Here's a new chapter my darlings! Thank you for your patience!
Just want to say a big thank you to flyingparadin for the lovely Beta-job done!
Disclamier: I do not own the characters of One Piece.
Enjoy the story!
Shanks panted as he rushed into the school building. First day after summer break, and he was late. He guessed it was good that the teacher knew what to expect from right the beginning. If only his home-room teacher hadn't been Monkey D. Garp…
He threw his bag into his locker, and grabbed the first pen and notebook he could find, because God have mercy on those who came to that man's class unprepared.
But in front of the closed classroom door, Shanks lost his spirit. He hated to be late, not only because he would be yelled at, but also because he hated when people stared at him. It made him superconscious.
He checked his phone. Now he was seven minutes late. He gazed down at his screen-picture. Dracule "Hawk-eye" Mihawk stared back at him with those sharp eyes. His idol had given him courage more times than not, and he took a deep breath to calm his nerves.
Deep in thought, Shanks didn't notice a big shadow sneak up behind him.
"Oi, red-head. Shouldn't you be on the other side of that door?"
Shanks jerked around and stared right into a chest of a much taller person than himself. The red-head looked up and swallowed hard. He had just been spoken to by Donquixote Doflamingo. He hadn't gone to this school for more than seven minutes, but he had heard about what people to stay away from, and Doflamingo had definitely been on that list.
"Erh, yeah well", Shanks started and glanced at the door to his classroom. "I was just about to…"
"But then you realized that your homeroom teacher was Garp, right?"
Shanks frowned at the smug grin spreading on the blonde's face.
"I just don't like being late, so stop bothering me", Shanks hissed and turned back towards the door again.
Screw avoiding Doflamingo. He was an ass and Shanks didn't bow down to anyone.
"Fufufufu, I like you. I'll help you out of this pinch, but only because you showed me something interesting."
Shanks raised an eyebrow in question, but when he could see the blonde look down on the phone in his hand, Shank blushed furiously. He knew just what the blonde was referring to.
"He's an idol of mine", Shanks muttered under his breath, but Doflamingo ignored him.
Instead the blonde grabbed both his shoulder and pushed him towards the door. Quick as a viper, Doflamingo opened the door and stepped inside together with Shanks.
And there were all the looks Shanks hated, and he started to steel himself for the big scolding from Garp, but things didn't turn out quite as he had thought.
"Sorry to walk in like this, old man", Doflamingo said with a big grin. "But this little student had gotten lost, and as the good student and upperclassman as I am I showed him to his class."
Garp didn't look like he believed the blonde for a second.
"Get out of my classroom Doflamingo! Brat, sit down on the empty chair."
Shanks quickly walked to his chair, and Doflamingo turned to leave the classroom. It wouldn't do good if he made the teacher loose face in front of his student on his first day.
"And Doflamingo, leave my students alone. There's no good where you come from."
"Oh Mr. Garp, you are too kind", Doflamingo said with a mocking voice and quickly closed the door before he got something thrown in his face.
Garp's aim could be quite accurate.
The blonde chuckled as he walked down the hallway. He was very much pleased with himself.
Of course, he had known who Shanks was before he approached him, and Doflamingo had seen something really interesting in that kids phone that could give him a real advantage. He would be ready to start with his plan sooner than he thought. Life was too good sometimes.
Doflamingo wasn't usually surprised by people. He often already knew everything about everyone. He had a gift for reading people like an open book. But the little red-nosed clown had managed to do just that. Indeed he was impressed when he found out Roger and his crew had set up surveillance in a rented room at a motel across the street from Shiki's bar. Roger (or more likely Rayleigh) had ordered it as soon as rumours that Shiki was back were out in the street. But what surprised him wasn't all the advanced fancy stuff that bleeped and blinked, it was that in the center of it all was Buggy, handling it all like he had never done anything else.
"You think you know people, right?" Shanks said with a snicker when he saw the obvious surprise in Doflamingo's face. "I was just as surprised as you. Buggy is actually real smart, and would be a top student in school, if only he wasn't so damn lazy and greedy."
That didn't surprise Doflamingo, and the blonde quickly wiped of the surprised expression from his face.
