Here I am with another update! I know the gap between chapters is getting bigger, so I'm trying to make every one count by making them longer.

I'm plugging my Tumblr again, because why not. My url is tackyink and I post more fic-related content there between updates. So far there are a few drabbles and drawings, and the askbox is always open for everybody.

Muffinfudger: I don't know if you saw it, but your review caused a bit of a stir on Tumblr! You made four writers happy with a single review; that has to be a record! Also ohmygod what are you comparing this story to, the ones you mentioned are amazing.

Guest-22: Short anecdote to go along with yours, because that's apparently all that durians are good for. I used to be in a fandom where we had a durian in-joke because one of the girls despised them, so there was talk of durians every day. I've wanted to try one since then because I want to taste/smell the horror myself, and I haven't found any in shops around here. But I got durians as the native fruit of my island in Animal Crossing and planted them around the camping site. Poor visitors…

Kotone: The day I woke up only to find all your reviews I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't Christmas again. Thank you so much for all your comments!

Also, thanks to Guest, Jag and Cupcakes, and to everybody who followed or favorited! You're the best!

8. Running an errand
(Even through cloudy days you are not alone)

The awkward let's-pretend-we-haven't-made-highly-uncomfortable-remarks-about-each-other silence that hung between Law and Saki was mercifully broken by Shachi and Penguin not long after Angie's intervention. They were wearing their shiny new boiler suits, and the girl's eyes filled with hope.

"Our clothes dried overnight?"

"Nope," Penguin said, shoving a piece of toast in his mouth that barley fit. "Just the suits."

"You're kidding me." There was no way that something so thick would dry faster than her pants.

"The outside is waterproof," Shachi said with unconcealed smugness. Sweet, sweet payback.

She didn't deign to reply and instead walked up to the counter to grab the newspaper and immerse herself in the new wanted posters.

"Sore loser," Shachi said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Law thought it was better not to ask what that was about and waited for everybody to be done with breakfast before he gave instructions. Ideally, they would have stocked up in Lymes and made for Reverse Mountain, but circumstances required a different course of action. Law would contact Bepo to be ready to pick them up, quietly wait for his crewmates at the inn, and they would return together to the sub as soon as the strike team got the Log Pose, no time for dallying. It shouldn't have been hard, and so, as everything that shouldn't pose any sort of complication does, it managed to grow into a considerable mess with unexpected consequences for the future.

—

The Den Den Mushi on top of the table rang, and despite almost falling from his chair when he woke up with a start, Bepo picked up the Den Den Mushi with the swiftness of a veteran secretary, and his voice didn't betray he had been asleep seconds prior.

"Captain!"

"Bepo, I need you to get ready. We'll be at the port in two hours at most."

"Roger! Have you run into any trouble?"

"So far we've avoided the Marines, but the less time we stay in the city, the better. We'll need to stop somewhere else for supplies."

"No problem! I'll be waiting for you."

"See you later."

Law hung up. With a monumental yawn, Bepo stretched and got to work.

—

The sun timidly shone from the corner of a fat, grey cloud. Despite the appearance of the sky and the unholy deluge of water the day before, the morning was reasonably warm and humid. It was a blessing in disguise, since both mechanics had to wear the top of the boiler suits down to avoid having four Jolly Rogers smiling at every passerby.

"This weather is crazy," Shachi commented, raising his arms to let the breeze pass through the short sleeves.

Saki batted an arm away from her. "Don't put your armpit on my face!"

"Not my fault you're a half pint," Shachi grinned and shoved his arm closer to her.

"I'll shove this pint up—" Shachi grinned and shoved his underarm closer to her. "AAAHH, PENGUIN, HELP!"

Said man got between them and replied to Shachi's earlier comment as if nothing was happening.

"Bepo said the magnetic field of Reverse Mountain does that to the weather."

"Oh, yeah. How far are we from it?"

Penguin stared at his friend with incredulity.

"Look, my ears were still ringing when he was explaining—"

"Only half a day's sail."

"Damn, that's close."

"Aren't you a genius."

"Who's talking now? I can't see from up here…"

Saki's arm shot up to snatch Shachi's sunglasses, but Penguin caught it in the middle of the trajectory. He ended up having to forcibly separate them, because Shachi had retaliated by tugging on Saki's hair while Penguin was busy stopping her.

"Be quiet, kids, we have a job to do."

It was a sight, watching a man in a cap that spelled 'PENGUIN' drag two redheads in the middle of a catfight to the town's shopping district, but all in all not terribly odd as far as the locals were concerned.

