A Force Against Inertia - Chapter 25
Title: A Force Against Inertia
Chapters: Prologue + 25 Chapters
Rating: R
Pairings: None, future installments will have pairings
Summary: 0544 discovers a side affect of Tesla's success. Tesla and Curie discuss the futility of the experiments' escape efforts.
A Force Against Inertia
By Dixxy Mouri
Chapter 25
The escaped subjects found themselves standing in a supply room of some sort. 0543 and 0544 looked around, clutching each other’s hands tightly. “Now what?” asked 0544. “Where do we go from here?”
“The top deck,” said 0543. She turned to her companion. She stared at him for several moments, then frowned. “You do realize . . . if we get off this ship . . . we may never see dry land again. Unless we’re in a port right now . . . we’ll be stealing a lifeboat and sailing away, but we’ll have no way of knowing where we’re going to be heading.”
“We’ll die.”
“Probably.”
“But even if that happens . . . it’ll be like we’re pirates again.”
0543 felt herself near tears. The thought of feeling the wind blowing against her skin again and the sound of seagulls cawing in the distance was enticing. Even if it was only for a little while, she decided she would be okay if she died like that. Her body started to lose its substance and her gown nearly fell through her, but the very tangible 0544 grabbed hold of the sleeves and kept it up for her until she composed herself. “I’m sorry - I don’t think I have very good control over this yet.”
0544 looked at her glumly. “Our bodies might not be stable.”
0543 took his hand. “We need to keep moving.” She took a step forward and collapsed to her knees. 0544 joined her on the floor, and the two stared at each other in sad silence. “I’m so tired. And hungry.” She turned to her companion. “I don’t know what I want. I want to leave but I want to sleep. I don’t know.”
0544 put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. Come one.” He struggled to his feet and helped her to hers, putting her arm around his shoulder. “We’ll go slow until we hear signs of them discovering we’re gone.” She nodded and put her hand out in front of her, ready to move them through the next wall.
“Where the hell are they!? Why did you idiots leave them alone!?” Tesla was furiously storming through the bowels of the ship, screaming at anyone nearby. Curie was on his heels, barking orders to whoever she saw to make sure the ship was searched as thoroughly as possible. “If anything happens to them I will be VERY angry!”
They arrived in the room where 0543 was receiving injections. He looked around angrily, trying to figure out how she’d gotten out - again, for that matter. The attending scientist was looking at the leather straps, scratching her head in confusion as she inspected them. She looked up, saw Tesla, and snapped to attention. “Captain! Sir!”
Tesla grabbed the lapel of her lab coat. “WHERE IS 0543!?
“I don’t know, sir! But the straps on the table!”
“WHAT ABOUT THEM!?”
“They’re still locked and there’s no sign of them being ripped or torn! She should not have been able to get out!” she stammered, looking at her superior in terror. Tesla dropped her, rushing towards the table to confirm was she told him. He scanned everything. The straps showed no signs of being loosened or ripped. The locks holding them in place also hadn’t been touched.
That was when it dawned on him. The corners of his mouth crept up his cheeks in triumph as he turned to Curie and the other scientist in the room. They stared at him in confusion as he started to chuckle to himself. “The only thing you did wrong was leave her alone. You are correct - there’s no signs of her escaping by any normal means, but the way she escaped is very, very interesting.”
The scientist looked in Tesla in fear. “What?”
Curie grinned. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Tesla smirked. “I think she escaped with a second Devil Fruit ability.”
The escape was slow moving and a crap shoot at every turn. Moving too much was a risk, but moving too little was just as big a risk. Every time 0543 brought them someplace new, there was a risk it would be a room full of scientists, or Tesla, or the open ocean, or something else just as disastrous. Most often they moved if they heard voices, and so far the strategy was working.
But neither of them had any idea if they were moving any closer to the top deck or not.
“This is taking forever. How long have we been doing this?” 0544 whispered. At the moment the pair were hiding out in a room full of bunk beds and lockers, presumably where the scientists or perhaps the crew sailing the ship slept. They were resting on one of the beds in the corner, near a wall in case they needed to make a quick exit.
