A/N: Yeah, sorry that these chapters take so long, but I'm so not used to days in the hundred degrees, so this is really messing up my emotional writing spasms. It's longer than the first one, because it's way more interesting. I don't know when I'll get to the next chapter, because this weather from h- is going to continue for about two more weeks. But nights are better to write in anyway.

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or any Trademarks


1. Realization

~Six weeks later~

It was a perfect day on the deck of the Thousand Sunny. Nami was very pleased with herself; after only having sailed on the new ship for five days she was already getting used to the controls and was content to take a relaxing break on the green lawn below, laying back in her favorite lounge chair out in the sun. Having a ship twice as large as the Merry Go was slightly challenging, but the ship handled like a charm and was in superb condition, so Nami was beginning to enjoy this new navigation style.

Robin lay in a similar lounge chair next to Nami, a small pile of historical books on a short table to her right. She had planned to spend the day organizing the new library, but decided (after some persuasion by Nami and much insistence from Sanji) to not waste her chance to relax outside in the beautiful weather. Right now she was in the middle of researching the Florian Triangle, the stretch of sea which they would be traveling through in order to reach Mermaid's Paradise. Robin was glad she had chosen to spend today outside, since weather this nice could be scarce on the Grand Line.

Sanji danced around Robin and Nami with hearts in his eyes, asking if they needed anything, wondering if a fresh glass of lemonade would sound good, and insisting that it was no trouble at all if the two girls wanted a plate of entrees or sandwiches to snack on. After finally convincing him that they were both perfectly content, Sanji went off to check the pantry for the ingredients to tonight's dinner.

Chopper was spending his time with Usopp in the Crow's Nest, where Usopp was telling Chopper one of his usual tall tales of when 'the brave and courageous Captain Usopp and his crew of one million followers dominated the entire East Blue and he had to defeat the evil pirate crew who begged for mercy when confronted by the fierce and savage Captain Usopp'.

Usopp then began describing a terrible battle which he had fought that had lasted 'one thousand days and nights, with nothing left to eat but moldy boots and socks'. Chopper, his eyes full of wonderment and sparkles, listened and completely believed the liar's false tales of adventure and bravery.

The only pirate not above deck at the moment was Franky, who had gone below to restock himself on cola bottles, having used up all his energy in a weight lifting contest against Chopper earlier. Of course Franky won, but he and Chopper seemed to be practically equal for the first few minutes.

Chopper then began to slow down, tiring out, as Franky grinned and continued (with a fascinated reindeer watching him with star-filled eyes) for a good more 600 kilograms. Franky then posed, grinning, and said that that was this limit for colas then let Chopper run off to find Usopp while he went to refill his cola.

Zoro was sitting cross-legged against the main mast, a look of frustration on his face at the sight of his ruined third blade. D-, I really liked this katana too…oh well. Maybe we can find some deserted ship or something and I can search for a new one…

The swordsman was anxious to find a replacement sword for the destroyed one; otherwise he wouldn't be able to use his strongest attacks. Plus, he felt almost empty with one sword short, and that irritated him to be having such a weird thought. The sooner he found a third blade, the faster he could feel at ease.

The peaceful sea air was suddenly broken by Luffy's groaning. "Uhhhh…meat...San-jiiii! Gimme some meat…uhhhh…I'll die!" Luffy lay sprawled out on the Sunny's head, wearing an anguished expression on his tan face.

Sanji's face emerged from the kitchen, and retorted, "You just finished your lunch Luffy, so you're just going to have to wait until dinner to eat any more food!" Luffy moaned some more in response.

Sanji skipped over to Nami and Robin with hearts in his eyes, and cried out "Robin-schwan! Nami-schwan! Do you lovely ladies need anything more of your handsome knight today?"

Zoro grunted and said, "Yeah, you shutting your loud mouth for once would be nice."

Sanji turned on Zoro, "I don't remember asking you, Marimo!"

A vein in Zoro's forehead popped. "What did you just say, Dartboard Brow?"

They were at it again, Nami thought to herself. Jeez…will these two ever learn?

Franky emerged from below deck and posed in the background, yelling something about 'everyone worrying about where he was and glad for his safe return' or some other nonsense.

