Chapter Text
Jo doesn't know how it happens. It just does.
One moment she's minding her own business, taking a relaxing walk after a long day's work; and then the next thing she knows she's dragging herself out of the sea onto an unfamiliar seashore gasping for air, water in her ears and the taste of salt heavy at the back of her throat.
She's confused as all hell when it happens. That's for sure.
When she finally crawls her way out of the crashing waves, she starts to panic, quickly realizing she has no idea where she is. It’s a sharp and acrid sensation building inside her chest, causing a flood of half-formed questions to start swirling around in her head.
But before Jo has much time to get her bearings, her belly starts pinching in a very not-so-good way. Seconds later, she's curling over and heaving up what must be half a gallon of saltwater.
Tears sting at the corner of her eyes, and she lets out a pained, alarmed groan when it just keeps going, her body seeking to purge itself of literally everything in her stomach.
She’s left a weak and sweaty mess when it’s finally over. Once the dry heaves stop and she’s sure there’s nothing left in her stomach, Jo shakily moves to a place further up the shore and all but collapses into a boneless heap.
She grimaces at the foul taste in her mouth. The sun is hot and unforgiving on her back, and the woman inhales deeply in an attempt to recenter herself. Turning over, she then squints up at the cloudless sky and covers her head with her arms.
The ocean waves crash along the shore, not too far away, completely uncaring of her predicament. She takes another shaky breath. And then another.
A part of her just wants to curl up into a ball right then and there and hide away from the world, but a stronger more pragmatic part of herself knows she doesn’t really have the time for that at the moment.
For now, Jo's main focus should be figuring out where exactly the hell she is.
Inhaling once more, long and deep, Jo reluctantly sits up and looks around, taking in everything she may have missed.
And promptly discovers she’s not in the middle of nowhere like she'd originally thought. Thank god. There’s a city not too far from where she is. Maybe a mile or two away, carved into the side of a tall cliffside. Its white buildings look like one big impenetrable sand dune, large and militant-looking. If she squints, the woman can just barely make out the black specks of people milling about.
Seeing that as her best bet, Jo moves to stand, brushing herself off the best she can. Her stomach rolls in protest, and she rubs her belly absentmindedly. Noting the foreign texture under her fingertips, Jo looks down and frowns.
Her dress is completely soaked through. There's no real surprise there. But, that’s not the issue. The issue is that it’s not hers. Jo doesn’t think she’s ever owned something so frilly in her entire life.
The dress she’s wearing is delicate, a distinct shade of yellow that she’d never be caught dead in even on a bad day. Nevertheless, even as it clings uncomfortably to her skin, torn and waterlogged, it’s pretty obvious that it is made from an expensive material. Well made but also maybe two centuries behind in fashion. She is also inconveniently barefoot.
Jo doesn’t know what to make of it. A few errant theories pop up in her head, but she dismisses them quickly. Not wanting to set off another reason to panic without any evidence. Instead, she starts to pat herself down, searching for a secret pocket or purse that may hold anything of value.
The woman lets out a pleased hum when her fingers discover a secret inseam near the waist of the skirt. She promptly pulls out her findings: a small golden locket and a small bag filled with what appears to be a type of coin currency.
Upon closer inspection, the locket appears to be just a plain old locket. Well made, and clearly expensive, but nothing notable.
The coins, on the other hand, give her pause. She fingers one and holds it up to eye-level. A large cursive B sits in the center, a curved line slashed through the middle. Tiny lettering outlines the top, the words glinting in the glare of the sun. Jo mouths along as she reads:
“The Bank of the World Government”
Jo’s eyes narrow as she feels a niggling sense of deja vu. She stares at it, racking her brain for a good minute. It's on the tip of her tongue, but eventually she gives up.
The woman grunts, shaking her head. She has more questions than she has answers at this point. She repockets both items into the seam of the dress.
Well, at least she has cash. Hopefully, when Jo reaches the city, they’ll accept it. If not, she can try and find a place to exchange the locket for money instead.
