Chapter 54

With three suitcases filled with millions of beli, Nami is happily carrying one of them while Usopp holds onto the other two.

Luffy is happily strolling with the group on their trip to Galley La, but all of a sudden, he feels something wrong. He stops walking, then looks back at the direction of where Rose is fighting the Cipher Pol agents, and ready to fight, which attracts the others' attention.

Nami looks around to see nobody around then looks back at Luffy. "What's wrong Luffy?"

Luffy keeps his focus on that direction for a moment, before he looks back to his navigator. "I just have a bad feeling. I don't know why."

"Maybe because you ate too much of that Water Seven meat." Usopp comments, but Luffy knows that it's not from eating.

"It's not a stomach pain. It just feels like something bad's happening right now."

Nami and Usopp look to each other for a moment, as if they're having a silent conversation of what it could be.

When they were done, Nami is the first to break the silence. "I'm sure it'll pass. We got what we need to fix Merry, so nothing bad should be happening."

Luffy hesitates for a moment, but with nothing to back up this feeling, he lets himself turn back to the others. "Right, let's go..."

The others grin and continue on their journey to Galley La, with their captain trailing behind, with his feeling of danger still bothering him throughout the trip.

*************************************************

As soon as Rose placed Robin's feet on the ground, she started running into the city as fast as her legs can take her, and wouldn't look back.

"Leave her alone!"

The archaeologist clenches her teeth in frustration from hearing Rose's yell, and the crash from nearby, but doesn't stop. It's as though her body is on autopilot to run for her life, no matter what she hears from the battle behind her.

She doesn't know where she's trying to go, but she could care less at this point. Being in this type of situation for so long, it's practically second nature to her.

She finally stops at a town plaza, where dozens of people are going by their day without a care in the world.

While she's catching her breath, she looks around to see that none of the masked men are nearby. Even so, she knows that she can't act like she's safe.

She runs in another direction, but stops when she sees a weapon shop approaching. She goes inside and looks around to find all sorts of weapons from knives to guns neatly stacked.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Robin flinches at the soft, masculine voice, and looks to see a scrawny, pale man smiling at her at the counter.

She slightly relaxes at the sight of his kind brown eyes, then grabs a thin, sheathed, dagger, and a gun. "I need these two."

"That'll be three thousand beli."

Robin's quick to pay the brunette, and leaves without another thought. Once outside, she stores the dagger in her left boot, but she keeps her gun in her hands.

She still feels on edge, but now is walking instead of running. Going to both Rose or the crew is out of the question for her, but that leaves very little options for her. She rushes off to find another place to hide, but stops in horror when a door carves out just a few feet in front of her.

As soon as the door opens, she fires her gun but the bullet does nothing against the door man's iron body.

All Blueno does is lightly chuckle at the futile shots, but Robin refuses to give up by summoning up as many arms as she can onto his body, and starts to bend them into her clutch. Unlike before, his limbs start to bend, but in a matter of seconds, he was able to break free of the hold, causing the arms to vanish.

Robin goes to run again, but in a flash Blueno appears right in front of her grabs both her wrists in one hand. "If you want the other demon to live, then come quietly."

She widens his eyes at the threat and slowly nods before she lets him lead her towards the door to her fate. Once she's through, she finds herself in a dimly lit room, with another masked figure. She knows that she can't win, so she doesn't try to fight, but speaks up. "Where's Rose? I need to know that she's alive."

The masked agent that brought her here releases a dark chuckle. "You really don't know who she is do you? I doubt you'd care for her if you did."

"I know of her research."

"But not where she came from, right?"

Robin hesitates at that question, which gives him all the confirmation he needed. "In that case, let me enlighten you on who she really is."

*******************************************

With a pounding pain in her head and left arm, Rose slowly comes out of unconsciousness to find her upper body lying on a table, in an empty, grey, windowless room. She sits up in the chair she's sitting in, then sees that both her hands are locked in handcuffs, in front of her, and chained to the center of the table. Though it's hard to fully see it all with the black eye she got from Nishiki's hit making her right eye half lidded.

Still, she was able to look to her left, to see that a big hole is made in her jacket sleeve to show that the shuriken in her arm was removed, and her arm was bandaged. Because of that, a good number of scenarios can be thought of for what they have planned for her, but one thing's for sure, they want her alive.

With that clarification she's able to relax a little, but she knows that she's still in deep shit. Especially with the dizzy feeling she has confirming that her handcuffs are made of sea stone. She pulls her arms toward her, but the short chain stops them just in front of her. It was just enough distance for her to find what she needs though. For even though they took her sword and backpack, they didn't take the pins that she had placed in the cuffs of her jacket, shirt and pants to use to pick the locks.

With that new hope, the sneaky girl leans forward, to pull one of the pins out with her teeth, but freezes when she hears footsteps just outside the room.

With a plan to mess with them, she puts on a scared, mask, just when she hears the door unlock. Just as the door opens, she acts like she's trying to escape by standing up, and tugging on the chain.

Two marine grunts pause at the performance, before one of them runs off to tell the Cipher Pol unit that caught her, and the other walks in with an annoyed look on his face. "Knock it off demon!"

The brunette follows the order, but gives him a look that shows that she has no idea what he's saying. "

¿Que esta pasando? ¡¿Quién eres tú?!"

