Chapter Text
The worst part was that Coby had, at first, just thought it was a monster.
The creature had burst from the tree line like an avalanche, throwing up so much snow in its wake that Coby initially couldn’t tell what it was. He just knew it didn’t exactly feel like a person, and it was heading for the center of the line of crewmen following him.
They were up here scouring the mountainside on Icetip Island, looking for a man who had attacked a number of people back in the main city, Port Harcourt. The Marines had been dispatched because the island was one of the few places where the rich could get Diamond Redfin Sturgeon, which produced the most sought-after caviar on the Grand Line. Since the Celestial Dragons wanted that island to keep producing, the Marines had to stamp out the problem.
The guy had killed seven people and attacked four more over the course of a couple weeks before fleeing to the mountain, so that was what Coby had expected to find up here - a man. A dangerous one, but by all accounts just a guy. No particular training. No devil fruit. Just a lot of anger and strength.
When this presence had broken from the trees and sped toward them, Coby had immediately moved to intercept. This wasn’t a person, every sense told him, so he could take care of this while the men kept looking.
They clashed in a spray of ice crystals, Coby’s kick getting blocked by what he first thought must be the creature’s arm or back. But as the snow fell back to the ground again, he saw it was a forearm.
The creature hadn’t just flinched or reacted on instinct. It had intentionally blocked his attack.
This close, Coby could see the creature for the first time as well. Shaggy fur hung from its form, making it difficult to determine its size. The thing’s face was halfway between a human’s and a dog’s. A snout housing a mouth full of dagger-like teeth was topped by intelligent eyes that narrowed at Coby’s interference. With a sort of barking sound, it swiped at Coby with the opposite hand. Sharp nails tipped each of its human-looking fingers, and Coby pulled back out of range just before they sliced furrows in his face.
“Back off!” Coby shouted to his men. “I’ll take care of this thing! Keep looking for the target!”
He heard a chorus of uncertain agreement from behind him, but he kept focused on the monster. It clearly wanted to get past him toward what it presumed would be easier pickings among the fifteen men he’d brought up here with them. The creature tried to go left, but Coby caught it by one ankle and hauled it back. The muscles in that leg bunched and flexed, which gave Coby just a moment’s warning before it tried to yank him forward into its waiting claws.
Coby released the ankle so the creature went sprawling into the snow again. “We’re going to finish this fight here,” Coby said.
It snarled and launched at him in answer.
The fight was surprisingly evenly matched. The monster wasn’t a very good fighter, but it was determined as anything, and no matter what Coby did, it kept getting up. It survived being thrown into a tree and higher up the mountain, even kicked in the head. Coby landed a hard attack that it blocked, breaking its wrist in the process.
He wasn’t the only one getting in his licks, though Coby was definitely surviving better than his animalistic opponent. He had a few cuts on one arm and along his side, but the creature was wavering, slobber matting the fur around its mouth as it circled hungrily, looking for an opening.
Coby wasn’t sure what this thing was, but he needed to get a solid body shot on it. It was careful to protect its torso. He just wasn’t sure how. Every time he got anywhere close to inside its guard, he was met with a flurry of claws and fangs, too strong and fast to just be a regular monster.
But that gave rise to an idea. Granted, it was what Coby’s friends would undoubtedly call a “stupid” idea, but he needed to cut this fight off.
And anyway, they had great doctors on the ship who could handle it.
The next time they clashed, Coby waited for the tell - watched for the muscles triggering in its neck, pupils dilating slightly, weight shifting to the back foot.
As expected, the creature’s head dove forward, dripping teeth gleaning in the sunlight.
Coby’s left arm came up elbow-first to meet the maw.
The teeth bit deep, with even more force than he had expected. It felt like they stabbed through his armament haki, into muscle and sinew before it felt like grinding into the bone. Biting back any shout - it would be a waste of energy, and he needed his energy - he used the leverage of those embedded teeth to block out the creature’s right arm.