"Status-report Buggy", Roger asked as he approached the clown together with Rayleigh and the other two youngsters.
"I've succeeded in getting into their security cameras, so we should have pictures from the place up and running in just three… two… one."
The screen flickered for a second, and then seven out of the ten screens along the wall came alive. All of them were showing different parts of the club.
Roger squinted his eyes and searched the frames.
"I can't see Rouge anywhere", he stated.
"I'm still trying to get into the three others, they've got harder codes to break, don't pressure me Captain", Buggy explained with a slight strain in his voice.
"Don't worry Buggy, you're doing great", Roger said and patted the youngsters head. "While you're doing that, we'll go over the plan."
Doflamingo took one last look at the impressive technology before following Roger through a door that connected the surveillance room to another motel room. In there the rest of their odd crew was waiting. Everyone who had been there to confront Teach was now joined by Roger's full crew as well. The room was starting to get a little bit crowded, and loud, with people chatting everywhere.
"Okay, listen everyone", Roger spoke up, making everyone stop with what they were doing. "Let's go over the plan and what everyone should do. You all know why you are here. The mission will be to get Rouge and her friend Crocodile out as unharmed as possible. Buggy is trying to get a better grip on the situation, so we won't be blind once we go inside. We'll have him stationed here all the time, and with this equipment he will be able to help and guide us through custom designed earpieces. My brother Dragon and Kuma will also stay. Shanks-"
"Always ready Captain!" Shanks said with a grin, making his bandaged face light up and look very much out of place.
"You'll stay here as well. I've asked Ivankov to take a closer look at your wound."
"What?!" Shanks wailed. "But Captain Roger, I can help."
"I know", Roger said and put a hand on Shanks' shoulder to calm him down. "But tonight you've helped enough. It's all thanks to you and Doflamingo that we're here now, so rest for now. All of you that stay here will be our back up if everything goes straight down the drain."
Shanks opened his mouth to protest, but Rogers determined face left no room for arguments. Shanks sighed in defeat.
"Yes sir", he said and walked over to a gurney that was placed in the corner, Emporio Ivankov already waiting for him.
"Mihawk", Roger spoke and turned to the duelist. "Do you mind staying here as well and keeping an eye on him? Knowing Shanks, he'll try and sneak out as soon as no one's looking."
The world's greatest fencer nodded and walked over to Shanks. Clearly Roger had noticed the worried looks Hawkeye had thrown at the red-head.
"We will have two main groups. Rayleigh and I will, together with the rest of my crew, walk right through the front doors, so-"
"Wait captain!" Buggy wailed and rushed through the doors. "You can't be serious! That's just like begging Shiki to kill you right then and there."
Buggy shouted to Roger's back, but the Mafioso didn't turn around. Buggy took a deep breath to start shouting again, but a heavy hand on his shoulder interrupted him. The red nosed boy turned and looked straight into Rayleigh's face. The man looked determined, but quite pleased.
"There's no use in protesting Buggy, you know that. Once Roger has decided something there is no turning back. Have fate in us instead. We trust you to do your best as well."
Buggy whimpered, but nodded. He did know there was no changing Rogers mind.
"Buggy, is everything ready yet?" Roger's voice boomed in the room, quite joyful.
"Y-Yes captain. Everything is ready."
"Good, as I said: We'll walk in through the front doors, and we will be the diversion. In the other group, Crocus will, together with Scopper Gaban walk inside through the back door, and your mission is to find Rouge and Crocodile. Mr. 1 and Mr. 2 have insisted to join as well, but remember to stay together. Find Rouge first, since we've already located her. She might have a clue about where we can find Crocodile."
Roger got a nod from each and every one he addressed, then the raven haired man turned, for the first time since his speech had started, towards Doflamingo.
"You are welcomed to go in either group kid. I think you'll be useful no matter what you choose."
"Thank you, Gold Roger", Doflamingo said with a smirk. "But I'll decline your invitation this time. There's stuff I got to do."
With that, the blonde walked left through the surveillance room. After him he left behindvery confused men, and they all got more confused when Roger started laughing loudly.
"You do as you like, kid!" Roger shouted after him.
