With sounds of a massive struggle happening outside of the mansion, Nami and Chopper are grateful that they're nowhere near whatever chaos is going on out there. After Nami, Chopper, Luffy and Zoro made it to the mansion, there was an explosion which caused Luffy and Zoro to split up. They left the two remaining members of the crew's weakling trio to fend for themselves.
Unsure of their safety in the rising chaos, Nami and Chopper rush into the mansion to try to find Luffy before they could get minced.
Whenever they'd see a carpenter, they turned tail and ran for their very lives in a random direction in the house. Whenever one could get close, both pirates get into fight or flight mode by clobbering them enough to knock them out either with a furry fist or a thunder tempo.
The deeper they travelled inside, the harder they had to fight to keep themselves from getting hurt. Even so, with all the insanity around them, they can't find any signs of Luffy anywhere.
After managing to escape the carpenter mob for the fifth time, they find themselves alone in an empty hallway on the second floor.
"How big is this place?" Chopper asks as he looks around, but can't find any sign of his captain.
"I don't know, but he should be causing a commotion soon. We just need to follow that-!"
She stops when she hears a window breaking ahead, followed by some screaming. "When I get my hands on that fucking wind bitch, I'm going to give her the slowest death possible!"
The two pirates look at each other, before running off in that direction in hopes of finding Rose. What they found though was all the more terrifying. That sight being Zoro and some masked maniac, who's cackling from his own madness, caught up in their own epic battle.
The amount of killing intent that both sides are emanating with each swing is enough to make someone believe they're trapped in a nightmare rather than in real life. Sadly, both Nami and Chopper know that it's all too real, so they start stepping away from the match.
"Z-Zoro's fine here, we should go back to looking for Luffy..." Chopper meekly suggests with Nami quickly backing him up.
"Let's get out of here!" She runs off with the reindeer not far behind, with neither fighter noticing the audience leaving as quickly as they came in.
Nishiki is holding his own here with not only his speed, but for the fact that he's using his sword with his right hand and hurling weapons at him with his left hand whenever he gets the chance.
Zoro's able to block the throwing attacks, thanks to the target training he did with Rose and Usopp, but is having a hard time landing his attacks with his speed matching his. After blocking another shuriken, he rushes to slash his side, but Nishiki jumps back to avoid the attack.
While in mid-air, the ninja throws two small bombs at him, but Zoro is quick to hit them back with the back ends to the blade.
Nishiki instantly shaves away from the bombs just as the small explosions hit, and goes to block Zoro's hits with his sword. His injuries, though, delayed the move by a few seconds for him to narrowly escape Zoro's attack.
Zoro noticed the pause in his movements, but doesn't hold back in the slightest. Instead, he forces his adversary on the defensive by creating a barrage of his own attacks. One after another, his blades make a graceful swing from every angle with the intent to kill.
Nishiki barely makes the blocks in time, until after the fifth blow, when he manages to use an instant shave to reappear behind Zoro. He goes to stab him in the back, but Zoro pulls his arm behind up over his shoulder, bends it down for his sword to block, before he kicks the ninja's stomach to send him flying back.
Nishiki barely catches himself a few feet back in time to block Zoro's block again. As their weapons are pushing against one another, the ninja smirks behind the mask when he comes up with a plan.
To pull it off, he jumps away from his enemy, and holds his arms up as though he's surrendering. "Hold on here!"
Zoro stops himself from going after him, but keeps his guard up. "What?!"
"We shouldn't be fighting each other. We're not enemies!"
"You didn't think that when you tried to kill me!"
"I was in a bad state of mind from almost getting blown up! Now that I had some time to think, I realized that this is wrong! You're fighting me to protect Wind Rider, right?"
He slowly nods with his swords ready to strike, but Nishiki feels like he's making progress so he keeps going.
"Well, you shouldn't be! The wind girl has been manipulating all of you into thinking she's your friend! She's a demon from another world, who has plans to destroy everything around her! I'm here to stop her from doing that! If you help me, we can make sure she's taken care of, and leave the true Straw Hats a-!"
Nishiki's offer is cut short when he senses Zoro about to attack, and puts his sword up in time to block the dual bladed attack.
The pirate smirks at the cheap tactic to manipulate him, when he pushes him off, then grabs his third sword from its sheath. "You idiot, I already knew about where she came from."
The ninja is horrified by the statement, and couldn't believe it, so he shoots down the lie while Zoro puts the hilt of the third sword in his mouth. "You must be lying! Nico Robin knew nothing about that demon's true nature before we told her! She even attacked her during last night's assassination attempt, because of how much she despises her now! No one can accept that freak!"
Zoro widens his eyes at the new information, because he knows how scared Rose is of the crew hating her for her knowledge. For her to experience that, and still defend Robin's innocence to him, shows how much the crew means to her. He bites down on the hilt of his sword and gives off a new demonic aura. "You really underestimate us. We don't leave a crew mate behind for stupid reasons like that."
Nishiki regains his composure from the comment, and gets ready to return to the fight by pulling some shuriken out with left arm. "Then you'll all die together!"
He throws the ninja tools, for the pirate to block the blow, with the two swords in his arms, and then uses the third sword to block Nishiki's sword strike.
Nishiki goes to instant shave, but before he could do so Zoro is quick to slash his sides with his two swords.
The ninja manages to shave back a few feet before his free hand caresses the sword wound on his side to see that he's actually bleeding. With all of his wounds from the wind girl piled up on this as well, he knows that he can't drag this out much longer. He grabs a smoke bomb from his pocket, and throws it to the ground to create a smokescreen throughout the hallway.
The swordsman can barely see what's in front of him in the thick black smoke, let alone where his enemy is.
Nishiki is more than prideful about this when he hides in the shadows, and uses his observation haki to detect where his target is. He keeps a devious smirk behind his mask, and expects him to be panicking now. With Zoro losing his focus, he grips the ninja sword in his arm, and begins to use instant shave to be quick to deliver the killing blow from behind.