Then his own right arm swung hard for the gut.
He felt the breath expel from the creature’s lungs at the strike, filling the air with the acrid, rotting scent of old meat. The teeth tightened briefly, then slackened as the creature wavered and fell in an unconscious heap.
Which left Coby here by himself, the team still focused on their original mission, to try to figure out what to do with this monster.
Knock knock.
“Sir?”
Coby dragged himself from his bed and over to the door to his room. The sound of the ocean felt overly loud around him - a storm maybe, battering the hull. He pulled the door open and winced in the sudden, lancing light of the passageway beyond.
It took a moment for him to focus on Ensign Green, who was standing at attention and saluted as the door opened.
“Hmm. What is it, Ensign?” Coby asked, trying to straighten up. His whole body protected the movement, and a headache battered the inside of his skull.
“Sir, command has requested a report,” he said, the smart salute fading to a rough approximation of attention. “They requested it by sunup.”
Coby stared blearily at him for a moment. That… was right, wasn’t it. He hadn’t made his post-mission check in. A mistake, an oversight.
Did it really need to be right now?
“At ease,” he said, resisting the urge to lean his forehead against the door frame. He felt entirely too warm, and the deep wounds on his arm ached with a low but fervent insistence. Maybe he should visit the doctors again. They said the wound wasn’t infected when he’d been released from their care two days ago, but maybe something had lain dormant deep in the flesh and taken advantage of time.
Whatever. It wouldn’t do to make this poor ensign regret coming down here. Coby forced a smile and said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it before I go to bed. Thank you for telling me.”
The young man saluted again and beat feet back to whatever he had next on his duty list. Coby turned, looking longingly at his bed, but knew that if he didn’t go do what the bosses wanted now, he was going to fail to do it at all. That was going to get the whole ship in trouble.
He returned to his room long enough to check himself in the mirror, smoothing his hair down to an approximation of “presentable” and pulling on a fresh shirt.
Then it was down to comms to make the call.
It didn’t take very long - Coby thought he spent more time apologizing for the delay in reporting than he did actually making his report. But once he had groveled sufficiently for the guy on the other end to actually take the explanation of his team’s work, Coby was ready for bed once more.
“We weren’t able to find the missing man,” Coby said. “We scoured the hillside. Aside from some wildlife and an animal who attacked us, we didn’t find much in the way of signs of life. The snow was pretty deep in areas, and the man supposedly had very little cold weather survival training. While it would have obviously been better to bring him in to face justice, we were unable to do so, and I suspect he’s probably dead.”
“Ah yes,” the voice on the other end said. “So, the mission was a failure then.”
Coby didn’t know the guy, but had a feeling he was one of those people whose money or connections had gotten him a safe commission far from any actual battles, with a life of bureaucracy to look forward to.
Normally Coby felt kind of bad for guys like that. They were stuck in a job where they never got to do anything for themselves. They were stuck relaying the adventures, exploits and accomplishments of other Marines.
But today, the man was just grating on his nerves.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Coby said, biting off the rest of the words he was tempted to say. Who are you to call all that work a waste? A failure?
“Captain, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that it is a notable honor to be given command of your own ship at your young age,” the man on the other end continued. “We don’t need you to make excuses, we need you to either make an arrest or find the body so we can prove to the people of that island that we have their safety in mind.”
Coby took a slow breath. Maybe there was an infection. Maybe it was messing with his mind, because he was just thinking how nice it would be if the guy was here and had to look him in the eye while saying all this crap.
“The islanders seemed to be plenty appreciative of the work we did to try to bring him in,” Coby said. “Said it was bad luck to leave a sheniu running loose.”
“Sheniu?”
“The creature we captured.”
