Chapter 61

With every step taken for Robin's group to go to the tunnel, Robin drags her feet to buy her friends some time.

Spandam can feel her dragging, so he grips her arm tighter, and pulls her to his side to get her to keep his pace. "Quit stalling, there's no way that-!"

He stops his rant when Nero and Rufus reach the group.

"I was ordered to join you in protecting Spandam." Nero says, while he's wary of the man who almost killed him on the train. Especially when Lucci is smirking at him as though he's prey.

Spandam is more than happy to accept the help, but Rufus is confused as to why the escort party is so small. "Where's the rest of the cat's unit?"

Lucci gets annoyed at the insult, but Spandam ignores him to answer it. "I sent them to split up the Straw Hats by each of them holding a key to one of the cuffs as bait. They should have no problem killing that trash."

Rufus hums in intrigue of the plan, because that's actually a decent plan. For the sake of making things interesting, he decides to change things up by digging into his pocket, to grab Rose's key, and brings it out to show it to the weasel. "Nero, how about you go join them and I stay here? You can use this as bait for them."

Nero is quick to take the order, and get away from Lucci, by grabbing the key. "You got it!"

He runs off in flash to find some pirates, and leaves Robin alone with the three leaders.

Spandam grins at the assurance that he'll be protected by the two strongest men in their units, and starts dragging his prisoner with him. "Wonderful, let's go gentlemen."

The two leaders don't say a word as they follow Spandam and Robin.

As for the prisoner, she keeps her head down for now, because if she tries to run, she'll easily get caught with the Cipher Pol agents.

But now it's different, she refuses to die here. Not with her friends risking their lives for her. And knowing them, the tower won't last for long. When she finds an opening, she's going to run as fast as she can. Not only running to her friends, but running to life.

As for the wind girl, her mindset has no choice, but to reach the same conclusion as her fellow prisoner. With the key not doing anything to help her situation, she can't get out of the cuffs on her own.

With no idea what her stolen tool does, she manages to keep it hidden in her hand without Andreos noticing. She continues to drag her feet for the time being, in a feeble attempt to slow down the trip to the gates, and looks around for an idea to stall her captor.

The only thing she can think of is starting some kind of conversation with him. "Hey, your name's Andreos, right? What's your story?"

The agent slows his step a little from the random question, but keeps moving when he looks back at the curious girl. "What's my story?"

"Yea. From what I've heard, not just anyone can join Cipher Pol. I'm curious as to what brought you here."

She sees him starting to grow annoyed from the question, but knows that they're going slower than before so she keeps talking. "If you don't want to talk about the reason, I get it. I was just wondering since you're not as ruthless as the other agents."

His face slightly softened from the opinion, and while he won't explain why he joined, he does speak to her. "They may be ruthless to their enemies, but not to each other. We've been in this organization for years, and trust one another with our lives."

She hums in acknowledgement when she remembers how coordinated their attacks were when they all faced her in Water Seven. "I can see that with the way you all captured me the first time. Pretty sure the other three would've killed me with a smile if the order wasn't placed to keep me alive."

Andreos rolls his eyes on that comment and looks back at her. "Despite what you think, we're not bloodthirsty."

Rose gives him a challenging look, which makes him feel uncomfortable, because even he can't fully believe what he said. "Alright, Nishiki, Rufus, and Lareos are, but I'm not that bad."

She suppresses a giggle from the confirmation, but stops when she remembers the ninja from her interrogation, and realizes that she hasn't seen him since the mansion fight. Sure, she killed Lareos, but she only used an impact dial on the other killer.

She knows for a fact that pain in the ass wouldn't die from just that, and grows curious as to what happened. "Wait, what happened to Nishiki? Was he called away or something?"

Andreos almost flinches at the mention of his fallen comrade, before he turns his head back to the direction they're going to. "After you blew him into the mansion, something in there killed him. When I saw his body, he was lying in a pool of his own blood with cuts all over him..."

Rose was shocked by the confirmation, and can feel Andreos' hold on her arm tighten from the reminder of a second lost friend. She can see that he's still grieving, and softens her gaze at the man. "I'm sorry for your loss..."

He widens his eyes at the condolences, and looks back to see that she's serious. Even though she caused both of her deaths, she only shows guilt and remorse. And what's worse is that she's genuine. The pulse he can feel on her arm is proof enough of that.

And that all the more confuses him. They're basically sending her to her death, but she feels compassion for them, and even saved an agent.

