After disguising the ship as a marine battleship, the crew gathers on the dock to discuss the plan to retrieve the gold.
Usopp lays the map flat on the ground for everyone to see, then points to the vault that's at the end of one of the hallways. "You're sure that this is where the gold is Robin?"
The archaeologist smiles at the spot before she answers him. "I am, it's their largest vault and is a dead end, so it's easy to set a trap there."
Nami nods in approval before she looks to the crew. "Alright, it might be dangerous to go in a large group, so we should split up. I need to get my waver before we go too. I hid it over here."
She points to a field that's on the other side of the island.
"Alright then, we'll split into three groups." Usopp says as he looks to Rose, Zoro, Luffy and Robin. "You guys and I will go after the gold."
The pirates nod in agreement as Usopp looks to the chef. "You go with Nami to get the waver."
"That's a wonderful idea Usopp!" Sanji says with hearts in his eyes as he stays close to the navigator, who's also grinning to the plan.
Lastly, Usopp looks to the reindeer with a smirk. "Last but not least Chopper, you get the important job of guarding the ship! When we come back injured, be ready to heal us!"
Chopper freezes at the order before he salutes him with an eager smile. "You got it!"
"Alright, let's get going then!" Luffy says as he starts running out of the dock on his own.
The others in his group follow him with Rose staying in the back of the herd. The wind girl looks back at the crewmates who aren't going to see Nami and Sanji getting to a rowboat.
As Sanji happily grabs some oars to paddle with, Nami gets on the raft and keeps her brown eyes on the chef.
When Nami feels like she's being stared at, she looks to see Rose smirking at her before she points to Sanji with one hand and gives her a thumbs up with the other, as she runs. Nami looks at her in confusion before she looks to Sanji, and freezes when she realizes that Rose is acting the same way she does when she roots for Rose and Luffy to get together. She turns away from the taunting girl in embarrassment and doesn't say anything to add fuel to the fire.
Rose chuckles in victory before she returns to the task at hand and catches up to her group just as they reach the outdoors. The group finds that the sun has long since set, and takes advantage of the cover of night to sneak into the forest path.
Usopp catches up to Luffy and points him in the right direction. "We need to go into that building there!"
Usopp points to the building ahead just when they hear something slashing in the air, and look up to see that a giant shuriken is heading for them!
The sniper screams in fright as he and the others jump back to dodge the ninja weapon.
Robin looks up at the direction it came from and finds a male marine in the trees, who's smirking at them while holding another shuriken, that's half as small as the last one. "Looks like this base has ninjas now."
"NINJAS?!" Luffy and Usopp yell in shock as they jump to dodge a pair of kunais that was aimed for their heads. They make a run for it with Robin putting the marine she found in a clutch until he lost consciousness.
Zoro blocks three incoming kunai, that came from another direction, with his swords. "How many of them are there?!"
Rose widens her eyes at the attack, when she realizes that this is an attack from the weapon's unit. As soon as she opens her mouth to say something, a few throwing stars phase through her and hit the tree to her right.
The wind girl looks at the weapons in shock of how they're not made of sea stone like Lily's knives and Noah's arm sword. *So not all of their weapons are sea stone. I should still keep my guard up.*
Robin tries to find more of the marines as they run, but they're more well-hidden than the one she took down. As she keeps searching, a kunai comes flying to her head, but Rose blocks the blow with her wind.
"Just focus on getting inside!" Rose says as she stays in the back of the group, and creates a small cyclone around the five of them to protect them from the projectile weapons.
Luffy laughs in victory when he sees that the ninja tools aren't touching them thanks to the barrier. "Way to go Rose!"
Rose chuckles at the praise as she surveys the area for more knives coming at them. However, she stops searching when her eyes spot a familiar blue light shining from one of the windows high up on the cliffside. *So that's where it is!*
She shakes her head to keep herself focused when another blue light shines in a different window.
The rest of the group widens their eyes at the new light when they see one more light illuminating after another until six blue lights shine from different sides of the base's cliffside windows.
"Whoa, cool!" Luffy says as he admires the glowing lights that are spread all around the circular island.
"What's this?" Robin asks because she has no idea in what's going on.
"Maybe they're light signals?" Usopp wonders before he sees the doorway to get inside coming to view, but the gates are starting to close. "Never mind that, we gotta go!"
The others see that the giant doors are sliding to close, so they ignore the lights and rush to the door.
Zoro begins to recognize the glow from Rose's experiment and looks back to see Rose keeping her head down to avoid the temptation of falling for the trap.
He gets taken aback by how she's not immediately leaving and giving them some excuse, like when she left them in Skypiea. He tries not to think about it and looks ahead to see that the door is almost halfway closed with them still too far.
Before he could say anything, he feels his feet no longer on the ground as he and the others start getting carried by Rose's wind. The others look back at her in shock as she flies behind them and stops her barrier when she sees no more tools being thrown.
She doesn't say anything as she uses her wind to throw her crewmates through the doors but just as she reaches the door, it closes to her face.
She groans at the closed door as she finds no way for her to open it back up. She doesn't have any time to search for a way in though, because she hears a cannon fire and sees a net being launched at her from one of the windows holding the blue light! She flies up to avoid getting caught in the sea stone net again, but as soon as she dodged, another one is fired at her for her to evade without rest.
As she's avoiding the sea stone nets, the other pirates groan from the rough throw as they fall on their sides in the hallway. Luffy immediately gets up and sees that Rose didn't make it. He becomes worried for the astronomer and punches the metal door, but it won't open. "Rose, you ok?!"
"I'm fine! I'll take care of the ninjas and find my way back to Merry!" Rose calls out from the other side to keep them from worrying.
The others freeze when they hear cannon fire, but Rose calls out to them again. "This is nothing! Just get the fucking gold!"
Luffy smiles at how she's ok before he calls out to her. "Ok, kick their asses!"
"With pleasure captain!" Rose says as she uses her wind to block the sea stone nets that are flying at her from various directions.
Luffy, Robin, and Usopp start going on ahead while Zoro stares at the door.
He knows that Rose can take care of herself, but he knows that the trap is made especially for her. Because of that, he has a bad feeling about leaving her alone out there.
Robin sees that the swordsman is hesitating and looks at him in confusion. "Something wrong Swordsman-kun?"
He snaps out of it to her voice, and turns to her with a normal scowl. "I'm fine, let's go..."
Robin nods with a small grin as they go catch up to the others.