The poor man has no idea what she's saying, and grows confused. "What the fuck kind of language is that?!"

Rose had to bite the inside of her cheek, to keep herself from laughing, because now that she knows that he can't speak Spanish, she can speak freely. With a scared look on her face, she speaks her high school level Spanish freely. "Eres una putita que chupa la polla de tu jefe."

He still doesn't know what she's saying, but starts getting angry because he knows that she can speak his language. "Enough of your demon language, bitch!"

He goes to punch her, but she ducks, swings her leg up to hit him in the balls, before she practically screams. "¡BRUTALIDAD POLICIAL! ¡BRUTALIDAD POLICIAL!"

The marine exclaims in pain while he falls on his butt, and holds his aching family jewels. Rose tries to kick again, but he backs away in fear to get out of her range.

"Hahaha, I knew that she'd be fun!"

Rose and the marine look to the doorway, to find a young man, with medium length, messy, purple hair, and wearing a black vest, over his blue button-down shirt, that matches his black pants, smiling without a care in the world.

The newcomer's brown eyes look at the girl, who has no idea is, and loses his grin at the weird look. "What's the matter, don't you recognize me?"

Rose just tilts her head, and doesn't say anything even though she has an inkling that he's one of the CP guys that caught her.

The marine though stumbles up, and runs behind the new guy. "Don't act so friendly with this bitch Lareos! She's evil! She was probably casting some kind of demon curse on me!"

Instead of being scared, Lareos beams at the suggestion, runs up to the other side of the table, and leans towards the pirate. "Is that true?! What kind of spell?! Cast it on me! I want to see how it works!"

Rose sweat drops at the agent's eagerness, and keeps her confused mask up while saying something completely different in Spanish. "Si puedo, te daría una maldición que haría que los monos salieran de tu trasero."

The marine cowers towards the doorway while the agent looks around, like a child looking for candy, in hopes of some kind of calamity to happen. When nothing happens, Lareos starts to pout, then he sits down in one of the empty chairs across from her. "Aw man, you suck."

Rose gets tempted to kick his leg, but she knows that she's still at a disadvantage in a fight with her cuffs, so she holds herself back.

The grunt though, starts to regain his courage, when he sees that nothing happened, and starts to smirk. "So, you're nothing but talk, aren't you?"

Rose narrows her eyes at the marine, when he pulls a gun out of his holster, walks up to her, and points it at her head. "Now listen here, you're going to answer our questions, in our language, and truthfully. If I catch you lying, then your life is forfeit!"

With that threat in the air, Rose releases both her clueless mask, and a chuckle, before she casually takes a seat, and looks up at the gunman "Go ahead, but I doubt Sengoku would be happy with you disobeying his orders to keep me alive."

The grunt loses his smile at the answer, and drops the gun while he sweats in worry. "H-how'd you know?!"

"You just told me dumbass." Rose casually answers while Lareos is starting to laugh at the comeback.

"Hahaha, that was great." Lareos calms himself down before he looks to the grunt. "You can get out of here. The rest of my unit should be here soon."

"Are you sure about that? We don't know what this demon can do."

"That's what I hope to see, but you're boring. Get out."

The grunt is mad about the insult, but doesn't risk going against Cipher Pol's orders so he lets himself out.

As he goes out the door, and closes it behind him, Lareos looks to the prisoner with a grin. "So, you're Alun D Rose, huh?"

Rose scowls at the familiar attitude he's giving her, but answers nonetheless. "The only name I was given was Catone Rose. I already told the overgrown popsicle that."

Lareos can't help but laugh at Rose's nickname for the admiral. "Pft, 'overgrown popsicle' you outsiders come up with the best nicknames."

"How many people like me have you met?"

He hums in thought before he uses his fingers to count, then stops after a moment. "We caught eight, but none of them lasted long enough to give us any good information on other worlds."

"That's why I'm still breathing?"

The supposed interrogator casually shrugs at the question. "We just follow orders. But enough about that, I'm supposed to question you. What's the name of the place you lived in?"

"Nunya."

He hums at the weird name, and grows even more curious "Where's Nunya?"

"Nunya damn business."

He starts to lose his smile at the smart ass answer, before he gets up, and in a flash, punches her cheek with enough force for her to fall off her chair. The short chain keeps her arms close to the table, while the rest of her body hits the floor.

She tries to get up, but Lareos' foot collides with her stomach, which puts her on her back, then his other foot quickly stomps on her chest to pin her down.

She coughs at the pain, and new pressure in her chest, but doesn't say a word as she defiantly looks up at him.

Lareos starts to smirk at the look in her eye as he applies more pressure on her chest. "I knew you were going to be fun to break. Sure, we can't kill you like the others, but until you start talking, we can have loads of fun."

He lifts his foot only to stomp onto her stomach to knock the air out of her lungs.

She coughs in pain of the hit, but as soon as she regains some of her breath, she releases a few cackles at him.

Lareos doesn't react at all to her laughter, but instead keeps his foot on her stomach. As she recovers, she gives him a maniacal smirk. "You think that fucking line can scare me?! Back in my world, I saw things that are people's worst nightmares! Titans, over twenty feet tall, eating innocent people! Wizards using magic to control the dead! I even lived in a country ruled by DONALD FUCKING TRUMP! So go ahead and beat the hell out of me, but all I'm only going to tell you is go fuck y-!"