Again, subtlety was not the crew's forte, and thank Roger they had left home the polar bear.

They made their way through the island's citizens with Penguin pulling his companions by their ears, and the same deserted avenue their collective butts had become well acquainted with the night before was now dry and bustling with people. The city had a remarkable drainage system, Penguin thought.

He let go of his crewmates when they stopped trying to whack each other with the sheathes of their respective swords. That same moment, Shachi spotted a shop that sold nautical instruments, which incidentally was the last one they had been thrown out of, while Saki was distracted by the urban scenery. She was looking at the birch trees and white benches that lined the street with almost childlike awe. It was a pretty place, sure, but nothing to write home about. Penguin had seen better when he travelled for work.

There was something stuck on the window shop, which happened to be wanted posters on closer inspection.

"Hey," Shachi lowered his sunglasses a bit to peer from above. "Captain's bounty has gone up."

Saki turned around at once. "Huh? His poster wasn't in today's newspaper."

"They've been pretty quick with this one. It's been a day since the sunken ships – maybe they made emergency ones just for this area?"

"They do that?"

"Only if they really want to catch someone fast," Penguin said. "Remember the time it happened back home?"

Shachi shivered. "How the hell could I forget, that guy was disgusting."

"What did he do?"

"It was what he didn't do, by the smell of it." Shachi explained. "Heard Mrs. Hortense fainted on top of a petunia bush and her grandkids puked on the sidewalk half an hour after the guy had gone through their street. What was his name…"

"Stinky Feet Bob or something like that." Penguin grimaced. "Ugh, just remembering it makes me want to throw up."

"…Rotten Feet Joe?"

Two heads turned to look at Saki.

"Yeah, that's—!" Penguin stopped mid-sentence and frowned. "No, seriously, how the fuck do you know these things?"

"…I'll tell you one of these days over drinks."

"Deal."

Shachi ignored his fistbumping companions and looked inside the shop through the space between the posters. "Guy behind the counter is the same as yesterday. He's gonna recognize us."

"Yeah, I don't think he'll sell to us if he knows who we're with." Saki glanced discreetly at the man inside the shop. "We need a plan."

"If only we had a disguise…"

There are moments in life where two people will share a thought without needing to express it at all. Those who've had longtime friends will understand that synchronicity that sometimes happens, like a spark, between people who've known each other for several years, maybe due to one rubbing off on the other, maybe because of divine inspiration. As Shachi let the last word trail off, realization dawned upon him and Penguin, and with timing that only two dudes who had been sharing a roof for 20 years could have, they stared at as Saki as if they had suddenly realized something miraculous.

Sensing the sudden change in the atmosphere, she took a step back from them. "What, what is it you're thinking now?" She asked nervously.

"You're a woman," Shachi said, as if no more explanations were needed.

She was so weirded out that she bit back a sarcastic, 'you're on a roll today.' She turned to Penguin for help, but he was looking at her in the same way as his friend.

"And you are wearing a dress. You weren't wearing a dress last night," Penguin stressed.

"Uh…"

"If I didn't know you and I'd seen you in that state then and now, I don't think I would recognize you."

"And even if you did…"

"You're a woman."

"Yeah."

At this point, Saki was unconsciously holding her sword to her chest, as if it could work as a barrier against idiots. "…So?"

"Go use your womanly wiles on him, come on, go!"

"Did you hit your head while you slept!?"

"He's right. You need to take one for the team."

"Oh for the love of—" Of all the times Penguin had to back up one of Shachi's ideas, why now?

Shachi did his best to sound encouraging, and it wasn't difficult because he believed in his plan. "Go, Saki! You've got a power dudes can only dream of!"

"He means a pair of tits."

She looked at them for a long moment and, unable to find a flaw in their strangely sound logic other than 'this won't work', she thrust her sword towards Shachi. "Hold this for me." And she stomped off to the entrance of the store muttering something so obscene that a passing woman almost dropped her baby in horror.

—

Bepo had once told his captain that perhaps he should be more careful with his coffee intake. The notion was forgotten as soon as said man also suggested that he, too, was having health concerns about the two of them, and from then on they should go only to vegetarian restaurants. Bepo was a bear, but not dumb, and he was quick to catch the drift and decide that a decaffeinated Law was not worth all the seal meat in the world.