Doflamingo threw a glance at the surveillance and Buggy, nodding his goodbye, but before he could walk out the door, a hand on his shoulder stopped him. The blonde turned around and raised an eyebrow in question to Kuma, who had stopped him.
"Here, take this."
Doflamingo looked down on Kuma's outreached hand, seeing one of the earpieces
"I won't need it", Doflamingo protested.
"Still, take it."
Doflamingo let out an annoyed huff, but did as he was told and then left quickly out the front door.
"Are you ready men?" Roger asked with an encouraging voice, getting a resounding yes from the others.
Mihawk frowned at his place beside the gurney.
"Doflamingo's not going with them?" he asked mostly to himself.
"Doflamingo like to do things his own way", Shanks answered, even though he knew Mihawk hadn't asked him directly. "I'm sure he's going to find Crocodile."
Outside the motel Doflamingo took a quick turn in on a side street. As soon as he had made the turn, he stopped abruptly. Vergo was waiting for him in the shadows.
"Vergo, what are you doing here?" Doflamingo wondered, cursing himself slightly for having been caught. "How did you find me?"
"I'm here because I'm looking out for you Doffy, and I'm trained to find things out. You thought me that." Vergo said, giving him a knowing smile that Doflamingo didn't appreciate at all. "We both know that this is clearly a rescue mission to get that someone you are seeing. Is he really that important, or are your balls just that blue?"
For a second Doflamingo was taken back by the straight-forward answer, but then he burst out laughing.
"No, no it's not because of my balls", the blonde said after calming down. "He's in trouble, and I need to save him, or I'll probably never see him again."
"I thought you had broken up", Vergo said in a questioning voice. "Judging by your mood-"
"We had", Doflamingo interrupted, a more serious tone. "But I can't leave him now Vergo. Even if he never want to see me again, he's still…"
"Special?" Vergo said, a shadow of a knowing smirk in the corner of his mouth.
"Yes, something like that", Doflamingo confirmed. "I'm sorry I lied about it. I get if you and the others won't stay around. With a leader like this-"
"Doffy", Vergo said and raised a hand to stop his friend from talking. "We've always known how you are, and we won't abandon you because of this. We are a family."
A very unusual warm smile spread across Doflamingo's face.
"Yes, I should have known. Thank you, Vergo."
"No problem. Now, let's go save Sir Crocodile, so we can have you back at full force for a change", Vergo said and started to walk the way Doflamingo was planning on going.
"You should probably remove the Pepperoni from you cheek first, Vergo" Doflamingo said with a chuckle before following his friend and teammate.
As soon as Roger and his crew entered the club, they could see the guards tense up immediately. Apparently, Shiki had told them to look out for Roger and his crew. Rayleigh and Roger exchanged knowing glances. Now all Shiki's focus would be on them, and Crocus and the others could search for Rouge in peace.
"Are you just gonna stand there, or is it possible to get this circus moving?!" Roger's voice boomed over the big gambling area.
Rayleigh sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, just underneath the glasses. Let the world know that Gol D. Roger had never had any sense of tact.
"Gold Roger, it's our pleasure to have you here!"
Roger and his crew turned to the voice who had spoken up. If it hadn't been for the seriousness in the situation, Roger would have howled of laughter. Walking towards them was a blue clown, with shoes squeaking from every step he took. But Roger knew this wasn't just any clown. Rayleigh had gone through every important person in Shiki's employment with everyone involved in this mission, and the ingenious Dr. Indigo had been on the top of the list.
"Dr. Indigo", Roger greeted with a nod. "We are not here for pleasantries, so take us to Shiki so we can get this started."
Indigo seemed taken aback at the forwardness of the request, stumbling a little on the spot, making his squeaking shoes sound even more.
"O-of course, Gold Roger. This way please!"
Roger, and his crew of six, followed the blue doctor our from the gambling area, and into the more secluded quarters of the building. Rayleigh noticed less people, but all the more guards, as they continued to walk.
Their group was ready for battles, of course. But it had been very important that they looked like they wanted this to go as peaceful as possible.
"In here, please", Dr. Indigo spoke and showed them two closed oaken doors. "Master Shiki has been told about your visit and is waiting inside."
Roger nodded his thanks to the blue clown before he reached for the handles and pushed both doors open with so much power that they slammed into the walls.
