In Navarone's vast library, minutes before Luffy's rescue mission, Nico Robin is cleverly disguised as a marine inspector. She has already gathered as much information as she could about the base's building design from their blueprints. Sadly, it looks like the only way to escape is through the sea gate, and it's probably closed to keep the pirates trapped in their sea cage.
She can think up a few ways to get her and the crew out of this mess, but before any of these plans can get into action, there is one thing that she wants to look into first. She looks over her shoulder to spot the marines, that are spying on her in between the bookshelves, from the corner of her eye.
She knows that she has to be discreet, so she grabs a map of the base, folds it to put in her pocket, and walks over to the librarian's desk where Wanda is going through some of her files.
When the short elder notices the fake inspector, her ruby lips curl up into a smile. "Now what can I do for you inspector?"
Robin matches the librarian's smile as she looks down at the large index book in front of her. "I need to examine your index to audit the library's book placement."
Wanda nods in understanding before she hands her the book. "Knock yourself out, I can assure you that everything's in place."
"Thank you." Robin takes the red book and flips through the index numbers. She knits her eyebrows in interest to find that not only are the contents organized by genre, but also alphabetically.
When she finds the astronomy section of the index, she follows the identification number until she finds a shelf that holds almost every astronomy book that this library holds.
She looks through the shelf until she finds a book with the same dark blue cover and thick width as the book that she's seen Rose read on the ship. She narrows her eyes on the literature and takes a look to find that it's an encyclopedia on comets. *Could Wind-chan's books be why the marines thought we had something to do with Hell's Comet?*
She looks through the book's table of contents, but there's no chapter on the other worldly comet that has the World Government so frazzled.
"Something you're interested in?" Robin gets her head out of the book to see Wanda walking up to her.
The librarian looks at the book that Robin's holding and gives her a sweet smile. "Ah, so you have an interest in comets, do you? Any in that book catch your eye? I've read every piece here so I can help refer you something more specific."
Robin blinks at the impressive woman before she returns the smile. "Thank you, but it seems that what I'm looking for isn't in here. What I'm looking for is-"
She stops when the building starts to slightly shake from the explosion in the brig.
"What the?!" Wanda looks up in horror to see that some of the books are starting to fall, so she rushes to catch each piece of literature with Robin's help.
The marines that have been spying on Robin don't do the same, and allow the heavy books on the top shelves to fall off and land on the spies' heads. The nearby men fall unconscious, but remain out of sight for the women to notice.
When the tremor fades, the librarian sighs in relief as she holds onto the ten books that are piled in her hands. "Sorry about that, thanks for helping me catch them."
Robin giggles at her peppy attitude as she puts away the five books that she caught. "It's no problem at all. It looks like you care a lot about these books."
Wanda happily grins at her as she gently sets the books down to grab a ladder. "Of course I do! It doesn't matter how strong someone is, without knowledge you're powerless. And the best way to start gaining knowledge is by reading a book."
She sighs to herself as she leans the wooden ladder against the shelf, and climbs on before she lets Robin pass them over to her, so she can put them in their proper place. "Sadly, not that many officers understand that concept. For those that do though, I try my best to make sure they have what they need to learn all that they can."
Robin softly grins at the wonderful librarian, for she reminds her of her mentors from her homeland. After she gives Wanda the last book, she forces herself to look away from her. "I see, well you have my praise."
As she surveys the area for any more fallen books, she decides to abandon her questions about Hell's comet to the librarian. She knows for sure that her crew somehow caused the tremor. With her crew mates starting an uproar, she needs to make sure that she can escape with them. Because of that, these questions are being reserved for Rose once they're safely out of the base.
She continues to look around the facility, to make it look like she's giving the library a quick last inspection, before she grins at Wanda. "You're doing a wonderful job managing this place. Navarone made a wise choice in entrusting the archives to you."
Wanda freezes at the praise before she gives her a bright smile. "Thank you so much Inspector! If you have some free time before you leave, feel free to come back!"
Robin only nods to the elderly woman before she leaves with the map still in her pocket. Once she's out the door, she goes to leave just before a masculine voice speaks behind her.
"Hold it right there Inspector. What's your destination?"
Robin turns around to see a slightly muscular officer man scowling at her with his rifle in his hand. She's not impressed with the low-ranking marine in the slightest as she continues her act. "I don't believe I'm required to report to you."
"Yes, but we're required to report about you..." He says just before two other officers block her other path with their rifles aimed at her.
They now have the pirate's attention, which is a grave mistake on their part. They're about to see why when Robin smirks at them. "Very well then."
The men keep their guards up when they see her crossing their arms over her chest. However, no amount of training could prepare them for three pairs of arms growing on their bodies. Two to cover their mouths, and their screams, while the rest of the new limbs put them in a clutch until the marines collapse from the pain.
Once they're knocked out, the pirate releases her power and leaves to search for her crew mates.
********************************************
In the Vice Admiral's office, Jonathan looks out the window to see smoke rising from where the explosion in the brig occurred. As soon as he realizes where it happened, his den den mushi begins to ring at his desk.
He goes to answer the snail and sees it transform to look like Lieutenant Noah because of the head of red hair to match its goatee. "Vice Admiral, there was an explosion in the brig and caused a cave in! I managed to dig an opening to get the men to collect the wounded!"
Jonathan grins at the news. "Good work Lieutenant, were you able to find your subordinate?"
Noah scowls at the reminder of Lily's disregard for her safety. "I did. Apparently, the wind girl threw her, and a few of our men, out of harm's way before the cave in. I asked Lily what her relationship to the pirate is, but she said that she only met her last night. She dug herself through the dirt wall and ran after the pirates. I tried to stop her, but she's too stubborn for her own good."
Jonathan chuckles in amusement of the brave cadet. "I see, but if they met last night, that could make sense of how the pirate knew to go to your training session."