What he didn't plan though was for Zoro to not be panicking at all. Instead, Zoro was as calm as a river when he had his eyes closed. He grips his swords tightly, and listens for the right moment. When he can smell blood from behind, he can tell his enemy's approaching, so he moves his swords to the right. "Three sword style... DRAGON TWISTER!"
He spins at an insurmountable speed with the swords in hand, to create a powerful twister around himself, just when Nishiki was about to strike him! Not only did this move stop the ninja's devious blow, but his swords slashed both his stomach and chest with enough strength for blood to spray out of him.
Once the smoke clears, Zoro stops the attack, then looks behind him to see Nishiki falling to the floor like a rag doll, and a puddle of red growing under him. The pirate doesn't trust that it's over yet though, so he cautiously approaches the body to see that he's still alive.
Nishiki gives out shallow breaths, and tries to get up, but his body won't listen to him anymore. Instead of crying or even getting angry though, he starts to laugh. "Bibibi, you must... Really think you won huh?"
Zoro doesn't say a word when Nishiki starts coughing enough for blood to spill at the corner of his mouth. He refuses to let himself stop by using the last bit of strength he has to speak just above a whisper. "Well, I have news for you... Compared to my comrades, I'm nothing... All three of them are capturing that bitch now... And anyone that gets in our way, will be ripped to pieces by the World-!"
A stab to the neck by Zoro's blade stops the pitiful man's final threat. He stares down at his dead opponent with a hardened gaze as he pulls the sword out of his neck, and swings it to his side to get the blood off. "That's enough..."
He sheathes the third sword, and doesn't give the corpse another thought. He looks out the broken window to see a masked girl using wind powers against three insanely strong masked men by herself. "That idiot!"
He goes to back up Rose, but his lack of direction brings him further into the mansion, and to a mob of carpenters.
"There's Roronoa!"
"Get him!"
Zoro groans at the annoying situation, but he has no choice but to put his mission on hold to knock out any man in his way. It only took a matter of minutes for him to take down the two dozen men, and reach the heart of the mansion.
He's about to leave for another exit when he hears a loud crash from a few rooms down the hall, followed by his captain's yelling. "ROBIN!"
"Robin?" Nami's shouting follows with the sound of her trying to break down a door.
Curiosity gets the better of the swordsman when he follows the noise to see Chopper, in walk point, trying to break down the door, but it's locked tight.
"Hang on, I got this." Zoro says which gets their attention just in time for them to jump away from Zoro so he can cut open the door.
Once the room was revealed, they found their captain in a standoff with Robin, and a group of cloaked strangers standing over Iceberg and Paulie. Both shipwright and mayor have seen better days both physically and mentally. Not only were they beaten bloody red, but the assassins with Robin are their friends Lucci, Kaku, Blueno, and Kalifa, which broke their hearts and enraged them.
As for the captain, he's angered by the being framed, but more so that Robin's still siding with the assassins. "What the hell are you doing with these guys Robin?! If you're going to leave, at least tell me why!"
Robin scowls at the demand, but nonetheless answers him. "Very well, the reason I'm leaving is to achieve my goals. I can't do that with you people anymore, so I'm leaving."
"Bull shit!" Luffy calls back in anger at the bad excuse. "You think that we'd accept a lame excuse like that?! I know you; you wouldn't just leave without a real reason!"
Robin is feeling a lot of emotions right now, but not a single one can be seen through the cold mask she's wearing. "You don't know anything. You can't even tell that you're being tricked by your fake queen."
"What are you talking about?!"
While Nami and Chopper are also curious, Zoro keeps a hardened look because he can see where this is going, but can't say anything without raising more questions.
Robin doesn't care about the looks and speaks up. "Exactly what I said. You didn't know that we've been playing you from the beginning. That's why she isn't here now. Another CP unit is dealing with that monster as we speak, because she's-!"
An explosion from outside the mansion was so loud that it not only interrupted Robin's monologue, but got the whole building shaking. Everyone stumbled to stay on their feet, while flinching away from the windows when the windows broke from the sheer might of the noise outside.
Lucci grumbles when he has to lean on the bed to keep himself from falling. "What is that bomb shell idiot doing?"
Kaku ignores his comrade's complaints, when the explosion outside settles down, then looks at the clock to see that it's almost 9:00. "We don't have any more time to chat. We need to leave."
Kalifa looks at the clock and sees that he's right. "Indeed."
She looks to the Straw Hats and gives them a word of warning. "In two minutes, this place will go up in flames. If I were you, I'd evacuate."
"That is, if you can." Lucci finishes the warning for his comrade with both him, as the four assassins step up.
"Crap, they aim to kill us." Nami mutters before she gets in a stance with her clima-tact while the guys are ready to fight for their friend.
As for Robin, she turns away from the confrontation, as though this has nothing to do with her, and starts walking towards the broken window. "I'll be leaving."
The assassins have no problems with this, but the pirates were another story.
"DON'T JUST WALK AWAY!" Luffy yells out when Lucci stands in his way.
Luffy tries to punch him but it's as though he's punching a wall, because every hit made no effect on him.
Zoro goes to back him up, but Kaku blocks him off, and gets into a sword fight with him.
"Stop this Robin!" Nami calls out to her, as she goes after her, but Kalifa blocks her off.
The archaeologist looks back on her former crew mates one last time before she opens the window. "This is goodbye."
She jumps out of the window just when the flames begin to burst out from the bottom floor of the mansion.
Blueno doesn't hesitate to close off their escape route by throwing a tempest kick to the wall above the doorway to have the wall collapse towards Nami and Chopper.
"Nami!" Chopper pushes Nami out of the way of the falling rubble, but couldn't get out of the way in time for himself.
"Chopper!" Nami goes to dig him out, but Kalifa instantly appears in front of Nami at lightning speed and knocks her out.
Both Luffy and Zoro fought as hard as they could, but the assassin's six styles were so powerful that in a matter of seconds, they got both boys flying out of the room. With the assassins' work complete, they swiftly leave the mansion, with the flames working to destroy not only Iceberg, and the people in their way, but also any evidence of their existence there.