As they run to their initial goal, the swordsman does his best to focus on the task at hand, then back up the wind girl when they're done.
**********************************************
Rose continues to fly around to avoid the nets that keeps flying at her one after another, so she descends to the forest to try to come up with a strategy. She keeps floating off the ground, low enough to stay hidden in the trees, but she doesn't have time to think when Marta jumps out of the tree with a sword in hand.
Rose descends to the ground to dodge the blow, in case the weapon was made of sea stone, and smirks at the marine girl that tried to jump her. "Pretty interesting strategy your unit's come up with. Keeping half the group with the net launchers, so I can't fly freely, and the other half on the ground to jump me with weapons. Does that sum it up right, Marta was it?"
Marta narrows her brown eyes on the wind girl as she gets in a stance. "You forgot one detail. Your gem is hidden in one of the rooms with the glowing windows where our net launchers are based. Even if you can dodge the nets the operators are equipped to stop you, so you only have three options: surrender, fly up to get caught in the nets, or face all of us here."
"All of us?" Rose asks before she hears footsteps all around her until she finds herself surrounded by at least thirty armed marines. However, she can't find her doppelganger in the crowd, and with her crew also at a safe distance, she finds no need to hold back on them.
She snickers at the options, and answers her as if this is a normal conversation. "Thanks for the options, but you forgot one. I go take back what's mine, and leave you to your natural disaster training."
The marines look at her in confusion before she snaps her fingers with her right hand to create a small tornado and flies into the air.
The marines register the growing tornado for a second before they put their weapons away and make a run for it. They barely got far though, because the twister quickly grew into the size of the trees and dragged the soldiers with them in its path.
On the base's cliffsides, where the six net launchers are based at the balconies on different sides of the cliffs, the marines are completely taken aback by the twister that's roaming the woods where their friends are. The twister is only strong enough to bend the trees in its path, but it's enough to take their comrades on a ride that they'll never forget.
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT! WE GOTTA GET DOWN THERE!" One of the operators for the net cannon turns around to leave, but his partner stops him.
"We can't do anything to stop that! We need to take care of the wind girl!"
"How about I take care of you instead?" The two men freeze at the feminine voice by the window and slowly turn to the net launcher, to see their target perched on their weapon with a devilish smirk. They jump back in shock of how she snuck up on them as she surveys the room.
Rose finds a lantern sitting at the table from behind the window with blue glass surrounding the flame to make it's light resemble the Timore Comet's glow. *Fuck, so that's how they're doing it! First thing's first, I gotta take care of the net launchers.*
The girl acts like she doesn't have a care in the world as she turns to the two frozen men with a frightening look in her eyes. "Either you run off now without a scratch or get your asses kicked. Your choice."
The two marines flinch at the terrifying look, but they regain their courage when they remember what she did to their unit. Without a moment's hesitation, one of them takes out a chain scythe, that reminds Rose of Black Star's weapon, and the other takes out twin blades from the sheathes on his belt.
"We refuse to submit to a pirate!" The chain scythe wielder yells out as he launches his weapon.
Rose flies jumps off the net launcher and dodges the scythe, in case his weapon is made of sea stone, and sees the swordsman charging at her.
"You're gonna pay for what you did to our comrades!" He swings his blades from both sides, but he left himself wide open for Rose to turn her arm into wind and launch a wind blast to his stomach. The soldier dry hacks at the hit as it sends him flying backwards until he slams to the wall hard enough to lose consciousness.
His partner throws the chain at her again, so Rose blocks it with her wind arm. However, the chain truly is made of sea stone, and when it made contact with Rose's hand, both her wind arms turned back to normal. Rose groans at the new fatigue she feels as the chain wraps around the skin of her wrist three times.
She tries to free her arm, but the officer stops her by pulling the other half of his chain scythe with her going with it. When she's close, he grabs her free arm and pins her back to the wall. "It's over."
Rose chuckles at the soldier as she looks up at the taller man. "Not too shitty marine, but the game's not over until the cuffs are on."
He immediately grows furious at how she's treating her capture like a joke. "You think this is a ga-AAAHH!" The man shrieks to as high a pitch as a soprano when the pirate knees him in the balls as hard as possible!
The poor soldier drops his weapon, lets go of Rose's arm, and hunches over enough for Rose to punch him in the nose as hard as possible with her chain wrapped arm.
He falls unconscious with a nosebleed while Rose unwraps the sea stone off her arm. Once she's free of the weakening stone, she picks up the chain scythe with a gust of wind and throws it out the window until it lands in the water.
The feeling of satisfaction she has to get rid of it immediately fades when sees that the tornado is still out there, and is starting to head in the direction of the water. She grows worried about it turning into a whirlpool once it hits the ocean, so she snaps her fingers with her left hand and lets it grows in her hands before she throws the twister outside.
The new tornado continued to grow in the air before it crashed into the tornado and cancelled both of them out.
The airsick marines start falling out of midair, but are caught in the fluffy brushes of the trees instead of the hard ground.
Rose grins in relief that she stopped the twister before she grabs the lantern, and blows out the flame. "One down, five to go!"
She becomes giddy at how much fun she's having as she flies on a gust of warm air, and goes off to take down the other net operators to search for her gem.
***************************************************
Luffy and his group reached the vault, only to find it filled with soldiers instead of their treasure. They were able to easily power through the men to leave the room, and now they're making a run for it with a dozen marines on their tail!
Luffy looks back at the enraged marines with a carefree grin as he stops running and pulls back his fist. "GUM GUM PISTOL!"
He pulls his fist forward to punch a marine in the gut to send him flying backwards and taking the two soldiers behind him with him.
Usopp and Robin look back to see that Luffy won't leave until they're all down, so they stop running to back up the captain. Usopp grabs his slingshot and aims for the two men who are about "This should take care of them! Usopp exploding star!"
He shoots tiny explosions off his slingshots to blast the soldiers. A few of them were knocked out from the blast while Robin crosses her arms over her chest. "Tres fleur."
Three arms grew on the remaining soldiers and put them in a clutch until they passed out.
Luffy laughs at the fun fight as he finds that there's no one else to face. "Man, that was fun. So, what's next?"
Usopp tiredly sighs at his carefree attitude as he puts his slingshot away. "We need to figure out where they hid the gold."
"We also need to find Swordsman-kun." Robin says which makes the other two pirates look back in shock to find Zoro missing.
"HOW DID HE GET LOST SO QUICK?!" Usopp asks, but Luffy just laughs it off as he runs ahead.