“We have to be patient. We’ve gotten this far. I don’t want to just give up now.”
0544 felt his heart break when she started to cry. He held her, trying to calm her down and hold up her shirt so it didn’t slip through her body. As he watched fur grow on the back of his hands, he wondered just how long these powers were going to stay so . . . volatile. He focused on becoming human again and clenched his fist tight. If they didn’t stabilize, then Tesla had - as impossible as it seemed to him - ruined their lives even worse than they originally thought.
If they somehow managed to not die during their escape and this didn’t stop, he would never be able to cook again. She would be falling through floors naked all the time. How would they possibly be able to function? He had no idea if this was something the little reindeer or any other doctor could fix - not that he was particularly interested in having more doctors look at him or 0543. He clenched his eyes shut and wanted to cry with her. But he needed to calm her down so they could slip into the next room.
What he feared was a reality he might not survive long enough to experience for himself.
It was a quiet moment, but 0544 was on edge and heard almost everything going on around them. The creaking of the ship as the wood and metal whined from its years on the water. The waves were crashing against the sides, and there were seagulls outside cawing at something. There were muffled voices yelling about something - they must have discovered they were missing.
And that was when the alarms went off.
0544’s eyes widened and he snapped away from 0543 to cover his ears. 0543 cried out at him, but he was too busy trying to drown out the noise. His head was ringing and his ears were throbbing, and the sensation was so awful that he would have given anything to make the noise stop. He was only vaguely aware of 0543 dragging him through a wall and into another room.
“What are you doing!? We need to get out of here!”
“How can you stand all this noise!? They made the alarms louder! It’s awful!” said 0544. He was near tears his head and ears hurt so bad. How was she coping? Was she deaf or something? It was like a Marine fog horn was being directly blasted right next to his head! He clenched his eyes shut, trying to press his hands closer to his head
“This is bad, this is bad . . .” said 0543, rubbing his shoulders.
. . . if the alarms are so loud, why can you still hear her?
0544’s eyes flew open. How could he still hear 0543? She should have been drowned out by the alarms, but he could understand her perfectly. He wasn’t, however, convinced she had heard him through it all. And why wasn’t she freaking out over the intensity of the sound? It had all but crippled him. No, something was off with him, not her or the alarms.
Of course.
Sometimes, 0544 recalled, animals had better senses than humans - seeing, smelling, touching, whatever. It was like their old crew’s doctor - he had an incredibly strong sense of smell, being a reindeer by birth, and was able to track people and perfumes almost as well as a bloodhound - he could tell what he was making in the kitchen for dinner, right down to the tiniest pinch of spice.
And the fox he turned into had awfully large ears for a creature so tiny . . .
“It’s the fox fruit!” he said. “It’s screwing with my hearing!”
“What!?”
She can’t hear your right now - just because your hearing is so great doesn’t mean hers suddenly got that good. 0544 shook his head and struggled to his feet, looking at her while keeping his hands over his ears. 0543 didn’t know what was going on, but understood enough to grab him by the elbow and lead him to the next room.
Hours passed. No experimental subjects.
The captain surprised everyone and told them to turn off the alarms and halve the search efforts. “Sir, with all due respect . . . why in the world would you want to decrease the amount of effort we’re putting in to find 0543 and 0544? That seems counter-productive,” Radian questioned, and confused and concerned look on his face.
“I’ve realized, Radian, that this little escape of theirs means nothing. We’re in the middle of the ocean - where do they think they’re going to go? Eventually they’ll get tired or hungry, give up this little game of hide and seek, and then we can find out exactly what caused the escape. Right now it’s a waste of resources - I’d like your men to continue the search - and have plenty of seastone nets handy to catch them, of course - but I’d prefer to have a meeting with Curie over the matter to discuss the day’s events, and have the other scientists prepare for every test they can think of so that we’re ready to proceed upon their recapture.”