***************************************************
Ten minutes before the fire erupted in the mansion, another small explosion in the courtyard went off from Rufus' bomb, with Rose managing to dodge by flying above the bomb. Just as her feet are off the ground, she releases a snap of her fingers to create a tornado for the ground below. The growing twister got the agents to sky walk in a scatter to avoid both the explosion and tornado when they collided with each other.
Rose barely had time to rest afterwards, for as soon as the explosion went off, she was met with Andreos' swing of his sea stone blade. She raises her left arm up with the reject dial, that's strapped to the back of her hand, to block the blow. Then when Lareos goes for a haki infused punch, Rose uses the impact dial on her right hand to block the hit. Just when Rufus was about to attack her head on, she creates a cyclone around herself to push her adversaries away.
The crowd of carpenters, who have been watching the fight since the beginning of the fight, watch in both awe and horror of the kinds of attacks both sides are using.
"What the hell is with these people?"
"I don't know, but it doesn't make sense. Aren't they on the same side?"
"Who cares? As long as they don't attack Iceburg, they can kill each other for all I care."
Most of them are in silent agreement of that, but they're also starting to wonder what the wind fighter is actually there for. They can tell that she's the wind pirate from the Straw Hats because of her powers, so they don't understand why she's stopping the others from attacking them. Weren't they supposed to be on the same side?
Questions continue to rise amongst the carpenters about this, but they know one thing for certain, any attempt at this fight would easily cost them their lives, so they have no choice but to stay back.
The three assassins regain their footing to sky walk at her, she creates an orb of wind out of her right hand and throws it straight at Rufus. The explosion man jumps to dodge, but the ball makes a right-hand turn to hit Lareos and send him off in a spin.
Andreos flies up for another attack, but Rose is quick to fly up to dodge the punch. Then she goes on the offensive by patting the flame dial on her stomach to release the flames she collected from Franky's attack!
The swordsman yells in surprise when the flames reach him, and lights him ablaze. While the swordsman rushes to the ground to roll around on the ground, Lareos and Rufus come at her from two different directions. What they didn't plan though, was for Rose to turn her arms into weak gusts of air, and bring them into her flames just before the dial went out. However, the airy arms are keeping the flames alive in mid-air. She winces for a moment, from the burning heat, before she powers up her arms, so that the flames rise up with her arms, and throws them directly at the two agents!
Lareos turns his body black with armament haki, then crosses his arms in front of himself, in an attempt to block the flames, yet he still felt the heat when he was thrown back from the flames. As for Rufus, he was able to be faster on his feet, by creating a large ball of clay, then throwing it at the fire, and instant shaving to the ground just before his bomb is set off from the fire.
Rose was blown away from the blast, until she crashed onto the mansion wall, with the lower sleeves of both her shirt and jacket burnt off to reveal her burnt arms up to her elbows.
She starts to peel off the wall and fall, but halfway through the fall, she catches herself in time to fly back, and avoid Andreos' blade.
As he continues a barrage of attacks, Rose manages to dodge half of them, while using the reject and impact dials as shields until she sees Rufus creating a bomb the size of a basketball.
"Let's see if you can both fight and protect!" He throws his bomb at the crowd of carpenters, with the men trying to run for it, but Andreos blocked them off, and starts attacking them. Rose turns her body into air, rushes towards the ball to catch it in her wind, and launches it as high as possible, then sees Andreos striking down the carpenters, even those that attempt to run. The wind girl stays in her airy form, so the surviving carpenters don't see her when she flies at Andreos, gets him floating up ten feet, then in a flash slams him down to the ground hard enough to create a human sized crater.
Just before Andreos made contact though, he hardened his body to keep the damage to a minimum, while Lareos came in just as the attack took place to punch her to the left side of her head with an armament induced punch!
Rose, re-materialized from the punch, with the left side of her mask shattered from the blow, and sent flying for Rufus to throw a bomb at her.
She manages to catch herself, then throws the bomb back at him with a gust, just before Lareos instant shaves from behind her, and puts her in a choke hold.
Rose struggles to escape, but the hold is strong enough to cut off her air circulation to the point where she can barely breathe.
Lareos snickers at the girl's feeble struggling, when he sees Andreos coming with the sea stone cuffs for her. Just as he's getting close, Lareos looks down at the pathetic looking girl. "Oh man, you were a lot of fun to play with. Shame I can't kill you like the others. Your screams would've been awesome."
Rose's rage spiked up from the careless comment about other people's lives, enough for smoldering hot air to blast out of her body. It sends both Andreos and Rufus flying at least ten feet, with both Lareos and Rose flying above the mansion, just from the wind caused by her sheer anger.
Lareos barely budges in his grip, but Rose could care less, because she's ending this now. She stops the wind from taking them higher, so they're just at the same level as the top floor of the mansion, then looks over her shoulder with the most fearsome glare he's ever seen. "If you want fun, then this'll give you a fucking blast!"
He grows confused about what she's talking about until she starts to turn her body into air, except for her neck, because it's still in Lareos' grasp, and the reject dial that's been strapped to the back of her left hand this whole time.
The agent realizes what she's doing, just before the dial hits his nose as hard as possible! The hit got him to loosen his grip, just enough for Rose to turn her neck into air. Lareos tries to protect himself by reinforcing his head with haki, but doesn't make it in time when an explosion erupts from the shell!
Everyone outside of the mansion watched the explosion in both awe, and fear because while the fire power may have been small, the sheer force of power from the dial got everything shaking. Even the windows from the mansion broke from the amazing power from the explosion.
While Rose was nowhere to be seen, Lareos' body, that's head is completely covered with burns from the blast, flew through the window of the highest floor of the mansion, into an abandoned room.
"Lareos!" Andreos calls out as he sky walks up to the top floor to go make sure that his comrade is alright.
As for Rufus, he uses his observation haki to try to find their target, but his ability isn't as strong as Nishiki's. With the wind girl's body turned air, and weakened from their battle, he's having a hard time picking up her aura.