“Ah. Well of course they said that to your face, but if we reach out and hear that they felt slighted by-”
“Listen,” Coby cut the man off. “They were adults, and could have asked us to try again. We even offered. It wasn’t like we walked around on the mountain for an hour and called it a day. And we took a dangerous monster off the mountain as well. It’s sedated in the hold and we’re planning to let it loose on an uninhabited island where it can’t hurt anyone. Surely that’s more than enough to-”
“Captain!”
Coby snapped his mouth shut.
“It’s not your job to decide what the people we serve are happy with or content with. It’s to do what you were ordered to, as previously mentioned. And you. Did. Not.”
Careful. Careful.
Coby’s hand twisted into a fist.
“This is frankly a surprise, Captain. It’s rare for you to make excuses instead of simply doing what you were asked to do. Was there some problem that made things more difficult?”
It sounded like a sincere question but Coby heard the malice in the tone. The man didn’t think there was anything that could excuse his oversight and was asking out of formality. Sitting in his cushy position, happy to direct people who were putting way more on the line than he himself would ever be asked to. He’d probably never faced a real threat in his entire pampered life.
“Captain?”
The fists at his side squeezed tighter.
“I understand your rebuke, and appreciate you seeking to improve my performance for the next mission,” Coby said carefully, feeling like he had to wring each word from somewhere deep. On the table, the den den mushi watched him with dead eyes. The room smelled like a garden - they must have just been fed before he came in.
“But?” the man on the other end asked.
He hadn’t intended for there to be a “but,” though now that he thought about it, it had been implied by his tone.
“But-” Coby said, trying to think how to conclude this so he could get back to bed. He needed to get healthy again, with his crew. He was useless right now. “-I will reflect further on it and select a suitable path forward once I have fully recovered from my wounds.”
“Ah yes. You were injured, weren’t you?” The voice did not sound particularly bothered. “Then yes, heal up. It wouldn’t do for the crew to be caring for their captain on the battlefield rather than the other way around. But next time, don’t leave off making your report for so long, understood? Injury or no.”
“Understood,” Coby managed. Any more than that and he felt like something vile would burst from his throat.
“Dismissed.”
As the call ended, Coby forced himself to relax - unclenching his jaw, lowering his shoulders, unballing his fists. He grabbed the den den mushi and set it back in its nest.
But when his hands released it, Coby noted spots of blood along its sides.
Worried, he pulled his handkerchief out and dabbed at the blood, but it revealed no wound underneath. The creature didn’t seem injured at all. Confused, he looked at his hands.
Eight crimson crescents wept up at him.
“The bite seems to be healing cleanly,” the doctor said, standing up from the chair at Coby’s bedside. “But you’re still running a fever. I’m going to order a few tests. It’s unusual for you not to bounce back more quickly.”
Coby stared down at the floor. His head hurt, his body ached and it was way too warm in the room, but every time he tried to open the window, someone would come in and close it and chide him for maybe making his health worse. On the ship he could pull rank, but here at HQ, he wasn’t sure who might have sent them, and felt too unfocused to chance it.
“When will you know?” he asked.
“Give me two days,” he said. “Though if we get an answer from the first couple tests it may be sooner.”
Two days seemed like an incredibly long time, but what could he do? Demanding to know why he hadn’t just run the tests before wouldn’t get him faster answers.
Tiredly, he nodded.
A knock at the door drew Coby over. He hesitated just before his hand wrapped around the doorknob. Unless this was a doctor come with a cure, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see anyone right now.
He pulled the door open and found Tashigi on the other hand, a covered tray in her hands.
“You missed breakfast,” she said by way of a greeting. As he stepped back to let her into the room, she added, “And lunch. And dinner yesterday.”
“I guess I don’t have much of an appetite,” Coby said. Truth was, nothing on the menu had sounded appealing. His stomach seemed to be struggling in tandem with his fever, which refused to go down.
She nodded, setting the tray down. “I brought bland stuff, so hopefully even if you’re not excited about it, it’ll at least help you keep your energy up.”
