Chapter Text
It takes a moment for his ears to stop ringing.
It takes another longer, more agonized moment for Bogard to register that what he’s hearing isn’t the aftereffect of shock rattling through his skull. It’s the rush of water, torrential and deafening. It flows into the broken belly of the ship like a geyser. Bogard blinks rapidly past the drips of seawater clouding his vision.
The ship has caved in two. Maybe more. Bogard can’t tell. It’s been cracked open like an egg, jagged wood and metal everywhere. Seas, did that one bomb really do so much damage?
He can worry about that later. The water is at his waist, with various pieces of debris floating around. He needs to get out of this maze and get to the surface before he's trapped underwater. Except—a sharp spasm from his leg has him gritting his teeth. He ducks as much as he can to peer in the murky seawater to see what’s pinning him.
Oh, a support beam. Wonderful.
He shoves at it, flailing around in the water as he tries to get enough power to move the heavy wood. But the wood is heavy, and his thick officers coat seems to weigh so much more now that the sea has a hold of it. Fuck.
He grabs for his katana. It won’t be enough to chop through the wood, but if leveraged in the right area, the sword could shift the weight enough for him to scrape his leg out. He feels along the beam, trying to find the spot so he doesn’t hurt himself.
Over the rush of sea and roar of adrenaline, he hears a small cough.
Bogard whips around and spots a second figure. “Koby!”
The cadet is crumpled on the side of what used to be the stairs to the galley. The cold seawater rushing over him must have jarred him out of unconsciousness. Koby blinks, taking a moment to register where he is. His eyes widen when they take in the broken ship, and when they lock on Bogard.
“Koby,” Bogard prompts again, firmer this time. Koby scrambles up, quickly navigating the mess of debris to wade over to him.
One lens of Koby’s glasses is shattered, blood gushing down the side of his face. A thrill of panic lances down Bogard’s spine. He does not have time to deal with it.
“Sir,” Koby starts, voice high and face pale. “Caraway—”
“Stop.” Bogard swiftly cuts him off. The water is at his sternum now. They don’t have time to talk about what just happened. “Do you feel this lip? We’re going to push together to get me out.”
Koby nods frantically, face closing off into determination to do what he’s told. He slips under the water to get a good grip on the beam. Bogard swallows down the panic of watching his head slip under the dark water.
It takes a few agonizing tries, but Bogard feels his leg finally get loose enough to pull free. He manages it just as the water crests over Bogard’s chin. He hears the ship groan, guttural and deep. Bogard looks up, and has a split second of watching what was once the rest of the floor of Garp’s office cave in.
Bogard ducks under the water just as more wood crashes around him in the water. His lungs are already burning, but the adrenaline in him makes his thought process sharp. His leg is screaming at him, but he manages to kick upward toward the surface.
He gasps harshly when he breaks the surface. It’s just after sunset, so the sea around them is alight red and orange with the fading sun. Bogard squints at the wreckage. The sound of fighting is still in the air—men’s screams and gunshots—but he can’t tell from where.
The ship is in pieces.
Three, specifically. All three are blown around a perimeter of where the bomb went off. There had to have been more than one for the force to be that strong. They had to be planted in specific areas.
“Shit,” he mutters.
It’s a good thing they were by an island. The ship is mostly caught on the reef, resting its bones against the sandy shoals as the tide comes in. But that still doesn’t mean that there won’t be casualties. The ship was full of worthy officers, a goddamn vice admiral's ship, and every person on board had earned a spot there—
Bogard looks around, registering for the first time that he’s alone.
“Shit!” he says again. He tears off the latch of his officer's coat and dives back under the waves.
It takes a few heartstopping moments, but he finds Koby’s body in the wreckage. The kid doesn’t respond when he crests the surface, head unconsciously lolling back. He can’t do anything about it here, so Bogard starts swimming toward the beach. It’s shallow water, so the swim isn’t hard—or at least it wouldn’t be, if he wasn’t most certainly swimming on a broken leg.
Winded from the swim and seeping adrenaline, Bogard all but crawls them onto the beach. His attention is instantly on Koby, who (miraculously) hasn’t lost his glasses, but also isn’t breathing.
Bogard shuts his brain off, letting his manic energy carry him through the motions of compressions. Koby’s chest rises, convulses; there’s a gurgling from his throat, and Bogard flips him seconds before he vomits up black seawater.
Koby heaves and coughs and gags until there’s nothing left for him to give. He collapses onto his side with a groan, boneless and totally spent. His hair is pressed flat to his face with the water, one side tinting dark from the open wound.
