Chapter 1: It Begins with Poison 1/2

methyl nitrate pineapples

hypothesis #1

it begins with poison

—

Shells whistled through the heavy rain and slammed against a steel-fortified Marine shelter, setting the giant Red Cross ablaze.

Evacuating citizens of Vira scrambled away as the sign crashed to the ground. Clashing steel and gunshots rang out in the distance, and forks of lighting cracked through the sky. They illuminated shadows fighting among the sheer cliffs, pressing closer with every flash of blinding white.

"Hurry! Ships are waiting to take you to safety!" a Marine captain shouted, pointing his gun toward the harbor. A group of soldiers were feverishly stamping out the fire.

"Sir, we're losing ground on the front!" a ragged recruit yelled over the clamor.

"Damn the Revolutionaries," the captain cursed under his breath. "Get the injured on board! Before another round of… oh shi—"

—

The shelter walls shuddered and shook with the onslaught of mortars. Dust streamed from the corners. Dying moans and screams echoed down every corridor, and all hands available had to make up for the doctor shortage. For one particular chemist-turned-combat-medic, this meant getting pulled from her hiding spot under a desk and kicked into an operating room.

"Bandages! Sophie, I need more bandages!"

"Where are the IV packs? Sophie, check the supply closet!"

"Oi, Strangways, the bathroom ran out of toilet paper again!"

"What the pineapples is wrong with you people!? For the last time, I am in a Very Stressful Situation!" an irate blonde hollered, and accidentally tugged on the thread and needle gripped in her fists. The man on the operating table twitched violently.

"Ahhh, it hurts! Ahh… ha ha ha…"

The poor marine giggled wildly and then sunk into a dazed stupor. Sophie wiped her forehead in relief (never again shall she underestimate the powers of laughing gas!), before remembering—why hello there, blood. Concentrating on only inhaling through her mouth, she slowly and meticulously began to stitch the gash up.

It was a clean shot through the bone; the bullet hadn't lodged inside the body, which was good. The problem was how to handle all this blood loss. She squinted at the needle, and then shifted it so that it was perpendicular with her index finger. She carefully edged the needle into the skin, threaded it quickly, and then whipped out her ruler. Five centimeters apart, evenly spaced, two inches long. She exhaled. Three stitches down, eight more to go.

"Strangways! Where the hell is that toilet paper?" a voice behind her demanded.

"Mangos!" Sophie swore and sucked on her bleeding thumb. She turned around, hissing flames, "I'm in the middle of an operation so get someone else to wipe your—AAH MY CHASTITY PUT ON SOME PANTS."

"IV! Sophie, where's that IV?"

"My guy lost a nose, any of you seen it?"

She slammed her fists on the operating table, gnashing her teeth.

"The pain," the marine sobbed.

"Shut up!" Sophie exploded at her patient. Fortunately for her, he was too drugged up to notice. Sophie pointed at the crowd. "IV and bandages are in the supply closet, and you can use banana leaves to clean up for all I care! Get out before I have to cremate another dead patient! Get out, get out, get out!"

She breathed harshly through her nose as the door swung shut, willing herself to calm down lest she break out in nervous tics.

Sophie tore off her perfectly clean surgeon's gloves and strapped on a new pair. The laughing gas would be wearing off by now. She reached for a syringe that carried a one-hundred and twenty milligram dose of anesthesia, and injected it into her patient. One hundred and twenty… Sophie considered, and then injected another dose. Two-hundred forty. Well, one more couldn't hurt… three-hundred sixty. Pretty number. A full circle.

The door burst open. "Sophie!"

"Gahh!"

The marine, completely numb from the neck down, started snoring.

Charaka Hippo, the man in charge over the medic squad, stood panting at the door. His glasses were smudged with dust. "We're evacuating!" he yelled, peeling off his bloodied gloves and tossing them on the floor. "There's a ship waiting out in the harbor, leave everything and—stop that!"

Sophie guiltily sprang to her feet, clutching his gloves. "B-but th-the floor will get dirty!"

As if it wasn't already—streaks of blood marred the tiles, which had turned grey over the last few days of constant bombing. The stink of death and sulfur filled every crevice the operating room. Sophie herself looked completely deranged with her soot-stained curls sticking up everywhere and manic expression.

Hippo glanced up at the shaking ceiling. "Never mind that, let's go!"

"B-but I-I'm not done!"

He smacked himself in the face, strode over, and grabbed the needle. Sophie's eyes widened. "Um—wait, sensei, I was—"

In three quick strokes, the very pale-faced marine had a row of squiggly black thread running down his chest. Sophie gaped, her eyes suspiciously bright.