The agent cuts her off by stomping on her face, with enough force to guarantee to give her a nosebleed. After the attack, he gets his feet off her, and pulls up the chain, that's connecting Rose to the table, to pull her on her feet, just when another agent walks in.

A middle aged, olive skinned man, with his black hair spiked in all directions, dressed in dark green shinobi gear from the neck down, sees the sight, and gets annoyed when he sees the captive's state. "Why didn't you tell me that the bitch finally came to Lareos?! I wanted to get the first hit!"

Rose ignores her bleeding nose, to give him a glare, while Lareos chuckles, while keeping his hands on Rose's chain, and gives his friend a childish grin. "My bad, but I couldn't resist. How are Andreos and Rufus?"

"They just checked out of the infirmary, so they should be here any minute. Were you able to get anything out of her?"

"Just that she must've came from some pretty weird place. There's even a Donald Trump there!"

"What's that?"

"I don't know, but it sounds creepy. She also said that we can beat the hell out of her."

"Bibibibi, with fucking pleasure! Put her hands on the table!" Nishiki orders Lareos, which his comrade gladly applies by holding her wrists down so her hands are on the table.

Rose tries to pull away, but the agent keeps an iron grip on her, while Nishiki comes to the table.

"This is for the headbutt!" The ninja like agent takes a kunai out of his side pouch, then plunges it into her right hand!

Rose only cringes, but refuses to make a sound when the knife goes through her hand to pin her to the table. Lucky for her, she spread her fingers out in time, and can feel that the knife went in between her finger bones.

He takes another knife, but before he can stab her other hand, she kicks his crotch under the table to get him falling backwards. She's quick to use the time to pull the knife out of her hand with her teeth, and goes to stab Lareos in the shoulder.

The agent was quick to use iron body, and not feel any damage to the blow, before he grabs the side of Rose's head, and slams it to the table!

She loses her grip on the knife from the hit, and does everything to keep herself from yelling at the new pain.

"Now that was an interesting show." Rufus speaks from the doorway, with Andreos standing beside him, and both of them wearing similar clothes to Lareos, except for different colored dress shirts.

For the first time since she woke up, Rose becomes shocked when she sees the two agents, because Rufus looks exactly like Solf J Kimblee, except for the fact that he's slightly more than his Fullmetal counterpart, and his eyes are fiery red.

Even though she knows her defiant mask didn't slip, Rufus' smirk widens at the sight of her as he walks further inside, while Andreos goes towards Nishiki to help him up. "Demons like you really are foolish."

Rose scoffs at the insult as her eyes dart up at him. "Being foolish would be to let him stab me again."

Rufus chuckles at the misconception as he grabs Rose's hair, which gets Lareos to release his hold on her, and pulls her up so that they're making eye contact. "Stabbing him would be all good, but you went for a non-vital spot on purpose. Because of that, I know all about you."

"Oh really?"

"That's right, you're one of those 'I refuse to kill' brats, who don't deliver the final blow. Probably from some past trauma that you don't want others to suffer from. Am I coming close?"

"As close as I am with knowing you're as much of a fucking psycho path as your Fullmetal copy." Rose answers in a snarky tone, and tries to kick him, but Lareos is quick to stomp on both of her feet with one foot, hard enough for her to groan.

Rufus chuckles at her resistance, while he ignores her mention of the doppelganger, and keeps up his analysis of her. "Judging by your kick, it looks like I'm right, but I'm beginning to wonder just how long you can keep that up. With just one look at your aura, I can tell there's something evil in you just waiting to get out."

"It's just the same as any outsider you saw I bet!" Rose bites back, which earns her head another slam to the table, courtesy of the Kimblee clone.

The doppelganger chuckles at the argument, as he keeps her head down. "Funny you should mention that. We've dealt with all kinds of outsiders, but you're the first one with such an intensive aura."

He looks to the gentleman in his thirties, with his wavy green hair in a combover, that's watching the show with Nishiki. "Andreos, you know what to do."

Rose looks up to see Andreos first take a handkerchief from the chest pocket of his vest, take Rose's right glove off, and wraps the handkerchief around her injured, bloody, hand to help stop the bleeding. Then, he grabs onto her wrist, with his index finger checking her pulse.

Quick to remember how CP 9 got the truth out of Iceberg in the manga, Rose struggles in their grip, but Nishiki is quick to pin her other arm to the table, and the rest of the agents keeping a strong grip on her.

Rufus starts to snicker at the struggles as he speaks up. "Judging from your reaction, you know what we're going to do here. All we need to do is speak our theory, and your blood will tell us the truth."

"Screw you, you prick!" Rose snarls at him as she keeps trying to get out of their grip, but it's no use.

Rufus only smirks at the crude language and begins speaking. "Forty years ago, on the Spiriting night, over thirty members of the World Government's geology team vanished thanks to the Timore Comet. Also known as Hell's comet. Two of those scientists include Alun D. Aria and Alun D. Aidan. You might not have met them, but you've heard of that name before."