Radian thought this over. It was true. They were are least a few days away from dry land and with the unpredictable weather pattern on the Grand Line it would be nothing less than suicide for 0543 and 0544 to try and escape. Wherever they were hiding it was still on the ship - even if it took a day to find them, they would be able to find them.
“In that case I’ll have some of the sailors waiting in the galley for them if they think they’re going to try and steal food. I’ll also make sure all of the Den Den Mushis and the Eternal Poses are rounded up and in my possession - if they figure out what our travel pattern has been and they can get in contact with their captain, that could be a problem.”
Tesla nodded. “Excellent plan. Now go and get it done.”
0543 had brought 0544 into a wardrobe or a closet - she wasn’t sure which it was, nor did she care. 0544 seemed to calm down, the soft coats, shirts, and pants around them muffling the sound of the sirens. She rubbed his shoulders as they sat on the floor, looking at him in worry. “Are you okay?” she whispered. 0544 looked at her in tears, nodding. “Did the Devil Fruit do something to your hearing?” He nodded again. 0543 pulled him into an embrace. “We’ll think of something. Don’t worry. Maybe you’ll be able to tune it out after a while,” she said, rubbing his back.
0544 relaxed in her arms, and then the sirens suddenly stopped. They both looked up and around, breathing heavily as they wondered what was going on. “They’ve probably alerted everyone on board we’ve escaped - no reason to have it on anymore. Or maybe they’re trying to lure us out - make us THINK that they gave up.”
“I’m not showing myself until we’re on a lifeboat, in the water, and on our way,” she said.
“Agreed,” said 0544. He swallowed. “So . . . if we don’t make it . . .”
“Hold me,” she said. “I don’t . . . I don’t want to die . . .”
“I don’t either.”
“But how can we escape without dying?”
Don’t worry about that.
Just get off the ship and I’ll think of something.
0544 pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re an amazing navigator. You can predict the weather on the Grand Line, navigate us up Reverse Mountain . . . you were the one that got us all safely up the Knock-Up Stream. If anyone can help us survive this . . . it’s you,” he said. They squeezed hands, and then heard something horrible outside of the closet that made their blood freeze.
“You seem positive it’s 0543’s second Devil Fruit,” said Curie. Tesla was leading her back to his chambers for a private meeting to discuss the next step in the experiment, now that it appeared they finally had live results on their hands. “Considering the nature of 0544’s second fruit it’s quite plausible he could have slipped out on its own if he shrank out of the shock collar.”
Tesla nodded as he opened the door to let her through. “Of course that’s possible, but that doesn’t explain 0543’s examination room. Considering that there was no sign of a struggle with her escape, the cuffs were locked, and all keys have been accounted for, I don’t see how 0544 could have done it - even with telekinesis at his disposal he couldn’t pick the lock without seeing the interior components of it. Hers was the only unknown fruit, and several of the fruits listed but not illustrated could have done it.”
“Sir, as exciting as it is that she may have developed her second ability, we don’t know what it is and a CLASSIC trait of most Logia class fruits is intangibility. We could have accidentally picked up something dangerous, like the Rumble Rumble Fruit -which, might I add, has NOT been sighted in at least the last ten years - that has given her the kind of power to kill every last one of us on this ship.”
“And that is where I disagree. Even if she does have something that lethal, 0543 wouldn’t use it. They’ve been here so long that they’ve lost the will to fight back - that’s why, before today, there was no need to continue using sea stone restraints on them. They just stay where we put them quietly and cooperate.”
“Sir . . . they’ve escaped. I wouldn’t call that ‘cooperating’ with us,” Curie said dryly.
Tesla paused, then nodded. “Well . . . yes, that’s true, but they’re being non-aggressive. Not completely passive, but they aren’t trying to kill the men. They’re running around the ship right now and since no one has reported a sighting we can only assume that the two of them are trying to avoid a confrontation. Even with their Devil Fruits they cannot fight back - they’re running and hiding.”