The lieutenant freezes at the theory before he scowls from remembering his embarrassing mistake. "Actually sir, I mistook her for Lily in the library this morning and dragged her to training..."
Jonathan widens his eyes at the explanation. "Wait a second, you found the pirate in the library? Did she take any books with her?"
Noah freezes at the question when he remembers the backpack Wanda gave her, and Rose made sure to bring with her during her escape. "She did! Even after my fight, she made an extra effort to take them with her! I'm sorry to say, but I don't know what books she took."
As Jonathan processes this information, he gives his subordinate a calm smile. "No need to apologize, you've just given me all the information I need. For now, see if you can find the pirates and your subordinate."
"Yes sir!" He hangs up his side of the line while Jonathan chuckles at the development.
He picks up Rose's wanted poster with a prideful smirk for uncovering one of the crew's mysteries. "So, you're the crew's astronomer..."
His snail rings again, so he answers to hear Lieutenant Drake's voice on the other side. "Sir, I'm sorry to say that our trap failed! I'm searching for the crew with my men as we speak!"
Jonathan puts down the wanted poster as he comes up with a plan for the crew's next trap. "Hold on a second Drake, I need you to set up an ambush in Dock 88, where we're holding the ship."
Drake furrows his eyebrows at the command, because if he's going to do this, he can't afford any more mistakes. "I can do it, but I'm going to need time."
"You'll have it. Noah and his unit are still searching for them, so that should leave you plenty of time. Let me know once the trap is set."
"Yes sir!" Drake hangs up on him to get to the docks and begin preparations for their enemy's arrival.
Jonathan couldn't stop himself from chuckling as he hangs up his line and looks at Luffy's wanted poster. "Your move Monkey D Luffy. What's your plan now?"
********************************************************
Luffy, Sanji, Usopp, and Zoro are still trying to wrap their heads around what's going on when they see not one but two girls with the face of their crew mate. Besides the cut on one of the girls' cheek, that the wind girl received from fighting Noah, there's no other way to tell them apart.
"What the hell is this?" Zoro asks when he remembers his interrogation with Lieutenant Drake about Rose's crystal, and starts to wonder what else is the wind girl hiding from them.
"Isn't it obvious moss head? Rose-chan has a twin sister!" Sanji says as he begins to happily smile at Lily, who finishes recovering from running so much and starts standing herself upright.
Rose groans at the situation before she walks up to Lily. "As far as I know, I don't have a sister. She could be disguised as me to-!"
The pirate cuts herself off when Lily draws two daggers from her boots and points them to her neck. The marine keeps her contact covered eyes on the wind girl as she keeps the two blades close to her skin, but light enough so that they won't harm her. "What makes you think that you didn't disguise yourself as me?!"
"Wait, what?! Which one is Rose then?!" Usopp asks as he stays in the back of the group. Luffy stays quiet with his hat shadowed over his eyes, while Zoro and Sanji are trying to figure out which one of them is their crew mate.
Rose immediately understands what her doppelganger is trying to pull and is unimpressed by her stunt. "You can't be serious..."
"As serious as they come marine!" Lily says as she keeps the knives on her neck.
Rose tries to use her power to push her off, but nothing happens. She freezes before she starts feeling dizzy from the sea stone embedded at the tip of the blades. *What the fuck?! Where do they get these weapons?*
She is able to keep herself standing, but with the blade on her skin, she can't use her powers at all. Rose moves her eyes to the guys in hopes that they don't buy her act. "Guys, don't listen to her. She's just pretending to be me again."
"What do you mean again?" Zoro asks curiously.
"Sanji and Luffy grabbed this girl while I was dragged to her training session this morning. We switched back when she chased me to the brig before the explosion." Rose says as her mind gets to work on what she can say to convince them that she's the pirate.
Lily scoffs at the claim as she looks to Luffy and Sanji. "Please, you guys saw me flying before we went to the brig! It's obvious that she's lying to-!"
"You're the one who's lying." Everyone freezes when Luffy speaks up and sees him scowling at her.
He immediately walks up to the girls, but nobody does anything to stop the captain because they're all curious about what he's going to do.
The girls look at him on confusion before Luffy pulls Rose away from the marine by the waist and hugs her.
When Rose's face turns red from the embrace, Luffy happily smiles at her. "See, this one's the real Rose!"
Rose immediately feels better, because she's no longer touching the sea stone, and covers her face in her hands to try to hide her red cheeks. "Dammit Luffy, there were other ways to tell us apart!"
"Yea, but this is faster." Luffy says as he lets her pull away from him.
The others immediately believe that the girl Luffy hugged is their crew mate, because there's no way to fake that kind of reaction. But that leaves the remaining question, who the hell is the fake?
When Sanji remembers that Lily didn't blush when Luffy first carried her, he immediately realizes that Luffy's doubts about her were right. "You were the one that lead us to the brig!"
"She did what?! Wait, who the hell are you?!"" Usopp asks as he and Zoro keep their eyes on the sneaky marine.
Lily groans at being found out, as she points a knife to Rose. "My name is Lily. I came here to get answers from her."
Rose tries to keep her temper under control as she furrows her eyebrows at her doppelganger. "And what was trying to turn my crew mates against me supposed to accomplish?"
"I wanted to see what you'd say to prove you were really Rose. I didn't expect for you and your captain to be that close though." Lily looks to Luffy and curiously stares at him. "You know, I underestimated you. You suspected me from the beginning, right? How'd you know?"
Luffy crosses his arms over his chest to try to think up a way to explain why he didn't feel as happy with Lily as he does with Rose. He looks to Rose then back to the marine before he shrugs. "I don't know, it must be instinct. I just didn't feel the same way around you as I do with her."
Rose looks at him in confusion, for she has no idea what that means. "What feelings do you-?" She raises a hand to stop herself from making this situation any weirder and turns to Lily. "You know what, never mind. What answers are you looking for?"
