Law had switched places with a chair he'd spotted in the room up above, and in the next instant he was gripping the lab coat of a nurse, holding him against the wall as he struggled against it.
"Ack! Unhand…me!" He spat, but Law was beyond furiated, and in no mood to comply with orders. Especially from any of the medical staff.
"Where is she?" He growled, producing the dagger from his belt and holding it to his throat. His eyes widened, and the struggling increased, much to the pirate's annoyance. With a snarl, he threw the man onto the floor behind him. The nurse gasped from the sudden loss of breath, and Law stalked up towards him.
He kneeled down on each of the nurse's arms, holding the weapon to his face. "My tolerance for this facility has exceeded its limit. So tell me where she is!"
"Results are worth more than the life of one!" He shouted, and Law was half glad he wasn't cooperating. Without hesitation, he flicked the knife across his chest, creating a long and clean cut down the middle.
"NO!" The nurse cried, trying without success to shake the Dark Doctor off of him. His strength was quickly fading away, the blood leaking steadily from the wound. The room seemed to start spinning, and part of him thought that the simulation room was turned on. What was happening?
"Where is she?" Law shouted once more, making another cut across the clavicle bones. The nurse screamed in pain, but he couldn't resist against Law's fury and superior strength. The pirate connected the lines at the sternum, making a large Y shape on his chest. To his horror, the nurse understood what was going on. Law saw the recognition in his eyes and smirked.
"I've never performed an autopsy on a live specimen, but as you said before, results are worth more than the life of one." He went to peel back the skin with the knife, but to his disappointment, the nurse started screaming.
"She's with the Doctor! Room 31B! I swear, she's there! They're doing another experiment! Stop! Please stop! I'm not ready!" He was crying like a baby, and Law stood from the broken man. He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, not with his torso cut open and his organs threatening to fall if he even tried to stand up. Finding a sink, Law cleaned Summer's dagger with care, making sure none of the man's blood were still on the blade. Once it was thoroughly washed and disinfected, he replaced it in its sheath and turned back to the nurse.
"If I find that you lied, I'll continue the…operation later." He purred, exiting the room to the sobs of the man behind him.
Drip.
"Are you ready to tell the truth, Subject 711-A549?" The intercom said, and Summer trashed at her restraints in anger.
"YOU LIED! YOU SAID THE PAIN WOULD STOP!"
Drip.
"I'll kill you…" She cried softly to herself, unable to tell if she had a headache or if she had a head at all. "You're dead." Her sobs echoed around the room, and the intercom stayed silent.
Drip.
"There!" Shachi said, closing the fuse box to the phone on the wall. The alert had shut off with the cut of one wire, and the place was returned to its quiet state. The nurses and doctors seemed disappointed, but the pirates were just happy the alarm was no longer assaulting their ears.
"Good, now we just gotta wait for Captain to find Summer-chan." Penguin said.
"Hey guys?" Parker spoke up, and everyone's attention was shifted to him. He was peering down the hallway, listening through the glass window.
"Parker, what is it? Is it Captain?"
He shook his head, a concerned expression on his face. "It sounds like a lot of people. They're probably guards. And they're coming this way, by the sound of it."
The Heart Pirates gripped their weapons a little tighter, listening closely for the rumble of heavy footsteps. Sure enough, they were getting louder.
"Alright, we need a plan! They probably have guns, so what's the best way to defend ourselves with what we've got?"
"Move the tables! Tip them over and keep cover behind them!" Blake said, and the men, still watching the medical staff for any funny business, proceeded with their strategy.
Law ran through the halls, desperately searching for 31B.
'Where the hell is it?' He thought, holding his nodachi at the ready for anything that got in his way. Room number flashed through his head, none of them the one he was looking for. Deep in the recesses of his mind, he remembered that he was supposed to get the file on devil fruits for James, but that could come later. Right now, the safety of his nakama was at stake.
Another experiment…It could be anything, but he hoped it was something physically taxing. She could handle anything against her body. Scars didn't scare her. But the one no one could see, those were the ones that couldn't be healed easily, if not at all. Those were the ones that he wasn't sure if his skill was enough to fix. The Ope Ope No Mi didn't include that power.
28A…28B…29A…29B…
He was so close, and his heart was beating almost out of his chest, from the panic that he wouldn't make it on time. If the nurse had really been lying, he'd still have no idea where she could be.
30C…31A…
Law skidded to a stop, the door to 31B stood in front of him. It looked locked, but that had never stopped him before. With a small prayer that he was in the right place, he muttered 'Room' and swung back his sword.
Drip.
"Subject 711-A549, answer my question."
Summer wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. The pain in her head just wouldn't go away, it was a constant reminder that she was still alive, and she hated it. Why couldn't the blackness just consume her? Let her rest? She'd try giving into the warm comfort, but the damn water would keep bringing her back against her will.