"We can find him while we search for the gold! Let's go!" The captain calls out to them while the others follow him through the halls.
Meanwhile, Zoro managed to get himself up to the higher levels of the base and is in no way near his other crewmates. He stops running when he looks back to find himself alone and tilts his head in confusion. "How the hell did everyone get so lost?"
He groans at the situation as he goes to turn around, but freezes when he hears a voice coming from a few doors down.
"Sir, we ran out of nets!"
Zoro freezes at the sound of Lily's voice and goes to the door when her leader starts talking.
"Shit, Wind Rider's heading here next too!"
Zoro perks up at the mention of his crew mate's epithet and looks through the crack of the door to see Lily and Noah at the balcony with a net launcher. His eyes scan the dimly room and stop when he sees a small glass case on a small table behind the window with a blue glow emanating from it.
The blue glow is too strong for him to get a clear view of the source, but he doesn't doubt that Rose's stolen stone is inside that case.
Noah doesn't notice the new guest at the door when a machine gun barrel pops out of the wrist of his metal arm. He aims at the wind girl, who's flying at them at top speed after she took down the third net launcher from across the forest, and fires three green energy blasts at her.
Rose smirks at the shots, because she knows that she's found Noah, and turns both her arms into air. She shoots her wind straight at the energy spheres, and not only stops them from coming at her, but redirects them to the cliff wall next to their window!
When Noah and Lily see where they're going, they run inside to avoid getting blasted in the explosion.
Zoro widens his eyes at the blast, but sees that there's still an opening in the window.
Lily grabs her daggers from her boots while Noah retracts the machine gun and lets sword pop out from the back of his arm.
*He's a cyborg?!* Zoro thinks in shock as he watches them approach the window just as Rose flies in with her arms still strong gusts of wind.
Both marines almost flinch at the frightening look in Rose's eyes as she's still holding a smirk on her face. "So, you two are the final bosses huh? As much as I'd love a good fight, I don't have the time."
She goes to use her wind to lift up the box, but freezes when it won't levitate. Even the table wouldn't float when she tries to use more wind on it.
"Nice try, but we super glued the case to the table and screwed the table to the floor!" Lily says as she charges at her, but Rose ducks to dodge the knives and kicks her in the side to knock her down.
Noah charges at her and swings his sea stone sword, but she jumps back to dodge the blow. Before Noah could take another swing, Rose sends him flying straight to the right until he's slammed into a bookshelf. He gets up, but Rose sends him flying straight up until he's slammed into the ceiling and is knocked out.
Lily widens her eyes in horror of how she easily took him down, as Rose gently sets him down, then looks at the stone in the case. She knows that she'll be next if she doesn't do something, so she breaks open the locked case with the hilt of her dagger and grabs the freezing cold gem.
Rose gets out of her adrenaline high when she heard the glass breaking and sees her doppelganger holding onto the gem. Her blood runs cold at the sight, because if she uses her wind on her, the stone could be activated by mistake. She doesn't want to run that risk, so she turns her arms back to normal and raises them defensively. "Don't do anything rash Lily!"
Lily doesn't listen to her as she points her knife to her with one hand and holds the stone with the other. "Oh, like killing my Lieutenant?!"
"He's not dead, he's knocked out!" Rose roughly nudges his side with the back of her foot, which earns a groan from the defeated lieutenant. "See? And your other comrades are fine too. A few scrapes and bruises, but they'll live. I'm not here to kill anyone, I just want my stone back."
Lily calms down a little, but she knows that she can't win against her, so she tries to buy time for any reinforcements to come. "Even if I believe you, I don't understand. Why are you living like this? If anything you told me last night was true, then you'd be a lot happier as an astronomer."
Zoro stays quiet at the confrontation and watches how this plays out from his hiding spot.
Rose's slightly taken aback by the question, but uses it as a way to scare her into dropping her sample. "I promise you that everything I told you about astronomy was true. I am an astronomer by heart, but the World Government has considered my research on Hell's comet a taboo ever since the Spiriting Night."
She points to the glowing stone in Lily's hand. "That rock you're holding is the one that the researchers were studying that night. They didn't know about the comet back then, so they allowed the samples to absorb its energy, and got spirited away to an absolute hell. You'll suffer the same fate, if you don't stop holding it."
Lily tenses up at the story, but refuses to let her cold fingers release the stone. "I'm not letting you use this to hurt people!"
"If I was going to use this to hurt others, then why would I be fucking telling you this?!" Lily flinches at the pirate's angry tone, but Rose barely cares as she keeps going. "I mean goddammit! Can't you see that I'm trying to make sure you don't become one of the victims?!"
"Why would you care?!"
Rose is incredibly frustrated by her stubbornness, but she's more worried more about the stone. The comet's power could be triggered at any time on her doppelganger if she doesn't let go, and that alone terrifies her. Especially since Rose can only think of one tactic to get her to release the stone...
A small, freezing cold breeze blows off of Rose, and makes both Zoro and the marine slightly shiver from the fear she's feeling. Rose barely notices the shivers as she pulls her necklace out from under her shirt and reveals her treasured jewel to the marine. "I care, because I don't want what happened to my family to happen to you..."
Lily widens her eyes at the answer as Rose keeps going. "When I said that I was trying to figure out how I came here, I meant it. I'm not from this world. What happened to the researchers that disappeared that night happened to me too, and I've been trying to learn how this happened ever since. I've managed to learn how to leave, but I can't promise that you'll still be here if that gem starts working on you. Please, you need to trust me and hand it over..."
Both Zoro and Lily have no idea on how to react to this. They look at this once proud warrior, but all they see now is a lonely girl who doesn't want anyone to go through the kind of pain that she's gone through.
Both of them still feel the freezing cold breeze flying out of the girl and shake from the chill, or is it from the fear that she's feeling?
Regardless, there's no way that the marine can be convinced that this is an act, so she lifts her hand up, and opens her palm to reveal Rose's sample. "Don't make me regret trusting you. Take this and get out of here..."
Rose slowly nods with a small smile as her mood breeze fades away. She quickly uses her wind to levitate the glowing rock out of her hands and at a safe distance from her doppelganger. "Thank you."
As she brings the stone closer to her, she doesn't realize that Noah is waking up right behind her. She finds the tin box, that the stone was taken from, on the counter and goes to put it inside.
Noah looks to his subordinate and puts a finger to his lips to indicate her to stay silent. She slowly nods with guilt beginning to well up inside her for what they're going to do to Rose, and stays back.