“Only you would get blunt force trauma and almost drown at the same time,” Bogard mutters, so low that he doubts the kid can hear him. He shucks his wet jacket and rips apart the sleeve. It’s a rudimentary bandage, but it’s not like they have anything else.
He nudges Koby into a sitting position and ties the fabric around his head in a makeshift headband. As he does, Koby keeps glancing anxiously back at the ocean, the now vanished sun leaving the pieces of their ship in shadow.
“Th-that bomb,” Koby says, “I think there was more than one.”
Bogard snorts. “Obviously. Just one won’t do that kind of damage.” Koby looks down. “Are you hurt anywhere else besides your head?”
“No,” Koby mutters, “You took most of the force.”
“Good.” Bogard doesn’t want to make a habit out of jumping in front of bombs, but he’d do it again if someone threw another at one of his boys. He grits his teeth as he shifts in the sand. His leg is on fire from the shin down.
Koby must notice his hesitation. “Sir, your leg—”
“Fractured, at least. Maybe broken, but I still think I can move it around. It’s not the worst I’ve ever dealt with,” he adds, mainly because of the way Koby’s face pinches. He doesn’t know what’s going through the kid’s head right now, but he can’t exactly start bawling on the middle of a beach while their ship burns in the sea.
He manages to stand, but not without effort. His leg is definitely broken, but the break isn't bad enough that he can’t put weight on it. A good thing, too, since it’s getting dark.
The jungle in front of them doesn’t seem particularly friendly, but it’s not like they have a choice.
“We need to get moving.”
“Sh-shouldn’t we try to find the others?”
“No,” Bogard says. “Not right now.” He casts wary gaze out onto the bay. Their ship is now no more than a husk in the dark. “We’re probably not the only ones who swam to shore. They’ll be sweeping the beaches if they’re expecting survivors.”
“Oh.” Koby’s eyes widen at the implications. “R-right.” He scrambles to his feet, awkwardly trying to rid himself of the sand that’s clinging to his cadet uniform. It’s a mess. Bogard can't imagine that he looks any better.
Koby falls into an easy step with him, supporting his weight. It’s a little awkward because of the height difference, but together they manage to scrape their way up the beach. Just before they reach the trees, Bogard squints back out onto the water.
How many cadets survived from that wreck? How many officers? Did Garp? Helmeppo? Where are they now? Bogard has no way to contact them, no way to regroup; his best bet is to wait until morning and hope that they don’t run into any pirates until then.
Seas. This is going to be a long night.
It doesn’t take long before Koby starts panicking.
To his credit, the kid has gotten a lot better about keeping his emotions in check. Even now, really the only way Bogard knows Koby is upset is because he’s been around the kid for so long and can recognize the little things.
It’s in the way Koby’s hands tremble; in the way his eyes dart around too quickly, how his answers are short and stuttered. He hasn’t started crying (yet), so that’s good at least.
And, Bogard gets it. He remembers being a green cadet thrust into a life or death situation due to pirates. Such is the life of a Marine.
It feels a little heartless, ordering the kid around when he’s obviously teetering close to a breakdown, but he can’t be Koby’s teacher right now. Bogard has to be Koby’s commanding officer. Garp would do the same thing. This isn’t a drill; this is survival.
They find a river, which leads them to a small waterfall with a cave hidden behind it. Stepping over the slick rock isn’t easy, but it’s worth the shelter and protection instead of being out in the open. Koby keeps himself busy, quickly gathering the materials to make a small fire. It gives them light, and, more importantly, heat.
As the heat seeps into him and the adrenaline drains out, Bogard has a clearer picture of the situation. They're alone; alone and unarmed. His katana is lost to the wreckage, and, thanks to that fight, the pistol on his hip only has one bullet left.
Also, everything hurts. His eardrums feel shattered, his leg is on fire, and he probably fractured a rib somewhere between that bomb and the ship collapsing. He’s going to take one hell of a nap after this.
Koby doesn’t look much better. His hair is a rats nest, his glasses are ruined, and his uniform is yellowing with muck and blood. He’s staring deeply into the fire with a scowl etched into his face. Even from here, Bogard can see the shivers that are racking the kid’s small frame. Damn. He should have tried to keep his coat.
He peels off his suit jacket and lays it flat on the dirt. It’s still damp, but it’ll dry soon enough. The last thing he needs is Koby catching pneumonia on top of a head injury.
“What are the essentials, cadet?”
Koby blinks, looking startled at being addressed. “Sir?”
“The essentials for survival,” Bogard prompts. He rolls up his one good sleeve to his forearm to match the ripped one. “Name them.”