Rose's composure starts to fade as she becomes more frantic in trying to escape, but none of the boys will have it.

Rufus only presses her head to the table harder as he continues the story. "The reason that you never met the two scientists, is because they're not the only members of that family to disappear that night."

She closes her eyes tightly, as if that can block them out, but her ears can still hear everything. "The one who arrived to your world was their young daughter Alun D Teresa. She grew up working on a way to travel back to her world, and taught you everything she knew."

He snickers at her painful state, and taunts her with the finishing piece to the puzzle. "Now what I find odd is your appearance. Even if there are humans in that world, how can you share such a strong resemblance to Alun D Aria and Teresa? Care to take a guess?"

"GO TO HELL!" Rose yells out which makes Rufus snicker all the more before he ends the tale.

"That's right, Teresa mated with someone in that world, and created you. A half breed with a monstrous aura that results from being a child of two worlds."

Andreos scowls at the sadistic attitude of his comrade, but there's no denying that he's right, because her pulse confirmed that he's been telling the truth this whole time. "Every bit of it is the truth Rufus."

Being satisfied with the answer, Rufus releases her head, but Rose doesn't get up.

Instead, she glares up at the Kimblee doppelganger. "Now that you know, what happens?"

Instead of answering, he unhooks the cuffs from the table's chain, but leaves the cuffs on her, and pulls her arm to stand her up while Lareos gets off her feet and takes her other arm.

The agents drag her out of the room. After a few twists and turns in the building's halls, they stop at a gloomy metal door. As soon as the door opens, Rose almost flinches at the sound of something hitting metal, and when they go inside, she finds that the source of the noise is a brown falcon, wrapped up in chains in a bird cage in the corner of the room, with her beak trapped in a small muzzle.

Rose softly frowns at the poor animal, but has no time to say anything when the agents drag her further to the center of the room where a long chain is attached to the floor of the center of the room. As they hook her cuffs to the chain, she looks around the room to find it having a shabby bed, a toilet, and a small window, using the morning sun as the room's only source of light. Once Rose is secured, the agents go to leave.

However, Rufus lingers at the doorway to answer her question. "For now, we're going to report our findings to Sengoku. While CP9 is working with their demon tonight, we'll be taking you and your jail mate on the sea train to Enies Lobby. Until then, don't go anywhere"

He closes the door behind him, and with the sound of the lock, Rose knows that she's finally away from them.

The bird stops her struggles at the sight of the new arrival, and is surprised when she sees her drop her butt to the floor. Rose doesn't care about the audience, because she's stuck in a panic attack from the frightening experience. Especially when she unconsciously touches her chest, but freezes when she remembers that she doesn't have her treasure for comfort this time.

Because of that, she bends her knees close to her chest, loops her cuffed arms around them in an attempt to hug them, then takes as many deep breaths as she needs to recompose herself from the World Government now knowing everything.

After she snaps out of it, she looks to the bird, and scowls at the poor treatment they've given her. "I know the World Government's full of bastards, but to do this to a pretty bird like you brings them down to full dickhood."

Rose widens her eyes when she hears muffled laughter from the bird, and can't help but release a chuckle herself. "You like that one, huh? Let me see how bad you have it."

The bird lover stands up, and tests the length of the new chain to see that she can just reach the walls of the small cell, so she just makes it to the cage. She gently picks it up, brings it with her to the bed. She gently sets the cage onto the bed, before she sits beside her to get a closer look at her jail mate.

She doesn't know a lot about birds, but with this one's feet being bagged so tightly, she could be a carnivorous bird. Even her chains look tightly bound, with a padlock keeping them together, so she knows that she's a fighter, but it looks like the muzzle is just strapped on. She tries to reach into the cage to at least unstrap the muzzle but her cuffs are making it hard for her to move her hands to the right angle.

The avian looks at the hands and nervously backs away from them.

"Hey, wait, I'm trying to unstrap your muzzle." Rose says, and to her surprise, the bird actually understood what she said, because she started moving closer to her hands.

She hums in curiosity when her fingers manage to reach the straps, and while she's removing them, feels a thin, stitched, scar on the back of her head.

When the bird felt her fingers tracing it, she headbutted her hands away, with her muzzle loose enough to hang under her big, golden beak, but it's not completely off.

Rose pulls her hands out of the cage and can see both anger and pain in the animal's black eyes from the touch of that scar.

The human sadly stares at her because the scar was too straight to have been from something natural, and can imagine that the World Government had something to do with it. "Sorry, I won't touch the scar again, do you want the muzzle completely off?"

The other prisoner hesitates for a moment, but cautiously scoots closer for Rose to gently reach in and take off the muzzle.

Once free of it, the bird gives out a caw, but when she sees that she's still in the cage, she begins to sadden.

Feeling the animal's pain, Rose reaches her good hand towards her, and softly strokes the side of her head where the scar can't be felt. When Rose feels her head lean further into her hand, she softly smiles at the affection, but that happiness dies quickly when she remembers their situation.

She looks out the window, to see that they're on the outskirts of Water Seven, but nowhere near the going Merry. Lucky for her though, it looks like the sun won't set for a while, so she has time to get out of here and get back to the others.

She doesn't know what Sengoku has planned for her or this animal, but one thing's for sure. She's going to do everything in her power to keep him from having them.