Rose puts the gem inside and closes it up, but freezes when she sees a large shadow slowly coming up from behind her.
She gets ready to use her wind just as Noah's about to strike down with his sword, but she stops when she turns around to see Zoro in front of her with his swords blocking Noah's strike!
"Z-Zoro?!" Rose asks in shock and looks to the open door that he came out from. "When did you get here?!"
Zoro pushes the marine off of him and glares at the oblivious girl. "I've been here since before you showed up! And what kind of idiot turns her back on the enemy?!"
Rose twitches an eyebrow at the complaint and returns the angry look. "Excuse me?! I knocked out the bastard first!"
"Yea, and you left the girl alone after she gave you the rock! She could've easily stabbed you in the back!"
"She can't hurt me! Or did you forget that I'm a fucking logia type?!"
"Oh I remember, like when you and Luffy got caught in a net!"
"It was fucking made with sea stone, you green dingus!"
"What the hell is a dingus, you airhead?!"
"What'd you call me?!"
As Rose and Zoro continue their battle of insults, Noah and Lily only watch as they sweat drop at the fact that they're being ignored.
Noah snaps himself out of it first, and glares at the bickering pirates. "Will you two shut up and-?!"
"You shut up!" Zoro and Rose both call out to him, before Rose uses her wind to send him flying backwards until he's slammed to the wall and gets knocked out again.
Lily drops her jaw at the attack before Rose narrows her eyes at her. "Are you going to fucking try something too?!"
Lily looks to the sea stone knife in her hand, then to the two powerful pirates in front of her. She turns towards her leader, and drops her weapon before she goes to his side. "I would, but I'm too busy getting my Lieutenant to an infirmary."
She grabs his human arm and wraps it around her shoulders, before she grabs his waist with her other arm and picks him up. She starts half dragging him to the door, but stops to say one last thing to the pirate that shares her face. "I still hate pirates, but I won't report your origins, as payment for saving me. I can't promise the same from my leader though, so get ready to become a prime target of the World Government."
"I've been ready since I joined the crew." Rose says as she puts her box in her bag, then looks outside the window to see the disguised Merry sailing on the lake. "Still, thank you for everything. I'm glad we had a chance to be friends before enemies."
The marine girl refuses to look back to see Rose and Zoro flying out the window, and leaves with her lieutenant. The cadet doesn't stop for anything as she keeps her bangs shadowed over her emerald eyes to hide the tears that are pooling in them. "Dang it, It'd have been better if she was a ghost..."
She storms off with her unconscious leader, with her thoughts lingering on the loss of the unit's prey.
Meanwhile, both Rose and Zoro are experiencing the longest, most awkward, moment of silence in their entire lives, as they're flying from the trap and towards the ship. Rose knew that he heard the truth and has no idea what he's thinking under his scowl. "Look, Zoro, about what you heard..."
"Is it true?" Zoro asks, with his eyes moving to her.
Rose timidly nods as she keeps her head down. "Yea, it's true..."
Zoro quietly sighs at the weird situation as he looks to the distant ship. "Alright, I need time to process this. After we escape, we'll talk about it more."
Rose looks to him with mild shock, because she expected a much worse reaction from him. "You don't seem too freaked out about this."
Zoro groans when he remembers how mad he was about her keeping secrets, and feels stupid about it now. "I knew you were hiding something when you kept your experiment a secret, but didn't expect it to be this."
Rose widens her eyes at the explanation, but when she remembers how pissy he was acting towards her since they escaped Navarone's prison, she understands. Regardless, now that her secret's out, she starts becoming afraid of what's going to happen now. "I know it's a lot to ask, but please don't tell the others. It's not a good time for them to know yet."
Zoro shivers on the sudden coldness in the wind he's flying on, and rubs his arms to warm up. "Alright, I won't, so quit it with the cold wind! I'm freezing!"
Rose freezes at the complaint and takes a deep breath to calm herself down enough for her wind to warm up. *Wait, I was only feeling scared. If fear made a colder wind than sad then...*
Her lips curl up into a smile before she starts laughing.
Zoro flinches at the sudden mood swing and starts worrying about her mental state. "What the-?! I already said I won't tell! What's the matter with you?!"
She shakes her head as she lowers her laughing down to light giggles. "I'm just laughing at the irony. It turns out Luffy won our bet long before the battle with Crocodile."
He raises an eyebrow at the crazy girl's explanation before they land on the deck of the ship where the others are working to leave.
"There you guys are!" Sanji says as he runs down the stairs. "What happened?"
"We got separated and fought a lieutenant." Rose says when she sees everyone aboard, except for the navigator and captain. "What happened to Nami and Luffy?"
The chef swoons at Nami's name being called before he looks out to the coastline to try to find her. "We found her waver, and regrouped with the others when they came back empty-handed. Nami-san figured out another spot that they could've hidden it and went to investigate it with Luffy. She ordered us to keep sailing on in disguise in hopes of you guys finding us. She really is a genius~!"
Zoro rolls his eyes at the chef's annoying habits. "Either that or you're an idiot."
Sanji snaps out of his love filled daze from the insult and gets in a leg and sword fight with Zoro.
Rose chuckles at the fight before she surveys the area until they see Nami and Luffy riding down the coastline on the waver with a large sack of gold onboard.
"Hey guys!" Nami calls out to them as she uses the waver to hop off the cliffside to fly towards them. Rose catches them with a gust of wind and gently sets the small boat down.
Luffy happily grins at the catch as he jumps off the waver. "Thanks for the catch."
Rose nods before she grins at him. "Is there anything else we need to do here captain?"
He shakes his head before he points ahead. "Nope, let's go!"
"Yea!" The others agree as they get to work in sailing off. They see two warships up ahead, but with their disguise the navy hasn't opened fire at them.
Rose flies up to the sails and blasts wind onto them, so that they're sailing at full speed in between both ships just as the disguise starts to shed off.
The marines onboard hesitate to attack the ship as they're sailing past them, and immediately regret it when the disguise is removed to reveal their target.
Robin giggles at the soldiers' shock stays to the back of the ship to observe the situation with Usopp.
The rest of the boys get to work on keeping the ship on the right course while Nami navigates the ship.
Luffy laughs at how fast they're going. "Keep it up guys! We're almost out!"
No one gives in as they sail toward their escape route like there's no tomorrow!
************************************************
Up in Vice Admiral Jonathan's office, the leader of the base sits relaxes at the balcony of the base.