Robin smiled to herself, while Zoro and Sanji began to heat up in their usual insults. By this time, Chopper and Usopp became bored, and ventured from the safety of the Crow's Nest down to observe the spar.

"Uhhh…Sanjiiiii! I need fooood!" Luffy contined from the Sunny's head.

Zoro and Sanji were way into the fight now, as Zoro had his katana drawn and was trying to defend against the cook's violent kicks while attempting to slash at him. "Ha! Looks like you're getting weaker, stupid Seaweed Head!"

Zoro flared, "In your dreams, Love-Cook!"

Chopper was by now hiding from the scary looking men behind the girls, where Robin assured him that they would have to quit soon or they would run out of insults anyway.

Usopp meanwhile had climbed back up to the Crow's Nest, and was looking at the surrounding blue sea with the binoculars. "Oi guys!" Usopp's voice radiated from the loudspeakers. The crew stopped and looked up to the outpost, Sanji and Zoro midway into an attack. "It looks like some fog is coming in and…huh?" The sharpshooter's voice faltered for a moment.

The Straw Hats looked around and finally noticed that the sea had indeed begun to fill up with fog while they weren't paying attention. That's strange, you don't see fog like this in the middle of the day…but of course, this is the Grand Line, and the second half as well, Nami reminded herself.

From the Crow's Nest Usopp was choking up with what he saw through the fog. He had hoped that it was just his over-active imagination, but by now even he couldn't deny what was headed straight for the ship. "Oi oi oi! Everyone, there's…there's…" Usopp's voice came out strangled.

"Spit it out already Usopp!" Zoro yelled.

The crew tensed, waiting for what the status was. Usopp tried to catch his breath, and hollered "There's…MARINES! Dead ahead!"

"Nani! Marines!" The navigator panic pierced her words. "Shimata!" Nami cursed out loud. With that announcement the entire deck became a flurry of motion as the Straw Hats began to prepare for their first official battle with the Thousand Sunny. Nami began, "Wakata, at least there's just one-"Another blast from the loudspeaker interrupted her.

"Wait, no, there's…three, and they're…ahhhh! Battleships!" Usopp screamed and panicked, fleeing the Crow's Nest and running around on deck.

Luffy jumped down from his spot on the head, grinning from ear to ear. "Yosh! This is gonna be so fun!"

"Baka! How is it fun that we have to battle THREE freakin' marine battleships?" Nami yelled at the captain, her angry face set on high.

"Heh." Zoro smirked and readied his blades. Maybe I can finally find a decent new katana on a full fledged marine ship… Zoro wondered in his head.

Sanji grinned, and lit a fresh cigarette. "I was getting bored anyway; at least this will be a little more of a challenge than fighting a stupid Marimo."

Zoro shrugged it off and stated, "Huh, now I can finally get a little action in without wasting my time on some loser chef."

Before they could start up again, Franky called out from the bow of the ship, "Oi oi oi! Those marines are gonna be pulling up alongside us any minute!"

Now everyone was at full attention as they caught sight of the fearsome looking battalion heading straight for them. Robin had been expecting something like this fairly soon; after all, the marines were sure to be after them double time now with larger and more powerful ships and men after the little fiasco at Enies Lobby.

I wonder, Robin noted, why they didn't fire at us through the fog and take us by surprise? It would have been easy for them to sneak up and attack from a farther range. It's almost as if they want us to fight them up close. She had no time left to think about this because just at that moment the ships came up and began the attack.

Luffy smiled, yelling "Yosh! Let's go everybody! Onto their ship!"

"Oh, my I-can't-board-this-scary-battleship-or-I-will-die disease is…oi…Oi OI!" Usopp's fake disease speech was disrupted by Luffy's stretchy arm wrapping around the sharpshooter's waist, and pulling him over the deck of the Thousand Sunny as the he and the rest of the crew leaped onto the lead marine ship. Each Straw Hat member landed separately on the ship amidst the wave of marine fighters who stood above deck awaiting the battle. The marines yelled out, and the battle ensued.

