-Chapter Forty-Four-
"It's working fine—they can hear you, just talk into it" a second voice painfully groaned.
"Uh..." Nami trailed off, not really knowing what to say about this sudden turn of events.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I quietly whispered to her.
"Yeah..." she firmly nodded.
"What do you want?" Miss All Sunday asked.
"Hurry up and state your business, what is it?" Crocodile frowned, already starting to get impatient with the person on the other end of the line.
"Oh no, I know I've heard that voice before" the familiar voice sighed. "Yeah, hello there, you reached the Crap Café" he boredly greeted.
"The Crap Café?" Crocodile questioned, brows furrowed in slight confusion.
"Does that ring any bells?" the familiar voice asked. "It should, but in case it doesn't, maybe this will jog your memory—Little Garden" he hummed.
"We only have five of the six Straw Hats inside that cell based on what Mr. Two showed us, the only one left is that pet" Crocodile frowned as he narrowed his eyes. "Do they have other members that we don't know about?" he asked, sounding almost annoyed by the revelation that he might possibly be missing someone.
"Did you hear that?" Usopp whispered, finally recognizing the voice as well.
"The voice was unmistakable" Nami nodded.
"Yeah, it's got to be him" I agreed.
"San—" harshly did Usopp slap his hand over Luffy's mouth.
"Shut up! They don't know about him so let's keep it that way" he quietly hissed. "He was in the cabin when Mr. Two showed up, so they never met—he's our ace in the hole, so zip it" he scowled.
"Oh, that's right, Sanji and Chopper didn't get captured—they're still outside" Vivi whispered in realization, finally taking a good look at everyone inside the cage.
"Yes, mind telling me who you are?" Crocodile asked.
"Me?" Sanji questioned as he hummed in thought. "Well just call me Mr. Prince" he finally answered after a split second of silence.
"Such a great alias, not sappy at all..." I muttered, rolling my eyes as Zoro snorted.
"Very well, Mr. Prince, mind telling me something else? Like where you are?" Crocodile inquired.
"I'm afraid I can't say" Sanji answered. "If I did, you'd just come running and get rid of me," he theorized, "even though I highly doubt you could get rid of me, I'm not about to do so—I'm not that stupid" he said. "I never give up information easily, unlike you just did, Mr. Zero" I could practically hear the grin in his voice.
"Mr. Prince, come on! If you don't hurry up, we're all going to end up as gator bait—we're running out of time!" Usopp frantically cried out.
"Hurry up, Mr. Prince! Come rescue us!" Luffy shouted and it wasn't long before both he and Usopp started to scream over one another. Their words blended together and became nothing more than a jumbled-up mess to the point that I couldn't tell who was saying what or even what they were saying at all.
"That's my loudmouth crew, alright—thanks for letting me know they're with you" Sanji sighed. "All I have to do is find you—" there was a loud thump followed by a painful groan, next came the agonizing sound of a gunshot that sent my mind reeling until my ears started to ring as my sight began to blur in and out of focus.
"Not so tough now, are you?" I was roughly snapped back into reality by that second voice from earlier appearing over the Transponder Snail. "We've got him, sir, don't worry—he won't be going anywhere in the condition we put him in" he assured Crocodile.
"Sanji, oh no!" Vivi gasped.
"So, where are you?" Crocodile asked. "Speak up!" he impatiently demanded.
"I'm in front of the casino with the gator top in Rainbase, Rain Dinners" the man quickly answered.
"If he's not dead, he's going to wish he was because I'm going to kill him the next time I see him" Zoro growled in annoyance.
"That's one way to express your concern, I guess..." I sweat dropped.
"No, Sanji!" Luffy cried out as Usopp started to panic.
"That poor guy..." Nami whimpered, already in tears.
"Yeah..." I mumbled in agreement, frowning as I slowly wrapped my arms around Zoro's and pressed myself against his side. Already could I feel the beginnings of a lump in my throat as my stomach started to churn, the worst possible scenarios now entering my head the longer I mulled over the sounds we had just heard.
"Stay right there" Crocodile ordered before hanging up on the man and allowing Miss All Sunday to put away the Transponder Snail. "Well, we shouldn't leave the man waiting" he said, motioning for his partner to follow.
"Is this wise?" she asked. "The Billions still don't know the actual identity of their boss" she reminded him.
"Aside from the number agents, no one knows who you and I truly are" Crocodile reminded her. "Everyone thinks I'm a local hero who owns this casino, there's nothing suspicious about a proprietor going to see what happened in front of this building—our secret will be safe" he assured her, head-turning the second Vivi suddenly took off running. He wasn't the only one whose attention she caught as the Banana Gator turned back to face her, angrily snapping its jaws in the process.
