95 Infiltration

"We need to save Nami!" Luffy shouted.

"Yes, of course we do, but we also need information." Cherry said. "All we know about his strength is that he 'awakened' his devil fruit, which at the very least greatly expands the influence of his power. We know nothing about his base's defenses or his subordinates strength."

"And we don't even know where to go." Usopp added.

"Actually I've got this booklet of vivre cards I made to track all of you." Cherry said, pulling it out.

"That's kind of creepy." Zoro said.

"Shut up, Moss-Head! She obviously did it out of concern for me- for everyone!" Sanji shouted.

"In any case, we can locate Nami whenever we like. We should do some spying and perhaps infiltrate them to learn more." Robin suggested.

"I'll get to work checking on the ship and doing any necessary repairs." Franky said, knowing sneaky stuff wasn't his strong suit.

*ROAR!*

A distant roar of some giant beast was heard within the jungle.

"W-what was that? I've never heard an animal like that before." Usopp whispered.

"I guess we should leave some people with the ship, just in case." Cherry said. "I'll go with Robin, Serene, and Cabernet to check out their base."

"I wanna go too!" Luffy exclaimed.

"Don't worry, Luffy. You'll get your piece of the action. Shiki won't hurt Nami because he wants her navigation skills, and Nami won't do anything stupid to warrant hurting her." Cherry said.

"We should leave at night to avoid being spotted." Robin said.

"Right." Cherry agreed.

Several giant scorpions came out of the tree line.

"In the mean time, let's get some lunch." Cherry smiled.

After they swiftly dispatched the big beasties, Cherry found them to be quite strange in her investigation of their bodies.

"Something altered these scorpions to their present state. Do you think you could isolate any foreign substances inside their bodies, Chopper?" Cherry asked.

"Maybe, we shouldn't eat them until we can be sure it's safe to do so. I'll perform some tests." Chopper said, taking blood and tissue samples from each back to his medical room of the ship.

His findings showed the presence of some unknown chemical substance, although only in trace amounts.

'I hope whatever it is, it's on these islands. This might be another reagent I can use for cultivation pills, and a strong one at that.' Cherry thought.

Day turned to night, so Cherry went with Robin, Serene, and Cabernet set out to find their base, or at least where Nami was being kept.

Cabernet took her figurehead form and the other three women grabbed on. Cabernet turned off her flames as to not be spotted and increase her speed.

Cherry's powerful eyesight easily pierced the darkness to see Shiki's fortress. It was surrounded by a line of unusual trees that released something into the air.

"Those trees might be poisonous, we should stay clear of them." Cherry said. "Perhaps they're for keeping the beasts out?"

"I'll bloom some eyes to see inside." Robin said.

She bloomed her eyes anywhere with open windows and described what she saw to them.

"We'll have to go inside for any further detail." Robin said.

"The guard is pretty heavy, but that suggests they're weak too. Serene can incapacitate the ones inside, but the guards on the outside are wearing gas masks, so that won't work for them." Cherry summarized.

"Land us on the roof, Cabernet." Cherry ordered.

Cherry used her Life Sense to detect the people within. She found Shiki and some kind of gorilla amongst the many individuals inside. A lone person was separated from anyone else by a fair distance. Possibly this was Nami.

Another person was inside a room surrounded filled with plants, perhaps some sort of greenhouse, and what appeared to be a very large duck. Cherry was most interested in this room as it may contain the source of the scorpions' mutation.

"Okay, Nami might be the individual in this approximate location." Cherry said, drawing a simple map on the roof and pointed to the location. "You three go confirm and escape with her. I'm going to check something else out."

Receiving their nods, they went separate ways.

Cherry went towards the plant room, cutting a quick hole in the glass to enter. Seeing the large amount of one particular flower, she was sure this was what she wanted.

"Who are you?!" A clown shouted at her.

A flash of lightning went through his head and her slumped over, smacking his face into the floor without any chance to retaliate.

"Quack?!" A large duck seemed to cry out in shock, gaping at Cherry with a wide open bill.

Cherry didn't take any chances and hit the duck with some lightning too, but was surprised that it had no effect whatsoever.

"Quack?" The duck seemed to question what she was doing.

"Just be quiet. I'm robbing the place." Cherry shushed him and got to work harvesting all the plants.

She moved onto the lab that the clown came out of and took all the books that were there after glacing through them.

"The flowers are called 'IQ' and those trees outside are 'Daft Green'? The tree might be worth looking into as well." Cherry thought aloud.

"Quack?" The duck quacked at her as she exited the lab and approached the window.

"I'm not taking you with me." Cherry squinted at him. "So don't follow me!"

"Quack." The duck seemed to understand.

Cherry jumped out the window and used Geppo to hop through the air back toward the island the ship was located. The others had already escaped with another person, so they likely already retrieved Nami.

'Now we just need to do something about Shiki. He'll be able to overtake us whenever he wants, so running away isn't a likely option. Guess I'll have to go all out.' Cherry thought.

Cherry frowned.

The duck was following her even though she told it not to. It had seemed intelligent enough, so it knew what it was doing. The question was whether it was an enemy.

Cherry decided that if it followed her all the way back, she'd let the others do something about it. If it stopped following her, she'd assume it was a spy and kill it.

The large duck was blissfully unaware that his murder was being plotted, thinking it was quite clever to follow behind silently. Fortunately, he planned to follow her until the end and averted that untimely demise.

Why was he following her? Well, he didn't like the clown and Cherry used lightning, so she must be the same as himself right? Being an artificial mutant meant he was alone in the world.

Cherry made it all the way back to the ship without the duck changing course, so she let him live for now.

"What's all that stuff, Cherry?" Chopper asked.

"I found the substance that mutated the animals on these islands, as well as some research materials that might interest you." Cherry said handing over the book and a portion of the IQ plants for him to play with.

"It's good to see that you're fine, Nami." Cherry said.

"Mm, thank you for the prompt rescue. Now we need to get out of here." Nami replied.

"I don't wanna!" Luffy said.

"Don't be stupid, Luffy! We shouldn't fight if we don't have to!" Usopp pleaded.

"No, he's right. We won't be able to escape from Shiki easily. We'll have to fight him." Nami said.

"According to these research records, a tree called Daft Green keeps the mutated animals away. They used them to form a defensive barrier to keep them out." Chopper explained with his nose in a book.

"There's something else you haven't considered." Robin said, getting everyone's attention. "Amongst the ruins of the destroyed towns in East Blue, giant boulders were found. Who do you know can lift giant boulders into the air and drop them again?"

Dawning realization appeared on their faces, whilst Cherry nodded.

Now everyone was on the same page. Shiki had to go down.