"GET THE SON OF A BITCH!" Rufus had to stop trying to find Rose from seeing that the carpenters have snapped out of their stupor. No one dared to approach the explosive man, because they knew they would die from just his touch, but they don't back down, and start throwing hammers, chisels, and all sorts of sharp tools to show that he's not welcome.
Rufus easily dodges the blows, and is tempted to kill them all, but the sight of Andreos at the window, without their comrade, shows that he doesn't have time to deal with the trash.
He sky walks into the air with Andreos following behind him, and gets out of the scene just before the flames begin to rise in the mansion.
Just when they're a few houses away, the two men stop on a rooftop, and look back at each other.
"What happened to the two idiots?" Rufus asks, but he has an inkling of what the result is.
Andreos' face softens at the question, before he looks towards the burning building. "Lareos was killed from that blast. As for Nishiki, I saw his lifeless body from the window when I was heading to Lareos' floor. His body was lying in a puddle of his own blood with cuts all over. Either the carpenters got to him just after the blast, or the other pirates killed him..."
He clicks his tongue while his fist trembles around the sea stone sword that Nishiki gave him for his birthday last year. Despite both of them being childish and a bit sadistic, they were like family to him. Even so, he can't bring himself to cry for the loss. The only emotion he can feel is anger for not being able to stop the demon in time to prevent all of this.
He looks to his superior to only see an insane smirk on his face, that almost stretches from ear to ear, from hearing the news.
If someone who didn't know him saw this, they would believe that he was happy for the loss of his comrades. For Andreos, who worked with him for over ten years, he knows that Rufus only reveals this smirk when he's in a really foul mood.
Rufus tries to use observation haki again to try to sense where his target can be, but his furious state of mind is making it hard for him to focus. "Fuck, I can't find her!"
He looks around, and starts sky walking, but Andreos stops him by blocking his path.
"Hold on, it's pointless to try to find her without haki. We should return to CP 9 to see if they still have Nico Robin in their possession. If they do, then we can keep using her as bait."
The explosion man hates the idea of relying on CP 9's cat, but at this point, he doesn't see any better options. Especially with the wind from Aqua Laguna picking up with each passing minute. "Fine, let's go..."
The two agents get out of the scene and rush to reunite with Robin, and the CP 9 agents.
As for the wind girl, when the blast occurred, she was knocked out, while still as a gust of wind, so she was blown far off from the mansion, towards the outskirts of the city.
Her body finally rematerialized a few feet from a rooftop, and unceremoniously landed on her back with enough force to wake up.
She sits up in a rush, coughs from the pain she endured, then takes a big gulp of air from being trapped in that choke hold. She goes to rub her aching neck with her left hand, then stops when she sees blood on her reject dial.
Her eyes widen in horror when she remembers hitting Lareos' face with the dial, and making the explosion. When she sees the blood, she starts to pale at the possible outcomes of the dial. Because if his blood's on here, then that means he might not have been able to protect himself with haki in time. Which means...
Gruesome thoughts of her blowing her enemy's head off starts twisting her stomach until she turns her body, so she's facing the ground. She starts dry heaving as she rips off her mask, then starts throwing up!
Luckily, she doesn't have a lot in her stomach so she wasn't able to puke a lot, but she still feels sick to her stomach. The only reason she used the impact and reject dials was because of how strong her opponents were. And the reject dial was just as a last resort, but he made her so mad with how he bragged about killing outsiders for fun, that she couldn't control herself.
She stays on trembling hands and knees, with tears in her eyes, as she hyperventilates from the guilt rising in her heart. She knows that as a pirate, she might have no choice but to kill at times. For her to do it through anger like that though, makes her feel like the monster the World Government makes her out to be.
She tries to take deep breaths to try calming herself down, but felt like nothing worked until she felt a rain drop hit the top of her head.
She looks up at the dark storm clouds to see that they're starting to release the heavy rain from Aqua Laguna. The rain drops begin to pour more with each passing second, and gives her a cooling wash that calms down her thoughts.
Her legs begin to stand her up, then her arms open wide, as if to accept nature's embrace before she opens her mouth to taste the sweet drops. Once she gets the rotten taste of vomit out of her mouth, she relaxes enough to start thinking rationally again.
She removes the reject dial from her hand, and looks out to the raging storm as if it's tempting her to release it into the storm. However, she doesn't want a civilian to find it, with no idea of what it's capable of, so she puts it away in her bag.
With the dangerous weapon put away, she looks to the city, and begins to float towards the center of the city when she sees two men flying in the distance.
She gets closer to the projectiles, while getting ready to fight, but relaxes a little when she sees that it's her captain, and crew mate.
With no intention of revealing herself, she turns her body into air, and rushes to catch the two men.
Both guys look around for the source, but they don't see a single person when they're being gently let down to a rooftop.
"Rose?" Luffy asks as he stares at the wind holding him, but his lover doesn't respond to him.
Instead, she gently drops them on a random rooftop, and starts pretending to be a breeze. She doesn't know that the Cipher Pol unit's observation haki power has weakened, so she believes that if she stays with him, they'll find him, and hurt him.
Because of that, she ignores his calls, and heads off to search for Robin.
Even though Luffy can't see her, he has a feeling that she's not around anymore and feels dejected. He holds the crystal of the necklace that Rose entrusted to him, and stares at it as if he can get an answer to her behavior from it, but gets nothing. He knows that Rose isn't tricking him like Robin claimed, but he can't stop being worried that something's going on with her to avoid him like this. "What the hell's going on with her?"
Zoro softens up at the question, before he looks out to the storm. He's frustrated that Rose is still keeping them at arm's length, but at the same time, he knows that it's to get them to keep their focus on Robin. With a small groan, he looks to his captain to give him an answer. "I think she's rushing to find Robin."
"Then why wouldn't she take us with her?"
"That's something you need to ask her after we get Robin back. I'm pretty sure they're blackmailing her."
"I think so too." Luffy answers, lets the necklace dangle on his chest, then loops his arm around his friend's waist. "Come on, let's go find the others!"
