Nico Robin slowly drifted back into consciousness. The back of her skull stung. It didn't feel like a headache, but more like when you scrape your knee; sort of tender and raw. She didn't bother opening her eyes, not yet. She noted that her hands were cuffed to some sort of metal rod. She had been restrained low to the ground. She was on her knees on a cold floor made of rough cement. Her torso was slouched painfully forward, but she was being held off the ground by the cuffs around her wrists. She didn't quite understand her postition, so she dared to slightly open one of her eyes. She was in a room that was no more than a few feet high, with water pipes running along the top of it, and down the wall her feet rested awkwardly against. She waited and listened for any kind of sound or sign of life, but the only sound she could place was the hum of rushing water in the pipes above her. Her neck felt stiff as her head hung limply. Since her hair hung like a curtain all around her face, she decided it safe to open both her eyes. Robin gently lifted her head forward, ignoring the screams of agony from her stiff neck.

Around her, the room was dim, and the air felt thick as she sucked it in and forced it back out. There didn't seem to be anyone in the cupboard-like room other than herself. Her eyes strained through the darkness to find anything that would give her any sort of clue where she was or what had happened. There was what looked like a sort of wooden trap door in the middle of the dirty floor.

"What a way to treat a lady," Robin mumbled. She straighted her back as she sat herself up, her spine aching and popping as she forced it out of its hunched position. She pulled her legs roughly out from under her so she could sit herself down, rather than be hoisted up on her knees. Once she was sitting cross legged, she leaned back against the pipe she was cuffed to, being careful not to touch her head to it. When she'd sat forward, she had felt a sort of pull on her skull, just above the tape of her neck, and warm blood flowed down her neck to her chest and into her line of vision.

Robin took another look around. A situation like this wasn't uncommon or foreign to her. Since this scenario was something similar to the experiences she had been through since she was young, she didn't at all feel panicked. "And what a way to live," she grinned as she realized any regular person would be quite startled and afraid in this situation, and yet she didn't feel any emotional distress. She smiled at herself into the darkness. What a strange woman.

There was some creaking from below the wooden flap in the floor, and then a gentle knock. Robin braced herself for questioning and all of her senses became electrified. As the door swung open, a torch came trough first, splashing the small room with light, and illuminating a man who only climbed what looked to Robin like a rope ladder until his torso was inside the damp room, since the ceiling was a bit short. Robin reeled her mind for poisonous remarks for all kinds of situations. She had a sharp tongue, and it often confused and angered people around her, but also allowed her to collect unintentionally spilled information.

"Are you Nico Robin?" the man asked. He was a rough man, but young, it seemed. He wore a black hat and the white uniform of the Navy. He held the torch closer to Robin than to himself.

"My name is Nico Robin," she corrected his rough etiquette. "I've seemed to have bumped my head. Have any bandages?"

Suddenly, the man crawled into the room, still making sure the torch was off the ground. "You one of the ones with a devil's fruit ability?" He was inches from her now, then he paused. He looked her over with an intense gaze.

Robin realized this man didn't know anything of her. The fact he seemed to genuinely not recognize her name, nor anything she seemed to be notorious for made Robin grin. Ignorance that she could easily use to her advantage.

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm afraid I am not. Something like that would've gotten me out of this situation, don't you think?" she flashed a smile at him again before shutting her strange happiness away.

The man grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head up to his eye level. She made a small yelp out of surprise, and the sudden pain from the back of her head startled her. Now being forced to look into this man's face, she saw the flesh of his face was riddled with scars. His eyes were a deep black, much like her own pupils, but had a sense of determination rather than deceit in them. "The Government would like a word, if you would, ma'am," a grin split the man's face, and he brought the torch closer to her face, and singed the ends of her hair. Although her nose filled with the bitter smell of burning hair, she didn't look away from this man.

He tossed her forward as he crawled around to the pipe she was cuffed to, and pulled out a key. Robin wondered silently to herself if these cuffs were regular steel or if they had been made of seastone. She would soon test to see. She heard a click and the pull on her arms loosened. Maybe she wouldnt have to. The man came back around her, tightly grabbed one of her arms, and began to lead her towards the hatch in the floor. "Down," he demanded of her, "Climb down." She rolled her eyes and used her free arm to hold the opening of the hatch before swinging her legs down on the ladder. When the man was sure she was going to decend, he released her arm so she could climb down.

