"I guess you're lucky rat number three," Cherry smiled at the remaining pirate. The previous two were still groaning on the floor and trying to look small. "You really are lucky, you know? I'm fairly certain that nothing will come of this."
Funnily enough, her words didn't seem to calm the man. He very much looked like he was caught between fleeing in panic and freezing in terror. She was being completely honest, though!
This curse, by its very nature, wasn't something so easily lifted; at least as far as she could tell. It was a nasty, sticky thing that clung to body and soul with unseen roots.
Her last test, dumping a load of vital energy into lab rat #2, was kind of like putting weeds to the torch. However, weeds wouldn't be weeds if they were that easy to remove.
As for lab rat #3, whilst she had a torch, she did not have a shovel. Uprooting the curse directly would not be a simple matter. Probably.
Cherry grabbed him by the arm and began to drag him towards the cursed chest of gold. He chose that moment to make up his mind and try to flee, but it was much too late for that.
"Let's see…" Cherry set her hand on the stone rim. The mental image of the connection was a little clearer now. "Perhaps it's connected directly to your soul?"
Cherry was hesitant to touch this thing with her soul. Even though she has begun the process of fusing her soul with her powerful body, that process was not yet complete. Her soul was still a fair bit more vulnerable than physical form.
Well, the makers of the curse almost certainly didn't account for this kind of meddling, so it wasn't that great of a risk.
"Here goes nothing," Cherry said, and lab rat #3 braced himself and squeezed his eyes shut.
Cherry nearly recoiled from the sensation. It was so much worse making actual contact with it! Ick, ick, ick!
"Ugh, I might be sick," Cherry swallowed. "How's it going on your end?"
"Um," lab rat #3 gulped. "I think I smelled mildew for a second there?"
Cherry nodded. The cave did indeed smell quite thickly of mildew. So he very briefly regained some sense?
"Damn, I guess I gotta do it again," Cherry scowled. She really didn't want to, but she was probably going to run into those Gorosei bastards again and she needed to be ready to deal with whatever foul bullshit they had going on. If this experiment was showing results, then she had to follow through.
Blegh. Why is it so slimy?! It's not even a tangible thing, this curse, so why does it need a texture at all?!
Oh heavens above, there's an aftertaste too! Why does it taste like rancid corn?!
"I can feel your hand on my arm…" lab rat #3 muttered.
That was progress. Especially since he was still all boney; he shouldn't even have nerves to feel with right now.
She gave another metaphysical heave, and almost a heave of her stomach, and felt something give with a sort of schlorp.
"Uweck!" Cherry dry heaved for real this time.
"My god…" lab rat #3 marveled at his arms and hands, now covered in flesh and skin. "Is this real?"
He reached up and felt his face. "My cheeks are so chubby…"
Then it all melted away, leaving him back in near total sensory deprivation. "No… bring it back…!"
"Tch, should have figured," Cherry grumbled as she recovered from her bout of extreme nausea. "The curse renewed itself. Might be the close proximity to the chest."
"Can you do it again?" lab rat #3 asked with hope in his eyes.
"I could," Cherry said. "But I won't."
A palm strike sent lab rat #3's skull flying off his spine and smashed against the cave wall.
…
"Stay right where you are, if you don't want to be filled with holes!" shouted a hidden stranger.
Luffy stopped on instinct and his friends did the same behind him. He wasn't one to do as he was told, but there was no need to be rude… not yet, anyhow.
A few dozen pirates appeared from behind rocky outcroppings, popped up on the black ship, or came spilling forth from the cavern entrance. Every last one of them wielded a firearm of some sort, cocked and ready to fire.
Right up front and center was a skeletal pirate in a big fancy hat and a certain swagger to his steps. "I know not how you came to find this place, but it'll serve you well as your grave. Unless, of course, you surrender your weapons and point out the one among you who goes by the name of Turner."
Luffy turned to look right at Will, who was still wearing that goofy mask.
"You idiot! Don't just reveal his identity!" Usopp chastised him.
"Oops," Luffy said with a half hearted chuckle. "It's no big deal. We'll just kick these guys' asses."
"Or we would-!" Brook's jovial tone shattered the building tension from behind the other crew. "-If they had any asses! Yohohohoho!"
Standing beside Brook was Carrot, Pudding, and Reiju, doing their best to look intimidating. Luffy thought they looked pretty cool and their timing was great, too! The other crew started to laugh in spite of the counter ambush, apparently not taking them seriously at all.
"Truly despicable, you lot are!" the other captain claimed. "I suppose I cannot complain, we being pirates ourselves. Though, you have aligned yourselves with the son of the man who cursed us, so we have no choice but to take him from you by force if necessary."
"Eh, your dad was a bad guy?" Luffy turned to ask Will.
"My father was a good man! If you were cursed by him, then you must have earned it through your own deeds! Remember that they attacked Port Royal!" Will argued.
"Yes indeed, we did!" the other cut in. "For we are wanted men and very much unwelcome in any civilized port! But we could not leave our accursed gold in unknowing hands, least of all since we needed it ourselves."
"Then why did you kidnap Elizabeth!" Will interjected, becoming more animated. "You could have left her behind after you got what you came for!"
"Ah, but we could not," Fancy-hat sighed wistfully. "She claimed that her name was Turner, you see! We thought that she was the key to end our torment, so we took her! She herself only confessed that she was not truly of your father's blood less than an hour ago!"
That brought Will up short.
"Oh!" Luffy chirped. "This makes things easy then, doesn't it? We have something you want, and you have something we want!"
"You're suggesting a trade, are you?" Fancy-hat asked. "But we already have you dead to rights, don't we? We could just take what we need from you, and give nothing in return, no?"
"You can also have all the treasure on our ship!" Luffy declared confidently.
"What?! No he can't! Luffy, you can't just give all our treasure away, we need that!" Nami decried instantly.
"Oho? Perhaps we can make a deal after all. It'd be harder to stop you from running than it would to stop you from barging in," Fancy-hat mused aloud. Luffy couldn't contest his reasoning. "Alright. We have a deal. Shake on it."
Fancy-hat extended his skeletal hand and Luffy grasped it firmly and gave it a vigorous shake.
Nami looked like she wanted to cry. Luffy thought she was being silly… most of their treasure was in Cherry's pockets, not on their ship.