She takes her hands out of the cage, and pulls a pin from the cuff of her coat out with her teeth. With the pain in her right hand killing her, she drops the pin into her good hand to let it pick the lock.

The bird widens her eyes at the girl's craftiness, and watches with doubt of her being able to do it.

Rose ignores that look, and focuses on her task. After a few minutes of tinkering with the lock, she barely feels as though she's starting to feel like she's halfway there with picking it. She begins to smile at the new hope, but it quickly dies when she hears the lock to her door moving. She stuffs her pin under her pillow, puts the cage behind her, to protect the bird, and gives a glare at the door just as it opens.

When she sees Robin though, without any restraints, she's more than wary about what's going on.

Robin walks in, and closes the door behind her, but the door doesn't lock, so she knows for sure that Robin took the deal. "Robin, are you alright?! What have they-?!"

Robin is quick to use her powers on her, by growing six arms off the wall behind her. After using one to swat the cage off the bed, then it and three other arms grabbing onto Rose's arms, while the other two grabs onto her neck.

"What are you-?!" Rose cuts herself off when she feels the hands on her neck tighten, and only slightly loosen when she stops speaking.

Taking that as a sign to stay quiet, Rose keeps her mouth shut when Robin walks up to her.

The bird starts squawking in protest, of how she's treating her new friend, and trying to break out of the cage, but when one look Robin's cold eyes, shuts her up in fear.

Even the wind girl starts to shiver when she sees her crew mate's icy glare, but stays silent when Robin speaks. "Tell me the truth, or I will kill you. Did you use your research to come here?"

Taking her threat more seriously than the marine who pulled a gun on her, she answers truthfully. "I did."

"And you know the past and the future of this world?"

"Yes..." Instead of those answers easing Robin out of her anger, it felt as though it's getting worse with the way Robin won't ease her hold.

"In that case, I want to know one thing. What was the name of my homeland?"

Rose knits her eyebrows at the strange question. "You never told me-!"

Rose starts to strain when she feels her neck tighten again in Robin's hold, to the point where it's hard to breathe, and only in a little bit did Robin loosen the grip enough for her to get air back in her lungs.

Robin looks as though she feels no remorse for her pain, because she wants answers and is getting them. "But you know it don't you?! Tell me the truth right now! Where was my homeland?!"

"OHARA!" Rose blurts out, but instantly regrets it when she sees the mortified look on her friend's face as soon as she spoke.

"Robin, I-!"

A slapping sound fills the air of the sound and leaves the prisoner frozen, with a new sting in her left cheek from where Robin slapped her!

Robin though, is just getting started, when she swings her own arms to keep slapping her, while ranting out her new hatred for her. "You fucking knew about me this whole time! You knew that this Cipher Pol was coming here for us, and did nothing! I'm trapped now, and it's all because of you!"

She stops after the tenth slap, with Rose keeping her head down while Robin continues with her questions. "You must know about the rest of the Straw Hats' future and past too, don't you?"

All Rose does is nod, but keeps her head low enough for her bangs to cover her eyes.

Robin scoffs at the answer. "Of course you did, it's how you got everyone wrapped around your finger."

She sees Rose not react at all, and looks to the door. "Before I leave you to rot. I need to know something."

Rose doesn't move an inch, so Robin doesn't know if she's listening, but still asks her. "If you avoided this crew, you could've easily blended in with this world. No one would've been the wiser about who you are, so why did you join? Better yet, why didn't you run when you knew Cipher Pol was after us?"

The wind girl hesitates for a moment, before she lifts her head to show her tear filled eyes, with the drops just starting to streak down her cheeks.

Robin didn't know what to expect when she came in, but not to see her cry. She didn't show her surprise, but just watches her wipe her face with her hands.

Rose could care less either way, as she lowers her arms to her lap, and looks up at her friend. "You're right, it would've been better for you guys if we never met, but the deed was done. On the day I came here, I woke up on their ship on Little Garden. Instead of leaving me on a dinosaur infested island, they allowed me to travel with them to Alabasta. To help repay that debt, I battled alongside them to save Alabasta, but I rejected the offer to join. But Luffy, being the stubborn man he is, wouldn't give up on me even when I told him my research could one day take me away from him. All he said to me was I'd figure out a way to complete my research without disappearing."

She gives a weak chuckle from remembering that crazy battle of wills she and Luffy had throughout Alabasta, and starts to feel her lips curl up from the fond memory. "All it took was Luffy's kindness for me to let my guard down. Everyone else too, they all had me believing that I could really have a place with them..."

Rose's smile quickly fades when she remembers her position and scowls at her. "I trained all this time to try to at least be on equal footing with Cp 9, but I didn't account for the other unit. Even if I knew though, I wouldn't have run. I couldn't forgive myself if I left you alone. And as long as we're still breathing, we have a chance, because we're not alone in this. The Straw Hats have both of our backs now."

"If you really think they'd march to their deaths for curses like us, then you're nothing but a fool!" Robin spats out, because she knows that there's no way out now.

Instead of seeing her point of view though, Rose lets out a small chuckle at the insult, before a smirk pulls up on her face. "Maybe so, but this fool knows this crew better than you do, remember? No matter what CP9 makes you do, all of us will still see you as nothing less than a Straw Hat. Don't forget that."