"Follow me!" Hippo shouted over the sound of the walls bending over and yells of other doctors. He slung the marine over one shoulder and pushed the thunderstruck blonde through the door.

"But now it's—now it's—uneven!" Sophie wailed.

He ignored her, and she remembered at the last moment to grab her lighter and stick it in her pocket before stumbling out. Her sniffles were drowned out by the torrential rain as they joined the surge outside into the ruins of what had once been a Marine base camp.

The harbor was nearly deserted; all the other refugee ships had long since fled except for one. Sophie looked over her shoulder, chills crawling up her spine. She couldn't clearly discern the battle through the storm, but three months spent in war had generated a sort of intuition in Sophie: the rebels were fighting loyalists and Marines back onto the shore. And the further they retreated, the more likely the battle was about to hit the shelter.

"The captain's not breathing!" someone screamed.

Sophie whirled around, searching for the voice, and abruptly stumbled over a bloody marine. She about to reach down to help her—but then Hippo yanked on her wrist.

"The woman's dead!" he snapped. "Don't stop moving!"

Another mortar hit the edge of the ruined base and sent shrapnel flying through the wind. Sophie could barely hear Hippo hollering orders to other civilians. The screams had resurged and lightning clapped deafeningly in the black sky.

She fell behind Hippo, who was relaying orders to a marine, and helped other injured marines who were being rushed from the shelter. Some were well past their prime and some looked even younger than her, wheeled on stretchers and bleeding from their heads, and their arms, and their mouths—

Thunder boomed and Sophie instantly stopped moving, scant inches short from the pier.

She took thirteen steps. Prime number. Bad number. Her insides churned just thinking about it. She shuffled forward two more steps, balanced thoughtfully on her right leg, and then stepped down with her left. Sixteen steps. Four squared. Good number. She breathed out in relief.

"Get down!" someone srieked, and Sophie felt a rush of heat behind her before the shelter combusted in a roar of fire.

Something whacked the side of her head and she was thrown against the wooden planks. "Pineapples, pineapples, pineapples," she muttered under her breath, scrambling upward and nursing a giant, painful bump on her head.

Two poorly-aimed bombs splashed harmlessly into the ocean and exploded. The furious waves rocked the last refugee ship.

"Sophie!" Hippo yelled over the storm, "Hurry!"

The ship was leaving.

Sophie sprinted toward the edge of the pier. She saw Hippo fighting to get to the starboard side, heard him shout, "Stop the damn ship! My daughter still hasn't boarded!"

She stretched out a hand, reaching for the ladder, and in a burst of impulsiveness her feet left the pier (twelve steps even, ha!). Then a shell hit the docks, sending her flying through the air as the background blew up and the music swelled, hair flying across her face and eyes tearing up with the strain as her fingers brushed the ladder and—

Sophie smacked her face on the side of the ship and belly-flopped into the ocean.

Her ears roared and the world turned dark and smothering. Sophie pinched her nose with one hand and swam upward, breaking the surface with a pained gasp. She couldn't open her left eye. Oh holy pineapples, if she got a black eye because of this…

She heard the mortars wheeee from the skies and dove back underwater, curling up into a ball. The muffled bombs exploded and she was helplessly tossed around by the icy current. Panic, real, cold panic, seized her and gripped her frantic heart. She struggled for air just as another bomb hit, sending her somersaulting past sinking debris and floating fish. Sophie gritted her teeth. If only she could make it to the ship—

She clawed her way to the surface, sputtering like mad. Sophie floundered blindly for anything that floated; her fingers poked something squishy and wet. Rubbing water from her eyes, she opened them and grimaced.

Squishy, wet, and very, very dead would be more appropriate.

She grabbed the second closest thing—the remains of the charred Red Cross sign—and took a moment to hack out seawater and catch her breath. The refugee ship was nothing more than a small grey speck on the horizon.

"Get b-b-back here you sons of b-barnacles," she bellowed, shaking her fist.

After a few more seconds of raging, Sophie slumped over, groaning. She would've started swimming already, if she didn't have any damned Sea Kings to worry about.

"I should go back to V-Vira and ask f-for help," she chattered, hugging her arms. "Maybe the o-other marines could g-give me a ship ride back to the base…"

She laughed shortly. That was a brilliant idea. And then she'd step onto the beach, hand someone a nice shiny gun, and invite them to play target practice with her head—a more entertaining alternative to walking straight into a gory civil war.

