A/N: I have been trying to make my chapters between 3000-5000 words in Aeneid. This chapter is around 2,300, but I felt like it needed to end on the final scene here. Apologies that it is so short.
Ch. 53 - Ramzeez
Robin distantly observed the couple using humor to cope with their strange predicament. Soon Zoro had settled down for a much needed nap and Helena had opened the deck umbrella to keep him shaded. She found a book that Robin had left there earlier, and settled in to read in the chair beside him.
The loud buzzing of an incoming bee drew Robin's gaze toward the helm, where Ramzeez and Sphinkz had just descended to speak with Luffy and Franky. Ahead the other bee riderz had begun to change formation, turning to fly back toward their home. Only one bee and its bekilted rider remained to guide the Sunny.
"We are out of Ryubokuu'z waterz now," Ramzeez informed the captain when he had landed. "You zhould be zafe from the Zhipyard Queen at thiz diztanze."
Luffy nodded. Franky seemed upset. "It shouldn't have attacked us at all," he pointed out. "It's not supposed to act on its own. I hope me and Usopp didn't leave you with a worse problem than what you started with."
Ramzeez shook his head. "I don't underztand it either. But it didn't attack the tree or any of our riderz, zo your Jolly Roger programming zeemz to have worked at leazt. And you were right…"
"Right about what?" Luffy asked.
"Franky and Uzopp told uz that piratez are too ztubborn to run down their flag given the chanze, bzz-zz-zz!" The last buzz came as a laugh. "Not one of you even zuggezted it while zhe waz attacking."
"Of course not!" Luffy agreed, completely aghast.
"Ow! It would be as bad as surrendering!" Franky pointed out. "Anyway, our Roger is also on our main sail. We'd have been dead in the water without it!"
"I zuppoze other piratez would have to know about her programming to even think of it anyway," Ramzeez pointed out.
"And for the ones that ARE cowardly enough to strike their flag, you do have a manual override," Franky added, "Provided it's working right now. I wish we didn't have to leave so quickly. We could have run a few more tests."
"We can zend a rider to you in Deleanach if we can't fix the problem on our own," Ramzeez suggested.
"That would be super," Franky agreed.
"Whatever the Zhipyard Queen would have to zay about it, you and your crew are welcome to vizit whenever you like." Ramzeez shook hands with him and Luffy in turn. "I have to get the Riderz back to Ryubokuu now, but Wallaz and Furguzz will continue to guide you. I hope you catch up to Trafalgar zoon. "
He turned but didn't move to mount Sphinkz. "Before I go, I had something for the hero of Ryubokuu."
"She's over there," Robin called out helpfully, pointing the way. She used her powers to give Helena a little nudge. Soon Helena had met Ramzeez halfway, near where Robin was already standing with Kuina on her hip.
"Mzzzz Helena," he held this out with some humor, recognizing Helena looked nothing like a Miss at the moment. "Ryubokuu iz forever In your debt. Pleaze take thiz…"
He handed over a tube of wood, etched with bee stripes, tied to a leather strap. A whistle of some kind, to be worn as a pendant like the one Ramzeez had.
"Our beez are trained to rezpond to thiz whiztle. If ever you are trapped in a Calm near Ryubokuu, you zhould be able to uze it to call uz."
"Thank you," Helena replied in a whisper. Ramzeez looked perplexed. "Sorry. Kuina doesn't like hearing my voice come out of her papa's mouth." Even with her whispering, Kuina pressed her face into Robin's side and covered her ears.
Ramzeez let out a sympathetic chuckle. "It muzt be confuzing for her."
Helena nodded. "Anyway, I appreciate all you've done for me, Ramzeez. Please take care."
They shook hands, and Helena excused herself for Kuina's sake.
"Mz. Kuina. I have zomething for you too," Ramzeez prodded, tapping her shoulder as he knelt to her level. "I couldn't juzt leave without zaying goodbye to my favorite pirate."
She peeked at him over her shoulder, then sat up straight against Robin's side, both arms outstretched with glee as Ramzeez presented her with a fat, fluffy, bee plushie – blue, of course.