She felt a pair of tough hands wrap around her waist and pull her from the ladder down until her feet hit the floor. Robin raised one of her hands to her eyes to shield them from all the light she was suddenly engulfed in. Squinting, she saw other men around her, looking rough and tough like the one who had come to fetch her. The arms that had pulled her to the floor had withdrawn a little, and callused hands rested on her hips, but with a tight enough grip to keep her from moving. Robin tossed a glance at the owner of these hands, and saw they belonged to a very tall man she had never seen before. He grinned at her, and she looked away to swallow disgust.

"Do you mind if I ask where this is, gentlemen?" Robin asked as the man took a hand away from her hip and pulled her arms back together behind her back again. He released her and used both his hands to tie her wrists with a thick rope, which he was going to hold onto like a leash, which made Robin annoyed.

"A Government stronghold. None of your business where." The man who had come up to get her was now coming down the ladder after passing the torch to one of the men in his group. When he reached the floor, he walked to her left and paused to look at her. Now, Robin glanced down at herself in the light of the gas lamps that hung from a black stone wall over head. She was wearing a light blue shirt and pants, almost like scrubs. Except they were dirty and tattered, and spotted with her own blood around the collar from the wound on her head. There was a long rip down her left side, exposing some of her skin to the cold air of this new corridor they were in.

"You know this woman?" the mans voice asked. Robin didn't understand that he wasn't speaking to her, and looked over at him to give a venoumous remark. However when she looked to him, she saw he was speaking to a tall man that she has come to be very close to.

"Yeah," Zoro huffed back at the man. He had been put into what seemed like the same situation as her. The same blue outfit, and was tied up, but his arms were bound with chains and steel rather than Robin's limp rope leash. "Don't bother with her, she's just a woman," Zoro spit into the man's face. The man growled and looked back at Robin. In that instant, a smirk shot across Zoro's mouth, and his expression warmed for her, so she knew he'd been playing with the man. He motioned down the hallway behind him with his head, and nodded. Robin had already been smiling, as she always seems to be, but she grinned now at him. The man saw her grin and turned quickly to Zoro, who put his stone cold expression on again to look into the man's black eyes. Robin smothered a chuckle from within her. He was a different man than most people outside the crew seemed to think. Not to bright by most means, but still good.

Annoyed, the man grabbed Robin by the arm and pulled her next to Zoro, where he handcuffed them together. "I'm going to lead, and the two of you are going to follow," he mumbled with irritation. He turned to the other men of his group, taking Robin's rope and Zoro's clump of chains in his arms and dismissed the others.

As the rest of the rookie naval officers began to leave, the man up ahead tugged Robin and Zoro forward.

"They're leaving you incharge?" Zoro said loudly to the man leading them as they began to walk after him. Robin looked down to Zoro's feet and saw how slow he was moving, and tried to match his sluggish pace.

"Be quiet, Mugiwara filth," the man growled back without looking at them.

"He isn't friendly," Robin smiled up at Zoro, "I don't think he's having a very good day."

"I'm sure his day is going better than mine," Zoro grumbled, raising an eyebrow, and rattled the chains keeping his arms together.

Robin smiled still. "Do you know what's been going on? I don't remember any of this, to be quite honest. I remember being on the Sunny. I was in the shower, I believe. But until I woke up there-" she motioned to the ceiling with her head, " I don't have any memories of what's happened. Who is this angry man?"

"It was an ambush of sorts," Zoro shrugged, rattling all his chains, causing the naval officer up head to peak behind his shoulder at them. "I remember drinking on the deck, and some ships appeared, and Tashigi was on top of us. Remember Tashigi?" He looked down to her, and was a little surprised she was already looking at him, so he looked back infront of him.

"Yes," Robin replied, also looking back infront of her at the back of the man leading them, "Smoker's assistant? Black hair and red glasses. Great swordsman. Swords-woman? The one who looks like your deceased friend if I'm not mistaken."

"Ah, um... yes that's the one," Zoro shifted awkwardly.

They shuffled forward in silence.

"Is there a plan?" Robin inquired, "I'm bound only by rope so breaking free won't be difficult. Although since we've been handcuffed together it looks like we'd be stuck together for a while. Do you know where Luffy is?"

"No," Zoro replied, thankful for a change of subject, "But really my plan is to find my swords, and then find him, and get out of this place."

"And the others, of course," Robin grinned over at him.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye and saw her smile, and a smirk lit his face. "Yes, of course."

"Okay, well then I leave it to you, Zoro-san. I'll go on your signal."