The conversation going on outside of the closet was terrifying. 0543 and 0544 listened carefully (although there was little question that 0544 was getting more of the conversation that 0543) as their primary tormentors discussed their fate. They gripped hands tightly, only whispering to each other in the quietest voices they could manage, barely even mouthing the words.
0543 looked at her cellmate with a frown. “They didn’t know what they were feeding me?”
“If they knew you’d be able to do this they wouldn’t have left you alone for a second.”
“So now what?”
“We wait for them to leave before we do anything.”
“That may be true, sir, but what if this detracts from the results?” asked Curie.
“How could it? The second abilities are working. We would be able to change course and begin thoroughly investigating exactly how their bodies are affected. We’ll need to have them on 24 hour vital monitors to see if it’s caused any changes in blood pressure or heart rate or anything of the sort but once we’ve determined changes there we’ll want to vivisect again to see if there have been any internal changes.”
“And risk losing them again? 0543 went into shock and nearly died on the table - I must respectfully disagree with that plan,” said Curie. “My recommendation would be to immediately request contact with a World Government official to display our findings with a petition to have your bounty removed. At that point all we would need to do is force them to display their powers for the official and we’ll be lauded as heroes.” She crossed her legs and leaned forward. “Remember, sir, not only would we have discovered how to do something even Dr. Vegapunk has not figured out, but we’d be giving them two dangerous pirates.”
“And, if we have them kept in a World Government facility, we’ll have access to more equipment and supplies than we could ever dream of this way,” said Tesla. He was starting to get excited. “We wouldn’t need to keep them in the same cell to prevent cross-contamination. And of course they would be lined in seastone, especially 0543’s considering hers has led to their escape.”
0543 and 0544 clutched their hands together. If they were found, they would be separated.
Tesla yawned. “As I said, this escape is an annoyance but nothing to worry about - they won’t get far and they will eventually tire out. Have the men keep searching - I want to get some sleep. I expect them to be found by the time I awaken, and we’ll want to get right to work on investigating what’s happened.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
“Positive. They can’t leave and I want to be well rested for when we take a look at our result.”
Minutes passed in agony. 0543 and 0544 knew that they had to wait until Tesla was asleep before they made their move - if they waited until he left, well, he might try to get dressed before that happened, and then they’d be caught and that would be the end of it. They could hear him puttering around his room before the lights went out.
The sound of snoring came minutes later.
“What now?” asked 0543.
0544 glared into the darkness towards the door of the wardrobe. “Should we kill him?”
0543 looked towards the sound of his voice in terror. “I . . . I . . . what if he . . . I . . .”
He squeezed her hand, and felt himself clenching his own fist instead. She’s intangible again. But why? “I’m scared of him, too,” he said. “But . . . think about everything he’s done to us. Everything he would do to us if he figured out what’s happened to us. He’ll just hurt us again. Hurt other people. I know he only targets pirates but I doubt most of them deserved it.”
“If we try to kill him and we screw up . . . it’s going to get a lot worse,” she said. “We’re underweight, we’re weak, we’re exhausted . . . there’s too many things that could go wrong. We’re probably too scared of him as well - we could choke or panic or something. The best thing to do is just leave.”
She was right. The chances of Tesla successfully either getting help or kicking their asses - Devil Fruits or not - were too high to risk. He didn’t want to think of what the punishment would be. Instead, he quietly nodded, let her take his hand, and watched in horror as they walked out of the wardrobe and into Tesla’s bedroom.
0544 wanted to protest, but saw a look in 0543’s eyes. She is our navigator . . . He swallowed, and let her lead him through the room until they reached the door. She pressed her ear to the door, listening for commotion outside. She turned to him and nodded, and prepared to bring them through the door.
“And just where do the two of you think you’re going?”
Author’s Notes
Chapters should start flying out at this point - I’m hoping for 1-2 a week until the epilogue is out. Then I want to focus on getting Mass x Acceleration to a point where the first several chapters are done and right now the prologue . . . needs work.
The Voice’s identity will be revealed in Chapter 27 (edits pending).
