Hi, guys! I'm back again with another chapter. ;)

Thanks to Luna-Zeta, 707cloud, seblackburn4, and Cyannel for the Favorites and Follows!

Music - I'm glad you think it's cool that I'm a weekly updater. I wrote this thing out over the summer when I was putting up other stuff, so it's simply a matter of getting all the chapters up for now. And Zoro's definitely world-smart rather than book smart.

And here's the chapter! Remember, though, guys - I don't own One Piece; just the character who happens to have been thrown into this entire mess.

Chapter 8 - Robin's Betrayal?

Zoro let out a sigh of relief, holding his white sword close in the crook of one arm, while the other two lay along his right leg. "Looks like the crowd cleared out."

Maria, who was sitting cross-legged to the left of the swordsman, nodded in agreement. She looked out over the city from the flat rooftop they had managed to find, relieved that her newfound friends weren't being chased. But...Sanji's absence still worried her. And the still-unknown Robin was missing, as well.

"Yeah, no thanks to you!" Nami barked in reply. "I'll have you know that Luffy and I had a perfectly good hiding spot until you led that mob straight to us!"

"Like I said, with that many people looking, they were going to find you anyway." Zoro sounded somehow bored, like he'd been over this a million times.

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me." Luffy turned his head to look over at Chopper, who was sitting next to the black-haired pirate captain. "How did you know we were down there, Chopper?"

Maria bit down on her lower lip to keep herself from bursting out into laughter again at the memory.

Somehow, Chopper had managed to find the trio dangling under a stone bridge, with Luffy gripping the sides with his hands and his feet and Zoro and Nami sitting on his stomach. The rubber teen had been so surprised at seeing Chopper's face when the doctor bent down to look under that he had let out a yell and released his hold on the bridge, causing himself, Zoro, and Nami to fall into the water. Luckily, Zoro and Nami had managed to get their captain out of the water and gotten the water out of him so that they could get to a safer spot - the rooftop. Maria hadn't been of much help initially - she had burst out into laughter as soon as she had heard Luffy's exclamation of surprise and the loud splash that had followed. It was only later that she realized that Luffy's couldn't exactly swim because of his Devil Fruit ability.

"Your smell," Chopper stated simply. He was back to his small, adorable form that made him look more like a stuffed animal than an actual living, breathing animal.

"Ah, shoulda known. But wait - wasn't Sanji with you?" Luffy gave the reindeer a curious look, obviously expecting an answer.

Chopper lowered his gaze from Luffy's face. "Well, he was."

The little reindeer doctor then launched into an explanation about what had happened and why Sanji wasn't with him. Apparently, the two had managed to run into Robin, but she had told them that she was leaving the crew - and she was leaving the blame for the attempted murder on them while she made her escape. Sanji and Chopper had tried to go after her, but the woman had disappeared. Sanji said he had a plan and went off on his own after that, telling Chopper to go find the others and tell them what had happened.

Maria's eyes widened when she heard what Robin had told the two before disappearing. "She carries a darkness inside her...? What does that mean?"

"No way!" Luffy suddenly burst out, clearly angered. "That doesn't make any sense! Did Robin really say that to you?!"

Chopper gave a slight nod, appearing troubled himself.

Nami didn't move, and for a moment, Maria wondered if they had grabbed statues instead of the real crew members, but then Zoro closed his eyes and shifted one of the swords at his side. "We were prepared for this, weren't we?"

"Hmm?" Maria looked over at Zoro, as did Luffy, Chopper, and Nami.

The swordsman brought down his white sword - still sheathed - and let its end land on the rooftop with the sound of shifting metal. The sword landed between Luffy and Nami.

"After all, Robin was our enemy before we let her join the crew," Zoro added.

Maria stiffened for a moment, but then she remembered what the Straw Hat pirates had told her the night before, when they were telling her about their adventures. The sand kingdom of Alabasta was where they picked up Robin. And she had served as the right-hand woman of the leader of an evil organization called Baroque Works, which had been working towards creating a perfect, utopian society.

The organization had been completely taken down by Luffy when he had defeated the man known as Crocodile, and all the agents had been arrested...except for Robin, who had joined Luffy and the others.

"This might be the only chance to find out the truth, so we shouldn't run away."

Chopper nodded in response to Zoro's statement, while Maria looked over at the green-haired swordsman with an expression of concern and worry.

"There's still a lot of things we don't know about Robin. Now it's time to decide if she's a friend, or a foe." Zoro turned his gaze then from all three of his crew mates to just the reindeer as he pulled his white sword back and let it rest at his side with the others. "Chopper, what Robin said - 'The situation will get worse. From this day forward, we will never see each other again.' You're sure that's what she said?"