Koby uncurls a little, holding up one hand to list off fingers as he speaks. “Food, water, shelter, a map or compass, extra clothing, first aid, and fire starters.”
Bogard nods. Good to know that Lieutenant Stirling isn’t teaching the cadets bullshit. “And what do we have?”
“Water,” Koby says slowly, looking back at the waterfall, “but it’ll have to be distilled. Shelter, at least for right now. We don’t have a map or fire starters—”
“We’ll have the sun in the morning,” Bogard points out. “And you started the fire just fine.”
Koby hums, rubbing his hands up and down his bare arms. “I’m pretty good at fishing.”
Bogard offers him a quick upturn of his mouth. “See? We’ll be fine.”
“I’m not worried about us .” Koby bites his lip, his teeth leaving a white indent where they dig into pink flesh. “Everyone else—”
“Has the same training as you. Do you think this is the first time Garp’s ever got stranded in a jungle?”
That gets a tiny, shy smile for his trouble. “No?”
“No,” Bogard says firmly. “This is actually pretty tame for the troubling situations we’ve gotten in.”
This is usually the part where Koby gets all starry eyed and trip over himself asking for the story. Bogard typically has to set him back on track with whatever task he’s doing, but right now, he’d throw the kid a bone.
But Koby doesn’t ask. The humor is gone from his face, staring into the fire again with that frown. Bogard’s stomach sinks.
“You should sleep,” he says instead. “I can take first watch.”
“Sir, let me,” Koby insists. “You’re more hurt than I am.” Bogard seriously doubts that considering the blood loss, but then Koby looks away, continuing, “I…don’t think I can sleep anyway.”
Bogard shrugs, not willing to fight the kid on this. They both can’t be exhausted. He leans back against the stone of the cave and closes his eyes. He hopes wherever the others are, they’re doing okay.
Bogard is abruptly jerked from sleep by a rough shake.
“Sir, sir wake up, we have to hurry, they’re outside—”
Bogard jerks up into a sitting position. He goes from drowsy to awake in .03 seconds. Koby is already pulling him to his feet. Bogard bites down on a groan, his muscles stiff and joints aching. And, a sharp pain. Oh right. Broken leg.
“—should be around here,” a voice sounds. Bogard stomach flips. He can hear footsteps now, heavy and uncaring, and they sound nearby. They can’t leave the cave through the front. He jerks his chin toward deeper into the cave; if they’re lucky, they’ll be a back exit.
They hobble quickly and quietly. The cave narrows to the point where Bogard has to duck, but a sliver of daylight though a mossy overgrowth means that they’ll make it out of this. They slip out of the cave through a narrow passage—so narrow that they have to turn sideways to get through. Bogard loses a few buttons on his shirt. At this point, maintaining his suit is a lost cause.
They crouch low on top of the rock formation, straining to hear over the sound of the waterfall. Bogard can’t see where their attackers are, but he hears when they start talking.
“A few of ‘em were here,” that same voice says. The fire and his jacket, Bogard thinks. Fuck. “No tellin’ who, though.”
A second voice hums. “They can’t have gotten far. Probably headed north toward the others.”
Others? That had to be Garp. Unless there was more than one pirate crew on this island?
“Should be easy to track,” the second voice goes on. “They all follow the same directions. It’s like they learned from the same book.”
“That’s because they do, idiot.” There’s a sound of a skin-on-skin smack. “C’mon, I don’t want to waste another day. Let’s just find that pink-haired brat and get Caraway to stop breathin’ down our necks.”
At his side, Koby stiffens. He presses his fist tightly over his mouth, his face pale.
The second man chuckles. “If I see him I’ll shoot him.”
“Caraway wants him alive.”
“You can survive a well-placed bullet hole!” the second one says, and this time whines out an ouch when he gets hit.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Koby shift, drawing up onto his knees. Quick as a flash, Bogard seizes him by the arm, dragging him back down with a warning glare.
What he’s not expecting is for Koby to glare right back.
Seas, they don’t have time for this—not when the enemy is below them, likely armed. Bogard releases Koby, snags a stone from the ground, and throws it as hard as he can to the left. The resounding crash through the trees is enough to catch the attention of the pirates and send them running after it.
Taking their chance, Bogard and Koby hobble-run in the opposite direction. They make it about half a mile before it feels safe enough to stop. Even with Koby’s help, Bogard’s leg is on fire. He can’t take much more of this gallivanting through the jungle. They need to find the others. They need a plan .
He leans his weight against a tree, thinking through the information gleaned from that conversation.