Which is the exact opposite of how the Navy inspector is feeling because he just watched the men, he had patrolling the waters, let themselves be hoodwinked by the Merry's disguise. "I can't believe those idiots!"
The inspector glares at Jonathan's nonchalant attitude. "And you! I hope you can come up with a good explanation for how you failed!"
A few of the soldiers, who are on standby in his office, glare at the inspector from behind his back because it was the inspector's interference with the trap for Luffy's group that got them to escape.
Jonathan doesn't pay any mind to the inspector's discontent as he looks to the clock to see that it's almost 9:00 at night. "I didn't fail yet Inspector Shepherd. There's still one more trap that this base has left."
Shepherd calms down at the answer and looks at him in confusion. "What kind of trap?"
"I'll leave that as a surprise. The 9:00 pm net should be sprung into action at any moment now." Jonathan finishes when he sees that the clock has struck to 9 o'clock.
**********************************************
As the crew continues to sail in the lake, they begin to see the sea gate that Luffy blew open.
Luffy laughs in excitement from his seat on Merry's head. "Finally, let's get out of here!"
"Hold on captain-san, something's not right." Robin says as she and Usopp stare at their pursuers and see the ships not moving and turning away from them.
"Are they dropping their anchors?" Nami asks as she joins them at the back of the ship.
"Maybe they gave up?" Sanji wonders, but he knows that would be too easy for them.
Usopp laughs in pride as he looks ahead. "They must've! We're all too strong for them!"
Rose stops using her wind on the sails to look back at the pursuers, and furrows her eyebrows in thought of what she remembered happening when she saw this in the anime back home. *That's right there was one more trap, but what was it?*
She keeps thinking hard until she finally remembers the upcoming trap that's waiting for them. "Motherfucker!"
She lands on the deck and looks down at the water to see that the tide's getting stronger. "Shit, we're in another trap!"
"What kind of trap?" Chopper asks as he and Nami look down at the water with her.
"One to do with the-! Ah!" Rose and the others yell in shock when the tides become so strong that they're carrying the ship off course from the sea gate!
"Dammit, the rudder's not working!" Zoro says as he tries to steer, but the current is too strong for them to control the ship.
"We're caught in the tides!" Nami yells out in horror as she and the others hold onto whatever's close to keep them from going overboard.
Meanwhile, Jonathan and Shepherd are watching the show from the balcony of his office.
"So, your net is the tide?" Shepherd asks in surprise of how the crew got caught so easily.
Jonathan chuckles at his shock as he keeps his eyes to the Merry. "That's right, no matter how skilled their navigator may be, they can't escape this."
Shepherd grows furious at how the Vice Admiral will take the credit for the capture, so he turns away from him. "I need to take care of something."
Jonathan raises an eyebrow at the inspector's departure, but pays it no mind because if he tries something, he knows it'll only end well for his base.
Meanwhile, the ship continues to be dragged through the tide, but not strong enough to toss anyone around anymore. Nami grabs her map of the base to see what's going on and starts to understand what's happening. "Dammit, so that's it."
"What's going on?" Sanji asks as he approaches her to look at the map.
She points to the gate and begins to explain. "This is why they used a bay full of shallow reefs as a port! They've learned to read the different tides through the sea gate, so that they can learn when to come in and out of the base without getting stuck. We sailed at the wrong time, so now we're going to be stuck in shallow waters."
The ship begins to shake when the waters start becoming shallow and they grab onto something.
Luffy almost falls off on Merry's head from the sudden stop, but Rose catches him on a gust and brings him to her side.
"Hasn't the Merry suffered enough?!" Usopp cries out as the Merry runs on the ground until it's finally at a stop.
Half of the dizzy crew looks down to see that the ship is no longer on the water, but stranded on dry land.
Usopp runs below deck to see if any holes were made while Rose sets Luffy on the deck. "You ok Luffy?"
The captain nods before they hear Usopp yelling out. "GUYS, WE GOT A HUGE HOLE HERE!"
Everyone runs below deck and sees Usopp almost crying from the huge hole in the hull that can be mistaken as a new window.
Rose sighs at the damage as she looks outside from the hole. "We might be able to patch it up before the next tide."
Usopp perks up at the possibility before he digs through his bag for his tools. "Yea, but we need to hurry!"
Nami turns to leave. "We need to be on the lookout for the marines in the meantime! We're all sitting ducks here!"
The rest of the guys understand as they go to leave, but stop when they see lights shining from the hole. They go look outside from the hole to see that spotlights are shining on then with cannons from the cliffside are aiming straight at them.
"Attention Straw Hat Luffy and his crew!" The pirates freeze at Vice Admiral Jonathan's voice being heard from the base's intercoms. "You've all fought well against Navarone's fortress! I respect you for coming so far, even though you're the enemy! However, this is checkmate!"
Usopp, Chopper and Nami become frightened of the situation, while the rest of the crew are trying to come up with a solution or are getting ready to fight as Jonathan continues. "You've got nowhere to run and you're surrounded! If you surrender now, then I'll make you a deal! You, Roronoa Zoro and Wind Rider Rose are the only ones with bounties! If you three surrender, then I'll guarantee the safety of the rest of your crew! If you try to escape though, there will be no mercy! You have ten minutes before we take you by force!"
Nami snaps out of her fear and turns to Rose in shock. "You have a bounty?!"
The astronomer casually shrugs at the question. "Just because of my devil fruit. It's nowhere near as big as Luffy and Zoro's."
Rose ignores the rest of the crew's surprise as she turns to the sniper. "Hey Usopp, do you have your impact dial?"
Usopp freezes at this as he looks through his bag and finds it. "Yea, but why would..." He trails off when he starts coming up with a plan for them to escape and happily smiles. "That's it! I've been absorbing impacts with this dial since Skypiea! We can blast the Merry out of here!"
The others smile at the plan while Nami looks outside. "That's perfect! If it can get us over the cliff then we'll reach the ocean!"
Sanji looks at the dial and frowns at the plan. "Yea, but one shot won't be enough. Besides, we still got the hole to deal with."
"Shouldn't we be ok if we use the octopus balloon?" Rose asks them.
Robin nods to the idea. "That could work."
Chopper grins to the idea. "Yea, we can use breath and flame dials along with Rose's wind."
Nami brightly smiles at the plan. "That's perfect! Once we're out of here, we can use the balloon to keep the ship flying until we fix the hole."