Zoro widens his eyes at the grab when he sees Luffy stretches his arm to grab onto another building. "LUFFY, NO!"
But it was too late because Luffy jumps off the roof without hesitation, with his swordsman in tow, and swings from roof to roof in hopes of finding his friends.
In the meantime, Rose manages to find her way back to the mansion, and finds that it's up in flames.
She lands on the roof of the building next door to look at the area, and sees the carpenters trying to put out the fire, but doesn't see the mayor, nor Nami and Chopper. She gets ready to go in, but stops when she sees Chopper in his reindeer form, not only carrying Nami but also Iceburg and Paulie on his back, while rushing out of the fire!
Rose lets out a breath of relief from them making it out alive, and watches the scene for a moment. Chopper collapses once they're safe, and the men get to work on getting the three unconscious people off of him.
The carpenters are quick to work on treating Iceburg, Paulie, and the reindeer, but they're wary of Nami because they know that she's a pirate. She starts to wake up first, and they all get tempted to attack her.
However, before they could do anything, Iceberg wakes up and speaks up for them. "Don't hurt her, the pirates are innocent."
"What?!" They all are confused at this, but the mayor doesn't explain further, instead, he just gives them an order.
"Focus on healing Paulie and the reindeer, I need to speak to this woman alone."
The carpenters were still a bit cautious, but they trusted their leader, so they stepped away from Nami and went to work on treating Paulie and Chopper's wounds.
Nami looks to the reindeer then looks to the mayor. "Do you know anything about what's going on with Robin? She's been strange ever since we arrived in this city."
Iceberg softens his face at the question and begins to answer her question. "I believe that's because the World Government's plan started just when you guys arrived. Nico Robin has the ability to activate a weapon that can destroy the world. The world government wishes to use that to take back the seas. They came to Robin, and threatened to use a Buster Call against your crew, so she agreed to help them if they agreed to allow the true straw hats to leave the island."
Nami knits her eyebrows at the wording of the deal, because if Robin's giving herself up, then the rest of the crew should be safe. "What did she mean by true Straw Hats?"
"I'm not sure, it's possible that it has something to do with the wind girl. During the assassination last night, their attempt was interfered by a masked person with wind powers. I didn't know if it was her for certain since I couldn't see her face, but I don't know anyone else who could've protected me with those powers."
The redhead is shell shocked about this new information, because Rose acted completely innocent when they were being attacked by Galley La. Why the hell would she do that, instead of clearing their names?!
When she remembers what Robin said about Rose before she left, she starts to think back on her initial suspicions about Rose's origins. The more she pieces the events of the past few days together, the more she can see that she really is not from this world.
And the World Government knows that, convinced Robin that she's a threat to them to keep her out of the deal, so they can take her too...
With a hardened look on her face, she forces herself to stand up, and goes to the sleeping reindeer. "CHOPPER, WAKE UP! WE NEED TO FIND ROBIN AND ROSE! THEY NEED OUR HELP!"
Rose watches Nami slapping the reindeer in the face, and is surprised to hear her name as well as Robin's. She couldn't hear what Iceburg told Nami, but she's positive that she knows Robin is innocent, so there's no point in staying.
With a deep breath, to steel her nerves, she turns herself into a gust of wind, and flies off to go after Robin.
*********************************************
Out on the coastline of the island, none of the chaos from the mansion can be heard on the Going Merry. Instead, all that can be heard is laughter when Usopp is telling Zira his stories about the crew's old adventures.
The falcon keeps giggling, on her seat on the railing while, when Usopp just finishes telling her of their adventures on Little Garden. "You guys got eaten by a giant goldfish?!"
"Yea, but I, being the bravest one of the bunch, was able to open a hole with my exploding star for us to escape!" Usopp drastically exclaims while showing her his slingshot.
Zira can tell that it was a lie, because of his initial jumpiness when they first met, but plays along because of how fun these stories are. "Man, that's amazing!"
She settles down then takes a look at the ship's figurehead. "You guys seem to have had a lot of adventures together huh?"
He looks out towards where the bird is looking, and softens up at the ship. "Yea, we really did..."
Zira can hear the sadness in his voice, and looks over to the sniper. "You know, I'm sure if you talk to them, you guys can sort this out."
It's not like the sniper hasn't thought about doing that, it's just that he doesn't know if he could even be useful if he goes back. He saddens at the thought of holding them back, and looks to her. "They're better off without me. You can go back though. There's no need for you to stay."
"Like we'd let you leave!"
Both Usopp and Zira flinch at the new voice to see a bunch of men, wearing suspenders, goggles, gloves, and holding hammers.
"What do you jerks want?! I don't have any more money!" Usopp yells out, with them starting to smirk.
"WE'RE NOT HERE FOR MONEY! WE'RE HERE FOR REVENGE! YOU AND THIS HUNK OF WOOD ARE COMING WITH US!"
"HOW DARE YOU CALL MERRY A HUNK OF WOOD!" Usopp yells angrily and shoots one of them in the face with an exploding star.
The guy screams in pain while the others rush to climb aboard.
Zira gets ready to attack them, but stops when she remembers Rose's warning about letting the Franky Family kidnap them. For confirmation, she looks to the sniper, who's shooting at them with his exploding stars, with the ones taking the hit falling off the ladder, but they keep coming back up. "Usopp, you know these guys?"
"They're the Franky Family! They stole the money that we were going to use to fix Merry!" Usopp answers without taking his eyes off them.
With that confirmation, she starts flying. "In that case, I'm gonna hide."
"DON'T JUST LEAVE ME ALONE WITH THEM!" Usopp yells but the bird doesn't listen, and instead flies up to the crow's nest to pretend that she's a normal bird.
It took only a few minutes for the Franky Family to climb aboard the ship, capture Usopp, and tie him to the mast.
"Let me go you bastards! What the hell are you doing?!" Usopp calls out as he struggles with the ropes, but most of the men just ignore them while only a few of them laugh in response.