He's never seen an outsider like this, and at the very least for his own understanding of them, he starts asking questions of his own. "Why did you save Nero?"

Rose is slightly surprised at the question, but doesn't hesitate to answer. "Seeing that he was going to be killed by someone who was supposed to be on his side pissed me off. Besides, Lucci deserved that hit."

He quirks an eyebrow at the answer, because Lucci didn't even go after her. "What did he do to you?"

"Not to me, but to Robin. That jerk off and his unit got Robin into this mess, and used her in their plan to attack Iceburg for those stupid blueprints."

He's slightly taken aback by the answer, because this is the first time he's seen an outsider willing to act like that for someone else's sake, instead of their own. "You really are a strange outsider."

She releases a small chuckle at the comment. "Despite what you may think, we're not all the same."

When he realizes that she threw his own words back at him, he gives off a chuckle of his own. "Fair enough."

He turns his head back forward to look ahead, but stops when he sees that they reached a dead end, because he wasn't paying attention to where they were going. "Shit..."

He looks around to try to remember where they are, before he turns them around to search for the right route.

The wind girl has no choice but to follow along, while her face masks the satisfaction she has for her plan working. That satisfaction starts to die when the two make it to the large, dark blue, doors that lead to the underground passage to the gates of justice.

As Andreos is working to open the doors, with his free arm, Rose looks around for Luffy, Robin or anyone in the crew, but she's alone. She starts to grow sad from this, because, with Rufus not meeting them yet, she can tell that they're the first ones here. Meaning she has a higher chance of getting to the gates before the others can help her. *Dammit, if that fucking key had worked, I'd be set! What was that thing even for-?!*

"What is this?!"

Rose snaps out of her thoughts when she hears frustration in Andreos' voice, and sees him trying to work the controls for the door. If his voice wasn't enough to reveal that he's not getting results, then his actions sure did, because he punched the machine in anger. "Of course, this thing would need a key..."

Rose perks up at the mention of a key, and keeps her fist tight around her stolen tool. Looks like her new thieving skill was useful after all.

Andreos though was not amused by the development, especially when he starts to see a figure down the hall.

His grip on Rose's arm tightens, as he pulls her behind him to get himself in between her and the enemy. However, he relaxes both his grip, and his stance when he sees that it's Rufus, but it changes to confusion when he sees both Spandam, Lucci, and Nico Robin with him. "I thought you were letting Nero escort them."

"Change of plans, I sent him to destroy the pirates, with the outsider's key as bait." Rufus says, while amused when he sees that the mentioned outsider is glaring at him now.

Robin, though, mistakes Rose's anger at her, and keeps her head down in guilt of her friend being put through this.

As for Spandam, he's more than happy with the outcome of more agents being able to protect him. He stalks to the machine that's meant to open the large doors, and starts working on the combination. "Just give me a second, and..."

He trails off, when he reaches his pocket for the key, but only can feel the buster call snail in his pocket. He scrambles through all of his pockets, but there's not a single sign of his key in any of them. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY KEY?!"

Robin's eyes shift to Rose, but the culprit just wears a neutral look to hide her satisfaction in taking his key. At least she understands what that key is for now.

Rufus rolls his eyes at the man's stupidity, before he approaches the door. "Stand back unless you want to get hurt."

Andreos and Lucci do as they're told, with them dragging their prisoners back with them, with Spandam not listening.

Instead, he questions what his subordinate is doing. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Creating an opening for us." Rufus answers as he starts creating explosive clay from his hands.

"What?! You can't do that! You'd be showing the pirates where we're going!"

"It's either this or us being sitting ducks for them because you couldn't hold onto a key." The explosion man ignores the angry complaints, and lays it out on the outline of the lower half of the door.

Once the clay shapes out a smaller version of the door, he grabs Spandam by the back of his collar. He's quick to drag him to the others, and push him away before he claps his hands to activate the makeshift bomb!

Robin turns her head away from the explosion, while the others use their arms to protect their faces from any flying debris.

Once the smoke clears, they lower their guard to see that the lower half of the doors have been blown off its hinges.

Spandam is mortified by the barbaric way his subordinate did this. "I can't believe you just did that, you idiot!"

"Next time, don't lose your key." Rufus strikes back, leaving Spandam stunned as he takes the lead by going through the door.

Andreos shakes his head at his leader's antics as he takes his prisoner with him through the door, with Lucci following with his prisoner, and Spandam trailing behind.

Rose had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing at the verbal attacks done to Spandam. Even so, she can't contain her smile from the result of her taking the key.