Chopper nodded, a determined look coming over his face.

"She says she won't see us after today and that things are going to get worse. Maybe that means that the attack on Iceberg was just a warm-up and she has something even bigger planned for tonight."

Maria looked around the group for a moment, then realized that the sky was starting to gain different shades of color - already, the clouds were a soft orange, which most likely meant that the sun was starting to set. The night was approaching faster than she would have liked...which meant that whatever was going to happen that night was going to take place in a few hours.

The blue-eyed amnesiac swallowed nervously, and she felt a cold gust of wind blow past, prompting her to pull her orange jacket closer and zip it up over her red shirt - as high as the jacket let her.

"I don't know why Robin's doing any of this," Zoro continued as Maria zipped up her jacket, "so it's hard to make a guess as to what she's planning. Seeing how much a commotion her first attack on the mayor caused, there's only one way to make things worse."

"In other words, she'll murder him," Nami stated grimly.

Maria stiffened. Murder...she knew the definition of that word without even having to recover a portion of her memories. To kill without a reason that was right according to the laws of the country...that deserved death in and of itself in some places, didn't it? Was this Robin person really that heartless?

Somehow, "heartless" and "darkness" connected together at the back of her mind to form a strange, black, two-legged imp with antenna on its head and bulbous, yellow eyes that sent chills down Maria's spine.

Robin couldn't look like that, could she? The amnesiac hoped that she didn't.

"I think that's what she's trying to tell us, at least," Zoro admitted. "Also, since she told Chopper she's be pinning the crime on us, it could be that she's feeding us all these little hints to lure us out to the crime scene tonight."

"Think so?" Chopper questioned somewhat stiffly. Maria took note of the frown that was on the little doctor's face, and wondered was going through that mind of his. Then her gaze moved up, and she saw that Luffy had a similar frown on his face.

"If that is her plan, it would be convenient for her if we did happen to show up, since that would put us at the scene of the crime."

Nami looked either annoyed or angry at the swordsman's statement. "You say you don't know what she's thinking, but it sounds to me like you've already decided that she's our enemy!"

Maria flinched a little at the accusatory tone Nami had taken - I don't think you want to get hit right now, Zoro - but the swordsman didn't even flinch.

"I'm talking about possibilities here, that's all," Zoro stated calmly, his gaze moving to lock with Nami's brown eyes. "We should always be prepared for the worst-case scenario, understand? If I get locked into a single line of thinking, it will only slow me down. If she's my friend, I have to be ready to forgive."

Zoro's hand moved down to his swords, and he pushed the white sword out of its sheath a little, revealing the blade in the twilight. "If she's my enemy, I have be ready to fight."

There was silence on the rooftop for a moment while Zoro's words sank in. Maria felt chills all over, even though she was well protected from the cold air. It took her a moment to realize that the chills were coming from inside her - a reaction to Zoro's words? Or maybe something else from her memories?

A flash of darkness went across her vision for a moment, and she caught sight of a figure that looked like they were made from a cloak of blackness, with a strange, red collar, and a white, wispy-like substance coming from the top of the figure's head. The red eyes hidden under the wisp looked angry, but then the creature's entire stance changed to one of confusion, and the red eyes changed to an expression that clearly was of pure curiosity and confusion.

"Please...will you let me join you? I...I don't know what happened between us before, but...something tells me that this should repay any bad blood between us."

The sound of Zoro sliding his sword back into his sheath brought Maria out of her thoughts with a jolt.

"Our best chance to settle this is tonight," the green-haired swordsman stated seriously. "Are we going?"

"Of course," Luffy replied instantly, having shifted to lock eyes with Zoro's.

The group sat on the rooftop in silence after Luffy's short statement, and Maria got another twist in her gut. She wanted to be able to help the pirates out, but she wasn't part of the crew in the first place, and fighting off angry hordes of shipwrights wasn't exactly something that she wanted to do, either.

Something told her she might be able to handle them, but Maria wasn't sure whether she should trust herself with that thought or not.

"It's not that I object to the plan," Nami suddenly stated, catching the amnesiac's attention, "but we're still forgetting something. Sanji said he saw Robin walking with someone in a mask, remember? Obviously, that wasn't anyone of us, but Iceberg said the same thing - that he was attacked by a large man wearing a mask he didn't recognize." She frowned. "Whoever he is, I bet he's the reason Robin's doing all of this stuff."

"Yeah!" Chopper suddenly spoke up, looking over at Zoro. "That means it isn't really her fault and we just need to beat the real bad guy, right?"