“They’re tracking us.”
“No,” Koby says bitterly. “They’re tracking me . I-I should just give myself up now and—”
“And you’d die,” Bogard cuts him off. “Tell me cadet, what would that accomplish?”
“It could save the others!” Koby throws his hands up in the air. “We know what Caraway wants. It’s me. Not everyone else.”
Bogard eyes the kid carefully. He’s turning red from the heat of the morning and the emotional exertion as he works himself up. “Caraway blew up our ship. Do you really think he’d stop at just you?”
It’s clear that Koby doesn’t. He shuts his mouth and crosses his arms, angrily glaring at the ground.
“We don’t need to act rashly right now, even if you think it’ll help the others,” Bogard explains lowly. “These aren’t normal pirates. They’re more sophisticated. They know how we’ve been trained and are anticipating that. We have to surprise them with whatever we do next, otherwise we’ll never get the upper hand.”
“Okaaay,” Koby says slowly. “So we attack first?”
Bogard purses his lips. One bullet in his pistol wouldn’t be enough. “Even if we could physically take them on, we don’t have enough weapons. If this is their base, they’ve gotta have a cache somewhere around here.” He mutters the last bit to himself, rubbing his temples as he tries to recreate the island’s layout in his mind’s eye.
It isn’t that large, really only six miles in diameter. Covered in jungle, it’s probably full of nooks and crannies where you could hide guns or bombs. Old settlements, caves, foxes holes, a potential campsite or two. There’s too many possible places to look for just the two of them.
Bogard can feel a headache coming on, from frustration, dehydration, or both. Seas, anticipating pirates who studied Marine protocol was like trying to do a backflip over a viper pit. Every move his experience pushed him toward felt too predictable. Wrong.
“Where would you have hidden it?” he asks.
Koby blinks. “Me?”
“Your old crew,” Bogard clarifies. “Did your captain have a base island?”
Koby’s face goes carefully blank. “I-I don’t know what you mean. I wasn’t a pirate.” His entire body is as rigid as a board, fists balled so tightly at his sides his knuckles are white.
Bogard bites back an annoyed sigh. “Kid, now isn’t really the time to lie.”
“If you’re trying to accuse me of something, sir, I can assure you that it’s not true. The only pirate I’ve associated with is Luffy, and—and that was a misunderstanding!” Koby shakes his head, heaving in a rattling breath. “I-I've never—”
“Koby,” Bogard stresses. “Listen to me. You are not in trouble. Garp told me about your history with the Alvida pirates and right now it could be useful—”
“He told you?” Koby bursts out, all facades of ignorance instantly gone. In its place is raw, uncomfortable hurt. “He promised me he wouldn’t!”
Oh, hell.
“He hasn’t told anyone else,” Bogard offers gently, but it’s too late. He’s stomped on a landmine that he didn’t even know was there. Koby clearly feels the aftershocks, stumbling back a step as though his entire world has imploded.
Anger isn’t an emotion that sits well on Koby’s face. Bogard figured the kid was sensitive about the subject considering the prejudices pirates-turned-marines faced within the ranks, but the betrayal must run deeper. Koby looks like he’s about to cry.
Garp hadn’t shared the information maliciously. Koby has a certain way of responding to direct authority, and his history under a vindictive pirate captain fit the explanation. It’s because of this that he and Garp have been working to nurture Koby’s critical thinking skills so he would learn to think for himself, trust himself in situations just like this.
Bogard grasps at a way to help him see this. “Would you hide something like that from Helmeppo?”
“That’s different,” Koby snaps. “Helmeppo is my friend.”
“Garp is mine,” Bogard replies, “and if we don’t figure out a plan to combat Caraway and his crew, they could get hurt. Listen.” His voice softens. “If you’re going to be angry, be angry at me. But don’t let that get in the way of doing your job.”
Koby still looks as though he’s been forced to swallow something bitter. Tears shine on the brim of his eyelashes, but they don’t fall. He glares down at the forest floor between them, refusing to make eye contact.
He’s quiet for a long time. Bogard feels a droplet of sweat roll down in the space between his shoulder blades, the heat of the day making the air thick.
“The geography was different,” Koby says eventually, his voice quiet. “Goat Island is rockier. The forest was pretty much uninhabitable, so her settlements had to be built on the bluffs. But…”
He trails off, a small furrow appearing between his brows. His eyes look a million miles away. Bogard leans more heavily against the tree, forced to wait until Koby finds his way back to him.