"Why'd you save me and those two marines from the cave in, and what are you all doing here?!" Lily asks as she keeps her guard up around the criminals.
The others look to Rose for this one, since she's the one who saved her.
The wind girl doesn't want to stay in this situation for long, so she does her best to get through this as quickly as possible. "Our ship fell from the sky. And about me helping you, do I really need a reason to do something nice?"
Lily grows more irritated at the dodged answers as she glares at her. "You do when we're supposed to be enemies! You know why we share the same face, don't you?! That's the only thing that could make sense of it!"
Rose quietly sighs at the stressful situation as she looks her in the eyes. "Look, I didn't even know you existed till last night. There are a lot of possibilities for why we look the same, from this being a weird coincidence to me being your long lost, evil, twin."
Usopp blankly stares at her for giving them such a bogus possibility. "Evil twin?"
The wind girl casually shrugs at his doubt. "It can happen. We could even be doppelgangers, two people with no relationship to one another yet have the same face."
Zoro furrows his eyebrows at the explanation, for when he remembers the marine Tashigi's resemblance to his dead childhood rival, he finds the story to be believable. However, he still holds suspicions against her thanks to the experiment, so he doesn't say anything to stop the questions.
Lily narrows her eyes at the girl for she doesn't believe her one bit. "Then why didn't you come forward when you found out I was with your crew mates?! After all, it was your wind that saved me from falling off the cliff!"
Sanji and Luffy look at her in shock of the fact that Rose knew they had the wrong girl, while the wind girl groans at being found out. "I was still trying to figure out what to do at the time! If we stayed outside to try to understand why there's two of us for too long, we would've been sitting ducks!"
She stops when she realizes that they've been standing around for about ten minutes. "Like we are right now! Guys, she's been buying time for the rest of the marines!"
"What?! Then let's get out of here!" Usopp says as he goes to run, but Lily blocks his path and points her blades at him.
The sniper yelps in fear as Luffy and Zoro get ready to fight while Sanji stays back to honor his code of never harming a lady.
Lily glares at the pirates as she gets in a stance. "None of you are going anywhere until-!"
Rose cuts her off by using her wind to send her flying up until she slams her head to the ceiling to knock her unconscious!
"You just knocked yourself out!" Usopp yells in shock as he and the others watch Rose continue to use her wind to carry the marine, and her weapons, by her side.
Rose twitches an eyebrow at the complaint, because she thought she made it clear that they're not the same, and glares at him. "Shut the hell up and help me find a place to lay her down!"
The sniper hastily nods as he and Sanji look through the nearby rooms for a place to drop the marine off.
"Why do you care about putting her somewhere? You said that you only knew about her last night." Zoro says as he gives her a cold stare.
Rose raises an eyebrow at the suspicious look he's giving her, before she sees Sanji waving for her to bring her in a room five doors down. "I did, but I took a walk in her shoes this morning. She may be annoyingly stubborn, but she grew on me."
"She's pretty funny too." Luffy says he and Zoro watch Rose take her to the office Sanji pointed her out to.
Rose gently sets the sleeping girl down on the red couch, with her knives on the floor. She sadly stares at the marine for how things turned out for them, but she knows that it's better to keep her from knowing that she has a criminal as an other world version of herself or she'd hate her even more. She sighs to herself before she closes the door and tiredly turns to the others. "Can we please get out of here now?"
The boys immediately agree as they make a run for it.
"How are we going to find the Merry?" Luffy asks as they run with Sanji in the lead.
Usopp takes the lead in the group and looks back to them. "I made it to the dock before I was arrested, I remember going this way to get there! We need to make a right at the end of the hall!"
The group follows his direction, except for Zoro who turned in the opposite direction.
"Dammit Zoro!" Rose uses her wind to pick up the swordsman and brings him back to the group.
"Put me down!" Zoro orders, which Rose complies to by dropping him on his feet.
Sanji chuckles at how he was brought back. "Next time don't get lost moss head."
"What was that dartboard brow?!" Both Zoro and Sanji glare at each other as they run, and make it into a race with each other to see who could get there first, while Luffy laughs at the argument.
Usopp ignores the fighting as he runs ahead of them, and tries to remember the way to get to the dock. "Ok, if I remember right, we're not too far from the dock. As we don't run into any marines, we're good."
Sanji stops glaring at the swordsman, and looks around to see that no one has been chasing them since they dealt with Lily. "We actually should've run into more by now. They must be setting a trap for us again."
"So what? We got out of the last one, so we can get out of this one." Luffy says with an easygoing smile.
Rose grins at his carefree attitude before she looks ahead. "Trap or not, the only way to get to Merry is at the dock. Right Usopp?"
Usopp nervously nods, because as much as he would rather do anything else but face the marines, the Merry comes first. He leads through hallway after hallway. Any enemies that they come across, they waste no time in knocking them out without a moment's hesitation until the giant green doors with the number '88' painted in black come into view.
"Here it is!" Usopp says with Luffy running past him.
"Then let's go!"
"Wait Luffy!" Zoro calls out but the captain doesn't listen to them as he barges through the doors with his crew mates following behind.
What they found on the other side of the door though was not only their beloved ship, but also Drake and an army of hundreds of marines blocking their path.
Usopp freezes at the sight in horror while the other crew members get ready to fight them at any moment.
The soldiers immediately have their rifles ready when Drake begins to bark out the orders. "Sniper Team #7 to the front!"
The men go to take the lead with rifles in hand and aim for the pirates. The Straw Hats get ready to fight, and just when marines fire.
"GUM GUM BALLOON!" Before the others could react, Luffy inflates his whole body, to the point where other pirates are knocked down and takes all the bullets.
The bullets stayed on his rubber body for a second before they ricocheted off of him and flew back at the marines. The soldiers duck at the returning bullets, while Drake stays perfectly still as they missed him.
