Sam's hand clasped the last rung of the ladder and pulled the rest of his body up. He set his feet onto the roof and wiped some of the sweat from his brow. One of his hands fanned his face while the other worked at freeing itself from one his vest's sleeves. He huffed and sweated some more under the hot sun as he tried to do both tasks at once.

"If you're gonna take off that vest, why even put it on?" asked Roxi from behind Sam. He gave up trying to remove the vest and instead straightened it out in a rushed manner. She finished climbing the ladder, sighed, and placed her hands against the back of her head. A hot breeze blew by and rustled the edge of her light blue skirt. "It's too hot for it anyway."

"You always say that," Sam lamented. He wiped off some more sweat from his brow. "Vests are cool though."

"Making you look as red as a tomato isn't."

"Fine." Sam relented and removed the vest, leaving him in a white t-shirt and shorts. He sighed and slumped into the shadow of the raised edge of the square shaped roof. Now, at least, his lower half was out of the sun. "So, work at the store good?"

"Nothing special." Roxi sat down in the shadow as well. "We've had your usual travelers so far today. Might see a bit more pirates for dinner."

Sam's shoulders tensely raised up. "There've been a lot of them lately, huh?"

"Nothing too serious." Roxi used her left hand to both fan her face and shoo away Sam's concerned tone. "Worst we get are a few with one too many drinks that start claiming, 'Imz gonna beez kinga da piratss!' It's not too bad."

"No one... no one ever tries to... rob you?"

"Of what?" Roxi pouted. "C'mon, anyone that gets this far isn't gonna waste time pillaging us. Heck, their own bounties are probably worth more the whole town combined."

Sam stared out past the roof's edge. The central bell tower and the tops of some of the taller buildings were visible, but nothing else of the town until the dock. It was a small stick of wood that jutted out into the sea. Beyond that was the rest of the Grand Line. "I guess, but some of those guys are crazy and destroy stuff for fun. You should have heard my dad on the boat this morning, going on and on about how Eus—"

"Why do I need him when you're here?" Roxi interjected.

Sam brought his eyes low to the ground. "Oh, that's low, Roxi."

"Well, every time we've talked lately, you're always saying something like that."

Sam breathed in deeply and exhaled. "It's just that stuff about Enies Lobby really spooked my family."

"Everyone was spooked at the time," Roxi retorted, "or when we heard Whitebeard was nearby, or that some fishmen pirates were loose, or when the fish were gonna eat you."

"One time!" Sam angrily raised his index finger and shook it at Roxi. "That tuna was out for blood, I swear!"

"Yeah, ye—" A chaotic string of rings muffled Roxi's reply. She and Sam looked over to the clock tower. Old man Ricket could be seen standing atop the gracefully curved stone structure in one of its four arches. He tugged on on the bellstrings at a breakneck pace like he was forty years younger. "What's that about?"

An arm emerged from the edge of the room where the ladder was. A slightly scrawny man with an ajar chef's hat stumbled onto the roof. "Roxi, come down, now! Sam, go back to your house!"

"Dad, what's going on?" asked Roxi.

Roxi's dad gulped. He nervously scratched his wiry black hair and stayed silent for a moment. "The Straw Hat Pirates... have been sighted."