-Dixxy
Chapters: Prologue + 25 Chapters
Rating: R
Pairings: None, future installments will have pairings
Summary: 0544 discovers a side affect of Tesla's success. Tesla and Curie discuss the futility of the experiments' escape efforts.
A Force Against Inertia
By Dixxy Mouri
Chapter 25
The escaped subjects found themselves standing in a supply room of some sort. 0543 and 0544 looked around, clutching each other’s hands tightly. “Now what?” asked 0544. “Where do we go from here?”
“The top deck,” said 0543. She turned to her companion. She stared at him for several moments, then frowned. “You do realize . . . if we get off this ship . . . we may never see dry land again. Unless we’re in a port right now . . . we’ll be stealing a lifeboat and sailing away, but we’ll have no way of knowing where we’re going to be heading.”
“We’ll die.”
“Probably.”
“But even if that happens . . . it’ll be like we’re pirates again.”
0543 felt herself near tears. The thought of feeling the wind blowing against her skin again and the sound of seagulls cawing in the distance was enticing. Even if it was only for a little while, she decided she would be okay if she died like that. Her body started to lose its substance and her gown nearly fell through her, but the very tangible 0544 grabbed hold of the sleeves and kept it up for her until she composed herself. “I’m sorry - I don’t think I have very good control over this yet.”
0544 looked at her glumly. “Our bodies might not be stable.”
0543 took his hand. “We need to keep moving.” She took a step forward and collapsed to her knees. 0544 joined her on the floor, and the two stared at each other in sad silence. “I’m so tired. And hungry.” She turned to her companion. “I don’t know what I want. I want to leave but I want to sleep. I don’t know.”
0544 put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. Come one.” He struggled to his feet and helped her to hers, putting her arm around his shoulder. “We’ll go slow until we hear signs of them discovering we’re gone.” She nodded and put her hand out in front of her, ready to move them through the next wall.
“Where the hell are they!? Why did you idiots leave them alone!?” Tesla was furiously storming through the bowels of the ship, screaming at anyone nearby. Curie was on his heels, barking orders to whoever she saw to make sure the ship was searched as thoroughly as possible. “If anything happens to them I will be VERY angry!”
They arrived in the room where 0543 was receiving injections. He looked around angrily, trying to figure out how she’d gotten out - again, for that matter. The attending scientist was looking at the leather straps, scratching her head in confusion as she inspected them. She looked up, saw Tesla, and snapped to attention. “Captain! Sir!”
Tesla grabbed the lapel of her lab coat. “WHERE IS 0543!?
“I don’t know, sir! But the straps on the table!”
“WHAT ABOUT THEM!?”
“They’re still locked and there’s no sign of them being ripped or torn! She should not have been able to get out!” she stammered, looking at her superior in terror. Tesla dropped her, rushing towards the table to confirm was she told him. He scanned everything. The straps showed no signs of being loosened or ripped. The locks holding them in place also hadn’t been touched.
That was when it dawned on him. The corners of his mouth crept up his cheeks in triumph as he turned to Curie and the other scientist in the room. They stared at him in confusion as he started to chuckle to himself. “The only thing you did wrong was leave her alone. You are correct - there’s no signs of her escaping by any normal means, but the way she escaped is very, very interesting.”
The scientist looked in Tesla in fear. “What?”
Curie grinned. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Tesla smirked. “I think she escaped with a second Devil Fruit ability.”
The escape was slow moving and a crap shoot at every turn. Moving too much was a risk, but moving too little was just as big a risk. Every time 0543 brought them someplace new, there was a risk it would be a room full of scientists, or Tesla, or the open ocean, or something else just as disastrous. Most often they moved if they heard voices, and so far the strategy was working.
But neither of them had any idea if they were moving any closer to the top deck or not.
“This is taking forever. How long have we been doing this?” 0544 whispered. At the moment the pair were hiding out in a room full of bunk beds and lockers, presumably where the scientists or perhaps the crew sailing the ship slept. They were resting on one of the beds in the corner, near a wall in case they needed to make a quick exit.