"Give us a warning when you do that!" Zoro and Sanji call out at the same time as they get up to see Luffy's body returning to its original state.
Rose and Usopp get up and look in shock to see that the sniper team has been replaced by a team of men with bazookas in their hands.
"Cannon Team #12, prepare to fire!" Drake orders with the men taking position.
Rose remembers what those men will be firing in the anime, so she starts turning her arms into air just as they fired. She turned the two limbs into strong gusts of wind to stop the flash bombs heading towards them, and throws them back to the center of the fleet.
The men surrounding the bombs rush to get away before they go off and blind half of them. Smoke from the flash bombs fills the area while Drake growls in irritation. "The plan is still in effect! Sword Team, attack!"
The members of the sword team, who wore goggles in preparation of the attack, draw their swords and charge their enemies.
Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Rose don't hesitate in rushing to accept the challenge as they charge for the attack. Each pirate is battling relentlessly with more marines charging at them by the minute as they recover from the flash bombs.
Usopp stays out of the line of fire with his slingshot in hand. Whenever it seems one of his crew mates are about to get attacked from behind, he attacks them with an exploding star to keep their backs safe in the fight.
Luffy punches out the marines closest to him before he stretches his right leg back. "GUM GUM WHIP!"
Rose stops using her wind, to send the marines around her flying, when she heard the captain's voice, and flies up to avoid the stretched kick towards almost every marine in a ten-foot radius.
Zoro and Sanji however, weren't lucky enough to avoid the strong kick and were slammed to the wall on their right along with the dozens of other marines that took the hit.
Rose has to bite the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from laughing at the sight as she lands next to her confused captain and shell-shocked sniper.
Luffy keeps looking around in confusion of where Zoro and Sanji are. "What happened to Zoro and Sanji?"
"You hit them with your kick!" Usopp calls out in disbelief of Luffy's carelessness.
The pile of unconscious marines begins to shift until Zoro and Sanji emerge from it.
"You dumbass!" Sanji says as he glares at their captain and gets up with the swordsman.
Rose's urge to laugh begins to fade away, but her smile disappears as well when the sound of a cannon fire is shot!
All the pirates look in shock to see that a net was launched at the two devil fruit users so fast that neither of them could avoid getting caught! The net sends both Rose and Luffy flying until they're slammed into the wall behind them.
Both Rose and Luffy become tangled together in the net, with Rose practically laying on top of Luffy, with the captain's legs wrapped around her own as they struggle for freedom. However, neither of them can muster up the strength, due to the sea stone that's embedded in the knots of the net.
"Damn, can't get this off..." Luffy says as he feels weaker by the second and lays his back against the wall.
"Ugh, if I ever see sea stone again after this, I'm throwing it in the fucking ocean..." Rose tiredly says as she gives up on trying to get out and lays her back on Luffy's chest with her head next to his.
"That net has sea stone in it?!" Usopp says as he goes to free them when he hears the sound of guns aiming at him.
"Stay right where you are!" Usopp freezes to Drake's order as he and the other able-bodied pirates see the snipers ready to fire at any moment. Drake keeps his rigid scowl on his face as he scans the pirates. "Your posters say 'dead or alive'. Here at Navarone, we prefer for you to be alive. If you resist any further though, I can't guarantee your lives."
Sanji and Zoro narrow their eyes at the Lieutenant, but don't try anything yet because of Luffy and Rose's situation.
Drake smirks at their silence before he nods to the men to start approaching with their rifles in hand.
Usopp backs up with his back to the open doorway just when screaming can be heard down the hall. Both pirate and marine alike look to the doorway in confusion to see a female doctor and Nami, dressed as a nurse, pushing an operating table with a sheet covering a lump on the bed, running towards them at full force.
Usopp didn't have time to get out of the way, so the table runs him over and knocks the poor sniper out cold.
Nami and the doctor finally stop running and fully assess the situation.
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Nami asks in shock of finding hundreds of marines at the dock.
Sanji's eyes turn into beating hearts when he sees the navigator in a cute nurse's outfit and happily smiles at her. "Even when we're in danger she's beautiful! Especially in a nurse's outfit!"
"Shut up dartboard brow..." Zoro says which leads the two of them to glare at each other.
Under the sheet of the operating table, the lump moves to reveal Chopper's face. When the reindeer sees his beaten sniper laying on the floor unconscious, he widens his eyes in horror. "Usopp!"
He goes into heavy point, with the white sheet draped around his shoulders, gets off the table, and picks up his injured crew mate. "He's badly injured! He could die! And it's all because of these soldiers!"
Chopper glares at the men while Zoro and Sanji whisper for him to settle down.
Drake finally snaps out of his daze from the surprise of the new arrivals when he recognizes the doctor to be Dr. Kobato from the medical ward. However, he has no idea who the other two arrivals are, so he glares at them. "Identify yourselves!"
Nami flinches at the order, as she tries to come up with a-!
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Kobato interrupts her train of thought as she screams so loud that the frames of her glasses threatened to shatter from the sheer pitch!
Both the pirates and marines had to cover their ears from the agonizing shriek.
As soon as the volume drops to regular screams Nami gives her a piece of her mind. "What's the matter with you?!"
Kobato ignores the questions as she looks to the marines in fear. "Please help us! We've been taken hostage!"
Nami gets taken aback by the act when Kobato slyly winks at her then continues screaming for help. "He threatened to kill us if we didn't help him! AAAH!"
Nami joins in the act by screaming in fright along with her.
Chopper has no idea what's happening and tries to get them to stop while Zoro and Sanji just sweat drop at the performance.
"Who the hell's the screamer?" Zoro asks as he blankly stares at the screaming girls.
"How should I know?" Sanji answers as he's more worried about why Nami is so upset.
The marines completely fall for the act as they cautiously step back from the pirates to ensure the hostages safety.
"We can't go rushing in now that they have hostages..." One of the marines say as he glares at the criminal.