Robin narrows her eyes at that annoying look on her face, and uses the hands around her throat to strangle her to get her to wipe that look off her face.

It starts to work, because Rose is gasping and bending forward, while her arms are trying to reach to her neck, but the other limbs are keeping them down to her sides.

Robin stares at the writhing girl to analyze her, as if to check that she's really a human or not. After half a minute of watching her struggling, and looking like she's about to lose consciousness, she finally releases the arms.

Rose coughs out her pain, while her hands rub the sore neck to help soothe its ache.

The archaeologist can barely care about the pain she caused as she starts to leave. "Don't expect that I was being merciful. The only reason I've let up is because CP9 said that you need to be alive. Otherwise, I would've put you out of your misery. This is the last time we'll be seeing each other."

Rose manages to catch a few breaths before she gets up. "Robin... Don't go..."

She goes after her, but trips over her chain, just as the door shuts. She groans at the fall, sits up just when she hears the door lock, and yells out to her as if she's right in front of her. "AS SOON AS I GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, I'M TAKING YOU WITH ME! I PROMISED TO HAVE YOUR FUCKING BACK AND I'M KEEPING IT! YOU FUCKING HEAR ME BITCH?!"

The only thing to answer her was silence, so she quietly sighs in defeat. The bird finally regains her voice, and starts squawking in worry.

Rose looks over to her jail mate, gives the bird a sad smile, and pretends to understand what she's saying, so she can have someone to talk to. "Sorry for the scare. That was my friend Robin, she's a really good person, even if she doesn't want to admit it. I kept a terrible secret from her, which is why she hates me now. I doubt she'll forgive me, but that won't stop me from helping her once I get out of here. I'll get you out too once I get these cuffs off."

She gets up gently picks up the cage, to bring her back to the bed, then gets back to work in trying to get the cuffs off.

What she doesn't know is that on the other side of the door, Robin is standing right outside of it, and heard everything.

She can feel tears trickling to the corner of her eyes from Rose's words, but refuses to let them fall. She's quick to wipe her eyes, and pretends that her promise didn't affect her. before she leaves to rejoin CP9 so she can complete the deal. The one where they'll allow the Straw Hats to leave Water Seven, but allow Rose to use her research to get out of this world and start over.

**************************************************

After Robin's visit, Rose has been hard at work to pick at the cuffs, but she reached a new obstacle. Every time she reaches the final latch in the lock, and goes to turn the lock, the pin she uses breaks in half.

"Fuck!" Rose cries out in frustration when her tenth pin breaks, so she tosses half of the broken pin to the toilet, lifts her arms over her head, and shakes them until the other half of the lockpicking tool falls out.

The bird squawks at her from her cage, that was moved back to the bed after Robin's visit, loud enough for Rose to tiredly look at her.

"I get it, sea stone is too tough for these kinds of pins. It's not like I can give up from that." Rose flinches when she hears her squawk louder.

Being frustrated by the noise and the failed attempts to free herself, she lets herself argue with the bird. "If you're so smart, then you escape you piece of shit! I don't see you getting out any fucking time soon!"

The avian freezes at her words, then looks at her cage door in despair, before she looks away from the pirate.

Rose realizes that she overdid it, and sighs. "Sorry..."

She gets up from the bed, and moves to the window to see that the sun will set in a few hours. Meaning that time's running out. She hates to admit it, but there's no way that her pins can get herself out. However...

She goes back to her bed, kneels down in front of it, so that she's eye level to the cage.

The bird looks at her with confusion in her eyes, but Rose keeps her focus on the cage door.

With one touch to the cage, she can tell that it's not sea stone, so she takes another pin from her pants cuff, and goes to pick the lock on the door.

The animal is surprised to see her changing focus, but is more shocked when she hears the click of the lock and the door to her cage opening up.

The bird can barely believe it when Rose gently reaches in, holds her, and brings her out of here. The bird tries to caw at her, as if to ask her why she's helping her, but Rose ignores her to untie the bags around her jail mate's sharp golden talons, then inspects the padlock to the chains.

With a touch of her gloveless hand, Rose can tell that the padlock isn't sea stone, but to her surprise, the chain itself is that material.

While Rose is curious what kind of power this is, she knows that the bird can't talk, so she keeps her question quiet, and gets to work on the padlock. Within a matter of minutes, the click of the lock can be heard, so Rose pulls it open, and carefully unwraps her jail mate's chains.

Once she unwraps the chains, a small smile graces her face when she sees her jail mate start flexing her wings.

When the bird starts to flap them, she feels herself ascending, so she flies around the room in joy.

Rose giggles from the happy sight, then looks over to the window. "See if you can get through the window."

The avian looks from Rose to the window, and goes over to the opening. It may be too small for Rose to fit through, but it looks just the right size for the animal to squeeze through, but she didn't. Instead, she lands on the windowsill, and looks to her savior with a small look of sadness for not repaying her.

As if she can tell what she's thinking, Rose goes up to the window, then uses her hands to shoo her away. "Don't you worry, they were ordered not to kill me, so I'll survive. Get out of here before I punch you out the window."

The bird didn't want that, so she's quick to go through the window, and start flying away.