Drip.
Had it been days? Weeks? Or was it only ten minutes since she'd been subjected to whatever cruel hell this was?
Drip.
Her mouth was dry, and her throat was on fire, the water being incessantly dripped on her head had yet to land in her mouth. She'd die of dehydration before too long, at least she thought.
Drip.
"Subject 711-A549, can you hear me?" Whatever voice was trying to talk sounded angry. Angry at her, because she wouldn't speak. But she was too tired and hurt to speak. Why couldn't they just leave her alone?
Drip.
CRASH.
A loud bang and crash startled her, but the thing that demanded the most attention was the large amount of water that was now crashing down on her. The flow wouldn't stop, like it came directly from a hose. Despite her dry mouth, she kept it closed, otherwise she'd drown. Her arms and legs tried thrashing in the metal restraints, but she still couldn't move. Being under the constant flow of water wasn't helping either. Whatever was happening, it was putting her in danger, and she started to panic again.
'I'm not going to die here!' She shouted in her head, and Nemesis seemed to awaken.
"Keep calm, a friend is here."
A friend? Suddenly, she felt hands at her restraints, but the water prevented her from opening her eyes to see what was happening. It was probably the nurses, or the Doctor, come to save their precious test subject. Whatever. As long as she lived right then, she could get her revenge later.
The metal cuffs on her legs were undone, and whoever was helping her leaned over to take off the arm restraints. The thing holding her head in place was ripped off, and she tried turning her head to the side to find much-needed air. Her lungs were starting to burn from holding her breath, but before long she was free of that damned chair. The stranger pulled her out of the seat, and both of them fell to the floor. She coughed and sputtered as water accidentally flooded her mouth.
The other person was panting hard, she could hear their labored breathing. The water continued to flow, but the water level didn't rise. There must have been a drain somewhere.
"We have to leave!" The voice said, and she nodded, still dazed to be able to recognize who was speaking. She hesitantly cracked open her eyes, but the room was still dark and she couldn't see anything. There was so much going on, and her head was hurting, and her limbs wouldn't move fast at all. All the commotion was dizzying.
"Where's the door?" She called, and a hand tugged on her sleeve, pulling her forward. She followed, only because she had no idea where she was going. Then, she saw the opening where the door had been. Either the door was open or it was no longer there. Either way, she ran towards it.
Her wet clothes were slowing her down, that along with her panic still making her hesitate to do anything. But…Nemesis had said a friend…She couldn't get her hopes up…
She stepped out, shielding her eyes from the change in lighting. There was no one in the hall. The floor was soaked, water from the room flooding out into every nook and cranny it could find.
The person who had rescued her approached from behind, she could sense it. Turning, she prepared to fight whoever was there. She wasn't about to let-
Her eyes widened, taking in what she saw. He was soaking wet, wearing that black coat he'd sported on their first winter island, the yellow hoodie underneath, those tattooed hands with the words 'DEATH'…
It was Law.
"You're…" She stopped, suddenly becoming short of breath, wanting to believe it but still suspicious of anything that she saw. That damn illusion experiment meant she couldn't trust anything anymore. She just couldn't. Her resolve never to be tricked made her take a step back. "You're not real. You can't be." She whispered, eyes never leaving his face.
That smirk, the one that was so infuriating but that she secretly loved so much. He flashed it then, putting his nodachi back in its sheath. "Well, that's no way to talk to your captain, Summer-ya."
"No!" She stepped back more, scared that the experiment was actually working, that she was starting to believe…"You aren't Law! You're not him! This isn't real!" She grabbed onto her hair retreating into herself as her back hit the wall behind her and she slid to the floor.
Law's eyes widened, and he kneeled down in front of her. "This is real, Summer-ya. This is reality."
"NO!" She covered her face. "You were all dead, and it was all my fault, and there was so much blood, and the sub-" She was hysterical, tears streaming down her already wet face. Law gripped her shoulders gently and shook, getting her attention.
"Hey!" He didn't shout, he would never do that, but just called loud enough to get her to focus. "The crew is safe, we're all ok. Whatever they showed you, they were trying to break you. Everyone's here to get you, and you'll never have to see this place again."
"Never?" She asked weakly, and he nodded. She sniffed, but balled her hands up a moment later. "How do I know you're not lying? You could be a nurse or a doctor…or him." Law assumed she meant the Doctor that was in charge of everything, the whole reason her life was a literal hell. He sighed, glancing side to side to make sure there was no one coming.
"How can I prove to you that I'm real?" He realized she wasn't going anywhere unless she was satisfied that he was who he said he was.
"Tell me something only Law would know." She demanded, scrubbing the tears out of her eyes with the palms of her hands.