"Vivi!" Luffy gasped. "Hey, what are you doing?!" he called out.
"We still have time before this room fills completely with water, I'm going outside to help you know who" Vivi called back she quickly began to climb up what remained of the destroyed staircase and toward the opened doors at the top.
"Got you—there's no way he'd kick the bucket, not that guy" Usopp nodded. "If you can get to him, I'm sure he can get us free" he said, sounding hopeful at the thought of the blond coming to rescue us.
"And Chopper's out there too, so we might actually have a chance of getting out of here" Nami agreed.
"We can only be hopeful" I hummed with a nod. "It's the only thing we really can do in this kind of situation."
"Vivi, look out!" Luffy shouted the second he saw Crocodile shoot his hooked hand toward the princess via a stream of sand. In a flash, it wrapped its way around her neck and harshly yanked her back, causing her to choke as she frantically grabbed hold of it in an attempt to pull it away. "Vivi!" the captain shouted as the muscles in his jaw clenched
"I have had enough of your nonsense" Crocodile irritably growled, dragging the princess back and away from both the open door and staircase.
"No, get up!" Luffy shouted as Usopp broke down sobbing the second he saw that our friend wasn't moving anymore after hitting the ground.
"Since you care for your friends that much, Miss Wednesday, you can just die here with them" Crocodile grinned, using his Devil Fruit powers to quickly move both him and Miss All Sunday to the top of the broken staircase so they could use that exit instead of the other one. "Which thanks to the rising water and my hungry pets outside, should be very, very soon. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to drag Mr. Prince back here to join you—I hope you don't mind corpses."
"Crocodile!" Luffy growled as the man laughed and finally started to walk away.
Time ticked by slowly after that as we were now left alone with nothing but each other and the hungry gators that were slowly starting to work their way inside the room down below us.
"Vivi!" Luffy continued to shout, pleading for the unconscious princess to wake up as the gator already inside the room with us now hovered over top of her—quietly growling as it almost seemed to patiently wait for her to get back up. I found myself just staring down at the rising water, lightly splashing it around with my foot as I realized that there was really much any of us could do other than sit here and wait.
"They've been there for me all this time..." Vivi suddenly grunted, finally starting to stir as she slowly pushed herself back onto her feet. "They never let me down, so I cannot let them down—I won't let them die like this..." she panted. Nearly all of us screamed in horror the second the gator charged her, destroying more of the already damaged staircase as it clamped down its jaw. Instead of witnessing our friend becoming gator food, we heard the gator cry out in pain as the princess attacked it before using its massive body to climb up the ruined staircase and reach the open doors.
"Alright, she got away..." Nami sighed in relief before jolting as the gator started to smash its head against the damaged staircase repeatedly, causing the walls and pillars around us to violently shake until finally, they started to crack and crumble. Soon the windows gave in as well as they started to crack and it wasn't long before they finally broke, allowing even more water to come flooding into the room. "Oh no, this just went from bad to worse!" she gasped.
"At the rate it's flowing, we don't even have an hour left—we'll be lucky if we have twenty minutes" Usopp fearfully whimpered.
"Well seems like the minute something good happens, something bad has to happen immediately right after" I sighed. "Talk about a serious amount of bad luck."
"Vivi, are you okay?" Luffy asked, far more concerned about our friend than about the current situation at hand.
"I'm fine—I'm going to get help, so just hold on!" Vivi nodded. "I will get you out of there—I will not abandon any of you, I promise! I'll be right back with help, okay" she assured us before finally taking off.
"Okay, you can do it, Vivi!" Luffy and Usopp cheered after her.
-A Few Minutes Later-
"All of us are going to die! That water's going to be up to our necks any minute now!" Luffy frantically cried as he and Usopp now started to scream in utter fear of the quickly rising water.
"She's only been gone for a few minutes and everything's already going to hell" I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose as we now had to deal with two loudmouths screaming their heads off.
"Seems so" Zoro hummed, wrapping an arm around my waist as he rested his chin atop my shoulder.
"Hey, you stupid gator! If you're hungry, come and get me!" Nami suddenly shouted as she shoved her arm through the gaps in the cage's bars.
"Are you nuts, Nami?! What are you doing?!" Usopp cried out in a panic.
"Are you trying to lose an arm, woman?!" I shouted, blanching the second the gator took up her offer and chomped down on her arm.