She smacked herself on the forehead, and then hit herself again, because she hated doing things in ones. "Of course! S-Sophie, you are so stupid, why didn't y-you think of it sooner…"

A few minutes later, she squatted on top of a barely-there pile of wooden planks—her makeshift raft, wrapped in wet rope and kelp. Her bare toes gripped the dismembered wood. With a determined huff, she rolled up her sleeves and started paddling with a broken piece of timber. It was do or die and Sophie really wasn't much for dying.

"It'll hold," she said forcefully. "It'll definitely hold until I get to the next island."

Peering out into the rain, she failed to notice the enormous galleon trailing behind her until a black shadow fell over the water and goosebumps popped up her arms.

Her good eye bugged as she stared up at the dark, dragon-shaped figurehead, illuminated by a flash of lightning.

She giggled hysterically. "Oh mango—"

The stack of wood broke apart in her hands, and a huge wave crashed over Sophie, dragging her down into the depths.

—

An IV drip blurred into view.

Slowly surfacing back into the conscious world, Sophie blinked blearily up at the bright lights that—wait, ceiling lights? A heart monitor? IV drips? The smell of sterilized metal? Rejoice, she'd been rescued! The Marines actually came back for her! She was just about to sink back into a sweet, painless unconsciousness when she glanced to the side and—

The IV faced the wrong direction.

Sophie stared at it, utterly horrified. It was completely misaligned to the other machinery and just no no no the balance was not right, not right at all. She squinted to tell it that it was not going to get away with this.

She started to push herself into sitting position, but her limbs refused to comply. Sophie could feel the leather rubbing against her skin. Someone buckled restraints on her. But the IV—but the IV!

"Good, you're awake," a distinctly masculine voice spoke from somewhere next to the heart monitor. "How old are you?"

Her mouth felt thick when she opened it. Sophie tried speaking, and it sounded like, "Ubleugghsafjdkn?"

"Your age, Miss."

She swallowed, coughed out a hairball, and then croaked out, "Ni… nineteen. Where am I?" She'd meant to ask what Marine division he belonged to, but four words drew enough pain.

There was a sound of a chair wheeling over and a dark, lean figure appeared against the lights. She picked apart his appearance: doctor's coat. Fluffy hat. Gold earrings. His legs were crossed and a clipboard rested in his lap, one arm thrown over the back of the chair. His posture screamed boredom. Sophie looked up at his face. Black goatee, black eyes, easygoing smile. No, not boredom.

There was a strange prickling of alarm in the back of her mind.

"On a vessel," he said simply, scrawling things on the clipboard. "You've suffered no severe wounds; just a minor swelling over your left eye and some bruises here and there. Prime condition," he muttered, and reached towards her. A paper cup pressed against her lips. "Water. Drink."

The water soothed her raw throat immensely. While she drained the cup, her gaze flickered to the clipboard and Sophie read his handwriting upside down. Blonde, blue-eyed, nineteen, avg. height, underfed for approx. one month, poss. due to lack of substantial rations at Vira—

She accidentally snorted water up her nose. The smoke from the battleground seeped into her lungs and dark shadows were bleeding, screaming, crying for help—

"How did you know?" she demanded. "That I was at—at—"

"I find a bloody and unconscious marine a few miles from an island where a coup d'état is taking place. It's not a very difficult leap." He crumbled the paper cup in his fist and tossed it over his shoulder.

Her gut clenched. "Well, you know how HQ is," she shrugged. "Always so anal about stationing you in the middle of violent civil wars." Never mind the fact that she was the one who asked to be stationed there…

He chuckled like he found Sophie's lame joke extremely amusing. There was something odd about the way he studied her, the way he kept on smiling. "You're a combat medic, correct?"

"Correct. You know this how?"

He held up her shirt. "Identification tag."

Oh.

"To be more exact, I'm actually a chemist." She shifted. "As for why I was with the medic squad at Vira… it's a boring story."

The doctor got up to rummage around the contents of a drawer, his back facing her. "You must love working for the Marines if you enjoy bleeding for them," he said over his shoulder.

Sophie wasn't sure if she imagined his sarcastic tone. "I don't work for the Marines," she returned sourly. "I work with the World Government." It struck her that she was being suspicious of the man who had saved her life. Hippo would be so disappointed. Sophie hastily tried to rectify her behavior by adding, "And, um, you know, if you ever find your job lacking, I can get you a place in a real medical facility. As thanks for saving me."