Sanji and Zoro, who had already warmed up from their usual thing, sprang into action and were working together very well to fend off the seemingly endless waves of soldiers who just kept coming at them. Robin was off somewhere bending people in highly unusual positions, where as Chopper had gone into Heavy Point and was knocking marines everywhere. Nami was twirling her Clima-Tact around to build up storm clouds, and then fired of some Thunder Charges into black clouds, resulting in quite a few thunderbolts dropping onto the startled marine's heads.

Usopp was attempting to dodge enemy fire while shooting off flame balls and pellets from his huge sling-shot. Luffy was using Gomu Gomu no Whip to knock the enemies straight off the ship, and was enjoying himself silly. Franky was using his iron fists and bullets, but because of the immense numbers of soldiers left to replace the ones fallen in battle, the crew was tiring out rapidly.

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"These Straw Hats are certainly living up to our expectations, but I suppose the fun and games should end here." The captain of the first vessel remarked to himself deep within the bowels of the ship.

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*Whee whee whee* A siren sounded three times somewhere on the first ship, and the decks of the battleships became a whir of motion with sailors running around and yelling unrecognizable orders into the ongoing battles on deck. Robin immediately noticed the siren, and was turning towards Luffy to tell him to retreat when she was struck by a punch from the left side of her face.

The force blasted her into the wooden frame of a cabin on the marine ship, where she fell onto the deck and gasped in pain. She sat up quickly and as she looked up to her attacker, arms raised to use her devil powers, she was caught by a thrown chain which wrapped around her arms and pinned them to her body. Her arms were now stuck in front of her chest, immovable because of the heavy chain.

Robin struggled against the immense weight of the weapon which bound her, staring into her attacker's unmoving face. She could feel herself becoming weaker with each passing second, but then it hit her. "Seastone chains!" Robin exclaimed out loud, not even causing her captor to move a face muscle. "What the-ahhh!" She cried out in pain as the man yanked her towards the edge of the ship and swung her overboard, not even taking a moment to watch as she fell towards the deep blue waters. Robin's last thought as she hit the water and began to sink beneath the churning waves was of the strange man's face, and how expressionless it was, as if he were being manipulated…

Sanji was about to smash in a tough looking marine's face as he heard a siren go off three times, then a moment later Robin yelled out something. He quickly turned in the direction of the scream and saw Robin's body being shoved overboard wrapped in chains. "Robin-chan!" Sanji yelled and began to run. He made it to the edge of the ship where he last remembered spotting her, and dived in, hoping he could make it in time before it was too late.

Nami was taking care of some weaklings when the alarm sounded, she turned to Robin's voice only to just see from the other side of the ship Chopper being grabbed by a strange looking man. Chopper was in Horn Point, and the marine had grabbed hold of his super huge horns with his gloved hands. Gloved hands…wait, are those…

"Chopper!" Nami yelled for Chopper, but it was too late to warn him of the danger. "It's Seastone Chopper! Those gloves have Seastone palms, don't let them touch you!" Nami continued, now rushing through the throng to reach him in time.

Chopper had heard Nami's warning too late though, and as he struggled to break free from the iron grip he felt weaker and weaker. His Rumble Ball suddenly reached the time limit, and he was in normal form again. With no energy left to fight back, his opponent threw him very roughly straight into the approaching Nami, cushioning his fall but the force blasting the both of them right back to their ship. They hit the opposite side of their deck hard, and the force of the impact caused Nami to have the wind knocked out of her for a few moments, but she was still too weak from the damage caused to stand as she watched the flurry of motion on the marine ships.

Luffy was pummeling a group of weak-looking guys with his Gattling Gun move when he heard a loud annoying sound, then Robin's cry of alarm as she went overboard. He turned to Robin's direction, "Robin!" He half yelled half choked out just as he received a wicked hit to the stomach which sent him flying into the main mast of the ship. He grabbed his stomach in pain, looking up into the face of a marine soldier who was wearing a pair of odd-looking iron knuckles on his hands. "Oww! That hurt a lot." Luffy rubbed his pulsating stomach where the man had hit him and grimaced. The marine cracked his knuckles, and punched at Luffy again which he dodged this time, expecting the blow.

