Chapter 8: Enter Sandman, Exit Sandman

'Okay, maybe I'm not that tall', I thought to myself as I looked up at the tower of a man before me.

The top of my head barely reached his chest as Crocodile looked down directly into my eyes with a scowl.

"You're in trouble; we need to talk. Follow me", He said as he turned around and started walking away.

'I'm in trouble, huh? Guess it won't be pretty". I glanced towards the horizon, noticed the setting sun, and remembered an old famous song from my past life. I sighed and smiled to myself.

Walking behind the 'Sandman' in question, I couldn't help but hum the lyrics in an ever-so-slight whisper. "Exit light, Enter night. Take my hand. We're off to never-never land".

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Crocodile finally stopped walking when we were a fair distance outside the city and the sun had set entirely.

The best way to describe him would be a stereotypical Italian mafia boss on steroids. On his hulking 253cm figure, Crocodile wore a bright orange, black-striped button-up vest over a long-sleeve peach shirt. On his bottom, he wore dark brown suit pants and polished black shoes with gold buckles. Most noticeable, however, was his long, thick, black fur coat.

Still having his back turned to me, Crocodile took out what I assumed to be a cigar and lit it. "So, first tell me who you are; and then tell me the reason you dare to do my job for me".

I took a millisecond to gather my thoughts as I answered. "You are Mr. 0, right? In that case, you already know who I am, or I at least believe Miss All Sunday has told you about me."

"Hmm.." he turned around and once again looked down at me with a scowl. "I apparently thought that woman more tight-lipped than she is. What else has she told you".

"She actually hasn't told me anything", I lied. "I found out about your double identities on my very own. There aren't exactly many profiles in Alabasta that could fit the role of the head of Baroque Works. On top of that, many things also point to you specifically…". I then began listing the numerous arrows pointing directly at him as the head of the operation, anything from the fact that his home city, Rainbase, was the only one largely unaffected by the country's sorry state to how all his executives use the same type of Bananawanis as mounts, as the one's he is well known to keep as personal pets.

"*Sigh*, it's refreshing to finally have someone other than All Sunday and Mr. 1 being at least somewhat capable under me…".His expression didn't change one bit while complimenting me. "… but, Mr. Blue Sky, this gives you even less of an excuse to publicly engage pirates. You should know that a large portion of my plan rests on the notion that I am Alabasta's sole guardian angel. I cannot have any competition in the people's hearts".

I put on a sheepish smile and shook my head at his words. "Yea, sorry bout that. You probably heard about my amnesia from All Sunday, and I just couldn't help testing my strength against them to see where I stand in the world. I figured if it'd gone horribly wrong, you could've just taken me out too, and your reputation would be saved anyways".

Crocodile turned his head to the side and dramatically gazed at the endless dunes in the distance.

"I see… and how is it?" he asked an ambiguous question.

Confused, I threw him back the ball. "How is what?"

"Your strength", he simply answered.

"Ahh, that! Well, honestly, I didn't get to see my limits. They all went out with a single hit, and I was too fast for them to react anyways. I understand this request is weird, but would you consider sparring with me?" I decided to push Crocodile's boundaries a little further. If my conjecture about him preferring not to show his physical prowess if he is unsure about winning is correct, he might not take me up on the offer, but I have been pretty annoying until now.

He turned his eyes back down to my face and went silent momentarily. Then he sternly spoke, "Fine, go ahead".

The second he said those words, I launched myself at his face. There were a good four meters between the two of us, but I covered that distance in less than a quarter of a second as I locked my hand behind my head, readying a punch. A wide smile graced my face, reaching from ear to ear.

It was part of the plan Robin and I had devised for me to have a friendly spar with Crocodile. There were three main reasons for this spar. The first would be it would allow us to pinpoint his strength without putting any of our lives at risk — one of the perks of immortality. The second reason was that it would probably give Crocodile a higher perception of my abilities, leading to me having more responsibilities and, thus, more opportunities to sabotage his plans.

The third and final reason, If I gauged Crocodile's strength at a level low enough that I would be able to beat him comfortably, I would do so. There was no reason to keep playing along with the plans of Baroque Works if we could just expose its head to the public, after all. Robin already had all the dirt through her job; all that needed to be done was to have the actual perpetrator in our grasp.

Crocodile didn't have time to flinch at my speed as my fist made contact with his face before he could react.

As expected, his entire head exploded into a cloud of sand. I rapidly dove to the ground, stood right behind him, and waited for his head to reform.

The moment it did, *click* I closed the seastone-cuffs Robin readied for me around his wrists. From the point of view of Crocodile, the entire altercation took less than a second. For me, however, everything happened in slow-motion.

[POV Crocodile]

I immediately fell to my knees, feeling weak all of a sudden. I tried moving my hands, only to notice them not responding how I wanted. I was also unable to transform into sand.

'Dammit! He used seastone on me. What kind of monster is that; I couldn't react to him moving at all'.

I watched him nonchalantly walking out from behind me, his face unreadable.

"Ya know..." he said. "Robin really hyped you up for no reason. If it wasn't for that devil fruit of yours, I would have been able to knock you out just like the others. How anticlimactic".

'What a scary person' was the only thought in my mind as I realized my entire world and plans would come crumbling down all around me.

"Anyways, you'll probably wake up in marine custody or something, so bye-bye for now!". He gave me a broad smile as I saw his right arm flicker, once again faster than I could react.

And then, my world went black.