Trafalgar Law did not have a problem with coffee. In fact, coffee was so unproblematic for him that he was on the fourth cup of the morning when the inn's door opened and he caught sight of Ron from the corner of his eye. The man walked towards the bar, and Law angled closer to Kikoku as the newcomer approached him from behind.

His shoulder was subsequently patted in a friendly gesture that reverberated through the entire room.

"Your friends left you alone?" The man asked, and he took the barstool next to Law.

The pirate hesitated for moment, but he thought he might as well take advantage of the interruption to gather information.

"They'll be back soon," he said. He didn't know if they would, but he sure hoped so, and telling a stranger that he might be without his crew for an extended period of time wouldn't do any good.

Ron laughed. "'Course they will! What crew would leave their captain ashore? And heading to the Grand Line, no less."

Alerted by the new voice, Angie's head poked from behind the kitchen curtain. "Morning, Ron. The usual?"

"You know it."

The usual happened to be a whiskey on the rocks at nine in the morning. As Angie poured the drink, Law caught a whiff of fruit again. It was coming from the woman.

The woman looked over her shoulder very fast, leaned over the bar towards Law and said in a hushed voice, "May I ask a favor of you, dear?"

That was a new one for Law. Most people didn't think he had the good Samaritan aura about him, but he couldn't deny he was curious, so he leaned closer to the woman and waited for her to to continue.

Angie rummaged in the pockets of her apron until she pulled out a slightly crumpled letter. "Mack—that is, my son— went to the Grand Line a few years ago with a pirate crew, but they didn't make it far. He's been stuck there all this time, and he writes sometimes, but—"

"You're doing this behind Flo's back, ain't you?" Ron asked, approaching the other two with a furtive expression. They looked far more suspicious than if they had been talking normally, and Law thought this was an excellent moment for Florence to pop out from the kitchen.

"Men! Always telling me not to worry, but I'm his mother, I can't just sit still while he's in such a dangerous place!"

"How's a letter going to—"

"Please," Angie shoved the letter on Law's hand as she wrapped her own around it, "Please, give this to my Mack if you see him."

Contrary to popular opinion, Law did have a functioning heart, but it was without a doubt the muscle in his body that got the least exercise of all, and today was not training day. "Mrs. Angie, I don't know which island your son is at, not to mention that it may not even be on our route."

But there was no one in the world able to shoot down a mother's conviction when it came to the safety of her children, and she was not letting go of Law until she got an answer she deemed appropriate. "He said he's on the second island they got to when they entered the Grand Line. He's a cook at the local tavern. If you don't stop on his island, it's fine, but take the letter just in case." Her voice was pleading, but her eyes were burning.

Law had little doubt that the woman's fingers would lose all circulation if he delayed his reply much longer. As long as they didn't need to go out of their way, just this once, he didn't mind playing postman for someone who had helped his crew hide from the Marines. "I make no promises."

"This is how you tell a trustworthy guy from a liar, Angie." Ron said, nodding; then he belched and filled the air with the smell of alcohol. "Another man would nod and agree just to shut you up."

Apparently satisfied, Angie released Law and left to put the whiskey bottle in its place. There were white little finger marks all over Law's 'DETH' tattoos. Was he ever going to fix those, he wondered, or were they worth keeping just to see how all feelings of hope and joy drained from Saki's eyes every time she laid them on his hands? A man of the sea had to take his pleasures where he could.

He pocketed the letter as the inn's door opened again.

—

Bepo couldn't dock.

He had been spying through the periscope, not without difficulty because the water around the island was just shallow enough to allow for immersion and run the sub aground if he wasn't careful, and he had seen a Marine squad stationed along the docks.

Bepo was certain that he could take on them. He also thought that Law wouldn't like it if he did it without consulting first.

He called, and the Den Den Mushi rang, but no one answered on the other side. That usually meant trouble or bathroom break. He waited five minutes and called again.

Definitely trouble.

He drove the sub away from the port and began to circle the island while mulling over his options. Just then, he saw an artificial opening underwater. It was akin to an enormous pipe, probably some sort of waste disposal system, and no wonder it was below water level, because it was big enough for a ship to fit in there.

He tried the Den Den Mushi one last time, and once more, there was no reply.

The pipe seemed worth a shot. He drove the sub in, determined to find his crewmates.

—

The shopkeeper listened intently to the girl's story, how the poor thing had been kidnapped by pirates, brought to the Grand Line and sold to a human trafficking ring, and after a terrible shipwreck involving ten sea kings while trying to cross the Calm Belt, she had been washed up on the shore of a North Blue island, miraculously alive and with the only objective of going back home.