The room was smaller than Roger would have thought, and it was strangely empty. The man of the evening was standing across the room, beside a small table that should have been placed in front of a couch, not alone by a wall.
"You seem to be in an angry mood, Roger", the man with golden hair said and smirked.
"And I assume you already know why, Shiki", Roger said with an angry growl as he stepped fully inside the room together with his crew.
"Ah yes, I've heard. Poor little Rouge, gone somewhere and there is nothing you can do."
Rayleigh threw a worried glance towards Roger, and saw the Mafioso's face darken drastically. Roger was by no means easy to aggravate, but once he was angry, he could be quite hot-blooded.
"Shiki", Roger said with a warning tone.
"Yes yes, alright", Shiki said with a dejected sigh. "I do in fact have something to do with your lovely Rouge's disappearing. But you have to understand Roger, I had no other choice. You've made it quite hard for me in this town, and I need territory here to be like I was before. But enough about me, let's wait until everyone is gathered before we continue this conversation."
Roger frowned in confusion at Shiki's words.
"Who is everyone, Shiki?" Roger asked with a no-nonsense voice.
"Patience, my friend. Just a few more moments and it will all begin", Shiki said with a pleased grin on his face.
One flaw that Doflamingo had noticed right away with Shiki's club, was that the building's roof was easy get access to. The club was in-between two taller buildings, and one of them was an abandoned storage facility so it was easy get on the top of it without them being noticed.
The roof was solid concrete, but their way was through the air drum that led down to the ventilation shaft. Of course, Doflamingo was too big to squeeze through the shaft, but Vergo was perfect, with his lanky frame an not yet grown-into body. The plan was that Vergo would slide down and enter the building through a ventilation opening and get back to the roof and open the door on the roof that was an emergency exit. Normally, an alarm would be triggered of one was to open the door without the alarm going off, but Doflamingo had expert help.
"Buggy, you there?" Doflamingo asked in the earpiece, secretly happy that he had let Kuma convince him to take it.
"Doflamingo?" Buggy asked slightly surprised. "I didn't think you wanted to get involved?"
"I'm getting Crocodile out of here", Doflamingo explained. "But I'll do it my way. I need your help. We are by the emergency door on the roof. An alarm is attached to it, you think you can do something about that?"
His request was followed by silence, but the blonde could hear quick clicking noises from a keyboard, so he knew Buggy was working on the problem.
"The alarm is protected by a firewall, but I should be able to break it and disconnect the system. How long do I have?"
"No pressure, Vergo is waiting for me to knock on the door before he opens it. He isn't there yet, he'll knock too when he gets there."
"Okay, I'll hurry up."
While Doflamingo waited for both Vergo and Buggy, he went through the plan in his head. It was as simple as getting in, finding Crocodile and then get out, hopefully with ease thanks to the riot Roger would no doubt create. The trick was to actually locate Crocodile.
Doflamingo had had an eye on the surveillance ever since he saw it, and not once had he noticed Crocodile on any of the screens. But at least they knew where they shouldn't look, and they could avoid Roger's crew, which was good. He just hoped that the reason for the reptile-man's absence wasn't because he wasn't even in the building.
"Doflamingo", Kuma's voice spoke into the blonde's ear. "I might have something that could help you locate Crocodile."
"Let me hear it", Doflamingo said, interest perking up.
"I got my hand on an old blueprint of the building before Shiki owned it, and according to it there is also a basement, but there is nothing mentioned in Shiki's building contract, or on the new blueprint. If Shiki still uses the space, then there is no cameras down there."
"Of course not", Doflamingo said with a smirk. "How do you explain that you have a freaking dungeon to the health inspectors. Do you see any way down to it?"
"The old entrance were just outside where the kitchen now is. Don't know if it's still in use."
"It's something to go on. Thank you Kuma."
"Just be safe", the older man said, no emotions in his voice, but Doflamingo knew the bear-clad man worried.
"Buggy, you got it?" Doflamingo asked when a knock on the other side of the door was heard.
"One second", Buggy answered. "Yeah, it should be fine now."
"Should be?" Doflamingo asked skeptical.
"Well, yeah. If it doesn't work now I won't be able to fix it."