Zira watches in amazement of how accurate Rose's future knowledge is when she watches the Franky Family pull up the anchor, and start sailing off. They travel alongside the coastline until they reached a large bridge. They turned the ship to go under the bridge where Franky was waiting at the entranceway with a large crane.
"SUPER job guys!" Franky calls out before he operates the crane to grab onto the ship, and gently lift it up to the hideout. When he sees the bottom of the boat, he notices the broken keel, and can tell that the boat's life is at a finish. That won't stop his plans for vengeance though.
Usopp keeps struggling against the ropes, even when the boat is reeled inside, with brakes securing the ship from slipping out of the waterway. "Let me go and fight me, you bikini wearing asshole!"
Franky just ignores his complaints and gives orders to his men. "GO OUT TO THE CITY AND GO FIND THE STRAW HATS! TELL THEM WE HAVE THEIR SHIP AND CREW MATE!"
"RIGHT!" The men were quick to leave, while the two women that went with Franky during his fight with Luffy stay behind.
Once they're gone, he climbs onboard the ship, and unties his hostage. Usopp jumps away from the crazy cyborg, and gets his slingshot ready. "Don't come any closer! I won't let you kill me or this ship!"
Franky loses his smile at the claim, but doesn't try to hurt him. "Relax kid, if I was going to hurt you, I would've done it. I brought you here to lure out Straw Hat, he's the one I have beef with."
Usopp lowers his guard in hearing that, but is also annoyed at being used for bait. "You idiot, I quit the Straw Hats last night. They also left the ship to me. I've been protecting it all day."
Franky dramatically gasps at the story, and to both Usopp and Zira's surprise he starts sobbing. "Waah! Such a heartwarming story! I misjudged you, long nose! You're a real man! I'm not crying!"
Both guests sweat drop at the weird behavior before Zira flies off the crow's nest, and lands on the railing. "Seems like you're crying to me..."
"Shut up!" Franky bites back before he turns to the new voice and jumps at the sight of the talking bird. "What the hell?! Where'd you come from!?"
"I've been in the crow's nest. You're Franky, right? Name's Zira."
Usopp gets annoyed by all this craziness, then looks out at the now closed doors, that leads them to the water. "Now that you know I'm not friends with Luffy anymore, can you let us out?"
Franky calms down from the question before he looks at the doors. "Not a good idea, Long Nose. There's a big storm called Aqua Laguna coming in. If you guys stayed out there, your ship wouldn't survive even if it was in good condition. You guys can stay here until the storm passes."
Usopp freezes at the excuse, and doesn't want to risk Merry's remaining life, so he doesn't argue with him. "I see, thanks. Can I at least borrow some tools to help repair the ship?"
The cyborg raises an eyebrow at the request, because no amount of reparations can repair it, but decides not to argue and let him do what he wants. "Fine with me. Consider it my way of making it up to you for beating you up yesterday."
"Don't remind me..." Usopp grumbles before he gets off the ship, grabs a few pieces of lumber, nails, and a hammer, then goes to fix some holes on the outer hull.
Franky gets off the ship as well, with the bird following him, and takes a seat on the couch. Zira sits on top of the back of the couch next to him while he looks over to the sniper with a grin. "So, now that you're not a pirate, what are you going to do? If you want, you can join the Franky Family. We'd love to have you."
Usopp grows annoyed at the suggestion and looks to him. "HELL NO! I might not be in Luffy's crew anymore, but I'm still a pirate at heart!"
Franky dramatically gasps at his declaration before he grabs his guitar from the side, and starts strumming. "That's so manly! I declare this song to be called 'pirate valor'..."
Zira keeps her mouth shut, to keep herself from laughing, while the two women start cheering at his music making.
Usopp though, grows pissed by this guy's joking around. "QUIT MAKING FUN OF ME, YOU ASS! And even if I wasn't a pirate, I wouldn't join people that rob others!"
Franky stops his guitar playing from the complaint, but he doesn't get mad at him. "That's water under the bridge, you guys beat up my men pretty bad for it, so we can call it even. By the way, about that money..."
He jumps up, and gets into a dramatic pose with the girls copying his pose from both sides of him. "I SPENT IT ALL!"
"I am so tempted to murder you right now..." Usopp mutters, as he squints his eyes at him, but he keeps himself from hitting him by focusing back on Merry's injuries.
Zira looks from her friend to the cyborg, and tries to change the subject to keep a brawl from starting up. "So, this Aqua Laguna, it seems pretty well known in the city to just be a onetime storm."
Franky looks to his new feathery friend, and answers her. "That's because it's not. It's an annual storm that submerges the lower level of the city. It raises the sea level of this city every year."
Usopp stops working when he hears this fact, and grows curious. "You're serious?"
"Yea, after the storm, if you go underwater, you can see old buildings and roads that have been completely submerged underwater. Because of the water level rising the city turned to water roads instead of regular roads."
"Wow, that's rough, but you guys can use the sea train to leave right?" Usopp asks which gets Franky to unconsciously smile when he remembers his mentor's greatest invention.
"That's right. My teacher Tom was the one who invented the sea train. You're able to cross the water to connect islands without the need for a log, or worry about sea kings."
He looks over the worn down ship that Usopp is trying to fix, before he looks to his guest. "The train can't move the ship though. And you should know that there's no hope in fixing this ship, so what are you trying to do exactly?"
Usopp tenses up at the mention of Merry's condition before his face begins to sadden, he takes a look at the ship, then back to Franky. "I don't know. I know that Merry's life is at an end, I had enough proof when I looked at the keel this morning. I just don't have the heart to let her go just yet..."
He groans to himself before he throws the hammer to the floor, and just releases his anger. "DAMMIT, THIS ISN'T RIGHT, SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DIE! IF MERRY HAD JUST TOLD ME ABOUT THIS WHEN WE SPOKE IN SKYPIEA THEN WE COULD'VE FIXED THIS!"
Franky grows confused about the last complaint, and speaks up. "You saw Merry's spirit? Was it a kid in a raincoat holding a hammer?"
Usopp calms down at the question, and answers him. "Y-yea, my friend told me she turned into a klaba- something..."