"—since those horrible, horrible pirates took me away from my family and I need to go back to the South Blue, please, sir—"

The shopkeeper was a good man, but he had slept through a lot of geography lessons. At no point of the sob story he realized that to go from South Blue to North Blue one needed to either cross the Red Line and two Calm Belts or, alternatively, go through all of Paradise and leave through the Calm Belt after reaching the New World.

To be fair, he couldn't be completely blamed. Everybody knew the Grand Line was made of baloney, so you simply didn't question someone who had been there. He could have been told there was a sea in the sky and he would have believed it.

"—they are the only ones who have agreed to take me there, and the things they make me do—"

Like cooking for the few of them, doing the laundry and mopping the floor, but the shopkeeper didn't know that, and what was more important, he didn't want to know.

"—but I'll do whatever it takes to get me back home! Please, sir, if you'd be so kind—"

"Anything to help you, girlie—here, this is our best model!"

Saki sobbed harder as she profusely thanked the man and promised to name her firstborn in his honor.

—

That month had not been a good one for the Marines stationed on the North Blue. Truth be told, months were never good for North Blue Marines, but most counted themselves lucky not to have been assigned to the Grand Line, because they'd heard the stories from transferred colleagues and oh, man, those guys had bad weeks packed in single days.

Those were more or less the thoughts of the two men that opened the door to Angie's and Florence's that morning during the short, most definitely unofficial break from duty they were taking, unaware that they were about to have their very own Grand Line Marine Quality Day.

Howe and Philip had met at naval school at the tender age of fifteen, when they were still fresh recruits.

Howe was the third son of a wealthy family, and he was shipped to the Marines as soon as his mandatory schooling was completed, because there was nothing for him to inherit when his parents kicked the bucket and the family didn't want to see him destitute or –horror of horrors!—knocking on their doors every week to ask for financial support that he was surely going to squander playing cards with pirates at a seedy tavern downtown.

Philip was the first son of a farmer called Philocrates, who still remembered how mean the kids of the village had been about his name and decided that, despite wanting to keep the family's naming tradition, he would not repeat his own father's (good old Philandros, whose grapes gave the best wine in the region) mistakes on his son. Philip had walked out the door one day telling his parents that he was going to become a Marine and rise through the ranks so he could support them and his little sister when harvests were bad. Philocrates gave him a teary goodbye while Phile (actually first cousin of Philocrates, but nobody had minded their marriage because they were utterly charming people and everyone was everybody's cousin at the village, anyway) gave him a pat on the shoulder and shoved a basketful of food at her son in case the school didn't feed him well.

On the second day of training Philip jumped down from his bunk bed and landed on Howe's head, which resulted in two broken teeth and a bloody nose. Conversation flowed between them while they were at the infirmary, a feat if one took into account the plugged nose and newly acquired dental orifices. They became best friends when Howe's unintentional hissing made Philip inhale his cotton plugs in a bout of laughter.

All in all, they were good people, and believed in the good cause of ridding the world of pirates to make it a safer place. Captain Marina believed in erasing pirates off the face of the planet, too, and though she was quite scary when she was angry and the slightest bit terrifying in battle, they shared her sentiment and found her a woman worth following. Also, the entire base knew she was a geek who spent her free time building little machines with children's construction toys and carving wood figurines, and they found that adorable.

So, though they may have been slacking a little, they absolutely did not deserve to find the Surgeon of Death sitting on a barstool, turning his head in their direction and flashing them a bloodcurdling smile that promised pain, humiliation, and, if they were especially unlucky, subject testing.

—

Law tried to feel annoyed at the inconvenience of having two Marines barge into his mostly uneventful morning while he tried to finish his fourth coffee. After the first interruption, it had become bitter and cold like his soul.

On the other hand, a voice in his head that couldn't be his conscience, because he liked to believe he didn't have one, told him that had he really, truly wanted to be inconspicuous, he would have hid in his room until the others returned. He justified himself thinking that he wasn't feeling like paying extra to keep the room longer, but if he was completely honest with himself, he almost welcomed the action. Law wasn't the kind of guy who sat pretty and waited for his subordinates to do the dirty work. He'd rather sit menacing and grin sadistically at the pair of Marines who had so opportunely stumbled onto him.

The Voice That Was Not His Conscience also said he felt a little sad at the prospect of wrecking Angie's and Florence's place.

"Mr. Ron, I think it would be well-advised to leave." Civilians shouldn't bear the consequences of Marines' bad timing.