She knows that it's not as good as her getting the cuffs, but it's better than nothing. All that she can do now is hope that she was able to slow them down enough for the others to get her and Robin out of this.

And that's what each member of Luffy's group is hell bent on doing.

Each crew mate took Rose's words to heart, with those who were recommended to group together are teaming up in their search for the two keys.

Nami and Sanji are running side by side in their search for the keys as they storm each room, only to find it empty, before they go off to the next one.

As they're doing so, something is bothering Nami about what Rose wrote, and voices her concern. "Sanji, was what Rose said really true about you not hitting the enemy if she's a woman?"

Sanji's face slightly hardens from the question, but he can't lie to her about his beliefs. "It's true."

"Are you kidding me?! You could get killed from that type of creed!"

Sanji can hear the worry in her voice, but he can't just give up what he believes in. Not if he wants to be a man that can face his mentor. "I don't plan on dying anytime soon, but I can't change my beliefs. Even if I die, I won't kick a woman."

She can tell that he's dead set on this belief, and doesn't make an argument to change his mind. Instead, she uses her clima-tact to give him a light whack to the head. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

He lightly groans from the hit, while rubbing his aching head, before he looks to see his crush giving him a small grin. "Still, I admire you for having a principle like that."

His heart begins to pound like mad from the sweet words, and starts to swoon with hearts in his eyes. "Does that mean you love me-?!"

Nami ignores the question, and opens the next door, which accidentally hits the love cook in the face.

Sanji rubs his now red nose and steps away from the door. When he sees Nami frozen, with a hardened face, he looks inside. His breath hitches when he sees a beautiful woman dressed in black, with blond hair and glasses sitting at a small table.

Kalifa gives both pirates a sweet grin as she sits back on her chair, and crosses her legs. "Hello, would you both like some tea?"

"No fucking way!" Nami says in annoyance of the agent's casual attitude.

"That's right!" Sanji agrees with her, while he keeps his eyes on his beautiful navigator to keep himself from falling for her tricks.

"Sanji, go on find another agent." Nami tells him which surprises the chef.

"Are you sure Nami-san?"

She looks over at the concerned chef and gives him a sweet grin. "Yea, I can take it from here. I'm counting on you to find another key, Sanji-kun."

"YES NAMI-SAN!" Sanji yells out as he runs off at the speed of light to search for another agent to beat up.

Kalifa giggles in amusement at the exchange before she stands up and starts walking towards her. "Do you honestly think that you can take me on your own?"

"Count on it, bitch." Nami bites back as she storms inside the room, with clima-tact in hand to begin a one on one battle with the female agent.

As for the chef, he's more than willing to comply to his love's demands by running from one room to the other. With each room he sees not holding a single person, he grows all the more frustrated to find someone to beat up.

He needs to make up for having to leave Nami to fight in his place, or else he won't be able to face her after this!

He groans when he reaches the tenth room, because he feels like he's getting nowhere. Lucky for him, a lead presented itself by creating a crashing sound towards the left with the moss head's voice yelling afterwards.

"A WOLF NOW?! WHAT IS THIS, A ZOO?!"

"A zoo? What the hell did he get into?" Sanji grows curious, and follows the sound of a crash to lead him to his rival. Lucky for him, an argument, from two different voices, followed right after to help him keep on track.

"HAHAHA, ox ox fruit, model giraffe! That's the lamest fruit I've ever heard! I told you not to eat that fruit Kaku!"

"Shut up Jabra, giraffes are awesome! I love giraffes! Anyway, just stay back. I need to resume my fight."

"What?! You guys are the ones that crash landed in my room. You should be the one standing back!"

"Well, do you want us to team up against him?"

"Hell no!"

"Then just stay back, and wait for someone else to come in. He's mine!"

Sanji makes it to the door, where all the noise is coming from to see a Japanese garden inside, with the moss head getting in a sword fight with a giraffe man.

He keeps looking around to see that the giraffe man was arguing with a wolf man, who's pissed off, and is standing to the side. "What the hell? It really is like a zoo."

The chef starts walking in, but the wolf doesn't notice him. Instead, the wolf thinks of a way to take the giraffe's prey.

With the two swordsmen duking it out, Jabra notes where Zoro will be, and instant shaves behind him.

Zoro and Kaku notice the wolf, with Zoro starting to move to deflect. Before either side can land a blow though, Sanji gives the wolf a flying side kick to his side to send him crashing to a decorative boulder.

