Chapter 632: Experiments
What the hell were those freaks?!
Unkillable his crew may be, but their efforts to stop the intruders might as well be using kindling to stop a wildfire. Utterly useless.
Granted, he hadn’t sent any of his best men at them yet. In fact, he was holding them back on purpose. If they lifted their curse whilst those weaklings were in pieces... well, that was just a better split for their hoard, wasn’t it?
Still, the intruders were proving to be far more formidable than he gave them credit for initially. A crew of quality over quantity, clearly. It was surprising and very much unwelcome.
Why couldn’t things just go his way?
What next, is Jack going to pop out the moment Barbossa was de-cursed and shoot him in the chest with the one bullet he left him back when they stranded him on that deserted island?
That was a tad too ridiculous, but it was just that kind of a ridiculous day.
"Bo’sun," Barbossa drew the attention of his first mate. "Let’s prepare a welcoming party for our new guests."
"Aye, captain," Bo’sun smirked and started rounding up crewmen for an ambush.
...
"Hey," Cherry called out to her minders.
She only had a few left over now. Barbossa knew that she could overwhelm them, but he didn’t think she’d get far if she did. He was wrong, but he didn’t need to know that.
Regardless, that meant her watchers were only here to sound the alarm if she tried something, not to actually stop her if she did.
They also knew this, judging by the way they flinched when she spoke up.
"I need a volunteer," Cherry said.
They glanced at each other, obviously hoping that one of the other two would agree.
"Do I need to volun-tell one of you to come over here?" Cherry narrowed her eyes dangerously. "I’ll tell you what. The first of you to offer yourself up gets to choose which of the three experiments you’ll undergo."
Their eyes widened and one of them was actually shaking at the knees. Shockingly, it was shaking knees who stiffly marched himself over. Maybe he was braver than he looked, or maybe he was the slowest of the trio and he knew he’d be the one she caught first if they fled.
He tried to stall by introducing himself, "My name’s-"
"I don’t care what your name is. Alright," Cherry smiled. "Would you prefer that I; flood your body with vital energy, attempt to forcibly expel your curse, or see if I can reconstitute you from the chest by myself."
A complete unknown, something that sounds like it could go terribly wrong in ways he couldn’t begin to imagine, or risk an experience he already knew would be unpleasant but may not even occur. Cherry was somewhat curious which one he’d choose.
"Uhhh..." clearly it wasn’t what he was expecting, though, because he hemmed and hawed for a full minute.
"Pick or I’ll pick for you," Cherry sounded patient, but her words made it clear she was losing that patience.
"The th-third one?" he stammered out.
"Ah, I see you’re something of a scientist. It’s wise to start with something you’ve already seen was possible, of course," Cherry knew full well that wasn’t his reasoning. The poor guy was just hoping nothing would come of it.
It was his unlucky day.
Cherry grabbed him by the collarbone and literally dragged him over to the chest. "Let’s see if it’ll work if you’re still in one piece first."
"Huh?" He hadn’t thought that she might grind his bones to dust. That was his fault for having a poor imagination.
Cherry slapped her hand down on the lip of the chest. She closed her eyes and tried to feel
...Mm, there was a connection there. Not one of energy, but rather something more conceptual. This would be much easier if she was in the Immortal Realm; but alas, she’d have to work with what she had right now.
Cherry opened her eyes. "Return."
The pirate flinched, cringing away from her, or at least as far as he could go whilst her fingers were wrapped around his skeleton.
"Hmph, not even a twitch. Did the words matter, then?" Cherry thought out loud. "Or is it just because you’re already present and/or intact?"
"Definitely not because I’m intact!" the pirate hurried to inform her. "It works on captured crew, too!"
"Is that so?" Cherry hummed. "I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?"
Without so much as a warning, Cherry sent the pirate flying straight up through the hole in the cavern roof.
"Return," Cherry tried again.
*crack*
The pirate landed right beside her after a few anticlimactic seconds. Cherry nodded, "The distance isn’t the problem, either. Monk was closer than the chest when he got reconstituted than you were at the peak of that throw."
Lab rat #1 groaned on the floor. He was just being dramatic; Cherry knew they didn’t feel pain.
"You two, start that chant of yours," Cherry ordered.
Lab rats #2 and #3 shared a glance and decided that compliance was the wisest course of action. ""Return to the fold...""
Lab rat #1 didn’t seem concerned until Cherry started muttering the same words that Barbossa had during his own ritual. Then he tried to run. "No!"
He vanished into a cloud of ash. The gold in the chest began to shift and soon, Lab rat #1 came crawling out of it, screaming like it was the day of his birth.
"Interesting," Cherry nodded. "The words did matter, after all."
Cherry wasn’t totally unfamiliar with the use of spoken word in ritual, but in the Myriad Realms it was widely considered too inefficient and lacking in power to be worthwhile to pursue. Using it in conjunction with methods more familiar to her was a fascinating way to achieve the desired effect. Even if she wasn’t totally sure how it all worked just yet.
"Off you go then. It’s time for my second volunteer; I only have a limited time to poke at you guys," Cherry clapped her hands and looked at #2 and #3 eagerly.
They looked to seriously consider just making a run for it, but one decided to give in and take his rightful place as lab rat #2.
"I want the-" he began.
"Uh-uh," Cherry stopped him. "Only the first volunteer got to choose, silly~"
He paled.
"I’ll flip a coin, to be fair," Cherry said. "Heads, you get the vital energy. Tails, you get the de-cursing treatment."
She flicked it up into the air and his eyes trailed after it.
*ting ting ting*
It spun for a second on the ground before firmly landing on heads.
"Haaaah..." Lab rat #2 sagged in relief. Guess he got his preferred option.
Cherry wasn’t sure why; she was pretty sure this would be the worst of the three. Her hopes that it would produce any valuable information were pretty slim, almost to the point that it was probably just torture.
She didn’t bother explaining that to him. The choice was made.
She walked over to him, held out her hand for him to give her his.
He obliged. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!?!"
"As I thought. The vital energy gave your missing senses back to you. I don’t imagine being an undead wretch is a comfortable experience," Cherry nodded.
Lab rat #3 shivered in terror.