“Thanks,” he said. He could smell the chicken soup even through the lid. His stomach twisted in protest.
He thought once she put the tray down, she would leave. After all, he might be sick. And with many illnesses, there was a chance that he might give them to other people. Couldn’t have that. Bad enough to have one Marine down. If he was responsible for taking out a bunch of the corps just because some people were foolish enough to visit him…
But she dithered, frowning down at the tray, then straightening it so none of the corners was extending over the edge. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” she asked.
“I don’t want to keep you from your work,” Coby said, one foot keeping the door open so she could see the bright hallway. An escape from this cave of a room. She really needed to get going. No point in staying here.
Still, she hesitated. “I don’t have anything much going on,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Just as bad as last time you stopped by,” he snapped, before snapping his mouth shut.
Where had that come from?
She must have thought it too, her head turning around to stare at him in surprise for a few seconds. Then she smiled and shook her head.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t bother someone who needs their rest. But call me if you need me.”
“Yeah,” he said as she walked past him, and he tried to put on a smile even if it didn’t feel quite right. “Yeah, I will.”
Coby was not feeling well enough for Helmeppo’s attitude today.
He’d now been off active duty for nearly three weeks as the doctors continued increasingly frantic efforts to get to the bottom of whatever was making him sick. He supposed he should be grateful that at least he didn’t seem to be getting much worse. The fever was holding steady despite the doctors plying him with a variety of medications. He’d tried sleeping to recuperate, then exercising when that hadn’t helped.
Interestingly enough, the first time he’d felt energized since falling sick was while he was out on the practice yard, laying into a training dummy with all the pent up energy that his bed rest had sown in him. His muscles ached with the effort, but it was a good ache, and the air that rasped down his throat felt much fresher than the stuff in his room. He felt good.
So good that he found himself getting carried away.
He didn’t think anything of it when the first training dummy flew into pieces. It happened sometimes. They were sturdy, but meant to last a few days or weeks at the best of times.
The second time he turned one into kindling, he had a moment’s pause. Had he lost some of his sense of restraint since getting sick? Or maybe he’d just been so repressed that he needed to get it out?
By the time a third of them had been reduced to splinters, he wondered if maybe the fever was somehow making him stronger?
“Are you supposed to be out of bed?”
Coby turned, seeing the exact person he knew it would be. He’d know that voice anywhere. It had been with him since nearly the beginning of what he considered his “real” life.
“The doctor recommended bed rest, but didn’t order it,” he said, feeling uncomfortably defensive. “And I’ve been stuck in there for weeks. I needed some fresh air.”
“And violence,” Helmeppo said, stopping by the training dummy Coby had just eviscerated and stirring the little pile of debris with a toe. “Feeling any better?”
“A little, yes,” Coby lied. The headache, the body aches, those were as present as ever. The exercise was helping his muscles a bit, and his mental state, but the underlying problem? No.
Helmeppo, unsurprisingly looked suspicious. “So the red face, that’s just from bullying the training equipment? It’s not because you’ve made the fever worse?” He crossed his arms, looking skeptically at his captain.
And I am his captain! Why does he get to talk like this to me?
The thought felt like it had loomed out of some unseen corner of his mind, whispered by someone else. He felt startled by the suddenness and moreover the venom of it.
“What did you want?” Coby asked, wincing as he realized the tone of that thought had leaked into his words.
If Helmeppo registered that fact, he didn’t make a spectacle out of it. Leaving the mess, he turned back toward Coby and said, “I wanted to check in on you. I hear you’re barely eating. I’ve seen you in the mess hall plenty of times over the past few years, so I know that’s not normal.”
“People eat less when they’re sick,” Coby said. “So if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish this set before someone follows you over here and shoves me back in my room.”
“Is it just what they’re offering?” Helmeppo asked, ignoring the polite dismissal. “I never knew you to be all that picky, but if there’s something in particular that you have an appetite for-”
“There’s nothing, I’m just not hungry.”