Kaku rolls his eyes at his comrade's stupidity as he lowers his weapons, then glares at the fallen wolf. "Serves you right for interrupting my fight."

Zoro lowers his swords as well, and talks to his comrade. "You got the wolf, curly brow?"

"Yea, just stay out of my way moss head." Sanji answers as he starts stalking towards the animal he kicked.

Jabra groans at the hit, as he gets up from the rubble, and glares at the approaching blond. "And who the hell are you?!"

Sanji scowls as he grabs a cigarette, and starts smoking. "Me? I'm the hunter."

Jabra growls at the arrogant pirate, and charges at him with all of his strength. The swordsmen were quick to follow suit by restarting their battle.

They're not the only ones who were starting a fight. For in the west wing of the tower, Sniper King and Shriek are running through the halls.

With each passing step, Sniper King is growing more wary of what kind of monster he would have to face. Especially since he's following the bird this whole time. "Shriek, are you sure you know where we're going?"

The bird looks back at her partner with an annoyed look on her face. "Of course I do! My devil fruit doesn't just give me the ability to create, and alter, sound. I can also adjust my hearing to pick up distant sounds too. Someone ran into the room at the end of the hall a minute ago. He's been practicing his moves, and muttering to himself, since then. If this isn't an agent then I don't know what his deal is."

While Sniper King is impressed by the cool ability, it still doesn't explain to him how his sidekick can communicate with him though. "I can understand you copying voices, but that doesn't explain how you're able to hold a human conversation. How are you doing that?"

Shriek almost loses her balance from the personal question, but she regains it by flapping her wings. Still, that question left a bad taste in her mouth from it, bringing back the memories of what she had to go through to gain human intelligence. She shakes her head to try to push those memories away, before she looks back to her partner. "Let's talk about that after we get the key. The agent is in the second door to the right."

"Alright." He clenches onto his giant slingshot to help steel his nerves just before they reach the door.

He's anxious to see what kind of monster he's going to face, but regardless of his fear, he forces himself to open the door to see Nero practicing his tempest kicks in the training room. When the duo sees him cut a training dummy in half with just a kick, they flinch, but settle down when he just groans, keeps muttering, and aims for another dummy.

It doesn't look like Nero noticed them yet, so they go inside while Sniper King whispers to his partner. "Can you hear what he's saying?"

"Something about how he needs to redeem himself or else he's gonna die for sure."

Sniper King looks back at the frantic man, finds the bandages on his body from his previous fights, and recognizes him from the train. "Wait, isn't this the guy Rose saved from them?!"

At the mention of the agent's savior, Nero snaps out of his trance, and sees the intruders in the door.

Both sides flinch from the sight of each other, but Nero is the first to re-compose himself, and pulls out his twin guns. "You must be here for the key. Well, the only thing you're going to get is a bullet to the head!"

The duo yells out as Shriek flies towards the ceiling while Sniper King runs around to avoid the shots. With the two split up, Nero aims one gun towards each of them to fire another shot, but Sniper King can tell where the bullet is going, and is able to dodge.

As for Shriek, she was able to dodge, but is quick to get back at him by creating a sound bubble around the agent.

Nero starts crumbling when he hears the screeching noise, and drops his guns, but instead of letting himself fall, he manages to instant shave out of the bubble.

Shriek stops her attack, and searches around for him, but has no idea where he went.

Sniper King remembers this kind of attack happening back at Franky's place, and he aims his slingshot toward his sidekick just when his target re-appears behind her. "There you are!"

Nero ignores the yell as he sky walks to keep at her level, and goes for the kick. Just when he moves his leg, three exploding stars hit his side and blow him to the wall.

Shriek sees the damage, and flies down towards her partner. "Thanks."

"Of course." Sniper King comments, but keeps his guard up when he sees Nero in an indent of the wall that he made.

The sniper watches the agent struggle to peel off the wall, so he tries another way to get the key. "Listen, you remember the girl who saved you on the train? Well, the key you're holding might be what she needs. If you give it to us, you can call it even with her. What do you say?"

Nero growls at the attempt to make a deal when he finishes peeling himself off the wall, and lands on his feet. "You fucking think I would betray the World Government just like that?!"

"Why not? They did it to you." Shriek carelessly comments which triggers him back into the fight.

"SHUT UP!" Nero screams just before he launches a tempest kick at them, that's half the size of the room.

The two scream in fright as they drop to the floor to avoid the kick just from a hair's length.

