Act 2
Lunya and Aiku are quickly taken below deck by the Black Sail crewmen, still aimlessly struggling beneath the weight of the sea stone nets. Aiku tries desperately to break free, but her strength has vanished. The crew laugh as they drag them into a dark room at the aft of the ship. When brought inside, they are tossed into a small prison cell callously. Their hands are cuffed behind their backs with sea stone bindings, and then they're removed from the nets hastily. As Aiku is freed, she delivers one swift kick to the side of a crewman's face with the very last of her strength, causing the man to throw her against the wall angrily.
One of the officers runs to stop him. "No! They are to remain unharmed for now. Just leave them."
Another crewman steps beside him with a menacing grin. "Yeah, don't worry. They'll be suffering soon enough."
Satisfied with their actions, the crewmen laugh and exit the room, leaving Aiku and Lunya in dim, desolate silence.
Aiku sits up and leans her back against the cold wall, recovering from the affects of the sea stone nets. She takes a deep breath as life returns to her, centering her emotions and adjusting to reality again. She looks to Lunya, who is sitting silently, hunched forward on her knees, stricken with grief. "Lunya-- " She says gently.
"Why. Why, Aiku." Lunya snaps, her watery eyes focused on the steel floor.
Aiku's expression changes from exhausted to frustrated instantly. "I came to rescue you! What do you even think you're doing?"
Lunya looks to her. "I specifically told you not to follow me!"
"But that's what we don't understand! Why would you run away? We can help you--"
"No! You can't help me through this."
Aiku is quiet for a moment, studying Lunya's grave expression. "But why? I don't understand."
"I don't want you to."
"I want to!"
"No, you don't. Trust me. This is something I felt I must do alone."
Aiku ponders the notion. "I understand. That's exactly how I felt when I came to rescue you..."
Lunya's expression softens. "You're too young, Aiku. You've made a dire mistake by coming to my aide."
Aiku grows angry. "No I haven't! I can do things on my own."
"That's exactly what I'm taking about! Such decisions are immature."
"I could say the same about you!" Aiku counters.
Lunya holds her tongue and pauses to think. "I suppose that could be so. But it still doesn't explain why you would choose to come here all alone. Sky has always been there for you--"
"That's exactly my point!" Aiku interrupts. She turns her trembling eyes toward the floor. "He's always been there for me. And I've never been there for him." Lunya begins to understand. Aiku closes her eyes and lets a tear slide out. "All his life, my brother has done nothing but take care of me. All of his time was devoted to my safety, my well being, my life. It's not fair anymore. I just wanted to do something for him. Just once, so I could prove myself."
Lunya looks to her. "But Aiku, that's not--"
"Don't tell me it's not worth it!" She faces Lunya tearfully. "It is. To me it is."
Lunya searches for the right words, but finds none. She relents and adopts a warmer expression. A weak smile crosses her lips. "I understand, Aiku. Thank you."
Aiku tries to smile through her tears. She turns away and breaths out sharply, attempting to expel the last of her sadness. "But I still don't get what drove you to do this, Lunya. Why would you ever think you had to do something like this? We're like family."
Lunya sighs. "Are we, though?" Aiku is offended by this, shooting her a look of disdain. "I only joined the crew a few years ago. I didn't grow up with all of you like your friends did. I wasn't with you to form those bonds. I don't share that."
"That doesn't matter!" Aiku protests. "You know we all treat you like a sister!"
"That may be so. But still, I find myself feeling distant from the rest of you."
"Lunya..."
"Don't get me wrong, it has nothing to do with all of you. You welcomed me in with open arms and made me feel like part of your family. But deep down, I always knew I didn't share that life time connection with you."
Aiku processes her statements. "...I guess I can understand that. But I hope you know that's not the way we feel. Not at all."
Lunya smiles. "I know. Trust me, I do. And I can't tell you how much it means to me."
Aiku slides closer to her. "Then why, Lunya? What would cause you to do something so drastic?"
Lunya sighs again and gazes out a small port window in front of her. "My history is what you would call...obscure. There are certain parts of my past that I never wished to share with you."
Aiku displays an inviting expression. "But you can tell me."
Lunya looks to her and studies her face, then returns her eyes to the window, becoming lost in thought. "Long ago...I had friend. Remember when I told you I knew someone who worked for the World Government?"
"Of course. That's how we developed a lot of our technology."
Lunya smiles in remembrance. "Her name was Monet."
"Monet?" Aiku repeats.