That decided, Jo sighs and sets off towards the large stone city, humming a toon under her breath, fingers working through the knots in her tangled hair and a rough sketch of a plan forming in her mind.
***
So, it goes something like this:
Jo makes it to the city. Jo makes it inside the city. It’s all going pretty smoothly really, until Jo actually starts paying attention and notices how frickin weird said city actually is.
It’s like walking straight into a movie set of some strange bizarro fantasy world set in the 1700’s. There’s an obvious lack of cars and other modern forms of technology. The harbor is filled with ships that look like they belong in a pirate movie, and everybody else is walking on foot, some of them carting around wheelbarrows of all things.
The citizens themselves wear clothes that are a strange mix between modern and antique, and some are sporting hair and eye shades ranging from all colors of the rainbow. Jo’s even pretty sure that one of the shopkeepers she passes has scales and pointed ears, but she doesn’t have time to go back and check before she almost walks right into a group of soldiers.
Their backs are ramrod straight, and their faces are grim as they march past her in single file down the cobbled street. The citizens around them give them all a wide berth.
On a whim, Jo decides to follow them. Their uniforms are white and accented with blue, and the word MARINE is embroidered onto the back of their fatigues and at the front of their headwear. It sparks yet another, stronger flash of deja vu that Jo quickly files away.
Upon closer inspection, Jo realizes that there are soldiers literally everywhere. Every corner, every door she peeks in, there’s a soldier. Every shop stall, every diner, there’s a soldier. Her assumption that this place is some kind of military base must be correct because there is no other plausible explanation for why there are so many of them.
Still following her own group, the woman is eventually led to a small courtyard. The first thing she notices are the two men stuck in pillories, their heads and hands held captive, locked between two pieces of wood. It's a totally medieval form of punishment and the men look absolutely miserable doing it. It makes Jo wince in a mixture of horror and sympathy.
She moves to step forward to get a closer look when her bare feet brush something smooth. Looking down, she moves away the hem of her almost-dried dress to find an errant page of a newspaper. It’s torn and looks about a couple of weeks old, plastered to the street floor from being constantly trodden on. The deja vu she feels soon turns into a full-on hunch once she reads the headline:
BUGGY PIRATES RUNNING RAMPANT IN THE EAST BLUE
Alarm bells start going off in the back of her mind when she reads it and keeps rereading it, the words so familiar to her she can practically taste them. An idea starts to form. She moves her dress further, revealing a wrinkly picture of a man in clown makeup, nose big and round in the center of his grinning face.
Jo’s breath catches and she looks up and around herself, suddenly looking at her surroundings with new eyes.
Her fate is all but sealed when her gaze instantly lands on a young man standing across the courtyard from her. His back is towards her—face looking up at a huge poster with a horrendously gaudy rendition of a man with a metal jaw painted on it that Jo doesn’t know how she didn’t notice before—but Jo doesn’t need to see his face to know who it is.
She knows that straw hat. Knows that vest. Knows that pink-haired boy who is standing next to him.
Knows it all like she knew anything from her childhood. There's a vague sense of recognition and a flash of distant memories—of a boy and a crew, with a dream in his heart and a laugh forever close to his lips—all recently brought to the forefront by rumors of a Live Action remake in the works; trailers left unwatched, photos and sneak peeks scrolled past on her phone with only a passing interest.
All of it suddenly surrounds her in a moment of distinct clarity, physical and real in a way she never thought possible.
The young man in the straw hat turns and Jo quickly drops her gaze, completely overwhelmed. She swallows thickly. Her stomach rolls. Without even thinking, she’s spinning on her heels and walking away. Away from the courtyard, away from him. She turns around and doesn’t look back.
Call her a coward, call her spineless, call her whatever terrible thing you want, Jo doesn’t care. She is a realist. And she isn’t dumb.