Nero doesn't stop there, because as soon as that kick is launched, he sky walks above them, and throws another tempest towards the floor!

They are quick to run away from it, while Nero starts throwing smaller tempest kicks at them, and leaving small gashes on the floor each time they land.

"Why the hell did you say that?!" Sniper King yells at his partner when they duck their heads to avoid another hit.

"He needed to know the truth! CP 9 threw him away, and yet he's still doing this!"

Sniper King grits his teeth on that, because he can relate to the agent. He may not have been thrown away by his friends, but with how useless he's been, he left to not weigh them down. Even now, he barely knows what he can do to beat this guy... *"You're stronger than you know. You need to use the talents that make you special to prove it."*

Rose's written words ring back in the sniper's mind, and snap him out of his depression. He groans in annoyance for pitying himself when the friend, who's been trying to show him his worth since-! WAIT!

He starts to remember all the times that he was helping her with her training, both in aiming and deflecting, he comes up with a plan on how to be useful in this fight!

He looks to his partner, and starts getting his strategy into action. "Shriek, we need to split up. After I get his attention, I need you to get him in a screech bubble again!"

"What?! But he'll just escape again!"

"Just do it!" Sniper King orders which gets the bird to nod to the plan.

The two split up, with Shriek flying towards the ceiling, while Sniper King runs to the left, to dodge another attack while he yells at Nero. "Hey rat man, what kind of sewer did you crawl out of to be here?! You smell worse than garbage!"

"WHAT'D YOU SAY?!" Nero yells when he fires another tempest kick, almost the same size as the first one.

When Sniper King jumps to the floor to dodge, he calls to his partner. "Now!"

Nero widens his eyes at the call, and sees the bird above him. He picks up the gun that was lying by his feet, and aims at her, just when Shriek uses her abilities to create another sound bubble around him.

The horrible sound inside Shriek's bubble got him to flinch just before the shot was fired. Thanks to that flinch, he wasn't able to hit the bird's organs but he grazed her left wing. "Shit!"

As she struggles to safely fly to the other side of the room, Sniper King takes the chance to attack him, by aiming his slingshot. "Sunflower star!"

Before Nero can instant shave, five of his original exploding stars manage to hit him!

Nero yells out in aggravation, of being sent flying back, but Sniper King doesn't give in. Instead, he treats this as one of his, Rose, and Zoro's deflection training sessions, by now switching to iron pellets. "Iron flower star!"

The agent gets really annoyed when he runs to the side to dodge two of the five pellets that went after him, while the rest hit him with two in his left arm and one in his leg.

"Crap, knock it off!" He shoots at Sniper King with his good arm, while Sniper King rolls to the side to dodge the shot.

Shriek manages to land at the distance, and is ignored by the two fighters who are now having a shooting battle. She's tempted to help, but stops when she sees how fired up her partner is in this fight.

With each passing shot, it feels as though he's aiming to be better, from the speed of how he's grabbing his ammo, to the time it takes for him to aim either exploding pellets or iron pellets. With each shot made, Sniper King works to get better than before, to the point where half his shots are landing, while he manages to avoid almost every shot.

Even when he's grazed by a few of his opponent's shots, he doesn't let the injuries stop him from shooting at his foe like there's no tomorrow.

Shriek can tell that this turned into an intense one on one battle, so she decides to rest, and watch her partner face him off in his element.

While Sniper King may be getting better with each shot, Nero seems to be getting sloppier. Not only due to his injuries, but because of how frustrating his situation is.

He trained his whole life to gain at least four of the six styles. And after murdering anyone that would bad mouth him, both at training and on test missions, he finally gained the respect he deserved to be recruited to join the best of the best in CP 9. But now nothing is going as it should! Instead of being welcomed, he was almost killed by the very man who was supposed to be his leader!

And now that he has the chance to redeem himself in his new position, he's losing to this nobody?! He can't allow it!

He screams in frustration as he instant shaves to disappear from his spot, but with his injured leg, he was only able to move a little more than half the speed of how he'd normally run.

While he was unable to be invisible to the naked eye, he was able to dodge Sniper King's shots at that speed to get a closer range to where he's just ten feet in front of his enemy.

"IT'S OVER!" He throws another tempest kick at the sniper, at a range that's impossible to dodge.

Sniper King screams in terror, and through instinct, lifts his leg with a dial to block. Instead of using the impact though, he uses the black dial by mistake.

