Law and the Lawbreakers

Chapter 2

Benn walked up the stairs and Lucky and Yasopp were already on board, the ship sailing away from Flevance.

“Shanks, these kids are both really sick and I don’t think there’s any way to save them,” Benn said.

“Are you sure?” Shanks asked. “Law didn’t look too bad, but his sister…” he trailed off.

“They’ve both got Amber Lead syndrome. Law has about 3 years, maybe more now that he’s left, but I don’t think his sister can last another 6 months.”

“And there’s no cure?”

“It’s essentially heavy metal poisoning. The only cure would be to remove all of the metal from their bodies. Usually, for heavy metal poisoning the treatment is chelation therapy but that’s incredibly dangerous, especially for kids, completely besides the fact that nobody was able to develop a chelator for Amber Lead so I’d have to test every known chelator and if those don’t work I’d have to develop a new chelator which could take years. Law offered to become a guinea pig for a new chelator but he’s just a kid and I don’t think his body could handle it.”

“So the way to cure them would be to get rid of the metal inside their bodies?” Lucky asked.

“Yeah.”

“Any way to get the metal out of their bodies?”

“It’s not like you can use a giant magnet, Lucky.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. There’s a Devil Fruit called the Op Op Fruit and it allows someone to create operating rooms and freely move things around inside them. Would it be possible to use the fruit to remove the metal from them?”

“I suppose it might work. It would certainly be less dangerous than trying 6 different chelators on them.”

“The only problem is that I have no idea where the fruit is.”

“Thanks so much, Lucky,” Benn said, sighing and holding the bridge of his nose.

“I do know that nobody’s eaten it unless they did it within the past few weeks.”

“At least we know that it’s still out there,” Shanks said.

“Doesn’t that mean one of us has to eat it then,” Benn replied.

“Well yeah, but if someone else had eaten it, then we’d be risking the kid’s lives by letting them near them, wouldn’t we? Someone could do a lot of damage with a fruit like that.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I’ll ask around to see if anyone knows who has it. How long did you say Lammy has left?”

“I wouldn’t say more than 6 months, but probably no more than 3 for her to recover fully afterward. Any longer than that and she’s almost sure to have lasting damage.”

“Okay, so we have 3 months to find this fruit. Everybody contact everyone you know to see if anyone knows anything.”

“Got it, Captain,” the crew responded.

“I’m gonna call Whitebeard and Rayleigh, see if they know anything or if they can let me know if they hear anything.”

“Wait until the morning though, boss, you should get some sleep,” Benn said.

Shanks seemed to just realize how late it was. “Okay. Where’s Artemis?”

“She stayed downstairs with Law and Lammy. I asked if she wanted to come with me, but she wanted to stay.”

“Well, as long as she gets some sleep. How was Law?”

“I told him he could stay on the bed next to Lammy’s unless we needed it for someone else. I don’t think he’ll be leaving anytime soon.”

“Well that makes sense, he just went through something traumatic.”

“His parents were doctors at that hospital in town.”

“They were probably killed before the fire was set or he would have asked me to help them.”

“Probably shot by the same people who went after us.”

“That’s got to be hard for any kid to deal with, but then everyone else in town too? I don’t think he’s gonna accept anything less than us getting that fruit.”

“Go get some sleep, Shanks. I’ll keep watch.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we don’t have anyone else in the infirmary, you can go stay there with Artemis if you want.”

“Thanks, Benn.”

“Of course.”

Shanks ran down the stairs, Benn assumed to go see his daughter and get some sleep, and Benn himself climbed up to the crow’s nest to keep watch. He could still see the fires of Flevance from here.