"How reassuring", Doflamingo said with clamped teeth.
He still took the chance and knocked on the door, so Vergo could open it. If nothing else, they would be an even greater diversion than Roger himself was.
Doflamingo held his breath when the door swung open, but no alarm went off.
"You did good Buggy", Doflamingo said as he stepped inside, door closing behind him. "We're in. See you on the outside."
Without waiting for an answer, Doflamingo disconnected the earpiece. He didn't need any distractions right now.
"Where to?" Vergo asked as they started to move, quick yet carefully.
"The basement", Doflamingo answered. "There should be a door just beside the kitchen on the entrance floor."
Just as Kuma had said, there was a door leading to the basement, and what a basement it was. Massive concrete walls made to long corridors with lonely lamps hanging from the ceiling.
They could hear voices talking quietly to each other further down the corridor, and Doflamingo indicated to Vergo to follow him quietly
They came to a turn in the corridor, and Doflamingo carefully turned around the corner to see. There were two guards by a big and heavy door that looked like it could have been from insidea submarine.
He turned back to Vergo and started to make hand signs, telling him there were two guards and how they could incapacitate them the quickest. Vergo nodded in understanding and they stepped into the other corridor.
"W-who are you?" one of the guards asked in surprise and reached for his gun, but Doflamingo was too quick.
In three long strides, the blonde had closed the distance and slammed the short of his hand right onto the neck of the guard. The poor man quickly lost his ability to breath, and fell to the ground gasping for air.
The other guard had been taken by surprise and before he had the time to react, Vergo jumped out from behind Doflamingo to kicked him straight in his solar plexus. The second guard fell down with a groan. Vergo made a quick work to disarm both guards and then made the guards lose consciousness by pressing two fingers against a pressure point on each of their right shoulder.
Doflamingo raised an eyebrow as Vergo straightened and wiped away imaginary dirt from his jacket.
"What?" Vergo asked.
"Nothing, nothing at all", Doflamingo assured, a smirk spreading on his face. "Let's find someplace to store these dead weights instead."
The blonde man reached for the heavy metal door, and the twisted both the handles on the right side of the door so he could open it. With a metallic squeak, the door opened.
"Bingo", Doflamingo muttered, as he saw rows of bars on each side of the room. "Let's get these two into an empty cell and then look for the reptile man."
A strong shiver went through his body again. They came more frequently know, and Crocodile had a hard time staying awake. He slipped in and out of consciousness, and sometimes he even dreamed.
One time, he thought he was in bed back home, and that Rouge was sitting beside him. She was scolding him for getting sick, and doted on him. She had even made chicken soup.
Then suddenly, it wasn't Rouge that was feeding him anymore, but Doflamingo. Crocodile met with the defect eyes, no glasses covering them and then he had awoken by his own shock in the dream.
Those eyes had looked so hurt, so lost. Crocodile felt sick; if it was because of his fever or guilt, he didn't dare guess.
Somewhere far away, he could hear the door open again with a faint squeak, and footstep approaching. It could just be his imagination, but it was probably only a guard checking the floor. The steps came closer, and suddenly stopped right in front of his cell. Crocodile frowned, but didn't do any effort to open his eyes. It was probably just his imagination anyway. Maybe he had fallen asleep again?
Another squeak, and now the steps were approaching him. This time Crocodile opened his eyes, with much more effort than he had liked. At first, everything was a big blur of pink. Crocodile frowned. Why was everything pink, and why did it look so familiar?
"Hello Croc-chan, fancy meeting you here."
As soon as Roger and the others' had made contact with Shiki's people, Crocus had gotten the green light from Buggy to get inside. There had been two side entrance's, one leading to a kitchen and an entrance strictly for personnel. The kitchen had been a no go, since it was filled with people running around. A group of four people, albeit small, would draw too much attention inside such a clinical area.
So personnel entrance it was.
Buggy had kept watch on the entrance, just to figure out how guarded it was. He had informed them that there was a code that unlocked the door combined with an employee card. There was also the cameras, but since Buggy held control over them right now, they did not have to worry about them.
Right before they had left for the mission, Dragon had provided Crocus with a fake employment card and the code to use. It was amazing how easy missions could be when having such an expert help as Dragon and some of his rebels.