"A Klabautermann?"
"That's it, when Merry turned into a kid, we worked together to improve the ship's condition, and talked all night. You know about them?!"
"Yea, I've heard the legends. Them being able to become that child, and warn their sailors of any dangers ahead. To be honest, I've never heard of a story of them fixing the ship with a sailor."
He lifts his sunglasses up to get a good look at the figurehead, then starts grinning at it. "This ship must've loved you guys so much that she wanted to make sure you guys got to the next island, and tell you her appreciation for being with her."
Upon hearing those words, Usopp is the one to tear up, as he looks to the ship. "Merry..."
Even the girls start tearing up at the sentimental story until the doorbell begins to ring.
Zira looks back to sound to see a normal door that's connected to the street. "Is that your men?"
"If it was, then they would've just barged in." One of the girls go to answer, while the other goes to the door to stop the annoying doorbell.
"I'm coming!"
Franky is a bit wary of who could be ringing the doorbell at this hour, but doesn't do anything when she answers.
He realizes that this was a mistake when the girl was suddenly sent flying back as soon as she opened the door!
"MOZU!" Franky calls out as he jumps over the couch to catch her. Once she's caught, he looks up in anger only to see that the girl's sister received the same treatment by getting knocked out by a kick to the head from Kalifa. "Kiwi!"
Kiwi falls to the floor while Usopp and Zira are horrified by the attack while Franky is more infuriated by the minute when he sees CP 9 walking in. "GALLEY LA, BLUENO, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
He charges Kalifa to avenge his friends, but Blueno appears in front of him in a flash, and blocks the punch he was going to give.
Lucci then comes at Franky in a flash, kicks his side, and sends him flying to the wall.
Franky groans at the cheap hit, as he slowly gets up. "What the hell's with you guys?! Why are you here?!"
Lucci scowls at the cyborg, and tries to make this short. "I'll make this short. The people that you knew for the past five years were fake. We're agents from the World Government."
Zira grows scared about the fact that World Government agents are here, and jumps onto the couch cushion to keep herself out of their line of sight.
As for Usopp, he's just frozen in shock of what's going on, but stays back when Franky fully stands up.
Franky is also surprised by the development, but doesn't say anything about it.
Lucci could care less about the looks he's getting as he continues speaking. "We're on a mission to retrieve the blueprints that your mentor refused to provide us. We know that you have them, Cutty Flam. Hand them over if you value your life."
With Franky's real name being spoken, he knows for sure that they're the real thing. Which means he can go all out without feeling guilty! "Like hell I'll give them to you!"
He stretches his arm to throw a punch, but before the fist could even get near him, Lucci appeared right in front of him in a flash, and threw a punch to send him flying. This time, the cyborg's body hit another wall that was quick to crumble, and reveal a drawing room.
"Looks like a good place to hide the blueprints." Blueno states before he, Lucci, and Kaku start going into the room.
"HEY!" Franky goes to stop them, but Kalifa wraps a thorned whip around his arms and torso, and kicks him in the back of the head to knock his face to the floor.
Both Usopp and Zira are frozen in fright of the powerful assassins as the men go through the hidden room, but can't find a single clue for what they're looking for.
Lucci leaves the room first, with Blueno following, and he looks down at their new prisoner. "Even if we can't find it, we have ways of making you talk. After all, you assaulted a World Government official when Tom was arrested."
"He got what he deserved!"
"That doesn't hold anything, you're still a criminal for that. As such you will be taken to Enies Lobby for judgement."
"Damn you!" He struggles in his thorny whip, which Kalifa is struggling to keep a hold of.
Lucci and Blueno go to restrain him, but stop when they're suddenly encased in a transparent blue bubble. The two men try to leave, but before they could do anything, they suddenly start hearing a high-pitched screech!
They scream from the torment, as they cover their ears from the torturous sound. They try to run out of the bubble, but the edge of the bubble just moves with them, even if they go in separate directions.
"What the hell?" Usopp asks, but Franky uses the chance to pull the whip away from Kalifa's grasp, frees himself, and then throws another stretched fist at her.
This one was able to hit, but now she's pissed. She gets up, and goes into an all-out brawl with Franky.
Meanwhile, Zira is keeping her focus on Lucci and Blueno, with her eyes slightly glowing from the use of her power, to keep him suffering in the screech bubble. She watches the two men collapsing on their sides, but she refuses to stop until she knows that they're down for the count.
"So, that's how it happened." Zira flinches at the sound of Kaku's voice speaking from behind her. Before she could do anything, Kaku is quick to knock her out with a single punch, that's barely an inch of his power.
Usopp flinches at the hit to see that Kaku came at the bird at lightning speed, and then sees that the bubble that was trapping Lucci and Blueno faded. "Oh shit..."
The two men remove their hands from their ears, while taking deep breathes to help recover from the painful attack. When Lucci sees Kaku putting a bird, along with a shard of sea stone in a burlap sack, it all makes sense to him now.
While Blueno gets up to help Kalifa deal with Franky, Lucci slowly gets up while looking at the bag. "Vegapunk's test subject was here?!"
Kaku nods as he ties the strings to the end of the bag to completely close it, and holds it with one bag. "Yes, I heard from Andreos that Wind Rider had let it escape before she herself fled from their grasp. I'm not sure why she..."
He trails off when he finally notices Usopp's presence, and looks at him blankly. "Wait, aren't you one of the Straw Hats?"
"NOT ANYMORE, LET HER GO!" He shoots an exploding star at Kaku's hand, that's holding Zira's bag, which sets his hand on fire.
Kaku flinches, and accidentally drops the bag, but before Kaku can catch it, Usopp runs to the bag, grabs it, and makes a run for it.
However, they were quickly blocked by Kaku reappearing in front of him. Usopp flinches back and looks around for a way out, but can see that Blueno and Kalifa were quick to overwhelm Franky.
As for Lucci, he starts storming up to the sniper, with a low growl emanating from the man. "If you're not a Straw Hat, then explain yourself..."