Drake clicks his tongue in rage of the situation. "This is why I hate pirates! They're all cowards! The hairy man must be a pirate then!"
Chopper freezes when he's being outed as a pirate and figures out the girls' act. He keeps Usopp on his shoulder, with the sheet still on him, before he smirks at the marines. "You got that right! I'm a ruthless member of the Straw Hats! Even babies shut the hell up when they get a look at me! You'd better do exactly as I say or they hostages will pay with their lives!"
Zoro grins at the pleasing performance and applauds him while the girls scream in fright.
Sanji immediately understands the acts and smiles in amusement. "Interesting."
Chopper continues his role as the villain as he smirks like the devil to the heroes of justice. "Alright, order your goons to stand down and let us on our ship!"
When the marines hesitate in the order, Chopper glares at them and tries a different approach. "Do it now or I'll kill these girls right now!"
Zoro holds back a chuckle from the reindeer's acting before he smirks to the marines and joins the act. "I'd do what he says guys. Even we can't stop him when he's on a rampage."
Sanji snickers as he gives the soldiers a devilish grin. "It wouldn't look well for the heroes of justice to let two women die now would it?"
The marines glare at the threatening pirates as they begin to consider the demands.
Rose, who is completely dizzy from all the sea stone, smiles to Chopper and claps for the amazing show he's giving them. "Bravo doc~! Bravo~!"
Luffy tiredly groans from his spot in the net and voices his complaint. "Don't say 'bravo' to Chopper~! This is cowardly~! I'm disappointed~!"
"Shut up you morons!" Nami whispers angrily to shut them up before she returns to the act by screaming with Dr. Kobato.
Thankfully, Drake and his men didn't hear her whispers as they watch Nami and Kobato hug each other to make their act more convincing and scream in fright.
Drake begins to tremble with rage, but with this seemingly horrible situation, there's nothing he could do to capture them without the hostages getting hurt. He clicks his tongue before he looks to his soldiers. "Men, lower your weapons and stand down!"
The marines are reluctant at first, but they know there's no other option to ensure the hostages' safety, so they do as they're told.
Zoro hums in amusement of the marines retreating. "That went well." He unsheathes one of his swords and goes over to the net that has the two devil fruit users held prisoner.
With one swing of the blade, he easily chops the ropes of the net and lets it fall off his friends.
"Thanks Zoro." Rose says as she slowly gets off of Luffy.
"Yea, we owe you one." Luffy says as he raises a hand up for Zoro to take.
The swordsman pulls Luffy's arm over his shoulder and wraps his other hand around his waist to keep him standing.
Rose manages to stay standing on her own, but she's still groggy from being exposed to the stone for so long to be of any help.
The pirates look on to the marines to see that they've opened a path for them to get to the Merry.
Drake keeps his beady eyes on the criminals, but doesn't make any sudden moves. "We've complied to your demands, so release the hostages!"
Nami holds herself back from smiling in satisfaction of their plan working, but she knows that it's not over until they board the boat. When she sees Chopper not saying anything yet, she nudges him with her foot.
The reindeer snaps out of it and gives the men his most menacing look. "I'm the one calling the shots here! I'll release them when we're out of here!"
"Why you cowardly-!" Drake holds his tongue to make sure the hostages don't get hurt.
Before he does anything, another officer approaches him from behind and whispers at him. "I've contacted Unit #17, and they're on standby."
"Good, have them wait for my signal." Drake whispers back before he glares at the pirates. "Alright, we're not going to stop you! Get on your ship!"
Zoro narrows his eyes to the suspicious marine and stays on guard as he half drags his recovering captain with him.
The rest of the crew, along with Dr. Kobato, follow suit to walk down the path that's surrounded by soldiers who are itching to arrest them if they didn't have hostages.
Rose recovers enough to walk in the same pace as the others as she keeps her eyes open for anyone who's willing to attack. She stops surveying the crowd when she sees Marta from the weapon's unit glaring directly at her.
The wind girl only looks away from her to avoid causing any more conflict with her and the marines.
Zoro however, continues to move his eyes to where the soldiers are to see that a few of them are moving in the crowd. He knows that a trap is coming, but he doesn't make it noticeable as he doesn't miss a step. Instead, he speaks loud enough for the nearby pirates to hear. "Nami, Chopper, Rose, Love cook."
The crew mates give him their attention as they listen to him. "When I give the signal, get to the ship as fast as you can."
They immediately understand, but don't say anything in risk of being found out.
Meanwhile, Zoro speaks softer to the slowly recovering pirate he's dragging. "Luffy, I need you to stretch your arms and get everyone on board. Can you do that?"
Luffy slowly nods as he almost regains his full strength.
The crew gets ready to get their plan into action, before they hear something drop to their left. They look to see that one of the soldiers dropped their rifle.
"Oh, clumsy me..." The officer nervously picks up his weapon.
"Don't scare us like that!" Nami complains, but freezes when she hears muffled yelling from Dr. Kobato. She turns to see that an officer is dragging her away from them, and sees one about to grab her!
Before he could touch her though, Nami punches him in the face and screams in fright!
"Stupid girl!" Drake calls out as the other crew members realize what's going on.
"Nami!" Sanji stays close to the navigator just as the men were about to attack.
"Luffy now!" Zoro calls out, so the captain stretches his arm back. The arm goes around the crew mates and slingshots the pirates to the ship.
The marines step back in shock of the crazy move, but one of them accidentally trips backwards and cuts the rope, that's tied to the deck to hold the ship down, with the sword in his hand.
The Merry begins to move just when Rose creates a gust of wind to cushion everyone's landing on the deck.
"Get the ship moving!" Sanji says as he and the others get to work on moving the ship while Chopper lays the unconscious sniper down on the deck.