But the problem hadn't been getting entrance into the personnel locker room, it had been to get to the rest of the building from there, because the door between the locker room and the rest of the building was guarded at all times by security. The tricky thing had been to find a way around the guards.
It was actually Ivankov who had come up with an idea. Apparently it was a really thin wall between the lockers on the east side and the corridor on the other side. With the right tools, it would only take up to two minutes to cut a hole inside one of the locker's and into the wall in-between.
"Everybody through?" Crocus asked as Scopper Gaban squeezed through the hole.
"Yeah, I was the last one", Gaban said as he lifted the removed part of the wall back on its place.
While Gaban fixed the edges of the removed wall so the scuffs wouldn't be as visible, Crocus turned to the other two in the group. Mr. 1 was the obvious stronger of the two, but both had been very quiet and stealthy, which made Crocus believe that this wasn't their first infiltration work.
"Okay Buggy, we're inside. Where to go now?"
A little crackle could be heard before Buggy answered.
"You need to get up another floor, to the entrance level. Rouge is placed on a couch in a smaller room. No guards inside, but on the outside. Be careful though, it's quite close to the room where Shiki and Roger are."
"Okay, roger that", Crocus answered. "Tell us the way as we walk, and warn us about security guards. Roger wanted as little interaction as possible."
The way there went smoother than he had expected. No security seemed to be around this area. But he guessed since guests weren't supposed to be back here, security had little to do here. Shiki must think that the cameras were enough.
"Turn left in this corridor and then it's another to your right fifteen feet away. Rouge's guards are standing by the third door on the left wall, so don't walk into the second corridor."
"No need to worry", Crocus said with a smirk.
He would get to use his doctors knowledge. He motioned for the others to stay behind him when they had arrived at the spot Buggy mentioned. With a small mirror he had kept in the back of his pants, Crocus carefully looked out in the second corridor. Just as Buggy had said, two guards was standing on each side of the third door on the left wall.
Crocus fished up a small bamboo-pipe from his bag and from his belt he removed two small darts. He dipped both darts into a liquid he also had in his small bag. He then placed a dart into the bamboo-pipe and quick as a viper he leaned forward into the corridor and fired off one of the darts. Even before the first dart hit one of the guard's neck, Crocus had the second dart loaded and moved it towards his mouth. The second guard only had time to reach for his gun hanging on his hip, before he too fell unconscious to the floor, just like his partner.
"Nice shot, Crocus", Gaban praised and patted the doctor on the shoulder as they walked into the now unguarded corridor.
"Thank you. The door is locked, obviously", Crocus answered as he tried to turn the doorknob.
"Let's check the guards", Mr. 1 said and leaned down to search on of the guards.
Mr. 2 did the same with the second guard, and found a key not soon after inside the guards chest pocket.
He gave the key to Crocus, who nodded his thanks before turning towards the door again.
"We have the key Buggy, we're going inside." Crocus said and turned the now unlocked doorknob.
"Crocus, wait! It's a trap!", the man could hear Buggy shout, but too late.
A soon as the doctor and his group stepped inside the next room, every weapon possible were pointed at them. In the middle of the room where the couch that Buggy had described, Rouge sitting on it. An on the other end of the room Crocus eyes met with a surprised Roger. It seemed as Shiki had been expecting them all this time.
"You looked surprised, Roger", Shiki said, and everyone could notice his smugness in his smile. "Didn't think I would have your beautiful fiancée anywhere near you when I realized you had arrived, right? Well, I guess you're right, usually she would be on her way away from here by now, but young Marshall D. Teach told me about a strategy that you most likely would use against me, splitting up in two. Right now I must say I'm very pleased with his help."
Crocus eyes narrowed in frustration. He trusted Roger, and he knew they still had Buggy and the others to help them, but how were they gonna get out if this alive?
"Gentlemen, if you please", Shiki said with a sickening smile and gestured with his arm that Crocus group should go and stand alongside Roger's.
The guns and swords pointing towards them gave them no room for argument.
Thank you everyone for still staying with this story, even thought I'm probably the slowest person updating on earth... Sorry! Until next time!
Love Milow