“You know what that pirate would tell you, right?”
“Huh?”
“Luffy. You know. The one you’re obsessed with.” Helmeppo looked around the training grounds but, maddeningly, kept talking. “He’d probably tell you to eat some meat.”
Coby scowled at the word obsessed. “How would you know?”
“We both know Garp,” Helmeppo pointed out. “And it’s what he’d say. And that kid seems to take after Garp more than either of them would admit.”
Coby bit back another snappy comeback. He shouldn’t be antagonizing his friends, even if they were antagonizing him. And anyway… meat actually did sound kinda good. Certainly better than the porridge and soup and mush that they’d been making for him lately.
“Well, talk to the staff in the mess about it, not me,” Coby said instead.
“Maybe I will.” Somehow, there was a small smile on Helmeppo’s face. Did he find this funny?
“Do what you want,” Coby said, turning to look for the next training dummy.
He’d started toward it when he heard Helmeppo speak up again behind him.
“We need you back, you know,” he said. “And at 100 percent.”
Coby turned back. Under normal circumstances he’d take that in the spirit in which he thought Helmeppo meant it - and despite how sarcastic his friend could be, he seemed sincere. But maybe it was all the being cooped up, or maybe the fever was messing with things. But Coby muttered, “You all just need me there to win the fights for you.”
He’d known he was going to say those words, but the moment they dropped between the two men, it was like his mind finally caught up to what they actually meant. He felt his face somehow become even warmer.
“Ah! I’m sorry,” Coby hastened to say. “I don’t know why I said that.”
Helemppo studied him for a few seconds, then shrugged. “It’s fine,” he said. “Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. I hope you feel better soon.”
“Thanks.”
Helmeppo turned and walked back the way he’d come from, leaving Coby alone on the training field.
There were a number of Marines whose visits while he was sick made plenty of sense. Pretty much everyone from his ship, of course. He was their commanding officer, they were required to care. But there were folks from elsewhere in the ranks too - marines he’d worked with multiple times who’d heard he was under the weather and wanted to check in, or gloat, or something.
This latest knock, a little quieter than what he was used to from the familiar faces around here, had drawn him out of bed. He pulled it open, expecting to see some doctor or something back there, and preparing a defiant expression. They’d already said they were done for today, so unless this was them with a cure-
“Drake,” Coby said, the ire startled out of him.
He wasn’t expecting Drake. Having been the man’s point of contact for a while, it had been disconcerting not to know his official status in the fallout from Luffy’s obliteration of the Beast Pirates. Coby had hoped he would be able to come safely back to them, but hadn’t really known.
He straightened up, aware that he was wearing the clothes he’d put on yesterday. He’d slept in them. Several times. At least one overnight and two naps.
“Is this a bad time?” Drake asked, taking in Coby’s rumpled state and the less-than-marine-regulation state of his room through the open door.
Coby wanted to say no. He didn’t really feel like entertaining right now. The way he’d snapped at Helmeppo yesterday was still chasing him around, and he knew his treatment of the doctors and Tashigi and the others who had come to visit him hadn’t been any better.
But he wasn’t sure when Drake had gotten to HQ, nevermind how long he might be here. And it felt like a while since he’d last spoken to him.
Honestly, it was good to see him.
“No, come in,” Coby said, inviting Drake in, then self-consciously hurrying further into the space to tidy a little bit, clearing some papers off the chair and halfheartedly making the bed.
Drake took the newly cleared chair and sat down, watching him work for a little bit. Coby felt increasingly awkward trying to pick up with a guest in the room, and eventually gave up and sat on the edge of his bed, giving Drake a sickly smile.
“So…” Drake started. He looked as uncomfortable with the strange display as Coby had felt. “I heard you’ve been sick. So I brought something.”
For the first time, Coby realized that Drake had a small paper bag in one hand, which he now held out. As Coby took it, he was equally surprised to realize he could smell food from it.