She knows what’s happened to her isn’t exactly normal. Popping up half-drowned on an unknown beach, dressed in clothes straight out of a Victorian drama was basically the epitome of not normal.
But this? This is just ridiculous.
Her thoughts turn frantic and Jo starts running.
And she keeps running. And running until there are no more places to run and she finds herself in a dark alley, far far away from that boy and the danger that follows him. Panting and face red from exertion, Jo leans against a wall and slowly slides down to the ground, uncaring of the dirt and grime.
She wraps her arms around herself and buries her face in her knees, taking in a shaky gulp of air. She breathes. And keeps breathing, inhaling the salty smell of her dress and trying her best to keep her panic in check.
Unfortunately, she’s so absorbed in her own head that Jo doesn’t notice the men who enter the mouth of the alley until it's too late.
“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” a voice says, making Jo freeze, “Thought you were dead the way you jumped off those rocks, but I s’pose that’s for the best.”
The woman’s head jerks up and her eyes widen as she takes in the three men walking towards her. Their large bodies soon block the alley’s entrance and all means of escape. Pinning her in.
Jo squints at them.
They are soldiers. No surprise there. Their uniforms are pristine and crisp on their shoulders, but they look far from honorable as they move in to surround her, their expressions menacing.
She doesn’t recognize them in the slightest. However, they obviously seem to know her.
Or who they think they know her to be at least.
The one who just spoke takes a spot in front of the other two, clearly the leader of the pack. He strolls closer and Jo jumps to her feet as dread fills her gut, mentally cursing herself for being so careless in her panic.
The man points a thumb behind him.
“Saw you followin’ one of the other platoons like a lost pup until you ran with your tail between your legs,” he says, mouth forming into a sneer. He looks back at his fellow soldiers, “Stupid bitch probably thought she could snitch.”
There’s a cold cruelty to him that sets Jo’s teeth on edge; and she’s proven right when suddenly, a meaty fist slams right beside her face, making her jolt reflexively.
“Jokes on you though,” he smirks, leaning in, “Cap’n Morgan’s the one who ordered the whole thing. He was right mad at us when he heard we lost you to the sea. You should’ve stayed drowned if you wanted to escape us.”
The man’s breath smells rancid up close and Jo forces herself not to gag. Instead, she focuses on the man’s words. Trying to make sense of them. The mystery of what happened to this body before she woke up starts to take shape in her head.
This body is hers, but not hers.
It honestly answers a lot of questions she’s had since she got here. But it brings her little comfort. Not while she’s cornered like this.
Jo doesn’t cower, however. She stands firm in the face of the three men, even as they crowd closer, her back pressed firmly against the alley wall. Her eyes narrow and she internally sighs.
She’s angry and confused and, most of all, she is tired.
She is exhausted and when she finally thinks she can have a second to herself, these guys come and make her day even worse than it already is. She wishes so hard to be back home at that moment, in her bed reading a book and listening to some nice, calming music. Oh, how she wishes.
The fist next to her head moves to grab at her hair and Jo slaps it away.
“Don’t touch me,” she snaps.
Unfazed, the man tips his head back and laughs.
“A bit too late for that, sweetheart,” he guffaws and then leers, “Bitch has some fire in her after all. Would have made it more interesting if she’d been like this before. Was a bit too quiet for my tastes, ain't I right boys?”
He laughs again, loud and mean. The other two quickly join in, and Jo feels a wave of pure loathing wash over her, hot and seething. Her vision goes red. More puzzle pieces snap into place, and the woman wants nothing more than to find the nearest cliff and push all three of them off of it.
Instead, she does the next best thing and kicks the first man right between the legs. Hard.
He doesn’t see it coming, too distracted with laughing it up with his buddies to notice the dangerous glint in her eyes. He goes down fast, keeling over with a pained grunt. Jo then swiftly uses this new position to her advantage, utilizing the wall at her back to help propel her knee straight and true into the man’s face.
She hears cartilage break with immense satisfaction.