Rose softly smiles at the bird's new freedom, but her happiness doesn't last long when she hears the door starting to unlock.

The prisoner looks to the door, and glares at it just when the door opens to Lareos and Nishiki.

"Time for us to go bitch, let's..." Nishiki trails off when he and his comrade see the empty cage, and pile of chains, on the floor, but no bird.

While this ninja grows pissed by this, Lareos smirks in delight when he starts walking towards Rose. "You let the bird out..."

"Great detective work, Officer Obvious." Rose sarcastically answers him when he reaches her and punches her across the face.

She starts to fall, but Lareos is quick to catch her, wrap one arm around her neck to put her in a headlock while the other arm's wrapped around her torso to keep her arms pinned to her sides.

"You must be a real glutton for punishment." Nishiki says as he grabs two spiked knuckles and straps them onto his hands.

"You only get a few hits until I get a turn Nishiki." Lareos says while Rose struggles to get out of the hold, but he keeps a strong lock on her.

Nishiki goes for the first punch when Rufus' voice rings in the air. "NISHIKI, MEET ME ON THE BOTTOM FLOOR RIGHT NOW, YOU SQUIRRELLY BASTARD!"

Rose bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing at the insult, while the ninja drops his fists, and groans in anger at being interrupted. "Fuck, what does he want?!"

Lareos has no idea, but he takes the chance to go first at beating the pirate up with a smile. "Beats me, but you know how he gets. Go deal with him, and I'll take my turn."

"Fine, but don't overdo it. I still want my turn."

"Sure, sure." Lareos waves him off, while his arms are still keeping their prisoner in place while Nishiki leaves to go find the explosion man.

Once he's gone, Lareos pins Rose to the wall by the neck, and uses iron body with a smirk. "Now, where were we?"

Rose spits a mixture of saliva and blood in his eye, while she glowers at him.

That only seems to fuel the fire when he throws her to the floor, then kicks her stomach hard enough to hit her back to the wall.

While Rose is coughing more blood, and struggling to get up, Lareos wipes the spit off his face with disgust. He's had enough of her bullshit, and is ready to knock her out, but before he can even touch her, a blue bubble encases him!

Rose widens her eyes at the strange bubble, because as soon as he's inside it, he starts screaming in agony, while covering his ears, but she can't hear a thing of it. Instead, she hears a caw from the window and sees the bird she just freed sitting on the windowsill.

With one look from the agent to her cellmate, she can tell what happened, and releases a small laugh. "That explains the sea stone chains. Thanks for the save."

"Don't worry about it."

Rose is barely surprised when she hears a feminine voice from her, and looks back at the agent, who's face down on the floor passed out, with his ears starting to bleed out. "Fuck, did you kill him?!"

The bird releases the bubble, and flies on top of his head, to feel his head pulsing, then she takes a shit in his hair. "Nah, he's just in a coma. Any longer in my screech bubble and he would've been. My name's Zira by the way."

"Rose." The brunette answers, while she holds herself back from laughing at her new friend's act of revenge before she checks Lareos' pockets to find a key for her cuffs.

As soon as she frees herself, she feels like she's been brought back to life. She tests her powers by flying around the room, like she hasn't flown in years, and even turns her body into air for a moment to get a full feel of her powers.

Zira's eyes bug out at the flying human, and flies up to her eye level. "What the hell?! Humans don't turn to air or fly!"

Rose chuckles at the disbelief when she lands, and locks Lareos' right wrist in one cuff, and locks his left ankle in the other cuff, then stuffs the key in her pocket. "Sounds rich coming from the talking parrot."

"I'M A FALCON!" Zira yells in annoyance, when Rose gives her a friendly smile.

"Sorry about that, and thank you for the help. You should get going before Nishiki comes back."

"Don't worry about that, he'll be looking all over for the man who owned this voice. I ate the sound sound fruit, which allows me to copy any voice I hear." Zira answered in Rufus' voice which actually surprised Rose.

After a few seconds, she laughs in delight as she applauds her. "And here I thought I saw all the tricks! You're awesome!"

Zira gives her a small bow before she goes to the window. "Thanks, you should be able to turn to air to squeeze through the window, right? Let's get out of here."

Rose gets tempted to do so, but when she remembers her promise to Robin, she shakes her head. "Sorry, but I need to help my friend. You can go if you want."

Zira frowns at the refusal, because she doesn't want anything to happen to her. Even so, she'd rather not risk being trapped here again, so she starts to back away. "Alright, don't get yourself killed."

The wind girl can't help but grin at her warning, and starts floating in the air. "I won't. If you ever need a place to go, look for the Straw Hat Pirates."

The bird slowly nods before she flies out the window to regain her freedom.

As for Rose, she turns herself invisible to the naked eye by turning her whole body into air, and leaves her cell to begin her search for Robin.

************************************************

Nishiki searches all over the floor for Rufus, but there's not a single sign of him. "The fuck is going on?"

"What are you doing Nishiki?"

The agent turns to see Andreos walking towards him. "Rufus told me to meet him on the bottom floor, but I can't find him."

The gentleman knits his eyebrows at that, and points to the room he just left. "Rufus is in there, he just told me to go make sure you and Lareos didn't kill her. Are you sure you heard him?"