*Crap, why didn't I lift the leg with the impact dial?! I'm gonna d-!* Sniper King's thoughts were interrupted when he doesn't feel any pain, but just a small push. He's forced to take a few steps back from the force, then looks down in utter shock, to see that the kick was stopped in its tracks thanks to the reject dial absorbing the attack!

"What the hell?!" Nero yells out horror, because in his entire life, he never saw his tempest kicks get blocked.

Sniper King is the first to snap out of it, and jumps back to gain some range. "NOW, IT'S OVER!"

Nero goes for his gun, but it was too late, because Sniper King already loaded a fire pellet and four explosion stars into his weapon. "Flaming Spring Star!"

With the range between the two still short, Nero wasn't able to dodge in time, and took the full brunt of the attack.

Shriek widens her eyes in amazement, as not only did he suddenly burst into flames, just like when he burnt the flag, but four explosions blew up at him, and sent him flying backwards until he crashed through the wall!

As soon as the dust cleared, Sniper King's mouth dropped to the floor from the sight of his barbecued opponent laying out on the floor unconscious, as the result of his attack. "I-I did it..."

A feeling of pride washes over him, as he raises his arms up. and cheers to himself. "Hahaha, I fucking did it! I actually won!"

He stops when he hears his partner groaning, and looks back to see her injured. "Shriek!"

He rushes over to her, and sees that her wing is injured, and bleeding. He mutters a curse to himself, as he tears off a piece of his cape, and wraps it around her wing as a makeshift bandage. "Sorry, we have to stick with this until we get you to Chopper."

She gives her friend a small grin before she shakes her head. "It's fine, we need to get the key."

She tries to fly, but she struggles to keep her balance with her injury. She feels like she's about to fall, but Sniper King manages to catch her, and hold her with one arm, while the other is holding his slingshot. "Don't worry, I got you. Let's get that key."

The falcon is slightly surprised by his kindness, and slowly nods as she lets him carry her. As she looks back at the place she was resting, then back up to her friend, she feels grateful to him. "Thanks..."

"I should be the one thanking you. You're an amazing partner to the king of all snipers!" The superhero comments, which gets her to giggle just as they go out to see that Nero is still unconscious.

Sniper King can't say that he likes him, but he does feel for the guy, because he didn't have the same luck as he did to have friends that would lift him up instead of put him down. "Good luck to you..."

He goes into his pockets, takes the key that's labelled with the number 6, and puts it in his own pocket just when he feels the building starting to shake.

"What the hell's that?" Shriek asks, because she has a feeling it wasn't just a simple earthquake.

"I'm not sure, but something tells me we're going to find out. Let's go find the others." Sniper King answers as he rushes off with renewed confidence in being able to help his friends.

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

While most pirates have started getting locked into battle, Chopper and Franky are rushing throughout the bottom floors to find their own agents.

Chopper runs alongside the cyborg in walk point to keep up with him as they search the rooms. "So, you're really a cyborg?"

"That's right, and what are you? A deer gorilla?"

"I'M A REINDEER!" Chopper yells out and makes him flinch.

"My bad." He mumbles before they look at another room, but with no luck.

"Damn, these guys had better hurry up and get out here! I'm starting to itch for a fight!" Franky mutters under his breath, with the reindeer hearing him perfectly.

Curious about the people they're facing, Chopper looks at him with a questioning look. "What kind of powers do they-?!"

He stops when they start to hear the ceiling crack, and jump back just in time for a man, who's a foot taller than Franky, with a lion's mane of pink hair, and wearing kabuki makeup falling through.

Chopper, quickly transforms into heavy point, and Franky gets in a stance, when they see the weird man, holding his staff behind him, while holding his free hand out in front of him. "YOYOI! JUUUST STOOOOP RIIIIIGHT THEEERE! FOOOLISH PIIIRATES, PREEEEPAAAARE FOR BAAATTLE WIIITH I, KUMADORI!"

Franky sweat drops at the weird agent, before he pulls his right arm back. "Careful what you wish for! Strong right!"

He throws his arm forward for it to stretch out at him, but Kumadori was quick to block it with his staff. Then, much to both of their surprise, his pink hair acts as though it's alive by stretching out towards them both!

Before either of them can react, the pink tendrils wrap around their limbs and hold them out.

"What the fuck is this?!" Franky asks as he struggles in his grip.

Chopper doesn't bother to struggle though. Instead, he transforms into brain point to get out of the hair. The reindeer ignores his enemy's surprise, and is quick to transform into walk point, to run towards him.