"'A real medical facility…'" Okay, Sophie definitely didn't imagine the scorn there. "I'm afraid I'll have to refuse your generous offer, Miss." The doctor turned around, strapping on a pair of latex gloves and wielding a syringe filled with a brown liquid. "I'm perfectly comfortable with my line of work. There are just so many…" his smile stretched, turning sharp and cruel, "possibilities."

The situation just turned decidedly creepier. Sophie laughed nervously, nose twitching. "Right. Yeah, anyway, I am grateful to you for saving my life and everything, but I feel a lot better now. So I need my clothes back… and if you could free me from these, um, restraints—that would be highly appreciated?"

He rubbed his goatee, considering. "To the second, I really can't be bothered, and to the first, you'll be dead anyway so there's no point." He tested the syringe and a bit of the liquid squirted into the air. "Ah, the putrid stench of parathion."

He allowed brief pause, wherein Sophie heard the sound of a ten-ton anvil drop in her stomach. Parathion. C10H14NO5PS. Acts on the acetylcholinesterase enzyme… to disrupt the nervous system… wait, no, that… couldn't be right…

"But," she said weakly, "but that stuff is toxic."

"Three stars for you, Chemist-ya. The smallest drop can kill a man in fifteen minutes. It'll be quite fun recording the effects of an overdose… you're in prime condition for testing, after all."

Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. "I was an idiot for thinking this was a Marine ship."

"You were," he agreed. "It's a pirate one, Miss, captained by Trafalgar Law." He mockingly inclined his head. "At your service."

The needle glinted in the light.

"…D-Do you like money?" Sophie blurted out desperately. "I h-have lots of money! And gold! I'm a leading scientist at G-13, the Marine base that specializes in chemical warfare. Why kill me when you can ransom me? My superiors will give so much beli that you'll be able to live off of it for the rest of your—"

He fisted a hand in her blonde curls and jerked her head back.

"Where should I begin? Should I go the standard route and use the inside of the elbow?" The pirate twisted her head to the side. "Or maybe the neck? The eyes? Maybe I should inject it straight into the brain. So many options, what to pick, what to pick…" A thumb jammed into Sophie's mouth and dragged it open. "The gums would be particularly painful," he squished her cheeks together so her lips puckered like extremely chapped fish, "and it'd shut your nauseatingly loud mouth up… or perhaps I should just force you to swallow it whole."

He laughed, a strangely pleasant sound, not at all suited for his dark smile. The tip of the needle hovered right over her throat.

"I've got a nice idea," he hummed. "A poisoned apple. Yes, I do like the sound of that. Forcing you to eat your own death."

Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip to restrain her stutters. No good. "W-w-why d-did you fix me up if you were only waiting to k-k-kill me? You should've j-j-j-just let me d-die!"

A very, very cold hand touched the side of her face. "Though it may seem contrary to the current situation, I'm not completely heartless." The needle ghosted around her jaw. He had grey eyes, Sophie realized with an odd jolt, not black. "A killer, yes. A pirate, obviously. But first and foremost, I am a doctor. I do occasionally enjoy exercising those rights… Besides," he added, "there's no fun in just letting someone d—"

Something slammed against the operating room and pain burst through Sophie's head. Everything suddenly became very dark. She broke out in cold sweat. Oh no, was this it? She could see a faint light. Goodbye, Hippo, it's been fun—oh. Oh, wait.

Sophie opened her eyes.

The IV drip lay across her stomach—that must've been what had hit her—and medicine bottles and dangerous-looking utensils were rattling in the cabinets; the entire room was shaking. A tray of scalpels spun dangerously near Sophie. Something heavy clanged against the ship and echoed into the operating room.

A voice rang out from the brass tube protruding from the wall. "Captain! There's an emergency!"

"What did I tell you about disrupting me when I'm operating?" the pirate yelled back.

This was her chance! Sophie started to agonizingly wiggle her hands free.

A loud boom pounded through the steel walls. "Sorry! But—Shachi, duck!—but there are two Marine battleships heading this way! They mean to intercept us before we reach Crawfish Island!"

Hell yeah! She did a mental pelvic thrust of victory. One wrist free! One more to go…

"They only sent two? Well, I've been meaning to get a higher bounty…" He grabbed a long sword leaning against the desk and shouted, "Pull up and stand by for my orders. Tell the men they better be ready to go wild!"

There was a jarring roar of sound at the other end. "Aye aye, Captain!"

He glanced over at Sophie, who instantly became motionless. Act cool, act cool, cool as an ice cube…

"Think you've somehow managed a narrow escape?"

That was exactly what she was thinking. "Actually, I was just saying my last prayers," she said flatly.