Lunya nods. "I grew up with her and her younger sister in a land far from here. It was a troubling existence. We barely scraped by day by day, trying to hold onto any bit of joy there was. But one day, while I was away, a mysterious man came to take her and her sister away. I heard he rescued them, so at first I was happy for my friends. But as time went on, I found myself lonely and wishing for their return. Then, many years later, when I was out on my own as part of another pirate crew, fate blessed us. Monet had heard about me through town gossip, and she came to find me one day when I returned from sea. We had another chance to rekindle our friendship for a short time, but soon after I learned she was working for the Donquixote family. For many years I had no idea what the family was truly about, so we remained friends for a while, visiting each other whenever she had time. But I could tell something within her had changed. She was different. When she informed me of Doflamingo's invasion of Dressrosa, I expected that would be her time to depart, due to the extreme circumstances. But to my surprise, she stayed. She was even happy. After that, we became distant once again. I was still young and inexperienced. I didn't know how to process everything. So we decided to keep our distance, only communicating through letters..."
"That was probably the best thing to do, knowing who Doflamingo is now." Aiku affirms.
Lunya nods. "But we did see each other one last time. And I will never forget it. After I had not heard from her in years, she finally wrote to inform me of a safe spot to meet. When I arrived, I was shocked to find her transformed into some kind of monster. Bird appendages in place of her legs, and huge white wings in place of her arms. I was horrified and fascinated. When I asked her about it, all she told me was that she had found her place, and this would be the last time we would ever see each other. All of her warmth and compassion seemed to be gone, replaced by some sadistic energy. I could feel it so vividly. And then, she handed me a vial of green liquid. She placed it in my hand and told me that this would always keep us connected no matter what..."
"A green liquid? What was it?" Aiku wonders.
"At the time, I didn't understand either. But soon after came the last letter I would ever receive from Monet. She told me that she had eaten a devil fruit. The snow-snow fruit. And for countless years, Vegapunk and his team were attempting to clone the powers of devil fruit users by creating a substance called 'green blood.' Eventually, they were able to successfully recreate Zoan and Paramecia powers, but never Logia. However, Caesar--who was second only to Vegapunk himself--had in fact successfully created it at his lab. Monet never shared with me the exact details, but somehow his experiments were able to accomplish the impossible feat. At the time, Monet was testing all of those experiments. When she discovered that the Logia green blood had actually worked, she stole the vile for herself, later pretending to accidentally break the vial in front of Caesar. Why she did this, I'll never know. But I'd like to think it was one last ray of humanity shining through. Perhaps her personal guilt, combined with the notion of the circumstances it would create. But due to her foolish actions, Caesar punished her by banning her from the labs, and replacing her legs and arms with bird parts. That way, she could never perform delicate experiments again. Although she pretended she liked them, I knew deep down she hated herself. It was only out of loyalty to Doflamingo that she accepted her fate. But she knew she was a monster. She just embraced it..." Lunya begins to tear.
"Lunya...I'm so sorry." Aiku says softly.
"Soon after Caesar deemed the Logia experiments impossible, just as Vegapunk had, as it had taken him many years to complete just one single vial. Monet and myself were the only people who ever knew."
Aiku thinks. "I see...so the reason she gave you the green blood was to keep it safe."
Lunya nods. "I guess she thought it would be in better hands. But for all the time I had it, I always remembered her words. She said it would keep us connected. So one day, I injected the green blood. Immediately I felt a strange change in my body, and within hours, I too had the powers of the snow-snow fruit. I don't know why I did it. Perhaps in dedication to our friendship, or maybe morbid curiosity. All I was certain of was that it connected us."
Aiku leans toward her and smiles. "You did it for friendship. Because friends are like family."
Lunya looks to her with a sad, yet hopeful expression. "Yes. We are."
Aiku's smile grows brighter. Then another notion dawns on her. "But I still don't understand how the government ever found out? How did they know it was you?"
"Well, as you know, the World Government has many affective spies. And because of Vegapunk and Caesar's history together, Vegapunk would often send his spies to Punk Hazard, searching for any useful documents. On one of their recent trips, they discovered Monet's diary, suspecting that some of Caesar's underlings may have been keeping secrets from him. And their suspicions were correct. Monet had written about the entire experience in detail, even mentioning my name. When you have no one else to talk to, you spill your mind onto a page instead. It wasn't long before they located me."
Aiku is confused by this. "But I've never seen a bounty poster for you!"
"And you never will. For someone like me, the World Government doesn't even create a public bounty. I'm so wanted, they don't want anyone to know aside from their most elite forces."
"I see now. So that's why the Black Sail Brigade was called...But how did you find out about it?"