“We have to be patient. We’ve gotten this far. I don’t want to just give up now.”
0544 felt his heart break when she started to cry. He held her, trying to calm her down and hold up her shirt so it didn’t slip through her body. As he watched fur grow on the back of his hands, he wondered just how long these powers were going to stay so . . . volatile. He focused on becoming human again and clenched his fist tight. If they didn’t stabilize, then Tesla had - as impossible as it seemed to him - ruined their lives even worse than they originally thought.
If they somehow managed to not die during their escape and this didn’t stop, he would never be able to cook again. She would be falling through floors naked all the time. How would they possibly be able to function? He had no idea if this was something the little reindeer or any other doctor could fix - not that he was particularly interested in having more doctors look at him or 0543. He clenched his eyes shut and wanted to cry with her. But he needed to calm her down so they could slip into the next room.
What he feared was a reality he might not survive long enough to experience for himself.
It was a quiet moment, but 0544 was on edge and heard almost everything going on around them. The creaking of the ship as the wood and metal whined from its years on the water. The waves were crashing against the sides, and there were seagulls outside cawing at something. There were muffled voices yelling about something - they must have discovered they were missing.
And that was when the alarms went off.
0544’s eyes widened and he snapped away from 0543 to cover his ears. 0543 cried out at him, but he was too busy trying to drown out the noise. His head was ringing and his ears were throbbing, and the sensation was so awful that he would have given anything to make the noise stop. He was only vaguely aware of 0543 dragging him through a wall and into another room.
“What are you doing!? We need to get out of here!”
“How can you stand all this noise!? They made the alarms louder! It’s awful!” said 0544. He was near tears his head and ears hurt so bad. How was she coping? Was she deaf or something? It was like a Marine fog horn was being directly blasted right next to his head! He clenched his eyes shut, trying to press his hands closer to his head
“This is bad, this is bad . . .” said 0543, rubbing his shoulders.
. . . if the alarms are so loud, why can you still hear her?
0544’s eyes flew open. How could he still hear 0543? She should have been drowned out by the alarms, but he could understand her perfectly. He wasn’t, however, convinced she had heard him through it all. And why wasn’t she freaking out over the intensity of the sound? It had all but crippled him. No, something was off with him, not her or the alarms.
Of course.
Sometimes, 0544 recalled, animals had better senses than humans - seeing, smelling, touching, whatever. It was like their old crew’s doctor - he had an incredibly strong sense of smell, being a reindeer by birth, and was able to track people and perfumes almost as well as a bloodhound - he could tell what he was making in the kitchen for dinner, right down to the tiniest pinch of spice.
And the fox he turned into had awfully large ears for a creature so tiny . . .
“It’s the fox fruit!” he said. “It’s screwing with my hearing!”
“What!?”
She can’t hear your right now - just because your hearing is so great doesn’t mean hers suddenly got that good. 0544 shook his head and struggled to his feet, looking at her while keeping his hands over his ears. 0543 didn’t know what was going on, but understood enough to grab him by the elbow and lead him to the next room.
Hours passed. No experimental subjects.
The captain surprised everyone and told them to turn off the alarms and halve the search efforts. “Sir, with all due respect . . . why in the world would you want to decrease the amount of effort we’re putting in to find 0543 and 0544? That seems counter-productive,” Radian questioned, and confused and concerned look on his face.
“I’ve realized, Radian, that this little escape of theirs means nothing. We’re in the middle of the ocean - where do they think they’re going to go? Eventually they’ll get tired or hungry, give up this little game of hide and seek, and then we can find out exactly what caused the escape. Right now it’s a waste of resources - I’d like your men to continue the search - and have plenty of seastone nets handy to catch them, of course - but I’d prefer to have a meeting with Curie over the matter to discuss the day’s events, and have the other scientists prepare for every test they can think of so that we’re ready to proceed upon their recapture.”