"Wait for us!" Luffy says as he keeps his stretched arm on the railing and rockets Zoro and himself to the ship. The flight was too fast for them to stop in time to avoid the railing as they hit it face first before they flip over to land on the deck. They groan at the rough landing but, they don't put too much work to it as they're heading to the open water.
Drake turns to the sniper unit and points to the ship. "DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE! ALL SQUADRONS OPEN FIRE!"
Dr. Kobato widens her eyes at the order. "Wait, what about the nurse?!"
"We'll aim warning shots!" Drake assures her with the soldiers taking aim and firing next to the ship.
The ship ignores the warning shots as they travel out of range of the gun shots.
Usopp regains consciousness to find his crew mates shuffling around on the Merry to get the ship moving. "How did we escape the marines?"
"Nami and doc showed off their amazing acting skills by making it look like Nami was his hostage." Rose says in pride of her friends' work in getting them out of the marines' trap, before she flies up to the sails to create some wind for them.
"Shut up, don't think that kind of praise would make me happy, you jerk!" Chopper says while he blushes at the praise and starts dancing.
Usopp chuckles at the dance before he looks to the coastline. "It's impressive for Chopper, but Nami's always been good at tricking people."
Nami whacks him on the head with her clima-tact before she groans. "Anyway, what now? We don't know where Robin is and have no way out of here..."
"I see Robin over there!" Luffy says with the overs following his gaze to see Robin, in her regular clothes, swinging towards them of a vine that she made out of sprouted arms.
Robin casually smiles at her crew mates as she lands on the deck. "Hey everyone."
"Where'd you come from?" Nami asks as she approaches her.
"The library. By the way, I have something you might need for our escape Navigator-san." Robin takes the map of the base out of her pocket and hands it to her.
The navigator stares at the map with wide eyes before she happily smiles at Robin. "You're amazing Robin! This is just what we need!"
She begins to scan it for a way to escape, when the sound loud cannon fire fills the air.
Half of the crew screams in fright when a cannonball barely misses them.
Usopp runs to the rail to see that they're no longer giving them warning shots, but are aiming directly at them. "I thought they wouldn't shoot since we have a hostage!"
"They were bound to know the truth sometime! We gotta move to the sea gate!" Nami shouts as the men get to work on turning so it keeps moving ahead, avoids the cannons.
Rose keeps using her wind to get the ship moving quickly, but sees that their problems are growing more by the minute. "Uh guys, we got more than just cannons coming at us!"
The others follow her gaze to see that three warships are in pursuit of them.
Nami groans at the new problem before she looks ahead to see that the sea gate is coming into view, but the metal door is sealed shut. "Usopp, get the cannon! We need to blast our way out!"
The sniper rushes inside for the weapon, but immediately rushes back outside empty handed. "We don't have any cannonballs!"
"What?!" Nami asks in horror.
Robin hums in understanding as she looks to the sea gate. "It makes sense since the marines confiscated the ship. They wouldn't want to leave any weapons lying around."
"Then how are we going to bust through the gate?" Chopper asks as he steers the ship in his heavy point form.
"We just need to get to the gate and gain control over the gate." Sanji says as he acts like it's an easy feat.
Zoro looks back to the warships and starts smirking. "As for these guys, we just need to take them down."
"Quit talking like these plans are easy!" Usopp says as he has no idea on which plan is worse.
Luffy chuckles from his seat on Merry's head before he turns to the guys. "Relax, I have a great idea!"
The rest of the crew, except for Robin and Rose, tense up because they know whatever he's planning is going to be reckless.
Sadly, they have no time to question him when they see a barrage of ten cannonballs heading their way!
Luffy smirks at the attack as he jumps up and starts inflating his stomach. "GUM GUM BALLOON!"
His stomach inflates to a size large enough to catch all of the cannonballs and send him flying backwards to the sail. The sail manages to catch the captain before he ricochets the cannonballs off of him and sends them flying towards the sea gate.
Every nearby marine is shell shocked at the stunt as they watch the cannons blow a hole large enough for them to escape. The explosion causes a large black smokescreen to envelope the Merry and the warships.
Rose laughs at the amazing trick as she stops creating a gust for the sail, so she can focus her wind to catch her captain before he could fall. "Nice shot captain!"
Luffy happily grins at her while he lets her set him down on the deck while she stays floating by the sails.
Usopp is amazed at the stunt as he turns to Luffy just as he lands. "Great work Luffy! That'll teach them for taking our explosives!"
Nami nods in agreement as she thinks of how lucky they were that that could bust out even with their explosives stolen. Wait, if the marines stole their cannonballs, then what's to stop them from stealing...?
The navigator screams in fright, and scares the others as they watch her run inside. "IT'S GONE! THEY TOOK OUR TREASURE!"
The others freeze in shock before Nami rushes outside. "Turn around! We can't leave without it!"
"Are you crazy?! We're almost out of here!" Zoro says, but Nami won't have any of it.
"I'm perfectly sane, but we can't leave without the treasure!" She turns to the captain in an attempt to persuade him. "As pirates we can't leave our gold behind! Especially to marines!"
Luffy nods in agreement. "Alright then!"
Nami grins in satisfaction before she turns to Sanji and Chopper. "Make a U-turn to take us back to the fortress!"
"Yes Nami-san!" Sanji happily says as he and Chopper run to the rudder to turn the ship right just before they could reach the gate.
Rose doesn't use her wind on the sails anymore to make sure the boat doesn't flip from the sharp turn that gets them away from their chance of escape. Luckily, the soldiers couldn't see the turn in the smoke screen, so they keep going straight to head out to the open ocean and lose another chance to capture the pirates.
***************************************************
In Jonathan's office, the Vice Admiral is at his desk to think up the base's next move to capture the Straw Hats. He fiddles with the white king chess piece in his hand as he theorizes on the crew's next move. "They must've found out that we have their treasure and the Hell's Comet gem. The rest of the crew knowing about the crystal is unlikely, so if they were to come back then it would be for just the gold..."