Maria blinked at the statements from the navigator and the doctor. If that's true...then who's the bad guy? The blue-eyed teen looked over at Zoro, wondering what the swordsman's answer was going to be.

"That's the ideal situation," Zoro admitted. "But on the other hand, it's possible that this guy could be one of Robin's friends."

"The problem is that we don't have much to go on other than 'a big man in a mask'," Nami responded. "So, where do we even start? I mean, what is our goal here?"

"We find Robin and capture her," Luffy stated flatly. He bowed his head a little, hiding his face under the brim of his straw hat.

Nami and Chopper looked at their captain in shock, while Maria blinked a couple times, her expression blank.

The way Luffy was speaking, it almost sounded like he had decided on what they were going to do as soon as the conversation had started.

"That's the only way we'll ever know the truth." Luffy put a hand on his hat and started to get to his feet.

"You're right," Zoro agreed, causing Maria to turn and look at the swordsman. "We're wasting time here trying to figure it out. Just one thing - Robin won't be easy to catch. After all, the World Government's been trying for twenty years, and it still hasn't happened."

World Government? The world is one entire country? Maria blinked a couple times. I wonder how that got started...or who's idea it was in the first place...and how corrupt it's gotten.

The teen's blue eyes widened slightly when she heard herself think the last part of her train of thought. Corrupt? What made me wonder if the government is corrupt?

"Like he said, it's the only way we'll know for sure," Nami stated as she started to get to her own feet.

"Yeah, let's settle this right now," Chopper agreed.

Zoro shifted and rose to his feet, and Maria quickly moved up onto her own, as well, feeling that she would look foolish if she was the only one still sitting down on the rooftop.

Seconds later, Maria felt the others' gazes on her, and she looked back at the trio somewhat nervously.

"So, what are you going to do?" Zoro asked, raising an eyebrow at the amnesiac.

"M-me?" Maria squeaked. "I-I'm..." The girl paused for a moment to consider her options, then shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure. It's kind of between following you guys or going off on my own to find Paulie. He's gotta be at least a little bit worried about me, since I always hang around near him when Dock 1 is open." The blue-eyed amnesiac rubbed the back of her head with one hand as she added, "And...there could be a chance that I could convince him that you guys aren't the bad guys."

"You think you could do that?" Chopper asked, his eyes widening slightly.

"Maybe." Maria shrugged helplessly. "I haven't exactly tried something like this before...that I can remember, that is."

"Well, it's obvious to me that you don't know how to fight, so it might be a better idea if you went to the shipwrights," Nami suggested. "If anything, they may be able to protect you from the real culprits."

"You think so?" Maria blinked for a moment.

"Well, they are really strong."

Maria considered the orange-haired navigator's words for a moment, then gave a slight nod. "All right. I'll go and find Paulie. Good luck finding your missing crew mate."

With that, Maria turned and moved over to the edge of the rooftop, glancing down somewhat nervously at the sidewalk below before turning her attention to the other rooftops that were positioned nearby. Steeling herself, the amnesiac looked down at the sidewalk again...and jumped off the roof. Within a few seconds, she made contact with the ground below with a shaking crash that made the sidewalk look like it had become cracked where Maria had landed.

The amnesiac didn't notice, however - she just simply got up from the crouch she had gotten into when she had landed and looked herself over. An amazed look crossed her face when she realized that she had managed to land intact, but then a determined look replaced it, and the teen started running around the sidewalk in search of shipwrights who might know where Paulie was located.

Time Break

When Maria finally found Paulie, the sun had already sunk far below the horizon, and the entirety of Water 7 was a ghost city.

"Paulie!"

The blond shipwright turned upon hearing his voice called, and his eyes widened in surprise when he saw Maria run over to him and the group of shipwrights that were with him. "Maria? Where the hell have you been, kid?" His eyes moved to see the puddle of water that was starting to gather underneath the amnesiac. "And why the hell are you wet?"

"I don't have a yagara, so I swim across the canals instead," Maria replied quickly. "Listen, Paulie - I have to talk to you about the Straw Hats."

That got Paulie's attention, but the question he immediately asked made Maria extremely nervous.

"Do you know where they are?" Paulie demanded, the other shipwrights around him brandishing their saws.

"Not...not right now." Maria hesitated for a moment before stating quickly, "Paulie, they're not the bad guys! They couldn't have been the ones who shot Iceberg!"

"Kid, they're pirates - of course they're the ones who did," Paulie replied gruffly. "You don't know them because -"

"I stayed last night in their hotel room! Of course I know them!" Maria barked back, clearly seething. "They're not the bad guys! They were out with their ship for most of the night before they went to the hotel and left their ship and a former crew member behind!"