“There were catacombs hidden around the base of the island.” Koby’s words are carefully chosen. Like someone tiptoeing across broken glass. “Natural cave formations that would be reachable depending on the tide level. She always kept her caches there because they weren’t easily accessible, but quick to grab if we needed to run.”
Bogard processes this. The island they’re on right now doesn’t have rocky shores. It has caves, but certainly not in the same magnitude of what Koby is describing. Yet the idea that he’s getting at strikes a cord. Pirates hid important things near getaway spots. So that meant-
“The beach?”
“The beach,” Koby agrees, his tone just as grave as Bogard feels. There, they’d be exposed to any lookouts still on the water. Potential sitting ducks.
Not like they have much of a choice.
“Okay,” Bogard says, pushing himself off the tree. He grits his teeth against the swell of pain that follows. Koby hesitates for only half a second before slipping to support him, but it’s enough for Bogard to notice.
He knows Koby is close to Garp. He probably really upset him just now, inadvertently betraying his trust. If Bogard were in literally any other situation, he’d want to deal with this now. Get out in front of it before it caused any long lasting issue. There's nothing wrong with being emotional in the line of duty, as long as you dealt with those emotions directly.
This…probably isn't the best situation to do that in.
Later, Bogard tells himself. When they have time. When they get out of this. Because they are going to get out of this. That much he knows is true.
They determine which way is north based on the sun and start hobbling.
They barely make it half a mile.
The pirate comes out of the trees nonchalantly, as though he wasn’t expecting to run into anyone. He shouts when he sees them, clearly as caught off guard by them as they are with him.
He whips out his gun. On instinct, so does Bogard. It jostles Koby, pushing him away and into the dirt. They both fire.
Koby yelps. The gunshots echo throughout the trees, reverberating off the rocks and canopies above them. The pirate’s shot missed. Bogard’s didn’t. The man collapses backward onto the ground, killed from a wound in his neck.
Damn. He'd been aiming for the center of the guy’s head—the adrenaline is making him shaky. There’s no way that anyone in the vicinity didn’t hear that. He just hopes that the use of his one bullet is worth it.
He tosses his now useless gun to the ground. No point of carrying around the extra weight. “You alright?”
Koby grimaces as he sits up. His entire right side is now smeared with dirt and mud. “F-fine.” The kid stands up, pain still hidden in the creases of his face. Bogard hopes he didn’t break a rib from that fall.
They get walking again. The trees start to thin, and soon they’re close enough to the beach that Bogard can hear the sound of waves crashing against the surf. If Koby is panting a little harsher in his ear, he doesn’t register it.
The sun is blinding once they’re out of the treeline. Bogard squints down at the bluffs of white sand.
Koby is one step ahead of him. “They should have a marker, some kind of code, but I don’t think we have time to look for it.” He slips out from under Bogard’s arm, grabs a pair of large sticks, and hands one over. “For when you hear something hollow.”
Poking around in the sand feels more than ridiculous. It feels wrong. Here they are, wading through sand like they’re searching for seashells while the rest of their squadron could be dying. And if this doesn’t end up working—
“Over here!” Koby calls. Bogard limps toward him; Koby has his fingers hooked under a wooden hatch. The rest of it is obscured by sand. It takes the strength of both of them, but they manage to pull the thing up and open.
A rudimentary ladder leads into a dark underground cave. No angry pirates rush out to greet them, so it’s safe to say it’s empty for the time being.
Bogard smiles. “Good job, kid!” He claps Koby on the shoulder. Koby lets out a pained cry, curling over his right side.
Bogard immediately grasps at his shoulders, urging him to uncurl enough to get a good look. The kid inhales sharply through gritted teeth. Bogard manages to tug his arm away from his ribs; his palm is soaked in red.
“Son of a—” Bogard bites off the rest of the curse, realizing now that the dirt and mud he thought was staining Koby’s uniform is actually blood. “Did you get shot ?”
“I–didn’t think I did!” Koby protests, his voice high with pain.
“Obviously you did.” Bogard forces himself to compartmentalize the anger and annoyance he feels, both at that pirate and at himself for not noticing when one of his cadets was wounded. He almost snaps at Koby for lying to him and hiding an injury, but then realizes that hopped up on all the adrenaline, the kid probably didn’t feel a thing.
Which means…
“Did the bullet come out of you?” Bogard asks next, and at Koby’s panic stricken face, he feels like he knows his answer.
Well. This day just keeps getting better and better.
He nudges Koby toward the ladder. “Inside. Now.”
With any luck, there would be enough rudimentary medical equipment stashed; they'd be able to take care of the wound, at least for the time being.
Bogard prays there aren’t more surprises waiting for them.