Radian thought this over. It was true. They were are least a few days away from dry land and with the unpredictable weather pattern on the Grand Line it would be nothing less than suicide for 0543 and 0544 to try and escape. Wherever they were hiding it was still on the ship - even if it took a day to find them, they would be able to find them.
“In that case I’ll have some of the sailors waiting in the galley for them if they think they’re going to try and steal food. I’ll also make sure all of the Den Den Mushis and the Eternal Poses are rounded up and in my possession - if they figure out what our travel pattern has been and they can get in contact with their captain, that could be a problem.”
Tesla nodded. “Excellent plan. Now go and get it done.”
0543 had brought 0544 into a wardrobe or a closet - she wasn’t sure which it was, nor did she care. 0544 seemed to calm down, the soft coats, shirts, and pants around them muffling the sound of the sirens. She rubbed his shoulders as they sat on the floor, looking at him in worry. “Are you okay?” she whispered. 0544 looked at her in tears, nodding. “Did the Devil Fruit do something to your hearing?” He nodded again. 0543 pulled him into an embrace. “We’ll think of something. Don’t worry. Maybe you’ll be able to tune it out after a while,” she said, rubbing his back.
0544 relaxed in her arms, and then the sirens suddenly stopped. They both looked up and around, breathing heavily as they wondered what was going on. “They’ve probably alerted everyone on board we’ve escaped - no reason to have it on anymore. Or maybe they’re trying to lure us out - make us THINK that they gave up.”
“I’m not showing myself until we’re on a lifeboat, in the water, and on our way,” she said.
“Agreed,” said 0544. He swallowed. “So . . . if we don’t make it . . .”
“Hold me,” she said. “I don’t . . . I don’t want to die . . .”
“I don’t either.”
“But how can we escape without dying?”
Don’t worry about that.
Just get off the ship and I’ll think of something.
0544 pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re an amazing navigator. You can predict the weather on the Grand Line, navigate us up Reverse Mountain . . . you were the one that got us all safely up the Knock-Up Stream. If anyone can help us survive this . . . it’s you,” he said. They squeezed hands, and then heard something horrible outside of the closet that made their blood freeze.
“You seem positive it’s 0543’s second Devil Fruit,” said Curie. Tesla was leading her back to his chambers for a private meeting to discuss the next step in the experiment, now that it appeared they finally had live results on their hands. “Considering the nature of 0544’s second fruit it’s quite plausible he could have slipped out on its own if he shrank out of the shock collar.”
Tesla nodded as he opened the door to let her through. “Of course that’s possible, but that doesn’t explain 0543’s examination room. Considering that there was no sign of a struggle with her escape, the cuffs were locked, and all keys have been accounted for, I don’t see how 0544 could have done it - even with telekinesis at his disposal he couldn’t pick the lock without seeing the interior components of it. Hers was the only unknown fruit, and several of the fruits listed but not illustrated could have done it.”
“Sir, as exciting as it is that she may have developed her second ability, we don’t know what it is and a CLASSIC trait of most Logia class fruits is intangibility. We could have accidentally picked up something dangerous, like the Rumble Rumble Fruit -which, might I add, has NOT been sighted in at least the last ten years - that has given her the kind of power to kill every last one of us on this ship.”
“And that is where I disagree. Even if she does have something that lethal, 0543 wouldn’t use it. They’ve been here so long that they’ve lost the will to fight back - that’s why, before today, there was no need to continue using sea stone restraints on them. They just stay where we put them quietly and cooperate.”
“Sir . . . they’ve escaped. I wouldn’t call that ‘cooperating’ with us,” Curie said dryly.
Tesla paused, then nodded. “Well . . . yes, that’s true, but they’re being non-aggressive. Not completely passive, but they aren’t trying to kill the men. They’re running around the ship right now and since no one has reported a sighting we can only assume that the two of them are trying to avoid a confrontation. Even with their Devil Fruits they cannot fight back - they’re running and hiding.”