Just as he approaches him, he transforms back into heavy point to punch him in the face. Not only did the punch not affect him though, but Kumadori used the close range to whack him in the side with his staff to send him flying to the wall!

The hit was so strong that Chopper wasn't able to stop himself from flying through the wall, and tumbling into an empty cell.

Kumadori starts sending some of his hair to the reindeer, but stops when he's starting to feel heat coming from his hair! He looks over to the forgotten cyborg to see that he's breathing fire, to light the tendrils up in flames, to free his right arm!

"WHAT THE HEEELL?!" He throws the cyborg with his hair, that's still holding him, to the side before he can burn any more of them.

Franky hits the wall, and indented his figure into it, but Kumadori didn't care. He was too busy putting the flames out.

Chopper is quick to put the distraction to use by eating a rumble ball, then transforming into jump point to jump out of the cell through the hole he made right behind him. Once in midair, he transforms into arm point to hit him with a barrage of powerful punches!

Unlike his first attack, this one manages to create a strong enough effect to send the agent to the floor, and leave hoofprints in his hair.

Franky peels himself off the wall, and is impressed to see the reindeer's powerful attack. "He looks more like a SUPER gorilla than a reindeer to me."

Once Chopper finished his twentieth punch, he dropped to the floor next to him. He's wary about the man, who's lying completely still, so he makes quick work of going into his pocket to take the key from him. "What kind of power gets him to control his hair like that?!"

"I don't know, but we'd better not take any chances. Step back."

Chopper does as he's told while putting the key in his pocket, with Franky taking in a deep breath to light this guy's hair on fire.

Just as he was about to release it, his breath was hitched from Kumadori lifting his staff, and jabbing the cyborg's abs as hard as he could!

Franky coughed up a few embers, and falls on his back, with a hole in his metal abs, that's spilling some cola thanks to Kumadori's jab. If he wasn't a cyborg, he probably would've gotten a lot worse than that.

"FRANKY!" Chopper rushes to get back on the offensive, but when Kumadori's hair goes back into full swing, he quickly changes into jump point to start dodging the flying tendrils.

Franky growls in frustration of the cheap hit as he staggers up, while feeling weaker from the broken bottle, starting to spill out his stomach fridge. Fully intent on getting revenge, he uses his right arm to hold his left arm steady while the holsters to the machine gun in his wrist pop out.

He starts shooting while Kumadori wasn't looking, but the shots barely penetrated his skin.

It only distracted him enough for Chopper to get up close, transform into arm point, and punch him in the face as hard as possible to send him flying through the hole that he made earlier.

Chopper's body automatically changes back into brain point, from the time running out for his rumble ball, and looks through the hole to see that he's laying on the floor again. "We gotta get out of here! There's no point wasting time on him now that we have his key."

Franky can feel his blue hair going limp, so he opens the door to his stomach fridge to see that he barely has a bottle of cola left, thanks to that bastard breaking one of them. "Good idea, I need to go to the kitchen."

Thinking that he's just hungry, Chopper grows annoyed by his selfish request. "NOW'S NOT THE TIME TO BE GETTING A SNACK!"

"Who stops in the middle of a mission for something like that?! My body is powered by cola, and I'm running low!"

"What kind of idiot is powered by soda?!"

"Just shut up and let's go!" Franky yells back to him before he runs ahead, to get out of the basement.

"Wait up!" Chopper transforms into walking point to go after his comrade, while leaving their opponent behind.

What they didn't realize though was that he wasn't unconscious.

Kumadori staggers back up, in rage from the annoying opponents, and goes back in the hallway to see that they just left. His hair starts to flare up in anger, before he sees the drips of soda, from Franky's broken bottle leaving a trail for him to lead to his prey.

He doesn't hesitate to take the path with the utmost intent to kill the two who dared to run. "UNBELIIIIEVAAAABLE! THEY THIIIINK THEEEY CAN JUST RUUUUN AWAAAAY?! IIII'LL GO TO THE EEEEENDS OF THE EAAAARTH UNTIL THEIR LIIIVES END BY MY HAND!"

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

With all chaos ensuing for the other pirates, Luffy is hell bent on finding the girls. With him able to go on his instincts, he's able to find the door to the tunnel, with the opening still there from when Rufus blew up half of it.

Chimney and Gonbei are just outside as well, with paint cans and brushes at the ready, to mark the way for the pirates.

Luffy looks to the doorway before he looks to Chimney for confirmation. "Did you guys see anyone go through here?"

