still curdling in her gut, but it is enough to slow her breathing. "You're worried that you'll have to take me out." It isn't a question and it leaves her throat tight and her chest burning again.

"If Law is right and if you being affected by this fungus is anything like how I am with medication… you won't be in control of yourself. You could hurt yourself or someone else without even knowing it. And then I'd have to… If I accidentally… I don't want to hurt you."

He strokes her hair and places his hands on her shoulders. "I'll be careful," he says in a soft voice. "And if you're ever slipped medicine and end up in a state like that, then I'll be here to stop you."

"If you're not, I'll hand you over to Kudra."

He chuckles. "Then it's a good thing that I'd rather drown than make you angry." This gets a laugh out of her and he draws her back in for another hug. "By the way, thank you for not yelling at me in front of the patients."

"I'm angry with you, but I'm not sadistic." She turns her head to the side. "Though, I was so mad that I forgot to close the door. I think they heard anyway. They stopped training and rushed off to the kitchen."

She hears Pierce lick his lips. "So that's why I smell apple pie."

Karmen purses her lips. She isn't quite ready to feel better yet, but the pie sounds tempting. She takes fresh gauze and coats the inside with fungicide before laying it over his eyes and wrapping it securely around his head. "Come on. Let's go show them all that I didn't strangle you. Oh, and find yourself a shirt."

A.N.: Hello~ I noticed as I looked at the view statistics that some of you revisit certain chapters more than others. It got me curious as to the reasons behind why some of you like those chapters over others and I'd love to hear them.

I really enjoyed writing this chapter and expanding on island life. Thanks for reading!

~KnightNGale020