The conversation going on outside of the closet was terrifying. 0543 and 0544 listened carefully (although there was little question that 0544 was getting more of the conversation that 0543) as their primary tormentors discussed their fate. They gripped hands tightly, only whispering to each other in the quietest voices they could manage, barely even mouthing the words.
0543 looked at her cellmate with a frown. “They didn’t know what they were feeding me?”
“If they knew you’d be able to do this they wouldn’t have left you alone for a second.”
“So now what?”
“We wait for them to leave before we do anything.”
“That may be true, sir, but what if this detracts from the results?” asked Curie.
“How could it? The second abilities are working. We would be able to change course and begin thoroughly investigating exactly how their bodies are affected. We’ll need to have them on 24 hour vital monitors to see if it’s caused any changes in blood pressure or heart rate or anything of the sort but once we’ve determined changes there we’ll want to vivisect again to see if there have been any internal changes.”
“And risk losing them again? 0543 went into shock and nearly died on the table - I must respectfully disagree with that plan,” said Curie. “My recommendation would be to immediately request contact with a World Government official to display our findings with a petition to have your bounty removed. At that point all we would need to do is force them to display their powers for the official and we’ll be lauded as heroes.” She crossed her legs and leaned forward. “Remember, sir, not only would we have discovered how to do something even Dr. Vegapunk has not figured out, but we’d be giving them two dangerous pirates.”
“And, if we have them kept in a World Government facility, we’ll have access to more equipment and supplies than we could ever dream of this way,” said Tesla. He was starting to get excited. “We wouldn’t need to keep them in the same cell to prevent cross-contamination. And of course they would be lined in seastone, especially 0543’s considering hers has led to their escape.”
0543 and 0544 clutched their hands together. If they were found, they would be separated.
Tesla yawned. “As I said, this escape is an annoyance but nothing to worry about - they won’t get far and they will eventually tire out. Have the men keep searching - I want to get some sleep. I expect them to be found by the time I awaken, and we’ll want to get right to work on investigating what’s happened.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
“Positive. They can’t leave and I want to be well rested for when we take a look at our result.”
Minutes passed in agony. 0543 and 0544 knew that they had to wait until Tesla was asleep before they made their move - if they waited until he left, well, he might try to get dressed before that happened, and then they’d be caught and that would be the end of it. They could hear him puttering around his room before the lights went out.
The sound of snoring came minutes later.
“What now?” asked 0543.
0544 glared into the darkness towards the door of the wardrobe. “Should we kill him?”
0543 looked towards the sound of his voice in terror. “I . . . I . . . what if he . . . I . . .”
He squeezed her hand, and felt himself clenching his own fist instead. She’s intangible again. But why? “I’m scared of him, too,” he said. “But . . . think about everything he’s done to us. Everything he would do to us if he figured out what’s happened to us. He’ll just hurt us again. Hurt other people. I know he only targets pirates but I doubt most of them deserved it.”
“If we try to kill him and we screw up . . . it’s going to get a lot worse,” she said. “We’re underweight, we’re weak, we’re exhausted . . . there’s too many things that could go wrong. We’re probably too scared of him as well - we could choke or panic or something. The best thing to do is just leave.”
She was right. The chances of Tesla successfully either getting help or kicking their asses - Devil Fruits or not - were too high to risk. He didn’t want to think of what the punishment would be. Instead, he quietly nodded, let her take his hand, and watched in horror as they walked out of the wardrobe and into Tesla’s bedroom.
0544 wanted to protest, but saw a look in 0543’s eyes. She is our navigator . . . He swallowed, and let her lead him through the room until they reached the door. She pressed her ear to the door, listening for commotion outside. She turned to him and nodded, and prepared to bring them through the door.
“And just where do the two of you think you’re going?”
Author’s Notes
Chapters should start flying out at this point - I’m hoping for 1-2 a week until the epilogue is out. Then I want to focus on getting Mass x Acceleration to a point where the first several chapters are done and right now the prologue . . . needs work.
The Voice’s identity will be revealed in Chapter 27 (edits pending).
-Dixxy