"Former crew member? What the hell are you -"

"There was an explosion last night, out on the cape," Maria interrupted again. "Luffy was in the middle of a duel, and his crew was watching. I know - I was there. There's no way that any of them could have done that to Iceberg. Besides, the only one among them who would have carried a gun uses a slingshot instead, and he left the crew because he didn't take the news about the ship too well! As far as I know, HE'S STILL ON THE GOING MERRY!"

The shipwrights looked at Maria in befuddlement while she panted, attempting to regain her breath from her shouting fest. Paulie's cigar looked like it was about to fall out of his mouth, but the precarious perch on his lower jaw was a usual sight whenever the shipwright opened his mouth to speak, so he wasn't losing that one.

"I'm telling you...the truth," Maria stated, looking up at the men starting around her.

"Then how do you explain Nico Robin doing what she did, huh?" one of the crew members burst out.

"How should I know? She wasn't there when they were having their duel - their cook went out this morning to look for her, but didn't hear from her until she told them she was leaving and pinning the blame on them." Maria looked somewhat concerned. "Nami thinks someone may be forcing her to do all of this - the large guy with the mask."

"And what makes you think you can trust her?" Paulie demanded coldly. "She's a pirate - and a scantily clad one at that!" The blond shipwright shuddered. "She could be lying for all you know."

"No, she wasn't." Maria shook her head. "Something tells me that she and the others were telling the truth. They're all worried about Robin and want to find out what's going on as much as you do, believe me."

"Well, your gut feelings may be wrong," Paulie shot back. He looked around the city for a moment and let out a noise of distaste. "The shelters are probably all locked up, now that the storm's so close. You may as well come with us to Galley-La's main building. It's probably the safest place for you to be right about now." The shipwright reached down and grabbed Maria's right arm before turning and walking off down the street, the other shipwrights following close. "Keep an eye out for those Straw Hats!"

Maria sighed irritably. Well, that went well.

The amnesiac kept her mouth shut the entire trip to the Galley-La building, her eyes scanning the rooftops for any sign that Luffy and the others happened to be following them. Her blue eyes didn't pick up any sign of them, but Maria couldn't help but get the feeling that they were on the move. Somewhere.

Maria wasn't sure how she knew this, but something told her that it had to do with who she was.

It was Paulie who ended up breaking the silence.

"Listen, kid - there's a lot of things that are going on right now that I don't know anything about, but the Straw Hats are right in the middle of it. If we're going to get down to be bottom of it, then we have to get the Straw Hats and figure out what it is that they've done as a part of all this."

Maria eyed the blond shipwright. "They're as clueless as you are. Don't you get it? That's why Luffy responded the way he did back at Dock 1 when you mentioned Robin being in Iceberg's room last night."

Paulie raised an eyebrow. "How'd you know about that? I didn't see you with the immoral girl."

Maria's eyes widened. Oh, shoot! Why did I let that slip out?

"Uh..." Maria chuckled nervously. "I...uh..."

"Kid, do you know something that I don't?" Paulie's eyes narrowed somewhat.

"It's more like I'm relearning things about me as I go," Maria replied quickly. "And no, I didn't eat a Devil Fruit - the Straw Hats asked me that already."

"I kinda figured that already," the shipwright grunted in reply. "If anything comes up, let me know, okay? Maybe we can figure out where your friends are."

"Well...I doubt that what I've recovered so far will be of much help to that...since I'm only remembering a bunch of monsters so far..."

"Monsters?" Paulie appeared skeptical.

"Yeah...I mean, how else do you describe creatures that can control the elements without eating Devil Fruits? They call themselves Pokemon, but...I'm not exactly sure why."

"Sounds like you've got your memories mixed up with some sort of fairy tale," Paulie scoffed.

"Mmmmmm..." Maria could tell that Paulie's statement wasn't true, but she wasn't about to tell him down for it. Something told her that, like with the Straw Hats' innocence, he wouldn't believe her statement.

The group soon arrived at the building. Paulie pushed Maria into an office on the second floor and told her to stay there until he came to get her the next morning.

When the shipwright left and closed and locked the door behind him, Maria couldn't help but get the feeling that she was going to disobey the shipwright's order if the Straw Hats and the real culprits were going to show up. Something was shifting in her gut, and it was telling her that there was a chance that she was going to have to fight.

Maria's proving to have more and more mysterious quirks as we go, huh? Who expected the sidewalk to crack underneath her when she jumped off the roof? I know why it did, but I'm not saying a thing until we get to that point in the story.

Well, we've got the stage set for the attack on Galley-La from you-know-who! See you guys next week with that particular chapter!