He racked his brain for anything that he knew, anything he did that only involved her. "You woke up in the sub's kitchen storage, and Shachi-ya and Penguin-ya found you. They hit you on the head because they thought you were a marine."
She crossed her arms. "Not good enough."
"You tried running away from us on that island of women."
"That could be in any newspaper." Summer said, turning her head away. Law sighed again. He'd known she was stubborn, and he supposed in any other situation that would've been a good thing. He knew she wasn't stupid, but damn, she really did need a lot of evidence that he was her captain to even believe her.
He thought of just the thing. "We were stuck in that cave, in the middle of a blizzard." He said, and that seemed to interest her.
"What were we looking for?" She asked, and he smirked.
"An herb for my collection. It only grew on that island, at the top of the mountain." She hugged her knees. She still didn't seem all the way convinced, but Law had one more trick he could try. He leaned closer, and her eyes widened, flicking across his face in fear.
"That day in the infirmary," He spoke low and slowly, to make sure she was listening, "you were mad that I was getting close to Kat-ya." He watched her swallow, attention focused solely on him. "I told you what we planned to do with her, you got angry because I kept it a secret from you."
"And?" She asked, barely more than a whisper.
He was leaning only an inch or two away from her face, and she could feel his warm breath against her lips. "You tried to run away, but I stopped you." He smirked, seeing her eyes widen, knowing that she was imagining what had happened long ago.
"How?" She whispered. The innocent expression she had on was just too much for Law, and he placed his lips on her.
He was pleased when she wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him gently closer. Her response was a lot more enthusiastic than he'd imagined, but that only made his hunger grow. Her wet hair stuck together in limp strands down her back, and he played with the ends deftly. Something about her hair had him mesmerized, and it made him want to stop thinking.
He angled her head with one hand, running his fingers up her side with the other. He could feel the goosebumps underneath the thin white shirt she wore. Her small gasp of surprise or pleasure, it didn't matter to him as he enjoyed it anyway, made his heart skip. The sound brought up so many different possibilities he'd imagined over the past months, all things he'd deny that he'd ever thought at any point during his life. Oh, the sounds he'd produce from her, just from a small touch here and a kiss there…His pride was much too large to admit that he'd been lusting after her. Hell would sooner freeze over.
This possessiveness, this need to touch her was terrifying, but he didn't want to stop.
They separated to breathe, placing their foreheads against each other. His eyes were still closed, and Law leaned closer to kiss her again, but Summer's hand pushed gently at his chest. He opened his eyes to find that she was smiling at him.
"It's really you." She wrapped her arms around him again and hugged him tightly. This type of innocent gesture wasn't normally his thing, but if it was for her sake, he supposed he could do it just this once for her. He pulled her in closer to his chest, and they drew warmth from each other as their wet bodies began to chill in the cold hallway.
More than anything, it was his scent that had convinced her. He leaned so close, holding her gaze like she was a bird in the eyes of a snake. In that moment, his scent had drifted closer, and she'd smelled the disinfectant that was so familiar on the submarine, that woodsy smell that he somehow seemed to keep…
And that was what had made her fall so deeply into his kiss. She knew that this wasn't some simulation or trick, it was real. It was Law, her Captain…and the person she loved. His gentle aggressiveness in his kiss made her think that he was holding back, but maybe she was just crazy. She certainly wasn't, not after so long of not being able to see his face and touch him.
God, she sounded like some love-sick teenager.
"We have to go." He finally said, and she nodded.
They stood, her with a bit of help from Law, and they started walking towards wherever Law said the crew was waiting. The halls were silent, save for their steps and the drips of water from their clothes.
"I would ask what happened to all the staff, but I have a feeling I know the answer." To that, Law smirked, and Summer copied the expression. She walked funny on her ankle and it gave beneath her. With a cry of pain, she fell to one knee.
"I'll need to give you an examination after we get away from here." Law commented, throwing her arm around his neck and helping her walk.
"Yeah, yeah. Just what you've always wanted, huh?" She joked and he chuckled.
"These weren't the circumstances I'd imagined when I made that a condition of helping you defeat Viper-ya." He thought about telling her about Viper, but decided to wait until they were all safe and sound. He wanted it to be a surprise. Then, the thought of finding that file came to mind.
"Do you have any idea where the records room is? Where do they keep files on everything they research?" Summer scrunched her face up, trying to think.
"I've never been taken anywhere near it that I know of, but I would think that it's near the Doctor main office. He's in charge of the whole operation, and I know that he oversees all the experiments." She said bitterly.
"If you know where it is, take me there." She nodded, but raised an eyebrow.
"Why do we need to go there?" He shook his head.
"It's a long story, but to sum it up, it's the payment for receiving help in finding you." She was still confused, by decided to let it go for now. Trying to think of where the office was, she pointed down a hall.
"That way."
ns 15.158.61.8da2