"Tank oo Ramzy!" She squealed, hugging it to her, then throwing her arms around his neck.
"You're welcome, Mizz. I will mizz you!"
Kuina held him for a moment then hopped down and toddled her way across the deck, buzzing and making the bee fly as she went. "I Tug, bzzz bzzz!" they heard her proclaim.
"Tug the tug bee," Robin observed with a chuckle. "He'll make a good companion to Foxy."
"I, uh, have zomething for you too Mizz Robin," Ramzeez went on, and from his pack he produced a small notebook. "I'll be honezt, I wazn't able to rezearch all that much in the zhort time I had, but I found zome anzwerz to that queztion you azked."
Robin accepted the notebook, and peaked inside. It contained notes about how much pressure and torsion the human body could handle. There were even diagrams, hand drawn and some photocopied. Ramzeez had lovely penmanship.
"My, how thoughtful," she said, and genuinely meant it. It wasn't often that someone encouraged her morbid curiosities. And this particular curiosity had practical applications.
"I hope you enjoyed your time on Ryubokuu," he said, flushing a bit at her obvious delight.
"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed. "I found it…therapeutic, working in a library in a tree." She didn't want to expound too much, but naturally it reminded her of home. Ryubokuu's library branch had been absolute heaven for her. "I feel lucky we got to stay for so long!"
"The library will alwayz be there, zhould you ever want to vizit," he said coyly.
"I will be sure to stop by, should the opportunity ever arise," she replied, smiling and extending her hand.
He took her hand to shake it, but hesitated as though he wanted to say something more. Robin leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek.
"Thank you, Ramzeez," she said pulling away. She chuckled good naturedly as the flush spread from his dark cheeks to cover his whole face. "I enjoyed spending time with you and I hope we meet again.
"Likewize, Mz. Robin. Pleaze take care of yourself."
He squeezed her hand, smiled at her, and turned to leave, ruffling Kuina's curls as he walked past her.
Soon he had mounted Sphinkz, and with a wave to the rest of the crew he was gone.
"Hmph. He didn't give me anything special," Chopper grumped. "He and I spent tons of time together taking care of Helena and other patients!"
"Ow! Looks like he has a thing for the ladies," Franky joked.
"Would you like to look at these medical notes he made for me, Chopper?" Robin asked, holding out the notebook.
"Would I!" Chopper exclaimed, clapping his hooves and accepting them in delight. "What are they about?" He glanced through them and his expression soured. "What is wrong with him?!"
"It is sweet of him, no?" she put in, still smiling to herself. "Look, he even wrote down a few of his own more gruesome experiences working search and rescue!"
"Robin…" Chopper had tears streaming down his face. "You're really scary sometimes."
"You're telling me you let them get away, mon?"
"Pleaze," Mayor Induztry had tears running down his lined face. "We tried. Truly we did. When I couldn't ztop them myself, I activated the island's defenze zyztem to try to zlow them down. We are not equipped to fight people like that. I couldn't make them stay."
Calypso Blue eyed the distressed man with disgust. "Isn't one of the main defenses of the island the nectar of the Juliet Flower, mon?" he asked.
"I couldn't convinze them to ztay for a toazt!" he insisted. "Anyway, if we had drugged Mz. Helena, it could have hurt or even killed her baby…!"
"Ah, yes. We can't have that, can we, mon?" Calypso stroked his goatee. "Mustn't let anything happen to the baby…"
"Pleaze…pleaze return my daughter to me…" the mayor begged.
As expected, Calypso's badge and authority hadn't been enough to win Induztry's cooperation at first. Given the government had done nothing to help with the Shipyard Queen, Helena was everything to the Ryubokuuans that the government was not. The mayor had needed incentivizing.
It had been easy enough to lure away one of Mayor Induztry's twelve lovely daughters. Calypso had enjoyed that part of his task immensely. And so had she. Naturally. – keeping her hidden with no idea she was a captive had also been easy enough.