The man staggers back, hands flying between his crotch and his bleeding nose. One of his lackies goes to catch him, and Jo uses the element of surprise evident on all of their faces to punch the third one right in the throat. He immediately starts choking, and Jo doesn’t hesitate for another second before she’s scrambling around him and high tailing it out of there.
Jo dashes out of the alleyway, and does the first thing that comes to mind. She screams at the top of her lungs. It does as she hopes and literally everyone in the vicinity stops to stare at her.
“Someone help!” she yells, running like hell down the street, “Please! I’ve been attacked! Someone do something!”
To her trepidation, no one goes to her aid. There is a sense of reluctance coming from the citizens, apprehension clear on their faces as they nervously look to the Marines for guidance.
The soldiers on the other hand, stand about dumbly as if they are unsure of what to do. Some of the soldiers carry expressions of mild concern, but many are worryingly apathetic as they watch her sprint past them, none of them moving to help her.
Shouting soon starts up from behind and Jo curses.
“Get back here, you bitch!” she hears the first man from the alleyway yell, voice now slightly nasally.
“Halt! By order of the Marines!”
The command is what finally does it. It’s like a switch flips. Everything unfreezes and Jo’s heart jumps to the back of her throat as suddenly it seems like every soldier in the area is moving towards her all at once. Letting out a frustrated groan, Jo whirls around and looks for an escape, choosing a random direction and just going for it.
The streets soon erupt into pure chaos. People are shouting and things are breaking as people jump and trip over themselves to get to her; all the while, Jo runs blindly, ducking and weaving and sometimes physically pushing people out of the way as hands try to claw at her clothes.
Jo doesn't know how much time passes after that. Her legs ache and her lungs burn from her earlier exertion, and it all seems to merge together into one big fevered dream as she gets lost even further amongst the maze-like grandeur of the city.
She’s practically running on fumes at this point. So, it’s only a matter of time until her luck eventually runs out. Just as she finds herself in the courtyard from before, the inevitable happens, and Jo trips on the hem of her dress.
Her arms windmill and she loses her balance. It’s only for a moment, but it’s a small enough distraction for a Marine to finally tackle her to the ground.
Jo goes down screaming. She grits her teeth and snarls as hands clamp down on her arms with an iron grip. She jerks her head back and headbuts her attacker square in the face, elbowing them in the solar plexus.
The hands release her, but then another pair are grabbing at her, clasping her to someone’s chest from the back, arms restrained to her sides this time. She kicks out, feet meeting an unfortunate soldier who was trying to run up from the front.
"Get off of me!” she yells, “I didn't fucking do anything. They attacked me, goddammit!"
She continues to try and wrestle out of the hold, but before she knows it, the woman finds herself being forced onto her stomach with her face pressed into the dirt. She lets out a pained grunt when a sharp knee is shoved none too gently into the base of her back. All of the air is pushed out of her all at once and suddenly she finds it difficult to breathe.
“Get off,” she wheezes, “Get the fuck off!”
Jo snarls and twists away, distantly registering the audience that she's accumulated from her failed escape. Glancing around, her breath hitches as she once again catches a glimpse of a familiar face amongst the crowd.
A pair of warm dark eyes meet hers from across the courtyard, yellow hat still firmly settled on top of his head. And for only a second, she sees the confusion and the concern. The curiosity.
But he’s there and then he’s gone, and Jo's view is suddenly blocked by dozens of Marine uniforms as they quickly move to surround her.
Jo glares up at all of them and continues to curse up a storm, gnashing her teeth and biting at any errant hand that comes near her mouth.
She kicks and punches at whatever she can reach and soon there are even more hands grabbing at her, holding her down. A cacophony of voices shout orders above her head, screaming in her ears, all of them saying the same combinations of “Stay down!” or “You’re under arrest!” But she ignores them all.
The chaos seems like it will never end until suddenly, pain blooms at the back of her head, and Jo's vision goes black.