"But we don't have the octopus." Zoro says which causes everyone to freeze expect for Luffy.
Chopper sighs in disappointment of the plan not working. "Too bad we don't have it."
Nami nods in agreement. "Yea..."
"Damn octopus..." Sanji says.
"Where did it go?" Robin asks.
"I have it." Luffy says, but no one fully listens yet as they keep talking.
"Oh, he has it." Rose says.
"Right, Luffy has it." Zoro says.
"Luffy has it?" Usopp asks.
"That's what he said." Chopper answers.
The rest of the crew finally stops talking when Luffy's answer finally sinks in, and they turn to him with wide eyes. "You have it?! Where?!"
Luffy digs into the front side of his pants until he pulls out the deflated octopus from it.
Rose covers her face from the sight, with a small blush on her face, while the others show a mix of shock and disgust.
"Why the hell was it in your pants?!" Nami angrily asks.
Luffy completely ignores the tension as he innocently smiles at them. "I was keeping him safe after I found him in the base."
"Didn't it feel weird down there?" Zoro asks as he looks at his pants.
"Down where?" Luffy asks before he notices Rose's blush and tilts his head in confusion. "Hey, you ok?"
"Yea, I'm fine. It's a little warm..." Rose says as she turns away from him. *This boy is too innocent for this world...*
Robin giggles at how everything played out. "Now that we have the octopus, we should get it ready to use. Right Long Nose-kun?"
Usopp nods as he looks down at the impact dial. "Right, but wait who's going to use it to..."
He trails off when he sees everyone staring at him with a mischievous gleam in their eyes. "Uh, why are you all looking at me like that?"
"Who does the impact dial belong to?" Luffy asks with his eyes still on Usopp.
"It's Usopp's dial." Zoro answers.
"He has experience with it too, right?" Robin asks.
Rose nods at the question. "Oh yea, he's a pro at using this dial."
"Given those facts, it's only fair that he should be the one to do it." Sanji says.
"Thanks for volunteering Usopp." Nami says with a smirk.
"You really are amazing!" Chopper says with more of a look of admiration than of mischief.
Usopp shivers in fear of them all ganging up on him while Zoro chuckles. "Don't worry Usopp, we'll help you get ready."
"And when your bones break, Doctor-kun will fix you up." Robin says as if she didn't just say something horrific.
"NOOO~!" Usopp cries out in horror, but he has no choice when Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy hold him down so that he doesn't run.
Nami begrudgingly takes the octopus and leads the rest of the crew out to the deck to get the ship ready to fly.
************************************************
Ten minutes came and went since Jonathan has given the pirates the chance to surrender, so he goes to his den den mushi to call the Sergeant who's in charge of the cannons. "Prepare to fire at the crew."
"Yes sir." The Sergeant answers before he turns to his men. "Prepare to fire!"
The soldiers do as they're commanded and get ready to fire the cannon.
Meanwhile, the crew is working nonstop to get the octopus balloon ready.
Nami sets down the cleaned-up octopus on the deck with her, Chopper, Rose and Robin. "Are you guys ready?"
"Yea, I'm all set!" Chopper says as he turns into heavy point with a flame dial in his hand.
"I'm ready as well." Robin says as she holds a breath dial that's filled with Rose's wind in both her hands.
Rose nods to herself as she cracks her knuckles. "Let's get Merry soaring again."
"Alright!" Nami says as she calls down to the guys who are still below deck. "Guys, we're ready when you are!"
"I'm not ready!" Usopp cries out as he tries to break free, but Zoro, Luffy and Sanji are keeping him in place. "Come on guys! This is gonna hurt like crazy!"
"It'll be fine Usopp!" Luffy says as he holds his shoulders while Sanji keeps a hold of his arm, that has the impact dial strapped to his hand, and Zoro holds his torso to keep him from running.
The boys manage to keep their squirming sniper in place as Sanji starts the countdown. "Three!"
"Two!" Zoro says with Luffy finishing it.
"One!" The captain says before Zoro touches Usopp's dial and creates a blast through the hole they made that's large enough to send the ship flying!
The marines manning the cannons are completely speechless at the sight as they watch the ship soar through the sky.
Down by the reefs, Inspector Shepherd is also shocked at the sight, but he's the first to snap out of it and glares at the ship with a giant bazooka in his hands. "Oh no you don't, Straw Hats! I'm the one who's gonna take you down!"
He gets ready to aim at the ship just when the vessel starts to lose altitude.
"I think it's time guys!" Rose says as she looks at their descending height.
"Right!" Nami says before she turns to Robin. "Do it Robin!"
"Alright." Robin uses her devil fruit to sprout arms from eight different directions of the outside of the ship, and continues to sprout one after the other from those spots to make a vine long enough to reach the octopus. The last arms of each vine grab a tentacle and stretch them out while Rose turns both her arms into strong gusts of air and blasts them into the octopus to start inflating it.
Rose does the best she can to get it to inflate as fast as possible while Robin and Chopper use their dials to help her out. Their work is paying off because it's growing bigger by the minute, but it's still descending towards the water.
Nami uses her breath dial on the balloon to back them up, and gets worried that they're not gonna make it. "Come on..."
The descent continues to grow slower as the balloon continues to grow, but it's still getting closer to the lake.
Rose's wind arms start growing weaker from exhaustion, but she refuses to stop. After all she went through at this base she won't let this be how it ends, so she takes a deep breath and lets a blast of wind fly out of her mouth to back up her arms.
The others look at her in shock, but they don't stop using the dials until the ship begins to rise just before the boat could touch the water!
Chopper happily smiles as they continue to rise and start their escape through the air. "We did it!"
Rose stops blasting her wind out of her mouth, and lets her arms turn back to normal, before she sits down with her back to the mast. "Thank god..."
Robin uses her arms to tie the octopus' tentacles to the ship's railings, then looks down at the tired girl and hands her back the dial she borrowed. "Thank you for your help Wind-chan."
Rose can only give her a thumbs up and stay seated, while the boys come back up as they drag a collapsed Usopp with them.
"Hey Chopper, we need your help with Usopp!" Sanji says as the reindeer returns to brain point and runs over the treat the sniper's injuries from using the impact dial.
Luffy happily laughs at how high they're going when he sees that they're getting close to the top of the cliffs. "Alright guys! Let's set sail!"
The others cheer in agreement, but when Rose goes to get up Nami gently pushes her shoulders down so that she's still seated. "Take a break already, you've done enough."