Moreover, it smelled good.
“What is it?” he asked, not able to stop himself from snatching the package from Drake’s hands. The other man smiled awkwardly.
“Just a burger and some fries,” Drake said, handing it over. “One of the guys from my ship made it. He swears his food’ll get a sick person on their feet faster than the regular mess hall stuff.”
“From the smell, he might be right,” Coby admitted, pulling the bag open.
The food was loosely folded in a casing of paper, but the steam and smell hit him like a wall and he became aware of just how little he’d been eating lately. He tried to retain some sense of decorum, but once he had the burger out of the bag and the wrapper, he was done waiting and took a huge bite.
Yeah, his nose hadn’t been wrong. This tasted even better than it smelled. The burger was pretty close to rare, one of the two ways most ship’s cooks managed to finish them. They would either heat it just long enough to technically be able to say it was “cooked” or leave it on long enough to make sure every last potential bacteria (as well as every scrap of flavor) was cooked out.
A second massive bite followed the first.
“Hey, Coby, maybe-”
He sensed something coming at him from the left and turned sharply toward it, only resisting the urge to smack at whatever it was because he wanted to keep both hands on the meal.
Drake froze where he’d been reaching out to… what? Maybe just try to urge Coby to slow down a little bit? Coby’s attention dropped back to the burger, which was nearly half gone in just those two bites. His mouth was full. Now that he’d noticed the fact, it felt awkward. Drake had to be judging him. He’d been eating like an animal, and had almost… almost…
He didn’t know.
Drake’s eyes were watching Coby warily, like the captain was just a wild animal that Drake was afraid of triggering.
Embarrassed at whatever that was he’d almost just done, Coby looked away from Drake and set about chewing the food in his mouth.
I really need to get back out around people. I’m forgetting how to act.
“So, I can bring you another one if you want,” Drake said. Coby resolutely looked toward the wall, staring emptily at the flat, off-white paint.
Pushing through Coby’s silence, Drake added, “And hey, if you’re not actually confined here, want to spar sometime? The fresh air might be good, and it’s not great to be cooped up too long. Does bad things to the muscles.”
Coby was finally able to swallow. Resisting the urge to cram the rest of the food into his mouth (it really DID taste amazing), he said, “I don’t know if they’d be keen on that.”
“Why not?”
Coby chanced a glance over. Drake’s expression was full of concern. Why was he worried? Coby was just his contact. Just some guy on the other end of the radio. It wasn’t even like Tashigi, who was such a bleeding heart that she’d worry about any sick marine, or Helmeppo, who was going to be worse off if Coby’s ship got handed to some other captain.
“Don’t want the doctors getting you in trouble with the higher ups as well,” Coby said. He took another bite of the burger, being very careful to make it a more human-sized one this time. “Or to shout at me for not listening to them.”
Drake’s look grew more troubled. “Have they been doing that?”
“Shouldn’t they?” he asked bitterly around the food.
“No. You’re sick, not insubordinate,” Drake said.
He wanted to thank the other man. That was exactly how he felt. What he wanted someone to say.
But the part of him that had felt so trapped lately looked at Drake, who could just leave whenever he wanted to, and flared up.
“That doesn’t matter,” Coby said, collaring that dark feeling and trying to tie it down. It wouldn’t work for long. He needed to be alone.
Eyes averted, he added, “You should go. Thanks for the food. But you should get out.”
Drake’s frown deepened. “Did I say some-”
“I said get out!“ Coby repeated, the leash slipping free. He saw the surprise in Drake’s face as he stood up, backed off. It was nice.
It wasn’t enough.
He dropped the food on the bed and lurched to his feet. Drake wavering, on the brink of running.
Coby lunged.
Drake fled.
Coby grinned for a few seconds. Then the smile fell. He dropped back onto the bed. Dropped his head into his hands.
And wondered what was wrong with him.