"I only found out myself a few weeks ago, while we were visiting our last port. In town, I was planning to do a bit of spying myself when I noticed a few Vice Admirals wandering through town. I overheard them talking about me. And as soon as I realized what was happening, I starting planning my escape right away. I had originally planned to leave sooner, but unfortunately they caught up with us first."
Aiku takes a moment to absorb all the information. "I understand now."
Lunya turns away. "Now you see why I had to come alone. I wanted to turn myself in. And now I've made the situation even worse by getting you captured."
Aiku is still confused. "But why would this makes things better? They would still come after us anyway!"
"Maybe not..." Lunya retorts. "I wanted to make a deal with them. In exchange for giving my life to Vegapunk's experiments, I would demand they leave you alone."
"I don't get how that could work..."
"Maybe it would have. I had to try." Lunya turns to her with a weak smile.
Aiku and Lunya stare at each other for a long moment, as Aiku begins to realize that the insane action Lunya had taken was in reality bravery and honor.
Aiku grins. "You really are humble, Lunya."
Lunya let's a shallow laugh slip through. "I suppose I learned from the best." She gazes through the port window optimistically.
Upon the white caps of the blue sea, far behind Fukitsu's ship, Sky's captains and the Straw Hats prepare for battle. The ships speed alongside each other, cutting through the waves smoothly, inching ever closer to the Black Sails on the horizon.
"Nami! How far away are we now?" Luffy calls to her, crouched in front of the glass over looking the deck.
Nami checks a few coordinates on the map and places a finger on their ship's position. "Only a few miles! We should be gaining on them now."
Luffy huffs in frustration. "We need to go faster!"
"What do you want me to do, get out and push?!"
"Can you do that?" He asks honestly.
"Obviously I'm not serious!" She screams at him with a vicious face.
Zoro steps beside her. "Why don't we just use that portal ability? Don't all the ships have it?"
"Oh yeah." Nami picks up the transponder snail. "Hey, Tydal! How do we use this portal ability?"
"We'll show you soon! Right now we're still waiting on Sky to arrive."
"Isn't he on one of the ships?"
"Well, not yet..."
Just then, Luffy gazes into the air, catching sight of something from the corner of his eye. There in the sunny blue haze is the figure of a man darting down through the clouds. Luffy smiles and chuckles as he realizes it's Sky. "Hey, there he is!"
Nami, Robin and Zoro gather around him to watch as Sky descends through the air and lands gracefully on the deck below, much to the amusement of the crewman, who all erupt in supportive cheers.
"He's so cool!" Luffy exclaims. He runs to the an open window at the side of the wheelhouse and pops his upper body out. "Hey, Sky dude! Up here, come on!"
With a jolt of energy, Luffy shoots his rubber arm downward and grabs Sky by the shirt. Sky only has a second to express his shock before Luffy yanks him into the air with a desperate scream, pulling him into the wheelhouse. Sky collides with Luffy as he comes through window, knocking Nami and Zoro over into a twisted pile.
Zoro jumps back to his feet aggressively. "What the hell was that, Luffy?!"
"You moron!" Nami yells.
Luffy laughs and dusts himself off. "That was fun, wasn't it?"
To their surprise, Sky rises to his feet happily. "Sure was! Let's do it again sometime!"
"Seriously?!" Nami and Zoro shout in unison.
Robin comes beside the helm and points to the orb. "So can you tell us how we use this? Surely it will help us catch up a lot faster."
Sky nods and jogs over to the controls. "Sure! First we have to--"
"Sky!" A crewman interrupts, running into the wheelhouse. "Bad news--we've got some company!"
Sky turns to him. "Already? Where?"
"Just off the port side! A small fleet is charging right at us!" He gestures to the port side windows.
Sky runs to the windows with the Straw Hats and removes a monoscope from his belt. Through the scope, he can see several normal Marine ships. "Damn. Looks like a flank."
"More Black Sails?" Robin inquires.
"No. They're traditional Navy ships. They must be working together with the Black Sails on this mission. It appears to be a much larger operation than we first thought." Sky turns to the crewman. "Inform the other captains of this immediately."
"Right away!" The crewman nods and runs to a nearby transponder snail.
Nami walks toward the helm again. "Well come on, let's use the portal quickly to get away!"
"We can't!" Sky calls to her.
"Huh-- why not?" The group gather around the wheel.
"It takes time to warm up. Time we don't have now."
Zoro sighs. "That's convenient." He grabs hold of his sword hilts and heads toward the exit.
Luffy turns to him. "Where are you going, Zoro?"