Usopp shivers from the menacing man, while keeping the bag holding his friend close to his chest, and quickly answers him. "I-I quit the crew last night!"
"And yet, knowing who we are, you defied us by trying to take property of the World Government..." Lucci answers, which causes Usopp to look down at the bird.
"T-that's right, I won't let you guys hurt her! She's my friend!" Usopp answers as he goes to shoot him with his slingshot, but Kaku attacks him from behind, and takes him down with the ease of a single punch.
Even as Usopp gets sent flying, he keeps the bird close to his chest, when he hits his back to the wall, so that she doesn't get hurt. He tries to get up, but Lucci appears in front of him, kicks him in the stomach, then takes the bird by force.
"We've heard enough, you're as much of a criminal as Cutty Flam, you'll be taken with us too." Lucci answers before he looks to see that Kalifa and Lucci have finished taking down Franky.
The poor cyborg not only had his arms and legs tied, he was also stuffed in a bag, with just his head sticking out, and ropes wrapped around the bag to keep him secured. Even though he was taken down, he continues to struggle in the bindings to try to get out.
"Kalifa, secure this one too." Lucci orders his subordinate, with the agent quick to answer by approaching the new prisoner.
As for Kaku, he sees the ship, and begins to approach it. "I see you still haven't gotten rid of this ship yet. Allow me to do the honors."
Usopp widens his eyes at what he said, and tries to stop him, but Kalifa's ropes keep him from moving a muscle. "DON'T YOU DARE! STOP!"
Kaku doesn't listen to the poor man, as he manages to open the warehouse's doors that lead to the ocean.
"LEAVE HER ALONE!" Usopp yells out when he gets stuffed in a sack and secured the same way that Franky was, but it was no use.
As soon as Kaku released the brakes that kept the ship from moving, the ship slowly moved out of the warehouse, and into the water to brave Aqua Laguna.
"MERRY!" Usopp feels as though his heart is ripped out from the sight of Merry's fall, but could do nothing about it.
Blueno picked him up over his shoulder, and carried him off with Franky on the other shoulder. Blueno opened a door for them, which leads straight to the train station. He is quick to lead the way, with the agents following behind, and Lucci giving Kaku the bird's bag for him to carry.
Once they passed the door, they were at the entrance of the train station, and welcomed by a small army of marine soldiers. Upon seeing the agents, the soldiers salute them, as if they're conquering heroes, and open a path that leads to the train and CP 8.
Once Rufus sees them, he releases a small smirk at Lucci. "What's this? Couldn't get your blueprints, so you got some baggage?"
Lucci twitches an eyebrow at the comment, but seeing as how Rufus' team got split in half, he begins to smirk back at him. "We had better luck than you did apparently. It looks like a few of your men went missing. I hope you at least got your demon."
It's Rufus' turn to get pissed, and grows tempted to throw a punch, but Andreos holds him back with a pat on the shoulder. "That's enough for now. We still need to work together. The mission hasn't officially ended until Nico Robin is sent to headquarters. Wind Rider is sure to come after us."
*They're after Rose too?* Usopp is curious as to why they'd be after her, but he's also worried too. He doesn't want her to see him in this horrible state, so he tries to struggle out, but there's no use.
Rufus ignores the struggling sniper, calms down from the reassurance, and nods in agreement before he looks to Lucci. "Your demon is on the train. We should climb aboard as well."
Lucci couldn't agree more as he, and most of the agents walk past them. However, Kaku stops in front of Andreos, and shows him the sack that's holding Zira. "While we were capturing Cutty Flam, we ran into Vegapunk's test subject. Do you mind if we keep her with the other prisoners?"
Andreos is surprised by the news, but is also glad to know their mission wasn't a complete failure. With a small grin, he gives his friend a nod. "That's perfectly fine, thank you for your help."
"I should be the one thanking you, if you didn't tell us about her, she might've taken us down." Kaku answers with a small grin before he catches up to Blueno to bring the prisoners to the luggage cart.
As the soldiers were speaking and beginning to board, Sanji keeps himself hidden around a corner of the station. With a drag of his cigarette, he scowls at the new agents that arrived and brought in Usopp. "Crap, now they have Usopp too. This is gonna be harder than I thought..."
He knows that he can't leave Usopp behind, so when he sees that Usopp is getting placed into the baggage carts in the last few cars of the train, he finds that getting Usopp out should be first. That way he can get more manpower to rescue Robin. Still, he doesn't like the sound of Rose being a target from them too. Lucky for him, they didn't capture her, so that's one less thing to worry about.
His train of thought stops when he hears the train going off, to find that all of the soldiers have boarded, and the train is getting ready to depart.
Just as he goes to sneak aboard though, he finds that Rose suddenly materialized on top of the train. "Rose-chan?!"
He groans at the girl's stubbornness, and runs to climb aboard, but before anyone could notice him a gust of wind picks him up, and takes him by the wind girl's side. "Rose-chan, what the hell?!"
Rose chuckled at the question before she looked around to see that no one's coming after them, much to her relief. "Sorry, just making sure you didn't draw any attention, while coming onboard."
"That's not what I meant! Do you know they're after you too?! You shouldn't be here!"
She loses her smile at the warning, but shows no signs of getting off. "I'm sorry, but I have to be here. Robin needs all the help she can get to get out of this mess."
Sanji's face softens at the statement, and knows that she can be just as stubborn as her lover, so he forces himself to accept this. "Alright, then I guess we're in this together. We should stay here for a bit, so the soldiers can start lowering their guard."
Rose nods to this with a soft grin, before she looks around again to see that no one in CP 8 is coming after them yet. She was suspicious when the unit didn't come after her again on the way to the train, but now she can confirm that their observation haki abilities have weakened from the battle.
While she may be relieved about that, she knows that she can't let her guard down either. Every step she takes here will affect the battle, and she needs to do all she can to keep them from getting hurt, and to show Robin that the crew's important to them.
With that goal in her mind, she looks ahead to the raging waters, and braces herself for the upcoming struggle they're all about to face.
TO BE CONTINUED