The kid nods at him, while her pet was painting an arrow to the doorway. "Yea, I saw those mean guys take the girls down this way. We'll tell your friends this is the way to go too."

"Thanks!" He doesn't waste another second, and runs through the hole in the door, with only the lanterns on the walls of the tunnels to light his way through the darkness.

With each passing step, the sense he's been having to lead him to Rose grows stronger, and motivates him to run as fast as he possibly can. "ROSE! ROBIN!"

His loud scream echoed throughout the hall, up until it reached the bridge of hesitation that Rose and Robin's group had just got to. Upon hearing that yell though, they stopped, and looked back to hear rapid footsteps following it.

Rose and Robin are quick to perk up at their captain's voice, while the agents are indifferent, and Spandam is terrified at the development of a pirate like him getting this far.

That fear quickly turns into anger when he remembers his subordinate leaving an opening for the intruders. "Rufus, you idiot! If you didn't blow up the doors, then he wouldn't have found this place!"

"It doesn't matter, he's alone." Rufus tells him, after he detected only Luffy's aura through his haki.

"Did you forget that he took down Blueno?!"

Lucci gives a soft groan in annoyance, before he opens the doors to the first room in the bridge. "Just go on ahead. I'll take on Straw Hat."

"Fine with me! You'd better win or don't bother coming back!" Spandam practically spits as he follows CP 8 through the room, while dragging Robin by the arm.

As they travel through the room, Rose looks back to see Lucci following behind them, and closing the door behind him.

Just as he's shutting the doors, he makes eye contact with her, and smirks at her. "Don't worry, I'll be sure to send Straw Hat your regards before I kill him."

Rose growls in rage from the mention of hurting Luffy, and struggles with Andreos' hold on her arm, because it's the only thing keeping her from attacking that overgrown cat! "Fuck you, you goddamn piece of shit! One of you get me out of these mother fucking cuffs, and let me at that pussy cat! I'll fuck him up worse than what I did to him on the sea train!"

Rufus had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing at her string of curses. Seeing that Andreos was going to lose his grip soon, he helps him out by grabbing Rose's other arm, so that they're both dragging her to the stair, while she's facing the opposite direction.

To stop her tirade though, Spandam goes up to the wind girl, and pulls his free arm back to punch her.

To both of their surprise though, Robin managed to move in front of Spandam to take the hit for her friend.

Rose lost all power in her voice from what she just saw, because she didn't expect her to do that for her.

Robin doesn't care about the lack of words, and speaks up for the first time since she was dragged away from the balcony. "That's enough already! She doesn't deserve this!"

Spandam growls at the new confidence in her and gives her the next few punches.

Rose struggles to help, but both agents are holding her back from doing anything while Spandam verbally abuses her. "Shut the hell up! Who are you to decide what anyone deserves?! Huh?! Both of you are lucky to be allowed to breathe right now! You should be grateful that your existence can be of use to us before you finally die!"

Spandam stops punching, when he feels a shiver run down his spine, so he looks towards the source to see the outsider giving him the most monstrous glare he's ever seen. If looks could kill, she would have already sent the bastard six feet under.

He goes up to the outsider, while dragging Robin in the process, and gives the outsider one last punch in the face to make her knock it off. "Let's get going already!"

The two CP 8 agents didn't need to be told twice, and started dragging their prisoner with them out of the room, with her still facing the back of the group. Because of that, she has a full view of Spandam dragging Robin with him to keep up with them.

Seeing Robin bruised up because of her, makes her feel remorseful, but that emotion quickly changes to rage against the asshole responsible for her hits.

She has full intent on getting revenge, but knows that she has to wait. She needs to bide the little time she has in this spiraling staircase to the next bridge. And with their friends duking it out with CP 9, it's only a matter of time before they mess up the building enough to give her the distraction that she needs. *Just hang on Robin, once they set the opening, you're gonna get your chance to run!*

TO BE CONTINUED

A/N: Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I know the next chapter is going to be full of chaos. That being said, the chaos going on right now in our world isn't a joke.

I've never done this before, but after what I've seen with what's going on with the Ukraine, I feel like I need to step up.

Below is a link to a not for profit organization called Project Hope. They're helping to provide relief to those who were affected in this war.

https://www.projecthope.org/crisis-in-ukraine-how-to-help/03/2022/

If anyone can, please make a donation to help them out in these times of need. Any amount can help.

For those of you in the Ukraine suffering right now, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Best of luck to you.