It had been a month and Coby felt pretty sure the doctors on this base were useless.
They had talked about sending him off somewhere, some convalescence center. Quiet, safe, sunny, full of doctors and eyes and lists of who comes and goes. Captain Coby, a number for their list, Hero of the Maines breaking more new ground. Some new disease that no medicine could treat. He wondered who they’d name it after. Certainly not him.
Though if they did… heh. How ignoble. After not wanting that iron moniker hung around his neck, for the history books to record that a hero was taken down by some overgrown cold.
A lasting legacy indeed.
At least they were bringing him palatable food again - steak (rare), burgers (rare) no chicken to speak of (because they insisted on cooking it through, until it was nothing but dry and tasteless tatters). He supposed it was a bribe to stay pliant for their tests. He wondered who’d told him, but he supposed he should be grateful.
After all, while he’d realized it for a while, that night Drake came to visit had shown him just how bad things had become. Even if they let him go out and pretend to be normal, there was something wrong beyond the fever, beyond the headache and muscle fatigue.
There was something lurking in him, something dark. It was lashing out, verbally at first. But now it was getting to be more visceral.
He’d wanted to chase Drake. See him run. See him fear.
Coby needed to figure this out, and he’d need help to do it.
So he kept subjecting himself to their prodding and questions and the endless, endless blood they drained from him for tests upon tests, to rerun tests, to send to other places for them to run tests.
He wasn’t feeling much like a protector of justice and the weak. He was feeling like some lab animal. Even the people who were supposed to care about him were walking on eggshells, or maybe just avoiding him lest they get sick too and be reduced to this. It was all the fault of that creature - that sheniu, or whatever the people had called it.
And here, he paused.
Sheniu. It had a name. The Marines had loosed it on an uninhabited island, but the villagers had a term for the creature. So that meant they had seen it before. And since they hadn’t asked the Marines to clear out any others, that meant it wasn’t just something that lived in large numbers up on the mountain, out in the snow.
But then, what was it? Some rarity? Some singular danger?
Did they know something the doctors didn’t?
It took another three days to get ahold of someone on the island. He wasn’t allowed too much unsupervised time outside his room now. The doctors, he was starting to suspect, thought he might be a danger to others. He thought he certainly was. So he had to request contact with the island, then wait for fools with too much time on their hands and no real obligations to reach out and talk to someone, set up a time.
The ensign who delivered the den den mushi to his room handed it over, saluted and fled.
Good.
His contact was the mayor of Port Harcourt. From what he’d been told, she’d held the position unopposed for at least twenty years. Sounded like a tyrant.
She picked up on the third ring with a brisk, “Layanla. Who is this?”
He fought down the urge to snap at her for being so curt with an officer of the Marines, instead saying, “Captain Coby. I understand you were told to expect my call?”
“I was.”
Nothing more than that. Apparently this was going to be on him to carry the conversation.
Forcing his voice to the formal, polite tones that normally came so easy when he was officially dealing with members of the public, Coby said, “When my men and I were there a few weeks ago, we fought a creature up in the mountains. Your people called it a sheniu.”
Silence reigned on the other end. How much of this did he need to spell out for this woman?
“When we fought, it bit me,” he added. “And since then, I’ve been ill. I wondered if there might be something in its bite that can affect the people it attacks?”
“There is.”
When she didn’t say anything more, he was almost ready to just hang up on her. She was just toying with him, and he-
He needed her help.
“Can you please tell me about it?” he asked.
He heard a creak from the other end of the line. “You’re not just experiencing a little sickness, are you?” she asked. “Things have changed. Your tastes. Your impulse control. The way you interact with everyone around you. You crave violence. Blood.”
“Yes,” Coby replied, leaning toward the snail as though the words would come faster through proximity. “All of that. What is it?”
“That is what happens when one is bitten by a sheniu. The creature doesn’t reproduce like most creatures do. Instead, it passes from creature to creature through contact. Usually a bite, but sometimes just from accidentally coming into contact with remains.”