"Of course I'm sure, I heard his voice plain and..." He trails off when he remembers the bird's power, and uses his haki to detect Rose's strange aura on the move. "FUCK, SHE ESCAPED!"

"What?! Where is she?!"

"She's on the third floor, she's looking from room to room, like she's searching for something. Get Rufus, I'll go after her!"

"What about Lareos?"

"He's still in her cell, she must've knocked him out. We'll deal with him later!" Nishiki calls out before he runs off.

Andreos mutters a curse before he turns back to the room to tell Rufus what happened, and to get the base on high alert.

Meanwhile, Rose reaches her twentieth room, as a gust of wind, but with no luck in finding her friend. Instead, she found her backpack, and sword inside the empty space.

She re-materializes in the room, picks up the bag, and turns around before she has to duck to avoid Nishiki's kunai!

Nishiki can't help but smirk at the quick dodge as he pulls out two more kunai from his pouch. "Bibibibi, you really are a glutton for punishment."

Rose returns the look, with a demonic glare as the wind starts to pick up around her. "You're the only one getting the punishment now!"

The wind starts to envelope around her like a suit of armor before she creates an orb of wind with both hands and shoots at him!

Nishiki uses instant shave to dodge the blows and tries to stab her in the back, but she gives him a back kick, with the armored leg giving her enough force to send him flying back to the wall behind him.

The agent goes to get up but keeps blasting her strongest wind at him from her left hand to pin him to the wall. With her right hand, she releases the air around it, and creates a ring at the pain of her hand, that's fast enough to look like blades are surrounding it.

Nishiki starts to shiver from the evil gleam in her eyes when he sees her about to throw it at his head, and uses iron body to protect himself. At the last moment though, she changes direction of the flow to send it to his left forearm, to cut it deep into his arm even with his six styles!

He screams in agony, with blood gushing out of the arm, while Rose creates another small wind shuriken, and throws it at his other arm with the same result!

She releases her hold on the ninja, along with her armor, to see that he's no unable to move his bleeding arms.

No matter how hard Nishiki tries, the arms won't listen to him anymore, because those shuriken cut into their nerves. "YOU BITCH!"

He charges at her, but Rose simply turns her left arm into a twister, and slams his head against the wall behind him to knock him out.

Even though the wind girl feels like she's about to throw up from how she injured him, she knows that she can't waste any more time here. With them knowing that she's escaped now, they'll probably take Robin out of here. Best chance now will be for her to head to Iceberg's place to wait for Robin there.

She takes her sword, and turns into a gust of wind to slip through the cracks of the closed window to leave the building.

Just as she left, Rufus and Andreos arrive to see the aftermath. Andreos goes to check on Nishiki wounds, while Rufus goes to the window. He opens the window, and uses his observation haki to get a faint trace of the girl already a mile out of here. "That sneaky bitch."

He sees Nishiki's dropped sea stone kunai, has a lump of his explosive clay fall out of his hand and land on the kunai's handle before he picks it up.

Rufus infuses his arm with armament haki, as well as iron body, and throws the kunai as hard as possible to the direction of the aura.

As soon as the kunai made contact, it revealed Rose's body, with the weapon digging into the back of her right shoulder, and blowing up just before she plummeted towards the city.

Rufus smirks at the hit, and gets ready to jump out the window after her, when a marine grunt runs in. "Sir, we found agent Lareos locked in the sea stone cuffs in the outsiders' cell, but with no key! We need your explosions to get him out!"

The Kimblee doppelganger scowls at the situation, but unlike the Fullmetal Alchemist version of him, he chooses to help his friend rather than going after the target. After all, with the attack he just pulled, the outsider can't get far anyway.

With that thought, he leaves the room, with Andreos carrying Nishiki onto his back, to deal with the aftermath.

**********************************************************

As soon as the explosion was made on Rose's back, she plummets towards the city waterways, just where Robin was caught. With the sea stone weapon still in her back, she can't make a single gust to protect herself from falling into the water.

She tries to move her limbs, but not a single muscle can be moved as she keeps sinking into the water. All she can see is the light above her, with muffled sounds of citizens nearby being what she hears, just before a figure jumps into the water.

She widens her eyes at the sight of the weapon's shop owner, who sold the gun to Robin, swimming after her, not because he's saving her, but because she recognizes him.

Even after not seeing his face for seven years, she can recognize her dad's face as if it was yesterday, but she knows that he's just a doppelganger. At this point though, it doesn't matter, because just as he reaches her, she passes out from the lack of air.

The shop owner grabs onto her waist, and swims up with them as fast as he can until they both reach the surface.

A stout, old man and woman help pull them out of the water, before the shop owner pulls the kunai out of her back, and gently hits it until Rose starts coughing up water.

As for the elder couple, they look at the girl's face, and accidentally mistake her for the marine version of her.

"How did Lily get here? Wasn't she training under Vice Admiral Garp, Harry?" The old man asks, but the owner doesn't comment on it.

He looks to the young girl sadly before he picks her up in a bridal carry. "I don't think now's the time for questions, I need to bring her to Dr. Edgar."

He runs off with the pirate version of his daughter in his arms, while silently praying that it's not too late to save her.

TO BE CONTINUED