"Well, I suppose if you did try, mon," Calypso conceded, stroking Lady's scales. The constrictor certainly helped increase the intimidation factor with anyone he needed to threaten lately. The mayor eyed them both with no small trepidation, though he burst into relieved tears at Calypso's next words: "All I can ask is that you supply me with a communication snail so I can get in touch with my back up, and a boat and with a log pose pointing to where 'Elena the 'Eretic is going, mon. Do you know what direction they set out in?"
"Yez, yez! Anything you need!" the mayor blubbered, the doddering fool. "They have to have gone to Dealanach. Most travelers leaving our shores do. It's the nearest inhabited island."
Before too long, the mayor had his now starry-eyed daughter back in his arms, and Calypso found himself in a fully supplied coquina, speeding away from Ryubokuu after his targets. Before he got too far he struck his two sails and turned to regard the great tree that had allowed the likes of Helena de Zoro to leave mostly unhindered. The island that had created a statue in her honor and sung her praises. The people that practically worshiped her.
"A place that aids and abets criminals loses its government protection," he informed Lady. The snake cocked her head questioningly. "They've been useless to me in saving your human, mon, but I've just thought of a very real way they can help."
He drew his two machete, a sadistic smirk on his face as he grounded his stance within the boat. "Goodbye, Ryubokuu," he informed the air. "I won't be seeing you again. Sinatra Song!"
The slash kicked up water in the harbor, slicing through sunken ships and inhabited vessels alike. Unimpeded, it connected with the harbor around Ryubokuu's roots, then continued up the trunk of that great tree.
Calypso sensed the panic, the fear, the death, as his handwork sliced off several of the inhabited, ancient, carved branches of the tree. The hospital branch he had stayed in. The shopping district. The statue garden.
Those branches fell, leaving the rest of the tree lopsided, listing dangerously on a diagonal. Swarms of carpenter bees flew from the gaping wound in the trunk, carrying riders, rescuing falling bodies.
And as Calypso had anticipated, the enormous branches that hit the water kicked up a great wave that propelled him onward on his journey.
– leaving nothing but destruction in his wake.
Ramzeez and his riderz had just pulled in when he saw the destructive slash start to annihilate his tree. His home.
Time seemed to slow down. So many thoughts spilled through his mind. He had just seen Helena throw a slash of this magnitude, but he told himself it couldn't have been her or any of the pirates. It wasn't in their nature. Then again, she hadn't had control last time. What if she…?
No. Surely there was some other force at work here. The aim seemed precise. Intentional.
Ramzeez wore perfectly normal goggles now. With his sea prism earring he only needed eyegear to keep out the wind. Through them he saw, unobstructed, as the monumental slash as it connected with different points of the tree.
It cut through the lowest branch that held the mayor's mansion and statue garden. Above that it caught some of the shopping districts. Then the hospital branch. Soon it would make contact near him, with the great library branch.
Ramzeez didn't question drawing his Kopesh. With only a rudimentary understanding of haki, the peaceable man managed only the lightest black sheen. He knew his chances of survival were at a minimum, but he couldn't allow more people to get hurt.
And he couldn't allow anything to happen to the library.
Wanting to spare Sphinkz, he leapt from the bee's back. Throwing himself into the path of the glowing slash, he attempted to change its trajectory.
The impact threw him back against the outside of the library branch. His strong, noble spirit held. His blade did not break. But his arms did. Then his ribs. Unthinkable pain clouded his every thought, only somewhat numbed by adrenaline. The slash drew a shower of sparks against his kopesh, yet he would not yield.
He wasn't strong enough to send it back out to sea. Throwing it any other direction put other branches at stake. Residential ones.
After a moment of agonizing pain beneath the weight of the slash, the shipyard queen appeared. Repaired and with her dials at the ready, she wasn't on the attack. The mayor must have entered her manual override and was controlling her. Mustering his last ounce of strength, Ramzeez turned his blade just enough that it glanced off it and into her. The queen absorbed the rest of the slash into her impact dial.
The library was spared, as were the branches above and around it, saving countless lives. Yet lifeless, Ramzeez fell, completely crushed beneath the raw power of Calypso Blue.