"And I think you're quite right!"

With a final pat on Law's back, the man left the inn with an admirable aplomb, smiling cordially at the Marines and wishing them a good day.

—

As Captain's mom quickly retreated to the kitchen, Trafalgar Law, Surgeon of Death, Creeper Extraordinaire, rose from his seat with a predatory flair and grabbed his sword. The young Marines' gazes were set on him, apparently transfixed, but actually watching their lives flash before their eyes so fast that they lost all awareness of their situation.

Law extended his Room.

Years ago, during that chat in the infirmary, they discovered that blue had always been their favorite color.

—

Shachi and Penguin waited on an alley around the corner of the shop, lounging against a wall. The wind was starting to pick up, and they had zipped their boiler suits back up. The smell of rain was in the air, bringing memories from the night before. They didn't need a repeat of that.

"How long has it been already?" Shachi asked, idly drumming his fingers against the swords' scabbards.

"About fifteen minutes." Penguin replied.

"Do you think she's in trouble?"

Penguin peeked around the corner and grimaced when he felt a dull pain on his side. His wounds were doing much better than a few weeks ago, but his ribs liked to remind him every now and then that he wasn't still fully healed.

"Doesn't look like it." He felt Shachi tug on his suit, brusquely, and so hard that he tripped and almost fell backwards. Ouch, his ribs. "Dude, what—!?"

"Look!"

A group of Marines ran right past the alley. Frozen on the spot, they waited, but no more appeared.

Shachi decided to say what both were thinking. "The inn's that way."

"Yeah."

"You think we should go?"

"…Yeah."

The approaching sound of heels made them look back again.

"Success! And with a discount!" Saki announced with a grin, still a ways from them, showing them a small box. No reaction. "Wow, so much enthusiasm."

"We just saw Marines heading on the inn's direction," Penguin explained.

"Well—"

More heels. Swift, rhythmic, trained steps that would have gone right past them without notice, had it not been for fabric printed with freaking daisies and dandelions. Captain Marina stopped a ways from them, this time wearing a red denim jacket instead of the raincoat. She'd have left them alone, too, had it not been for the Jolly Roger that grinned at her from the guy's uniforms.

"Heart Pirates," Marina spat.

Though they hadn't seen her the night before, the mechanics put two and two together soon enough.

"—shit," Shachi aptly completed the sentence.

It happened in a matter of seconds. Marina pulled out a bunch of sharp things, all business and fixated on the two men. She hadn't yet realized that Saki was with them, and as of then, the girl was the only thing that stood between Marina and the guys. Penguin was in no shape to fight, Law was probably about to be swarmed by Marines, and for all the talk that she really liked to be alive, Saki had a surprisingly bad instinct of self-preservation.

"Switch, switch!" Saki yelled as Marina passed her, and threw the Log Pose at Shachi.

"Catch!"

In a move so impressively coordinated that made Saki want to puke –because ugh, why him of all people—, sword and Log Pose drew a beautiful parabola over Marina's head and were swiftly caught by their intended recipients. No later than the box had touched Shachi's fingertips, Penguin tugged at him and both started running into the alley like their pants were on fire.

"WE'LLBRINGHELPTRYNOTTODIE!"

Marina whipped her entire body around to face Saki, who was slowly coming to the realization that choosing career paths didn't appear to be her forte and giving up adventure to set up a radish farm looked like an increasingly good idea.

"You," Marina said, and wow, that was some unique kind of ability to make a pronoun sound like the worst of insults, "You are a pirate!"

If there was something that Marina hated more than pirates, it was liars.

Saki unsheathed her sword and pointed it to Marina in a gesture that was less meant as a threat and more like a desperate attempt to keep a reasonable distance between the two.

"Um… Thanks for the dress?" She said with a tentative smile.

Marina drove forward and tried to plunge into Saki something that her brain registered as WHAT THE BLOODY INK IS THIS MADWOMAN TRYING TO STAB ME WITH A CHISEL!?

Had Saki not stepped back in time, there would have been a hole in her foot instead of the cobblestones. She could have hardly put up a fight against that sort of brute strength, and definitely not in a busy place, so she booked it down the main street, keeping an eye for alleys, sidestepping curious townspeople and cursing her genetic makeup –Mom, dad, why couldn't you make a healthy child with long legs and proper organs— as she heard the woman catching up to her and sharp tools cutting the air dangerously close to her head.