Rose blinks at the order before she nods and stays seated, because she has no room to argue in the exhausted state she's in.
Nami grins in satisfaction before she goes off to make sure that they're heading in the right direction.
Down at the base, Vice Admiral Jonathan is indeed impressed by the crew's takeoff, but he expected this so he gives his Sergeant a call. "As soon as they're in firing range shoot them down! Be sure to aim for the balloon and not for the ship! I want to take them alive!"
"Roger that." The Sergeant says, but as soon as he hangs up, he tiredly sighs. "Man, this is a tall order."
He looks to see that the ship's getting close to their shooting range and turns to his canon operators. "Fire a warning shot! If they don't stop, then aim for the balloon."
"Yes sir!" The marine says as he gets into position.
Down on the reefs across from the cannons though, Inspector Shepherd refuses to give the crew a warning shot as he finally gets a clean shot. "You're mine now Straw Hats!"
He pulls the trigger, but the bazooka is so big that he couldn't keep a good hold on it after the shot, so the ammo blasts off in all random directions! The shot manages to not only miss the Going Merry, but directly hits the top of the cliffside and causes a landslide to come tumbling down at the cannons!
The operators scream in fright as they run inside and avoid getting hurt from the landslide, but the cannons are too damaged to stop the Straw Hats now.
Jonathan tiredly sighs at the damage that he sees through his binoculars and shakes his head in disappointment. "I should've known he interfered. Inspector Shepherd ruined the trap..."
The pirates look at the damage in confusion to see that they can get away now.
"What happened?" Luffy asks with the others wondering the same thing.
Nami shrugs it off as they manage to fly high enough to go over the base's walls. "It doesn't matter, let's get out of here while the going is good!"
The others quickly agree as they continue to sail on.
Rose manages to get enough energy to stand, so she gets up, and goes to the railing for a better view. When she looks around the base one last time, she freezes when she sees her doppelganger on one of the high-level windows of the base.
Lily refuses to look down at the terrifying height and keeps her eyes on the flying ship to see it off. When she spots her freckled look-alike at the railing, she says nothing to her. The marine wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn't find any words for the pirate that has her face.
Rose however, grows happy that she's seeing her off and waves at her.
Lily widens her green eyes at the friendly farewell, and shyly lifts her hand up for a small wave before she rushes inside.
Rose chuckles at the shy retreat when the ship manages to soar above the cliff.
When the Merry flies over the wall to reach the open sea, the crew happily smiles at the feeling of freedom as they watch the sun rising for a new morning.
Sanji looks back at the base that they were trapped in, and hums in interest of the island's view from this height. "Wow, the base's impressive up close and up high."
"Whoa, it really is!" Chopper says in shock of how the island looks from up there, after he finishes bandaging Usopp's arm.
Rose grabs her camera from her bag and starts taking photos of the base while Luffy happily waves the base goodbye. "So long fortress guy!"
Usopp looks back at the abled cannons on the outside of the base, and looks at them in confusion. "Not that I'm ungrateful that it's over, but why aren't they shooting at us?"
"Their cannons can't reach something of this altitude." Robin says with a calm smile.
"So, it's finally over." Nami says in relief when she sees that no more ships are chasing them.
"Now that we're safe, I'm gonna go fix the hull." Usopp says with Chopper following along to help.
"Sanji! I'm hungry!" Luffy says with a smile.
"Yea, yea, I'll make something." Sanji says as he goes inside to whip something up with the captain following him inside.
Robin and Nami go inside to get some rest from the long night, with Rose and Zoro staying behind on the deck.
Rose stops taking pictures and finally notices that they're the only ones around. Before she could say anything, the swordsman points to the crow's nest. "Meet me there tonight to talk. It's your turn for night watch, right?"
The wind girl nods as she looks up to her favorite part of the ship. "Y-yea, that can work. I'll see you then..."
She turns around to leave with a small freezing gust blowing off of her.
Zoro widens his eyes at the freezing mood breeze as he watches her go inside to get some well-earned rest. *Is she that scared of people knowing about her secret? No, if she was, then she wouldn't have opened up to the look-alike...*
He starts to wonder if her fear is something deeper than that, but tries not to think about that now. After all, he'll get all of his answers from the wind girl tonight.
He tiredly sighs in frustration of the weird position he's put in and sits down, with his back to the mast, to let himself pass through the day with a nap.
*********************************************
In Navarone's fortress just moments after the crew's escape, Inspector Shepherd furiously barges into Vice Admiral Jonathan's office where him, and his wife Jessica. "I hope you're happy with yourself Vice Admiral! Your blunder's just cost you this base!"
Jonathan raises an eyebrow to him as if he doesn't know why he's upset. "And what kind of blunder was this?"
"You allowed the Straw Hats to get away!"
Jonathan chuckles at the accusation as he looks outside where the landslide took place. "We had a perfect shot at Straw Hat's balloon. It was your bazooka that stopped us from capturing them."
Shepherd's anger continues to rise as he points to Vice Admiral. "Don't blame this on me! You're the one in charge of this failed operation! No matter how I see it, this is all due to your incompetence! I don't care if you are Admiral Akainu's favorite! I'll see to it that this whole base is demolished and every soldier here is thrown out to the-!"
Jessica cuts off the man's temper tantrum by giving a good punch to the face so hard that it knocks him out!
She ignores her husband's impressed stare as she looks to him. "I know he's incompetent, but you did lose them..."
"Yes, but it was his interference that did it." Jonathan says as he looks down to the useless inspector.
Regardless, he's not mad at all as he smiles at his wife. "It was thanks to those pirates though, that we achieved our objective."
Jessica looks at him in confusion as he explains himself. "Everyone here worked together for a common goal."
The head chef pauses at the explanation and realizes that he's right. "Now that you mention it, I did notice."
He chuckles at her surprise. "That was my plan for this base. Those pirates helped to prove how useful this base truly is for the navy. I have no doubt the headquarters will be reminded of that once I report how we repelled a strong crew such as the Straw Hats. What do you think?"
Jessica couldn't be more proud of how he managed things, but she's not too happy because of the man she just punched. "What about him? There's no way he'd give us a good report even if I didn't punch him."
"Who cares, I was about to punch out the bastard myself!" He and his wife laugh at that before Jonathan's den den mushi starts ringing.
Jonathan looks at the snail in confusion before he answers it to see it growing the same kind of red hair that Noah has. "Sir, I need to report to you about the trap."