The man was quick though, for as soon as Luffy sprang away from second hit, the man had jumped to where Luffy would be in the air and already aimed a punch for his head. Since he was in the middle of dodging the second punch, Luffy had no time to avoid this move and was hit with a tremendous force to his face with the strange knuckles. Luffy flew uncontrollably to the side of the railing, and felt too weak to stand up even. The man leaped over to where Luffy had fallen and hit him again, now with a similar iron knuckle on the other hand, over and over into the ship. Luffy lay in the wooden frame of the hole his body had been pounded into, and began to slip into unconsciousness while weakly groaning "Minna…" The marine picked him up, and punched him in the air towards the sea, where Luffy fell, tumbling through the air like a rag doll until he couldn't feel anything anymore but darkness.

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Usopp had escaped much earlier from the terrible scene on the battleship and was currently hiding out on the Thousand Sunny when he saw Robin go overboard and Sanji jump in soon after she fell. Usopp then watched in horror as his crewmates fell in front of him, from Chopper and Nami, to even Luffy. Usopp yelled out, "Luffy!" just as Franky turned to see his shaggy black hair disappear off of the side of the ship.

"Strawhat-bro!" He ran towards the spot in the water where Luffy had gone down and dived in to find him in the depths of the sea.

Usopp, seeing that Luffy was being followed by Franky, looked back to the now retreating marine ships. The battleships had surprisingly called a hasty retreat order, and were fleeing the site of the hard battle that had just been fought a few minutes ago. Instead of cheering and making some braggart comment like he usually would in this situation about 'how scared of them the marines were', or 'how they had better run or who knows what would have happened to them', Usopp observed the decks of the fleeing ships with his sharp eyesight, with a confused and serious look on his face replacing his usual fake cocky expression.

Why are they falling back? He thought quietly to himself. They've got us completely cornered, so why are they giving up like this? This is too weird… He didn't like the feeling this was giving him, so he began to descend from his post in the Crow's Nest down to where his worn out and injured crewmates lay sprawled across the deck.

Chopper had suffered lesser amounts of damage than most of the crew (other than Usopp, who had left the battle before he had even been able to be injured), so he was busily attending to the most serious injuries, like Nami and Robin's. Just as Chopper had begun to look at the condition of Sanji's badly bruised legs, Franky appeared on deck, gasping for air and pulling an unconscious Luffy behind him. Franky looked completely beaten up, and had an angry look of dismay on his face. Chopper shrieked and rushed over to Luffy, while Franky wandered further on deck and collapsed.

Luffy didn't look good at all, he was bleeding from multiple head and chest wounds, not even to mention the fact that he had slipped unconscious before he hit the water and had almost drowned. This is horrible…I can't believe Luffy withstood so many hits like this to his body! Chopper began working right away; checking the worst looking injuries first and making sure no vital points were damaged.

By now the entire crew, other than Luffy, was conscious. "I don't get it, how did Mugiwara go down so easily? How could this have happened to us?" Franky asked himself out loud, still not over the terrible loss the crew had just been subject to in the hands of the marines.

"Don't blame Luffy, Franky." Nami replied to Franky's question "Those marines had seastone weapons on them; we couldn't brace ourselves for something that sudden." Franky sighed, knowing full well that she was right.

While the Straw Hats began to accept their defeat and discuss what had happened, Usopp stood off to the side. Apparently he was the only one who had noticed so far, and everyone else was too tired or too annoyed at losing to realize the fact. He spoke, black lines covering his eyes as they stared off at the floor. "Where's Zoro?"

Everyone stopped dead, frozen by the words Usopp had said out of the blue. "That's right; I need to check him for injuries, he always…" Chopper's voice faded off as he glanced around along with the others, for the first time noticing that he wasn't on deck with them.

"Zoro…" Luffy faintly moaned from where he lay on his back. Robin thought about the marines actions during the battle.

"They took him… those marines…" She was still very weak from the effects of the seawater and her injuries. "That's why they didn't shoot at us though the fog…they were waiting for the confusion of battle…to take him…that siren, was a…signal…" Nami's face held a look of horror that was reflected upon the faces of Sanji, Franky, and Chopper as they realized what this meant. Usopp spoke, his eyes downcast with sorrow.

"He's gone."


*Minna- means "everyone"

*Wakata- means "thank goodness"

*Shimata- means "(some kind of bad word)"