Zoro shrugs. "What do you mean? There's only one thing left to do."
Luffy grins and pumps his fists. "Right! Finally time to kick some ass!" He runs past Zoro, then turns back to him quickly. "Oh, hey Zoro--go get Sanji, I think he's still downstairs cooking."
Zoro's anger spikes. "What?! I'm not your damn errand boy!"
Nami strides past him spinning her clima-tact. "Just go!"
Robin walks past next and smiles. "We'll try to save some for you."
Zoro stands shaking in anger for a moment. "Fine! Just don't leave without me!" He turns and runs down a side corridor, stopping the first crewman he sees. "Hey, where's the kitchen at?"
The crewman points to a side stairwell. "Right down that way, 7 levels down on the waterline floor, can't miss it!"
"Thanks!" Zoro runs inside and stars heading down the stairs.
Out on the deck, Luffy, Nami and Robin survey the situation. They can see a handful of ships heading directly toward them, only a half a mile away. Sky comes behind them and crosses his arms.
"Looks to be about 10 ships, I'd say." Nami comments.
Luffy laughs dismissively. "Is that all? No problem!"
"It won't be as long as we're smart about--"
Nami's words are cut off by Luffy shouting excitedly and launching himself into the air, flying across to the adjacent ship.
Nami gasps, exasperated. "Luffy, what the hell!"
Robin smiles and giggles. "Well, I guess that's our cue!"
Nami huffs. "More like a death bell..."
Sky laughs. "Sounds like my kind of party!" He jumps on top of the ship's railing. "Let's not keep him waiting!"
As Luffy lands on the next ship, which belongs to Tydal, he looks around to find his next jumping point as the crew hesitates, surprised by his abrupt arrival. Tydal runs up next to him. "Captain Luffy! What are you doing, man?!"
Luffy turns to him. "Oh hey, tie-dye! We're going to fight, come on!" He waves him along before leaping into the air once more, heading for the next ship.
Behind Tydal, Nami and Robin arrive, jumping across a bridge made of hands provided by Robin. They come beside Tydal. "You wouldn't happen to have seen a crazy rubber man pass through this way?" Nami jokes.
Tydal laughs. "I can see you all are used to this sort of thing!"
Nami smiles. "You have no idea."
Tydal follows them across another hand bridge to the next ship, removing the large blue sword from his back and holding it high in the air.
Next, Luffy lands on Tiff's ship, almost knocking her over. As Luffy runs past her, she spins around circles. As the rest of the crew passes she continues to spin. When Tydal runs past he calls back to her. "Come on, babe! Quit stalling!" She stands dizzy for a moment, then quickly charges after them.
Now a much larger group, they jump onto Bara's ship. He is equally surprised but quickly joins them, blending with the group smoothly as they pass by.
Finally, they arrive on Chong's ship, the last in the line. When they land, he is the only captain undisturbed by the sudden arrival. He sits reclined on top of a storage box at the top of the bow, puffing on his cigar.
Tydal runs up to him. "Hey, doofus! You do know the Navy is coming, right?"
Chong looks to him casually. "Huh? Oh...yeah...I think they're almost here now."
The group looks to the sea and sees the small fleet is nearly in firing range.
"We're out of time, we have to move now!" Nami commands.
Tydal turns to his fellow captains. "Right! I say we can all take on one ship each, what do you think guys?" They all nod in agreement.
"No sweat!" Tiff proclaims.
Bara pumps his fist. "In my sleep!"
Tydal turns to Luffy. "How about you, Luf--" But he's already leapt into the air again. "Luffy!" He calls to him.
"Enough talk!" Luffy calls back, flying high over the ship. "Time to fight!"
On board the lead Navy ship, some of the crew notice Luffy hovering over their ship. They gather around the bow and look up in wonder. "What the hell? Is that Straw Hat Luffy?" One yells. "It can't be!" Another shouts in disbelief.
"Now--THIRD GEAR!" Luffy swings his arm back. It expands to a monstrous size and coats in a sheen of silver armor.
"Oh crap, it is!!" The crew of the Navy ship scream in unison.
"ELEPHANT GUN!"
Luffy slams his giant fist down on the ship, blasting the entire vessel apart with one powerful blow. The sailors are sent flying into the air as the other ship crews brace themselves, covering their faces from the debris.
Back on board Lunya's ship, Zoro stands confused at the rear section of the ship, over looking the paddle wheel. He gazes out at the horizon and crosses his arms. "This isn't the kitchen. What the hell was that guy talking about?"
End of Episode 3