“So this happens a lot?” he asked.
“Not so much lately,” she said.
That was promising. “So how did you cure them?”
“We didn’t, mostly.”
It was like being dropped from a sunny deck into the icy sea. “Then how-”
“You’ve felt it yourself, right?” she asked. “It’s deadly. It’s not just a question of how skilled it is, it’s a question of relentlessness. Once a creature has fully given over to the sheniu, it’s only thinking about killing and eating. The only way to do anything about it without losing too many of our own is to shoot it before it can attack anyone. Heap stones over the corpse and hope nothing uncovers it.”
“So the only answer is death?” Coby asked, the chill from before spreading from his core.
This was really it? He’d been idiot enough to get bit by some random monster on some random island, and boom, dead before twenty five? He’d either need someone to put him down, or he’d end up taking other people with him?
“It may not be the only answer, but it is the most reliable one,” she replied.
“You could have led with that,” he snarled.
“I could haven,” she agreed. “But what I’ve heard is only a rumor. No one wants to get close enough to make sure. As I said, killing is the most reliable way to stop the monster. So it is probably best, for all involved, that you tie a cannonball to your ankle and let the sea take care of things before your friends have to and you run the risk of killing them as well - one way or the other.”
“You monster!” he shouted. “I asked you for help, and this is what you tell me instead? To kill myself? When there’s another answer, an answer you know?”
Her silence spoke volumes.
Struggling to ignore his own rage, he tried to think why. Certainly, if there was an answer but they didn’t have a safe way of dealing with people who were sick without risking themselves, he could understand them going with that. But why would they not want to tell him, and get it cured rather than risk him spreading the infection?
Unless…
“It’s only on your island, isn’t it?”
On the other end, she sighed.
“It is,” he continued, wishing he could reach through and shake this woman. “And you’re afraid that if you tell me how to cure myself, I’ll come back and let the infection loose in Port Harcourt.”
“I am.”
She wasn’t supposed to admit it.
“Well, now that I know you have two choices,” he said. “I come back to your island to cure myself. Or I come back and become a time bomb for your entire island. If you couldn’t handle one of your own, do you think you can handle an infected Marine?”
“I didn’t expect a Marine to make such threats to a civilian. I gave you my best advice.”
“You gave me-”
He covered his own mouth with a hand. He couldn’t let that thought out. I can’t let this thing win.
But she’s being so-
This is not me.
“Please.”
“What?” she asked sharply.
“Please. It hasn’t won yet. There’s a chance. And my friends… they’re strong. If I get out of hand, they will be able to stop me. I won’t be a problem for your people. I swear. I swear on my honor. And if there’s a way for us to help you be prepared for the next of your people who fall victim to this, we’ll do it.”
Another silence, then another sigh. “You’ve certainly lasted longer than anyone I’ve heard of,” she said. “You still somewhat have your reason. And if I’m being honest, we can’t stop you from coming and making good on that threat.”
“I… please forget I said that.”
“I can’t,” she said. “Because the infected part of you won’t forget it. But you’re right. Better that you come with friends who can contain you than later, once you’ve completely lost yourself to the creature.”
“I’m sorry.”
A slight, rough sound this time. Was she … chuckling?
“Very well. These are old tales. Like I mentioned, we don’t often have a chance to do more than stop the infected, for everyone’s good. But it’s said that the cure is in the uppermost hot springs, near the top of the tallest mountain on Icetip Island. You must walk through the spring to the island in the center, on your own two feet, no matter what you encounter there. Once you reach the island there, you will find your cure.”
“And that’s all there is to it?”
“Allegedly. But if you think that’s simple, you haven’t climbed Icetip before.”
He wanted to snap at her for that, but clamped his teeth together until the urge loosened. “Thank you,” he said.
“Hurry,” she replied. “And don’t make me regret telling you.”