He puts down the chess piece, and looks to the three wanted posters for the Straw Hats that are laid out on his desk. If the crew is willing to stay to try to retrieve the gold, there are a few strategies that they would use. In every one that he could think of, he could imagine the wind pirate making it a goal of hers to find the crystal without the others finding out. If he keeps the crystal and the gold separated then there's a better chance to capture them by having them divided.
He continues to think up a strategy when his den den mushi rings. He picks up the line to see dark mutton chops grow on the snail. "What happened Drake?"
"I'm sorry sir, but we've lost sight of the pirates as soon as we reached the ocean! It's as if they vanished!"
Jonathan holds himself back from chuckling at the new development. "So they're really doing it."
"Sir?"
"Nothing, you've done well. Come back with the rest of the ships."
"Yes sir." Drake hangs up on him, so Jonathan hangs up the line.
He gets up from his seat just when he hears knocks on his closed office door. "Come in."
The door opens to Noah with Lily standing by his side.
After the Lieutenant found her knocked out in an empty office and woke her up, the marine girl immediately took off the freckle makeup and color contacts so that nobody would mistake her for the pirate again. The brunette is still embarrassed for losing so easily, so she keeps her head low, with her bangs covering her eyes, as she follows her lieutenant into the office.
"We came as you requested sir." Noah asks as he and his cadet salute their commander.
"At ease you two." Jonathan says as the two of them lower their salutes while he looks at Lily. "My, you really do have a resemblance to Wind Rider. Is there a reason?"
She shakes her head before she lifts her head to reveal her green eyes from under her bangs. "I have no idea as to why we look similar sir. I confronted the pirate about it, but she made up these excuses like evil twins and doppelgangers."
Jonathan freezes at the mention of doppelgangers, because he's heard something about this before when Admiral Akainu spoke to him about the dangers of Hell's Comet. However, the details about this are foggy to him. Instead of worrying about it, he nods in understanding. "I see, well don't worry about it. I called you both here because the pirates are going to retrieve the treasure that we took from them. There's a special gem that Wind Rider in particular will be aiming to get back, because it's a piece of her research. I want you two, along with the rest of the weapon's unit, to use it as bait for a trap."
Both the marines widen their eyes at this before Noah steps up. "Very well sir, but what if the pirates don't take the bait?"
"If they escape without this gem, then use your metal arm to throw it into the ocean. This stone can't be used by anyone in the base under any circumstances. Do you understand?"
Both of them nod, so he gives them a carefree smile. "Very good, the bait is in research lab 19. I recommend moving it somewhere away from the labs."
"Yes sir!" Both Lily and Noah salute him one more time before they leave the office.
As the two of them head off to begin their assignment, Noah begins to grow concerned about his cadet's safety because of how dangerous this can be to someone who's as relatively new to the navy as Lily. He stops her from walking and looks down at the shorter girl. "If you find this to be too much for you, I can put you on standby for this mission."
Lily hates the fact that she's being given the easy way out and scowls up at him. "I have to be on this mission! I can't face the rest of the unit proudly if I let the pirates do whatever they want!"
Noah nods and smirks in pride of his subordinate's bravery. "Very well, we'll face them together. Let's gather the unit and create a strategy on how to handle them."
"Yes sir!" Lily follows her leader and is practically beaming with excitement of the chance to redeem herself with her first official mission with the navy to capture the Straw Hat Pirates.
****************************************************
While the crew manages to escape the smoke screen, and head to one of the base's docks that's been abandoned due to budget cuts, Rose couldn't stop worrying about her sample of the comet's power that she left in the bathroom after the ship landed at the base. She sneaks below deck to go to the bathroom to see that the box, that held her gem sample, is shattered from the fall and her backpack is in the corner of the room. She looks all over the floor for her gem, that held the comet's energy, but there's not a trace of it in the room. *THOSE BASTARDS STOLE MY SAMPLE! WAIT, THE POSE!*
She rushes to her backpack and goes to the front compartment of the big bag. She digs through the dials that she got from Skypiea until she sees her eternal pose to Marineford safely tucked away. She sighs in relief that the marines didn't dig too deep into her bag, and puts the shell-like devices back on top to keep the pose hidden.
"Missing your rock?" Rose tenses up at the question and turns to see Zoro staring at her from the doorway.
Rose slowly nods as she zips her bag shut and drops her new backpack with the base's research material on the floor next to it. "Yea, it's a gem so they could've mistaken it for a part of the treasure."
Zoro narrows his eyes at her evasiveness, because he knows that she's using half-truths to keep what her sample truly is a secret. "You know, I thought you were more honest than this."
The astronomer tenses up at the disappointment in his voice, and furrows her eyebrows in confusion. "What do you-?"
"Zoro, Rose, get up here so we can talk strategies!" They stop at Nami's order from the deck.
The swordsman turns his back to the wind girl and starts walking away. "We'll talk about this later."
Rose didn't even get a chance to answer as he storms off. The wind girl becomes more worried in what he's talking about, but she needs to deal with the problem in hand and that's getting her stone back from the marines.
She pulls her necklace out of her shirt, then grips it for support, before she lets it stay out of her shirt, and heads to the kitchen where the rest of the crew is gathered around the table to talk about their plan. The wind girl decides to play it by ear for now, so that she doesn't cause any problems with Zoro, and takes a seat between Luffy and Chopper.
Chopper is the first to speak as he looks to Nami from across the table in confusion. "So what now Nami?"
"We should be escaping from the gate! Our lives are more important than gold!" Usopp says before Nami could speak.
He turns to Luffy, who's laying his head on the table. "We can get gold at another island but we can't come back from the dead!"
Luffy groans at the protest before his stomach growls louder. "We're not leaving without the gold, but we need to eat first!"