Jonathan grins at the snail and responds to him. "I was wondering what happened to you Noah. Were you able to pull off your trap against Wind Rider?"
The snail solemnly nods as he keeps on a serious frown. "We did, but she still managed to take us down. There weren't any casualties, but half of my unit experienced minor injuries. They're all being treated as we speak, but they won't stop talking about how they don't regret anything."
The Vice Admiral keeps a small grin on his face from hearing the pride in the Lieutenant's voice from talking about his subordinates. "I'm glad they weren't seriously hurt. Did you get injured?"
The Lieutenant furrows his eyebrows at the questions as he remembers his experience with Rose and what he learned about her. "I was knocked out a few times, but I also learned that she's even more dangerous than we thought."
Jonathan raises an eyebrow at how nervous his subordinate sounds. "What do you mean?"
"You see sir, after the pirate knocked me out the first time, Sarona Lily took the stone out of the case we had it in."
Jonathan becomes horrified at the report and worried for the cadet. "The stone didn't work on her, did it?!"
"No sir, but when she held the stone, Wind Rider started freaking out. She knew everything about the Spiriting Night and tried to scare Lily with those facts to put it down. That stubborn girl wouldn't let it go until Wind Rider revealed that she used that comet to get here herself!"
Jonathan's blood ran cold from what he just heard when Jessica walks up to him and talks to Noah. "Are you saying that this pirate's not from this world?"
"She said it herself! She even wears a necklace with the exact same stone as the one we took from her, but without the comet's energy! That has to be enough proof!"
Jonathan calms himself down before he scowls at the snail. "I'll add the confession to my report when I talk about the crew's visit. Thank you for reporting this, get yourself some rest."
"Yes sir." He hangs up his side of the line so Jonathan follows suit.
Jessica has rarely seen her husband so distraught, so she knows that this is something serious. "What now?"
Jonathan tiredly sighs at the situation as he takes a seat and looks at the Straw Hats' posters. "This can't be taken lightly. I'm going to report both the girl's research as well as the confession, but ask them to run a background check on her to see if they can find anything. For all we know, Wind Rider could've just said that to make sure her doppelganger didn't use it by mistake..."
That last sentence didn't help his doubts, but now he knows that he needs to do something about Lily as well. If they confirm that Rose truly isn't from this world, then Lily's life as a marine will only become increasingly difficult if she stays in her position as a cadet in Navarone...
He has an idea about what he has to do, but he's going to have to pull a few strings for this one. "Jessica, can you make your most energizing meal today? I'm going to have a long day ahead of me."
Jessica nods before she gives her husband a kiss on the cheek for good luck then leaves.
When Jonathan finds himself alone in the room, besides the knocked-out inspector, he grabs his den den mushi and makes a call.
As soon as it's answered, the snail's face is replaced by an older man's face with a long scar over his left eye. The snail tiredly yawns before he talks to him. "Is that you Jonathan? It's been a while! How have you been?"
Jonathan chuckles at the older Vice Admiral's easygoing attitude before he responds. "It really has been a while Garp. I'm doing well, but I need to talk to you. How far are you from the base?"
Garp happily smiles at the invitation as he answers without hesitation. "Not far at all, I can bring the ship by in two days time."
"Perfect, I'll see you then." The two Vice Admirals hang up each other as if it was a regular conversation between two friends instead of two high ranking officers.
Jonathan grins in relief of how easy it was to help his subordinate. "Whatever happens now, it's up to fate."
He gets up to head to the dining hall and hopes for the best for his subordinate, and for the crew that helped bring his base back to life.
*****************************************************
The sun has long since set when Usopp and Chopper finished fixing the hull of the ship. Now that the Merry is safe to sail on water again, she's ready to get out of the sky.
Sanji is inside doing the dishes while Zoro is inside to get some peaceful shut-eye since Luffy, Rose, Usopp, and Chopper eagerly volunteered to deflate the balloon. The four of them unanimously chose the funnest method possible which is to fly up to the top of the octopus balloon and jump around on its head to deflate it.
While the tactic's working to cause the ship's slow descent, Nami sweat drops at how the four of them are treating the octopus like a trampoline. "They'd better not deflate it too quickly..."
Robin giggles at the sight of her crewmates having fun before she looks down at the water, that's coming closer by the second. "I wouldn't worry, we're almost down."
The ship lands on the water with a small thud before the octopus balloon releases its hold on the rails, and completely deflates back to its original size.
The four jumpers laugh at the fun ride while Rose catches them with her wind, and sets the group down on the deck while the octopus lands in the ocean.
Nami happily smiles at the ship sailing in normal water again before she heads inside. "I'm going to head to bed. Rose, you still ok for night watch?"
Rose nods with an easygoing smile. "Yea, I can do it. I'll see you guys tomorrow."
The navigator nods with a grin before she goes inside with Robin.
Usopp, Luffy and Chopper followed not too long after and leaves Rose alone to enjoy the peaceful night. She relaxes by the railing to enjoy the view of the night sky when Sanji walks out of the kitchen.
The chef notices the astronomer outside and blinks at how she's all alone. "Do you need anything to help you stay awake for night watch Rose-chan?"
Rose shakes her head as she smiles at him. "Thanks, but I'm good. Have a good night."
"Good night, Rose-chan!" Sanji says with a happy smile as he goes to bed.
Once she's alone, she goes to the kitchen, grabs two bottles of booze and walks out to find Zoro about to head to the crow's nest.
When Zoro sees her, he becomes surprised to see her holding two bottles of alcohol. "What the fuck?"
"Trust me, we're both going to need a drink for this..." She uses her wind to get the two of them flying up to the crow's nest.
Once they're seated across from each other, Rose hands him one of the bottles. With the bottle she kept, she opened it up and took a swig, only to force herself to swallow and grimace at the gross flavor. "Ugh, this tastes worse than my devil fruit!"
Zoro chuckles at the new drinker's reaction to the booze before he opens his own bottle and takes a gulp. "It takes a while to get used to the taste."
"I'll say..." She puts the bottle down to see that he's wearing his usual scowl.
"Let's not stall anymore."
Rose slowly nods before she takes a deep breath, and looks him in the eye with a brave face. "Alright, now that you know the truth, what do you want to know?"
TO BE CONTINUED
*******************************************************
A/N: Hi everyone, first I want to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you're all having a fun day.
Second, thank you all for supporting my story this far. Today marks two years since I re-started the story and I'm really proud of how it's going so far.
I hope you all continue this journey with me in the chapters to come. :D