Sanji chuckles at Luffy's bottomless stomach before he gets up and goes to the fridge. "I'll whip up something for everyone."
As the chef searches the fridge for food that he can make for the others, the rest of the crew works on a strategy that they can agree on.
Nami, who's changed from the nurse's uniform to a tank top and shorts, scowls at Usopp as she crosses her arms over her chest. "We can't leave here without the gold. We'd never be able to live it down."
"We won't be able to live at all if we stay here." Usopp says.
Nami sighs in fake disappointment and shrugs. "Well, that's too bad. If we got the treasure, then we would've had it divided after all."
Usopp starts singing a different tune as he smiles at her. "You're serious?!"
"Of course."
Luffy happily grins at the idea as he picks his head up. "Then I'm gonna get a bronze statue!"
"And medical books!" Chopper says in glee.
Sanji takes some food out of the fridge and puts them on the counter before he takes out an abacus from the drawer and starts calculating what he could get with his share. "Pots, frying pans, giant mouse traps, and a lock for the fridge..."
He hums in satisfaction that he could get the things he just listed and more with his cut.
"I can finally get a good booze stash." Zoro says with a grin while Robin and Rose both stay quiet about what they would get with the gold.
Nami grins at how it looks like they're all on board now. "That would be great, but there's one thing the money needs to go to first."
"You'd better not say your pocket." Zoro says with Nami giggling at the assumption.
"I'm not, we need to use it to repair the ship first."
Even Robin is surprised by Nami's suggestion as the other boys.
Rose however, knew that this is what the money's supposed to go to, but was never used for it because of how unfixable Merry is. She keeps her thoughts away from the Merry's condition in fear of her mood breeze giving her away, and instead thinks of her good memories with the ship with a small smile.
The wind girl keeps her mouth shut, with her wind in check, while Luffy looks at Nami in confusion. "You want to fix the Merry?"
The navigator nods as she looks around at the old kitchen. "That's right, Merry has been through a lot to get us to where we are."
Usopp slowly nods as he remembers first board the Merry in his home village. "You're right, she brought us from East Blue to the Grand Line after all."
"It's pretty impressive for it to have survived attacks from pirates, marines, and even sky priests that tried to burn it." Robin says.
"And even up to the sky." Sanji says with a smile as he puts his abacus away and gets back to work on cooking for the crew.
The sniper nods as he remembers repairing the ship with Merry's spirit. "I still can't believe that I made repairs with Merry to make sure she can come down with us."
Everyone else, except for Rose, blankly stares at Usopp because they still don't believe that he saw Merry's ghost.
The liar takes their disbelief offensively as he scowls at them. "I'm telling the truth!" He turns to the wind girl, who was the reason he could spend time with the ghost in the first place. "You were there too! Tell them!"
Rose freezes at the plea when she sees their eyes on her. She knits her eyebrows in thought, as if she's thinking hard to remember that night, before she acts like she just remembered. "Oh yea, I did see her that night."
The others widen their eyes at her blunt comment before Usopp smirks in pride. "See?! I told you she was there!"
"What?! Merry's haunting the ship?!" Chopper asks with Usopp shaking his head.
"No, she can only appear in holy land like in Skypiea!"
Luffy pouts at the news. "Aw man, I wanted to see her..."
"The ghost can only appear in holy land?" Robin asks because it's hard for her to believe the tale.
Rose turns to the archaeologist and shrugs at the question. "The only night we saw her was on Skypiea. Now that I think about it though, Merry really is amazing. She came to life to make sure that she can keep sailing with us."
Nami absently nods at this, because she barely believes it, and returns to the subject. "Even with the repairs, the ship's pretty beaten up. We should use the money to repair it."
"I'm for it! Let's get the Going Merry as good as new!" Usopp says while Sanji finishes preparing food for everyone.
"First thing's first, we need to rebuild some of our energy. Dig in guys." Sanji says as he sets a tray of meat, sandwiches, and various other meals for everyone to take.
Rose grabs a sandwich and eats it quickly before she gets up. "I'm gonna go change out of this uniform."
The others casually nod as they continue with their meal. She walks outside and sees the ship's figurehead smiling proudly. She sadly stares at the goat statue as she walks up to it and remembers her conversation with Merry's ghost. *Don't worry, I'll still keep your secret. They deserve to know what you did though...*
She softly smiles at the amazing ship as she gently pats the figurehead before she turns to go below deck. On the way to the girls' room, she grabs the two backpacks from the bathroom and brings them with her.
After she changes out of the uniform and into a sky blue, long sleeve shirt, with a black star design on the front of the shirt, dark purple jeans, and black and maroon sneakers, she looks in the mirror and stares at her necklace. She frowns at her crystal as her mind wanders to what to do about her stolen gem.
From what she overheard in the air vents, Jonathan knows a good bit about the taboo. Because of that, she can be sure that the Vice Admiral won't let the marines act careless with it. Still, he can easily use it as bait for her and the crew. Whether or not it'll be with the rest of the treasure could make this a whole new trap that she can't predict. Especially with Lily and her unit probably more likely being involved with this one.
Rose quietly sighs to herself as she finds this whole situation crazy. Especially since despite everything she's worrying about, she can't deny that she's all the more excited about the thrilling fights that are to come with it. Her lips curl up into a smile as she thinks of the fun battles that she's going to face before she puts her necklace under her shirt to keep it safe.
She straps her new sword onto her black belt, and puts on her red backpack, but leaves the bag with her new research material in the room as she walks back to the deck.
Once outside, she sees the others gathering abandoned material from the dock. "What are you guys doing?"
"We're disguising the Merry to look like a marine battleship before we get the gold!" Usopp says as he starts grabbing some of the abandoned material to cover Merry.
"Cool!" She flies off the ship to join them in getting to work on disguising the ship, and mentally prepares herself for the new adventures are to come in the crew's treasure hunt and their escape from Navarone.
TO BE CONTINUED