As if things weren't bad enough, thunder rumbled in the distance and a raindrop fell on Saki's forehead and slid into her eye. I hate my life, dodge passerby, oh well it's waterproof—ooh an alley!

(She remembers running for her life the first time; it was raining, too, but it had been night back then, and she'd been many years younger and a hundred times more scared than now, because she was alone and it was kill or be killed—)

It was hard to breathe while she ran at that pace, something she hoped was more indicative of the weeks she had stayed indoors than her cardiac function. Praying that she wouldn't find a dead end, she turned the corner left as fast as she could. Saki had to admit she was fond of alleys. She had spent the better part of her youth sneaking through them, and they were both useful to get rid of pursuers and to trap people. Unfortunately for her, it was usually locals who took advantage of them, and as her magnificent book collection at home never included a travel guide to the back alleys of North Blue, no matter how much she blindly twisted around corners Marina was always behind her. The water droplets became full-blown rain during the chase.

She cursed her luck when she saw the back street had no exit, and even if she jumped on one of the old crates there she wouldn't have been able to reach the top of the wall and climb up—

(—and a dead end forced her to turn around and face a man she could barely see, and it was crystal clear that he hadn't expected her to put up a fight when she drove the sword into his chest. The sound made her sick; she couldn't tell apart the blood from the rain from her own tears, but there was warmth flowing down her hands, and how could someone who had tried to kill her be warm inside—)

"Up here!" A voice called, and Saki looked up to see an arm reaching out to her from the top of the wall.

She threw her sword over the wall, and the crate creaked and broke under her feet as she jumped on it, but it was enough to get the needed momentum to grab onto the extended hand, grasp the top of the wall with her other hand and climb it.

(—the body collapsed on top of her when she pulled out the sword, and she pushed it aside as if the mere contact burned her skin and ran, ran as far as her legs allowed her, and she fell to the ground three blocks away from home and tried to hold back the nausea, alone and terrified—)

Grazing one of her legs against the edge of the wall, she landed in a terrace about three meters above street level, and she heard her pursuer curse and turn back in a hurry.

"Shachi," she said between heavy breaths just to be certain that he was there, as if saying his name would somehow make him more real and not a hallucination she was having because Marina had managed to embed a chisel in her skull.

"Yo!" He was out of breath, too, and his sunglasses were hanging dangerously low on his nose. "Let's be honest, Captain is the last of us who needs reinforcements."

It was then when Saki realized something that maybe should have been obvious for some time now, but hadn't quite registered until she saw Shachi sitting in front of her and grinning with obvious satisfaction.

I'm not alone.

And in such an uncharacteristically intimate gesture that she surprised herself, she straightened Shachi's lopsided sunglasses and laughed.

—

Bepo concluded that he had gotten into a sewer of titanic proportions. From where he stood, holding an oil lamp high, the path branched in several directions, and they merged in the big one he had driven the sub into. Smaller canalizations funneled muddy water into the river-like structure. It didn't smell as bad as he would have thought, but maybe it had to do something with the massive downpour the day before. The stone at both sides of the water stream was covered in a viscous mixture of dirt and garbage, but he could walk on it without difficulty.

These sorts of structures needed maintenance, so it stood to reason that there would be accesses to the town above. He just needed to find one and hope that it would be close enough to his crewmates to be of help.

Yeah, Bepo could see the small flaw in the plan.

He stood still near a pipe that was getting his boots in a deplorable state, eyes closed in concentration, trying to pick up any sounds from above that might lead him to an interesting place. Five minutes wandering around and some ruined leather later, he heard stomping above him.

Putting a paw on the slimy wall to his left, he followed the sounds and tried not to get lost.

It took him a few minutes jogging until Bepo heard something familiar: the unmistakable screams that his captain provoked when he was in action.

He found the nearest ladder and climbed up to a manhole that he opened quite easily. Being made of a thousand pounds of muscle had a lot of perks.

—

Shachi had been right. Penguin didn't think Law needed any help. Which was perfect, because he wasn't in any hurry to get his injuries back and didn't want to risk the Log Pose getting smashed in a brawl. They had done well sending Saki to the shop. If years of experience with tavern girls had taught him something, it was that women always found a way, whether it was to get a drink or to talk a guy out of his pants and money only to wake up the morning after, still without pants or a miserable belly in his shirt pockets.

Not that anything of the sort had ever happened to him. He'd just heard stories in the warehouse.

The important thing was that Law was safe and sound in front of the inn, had at some point swapped the durians for his dry hoodie, and he was getting the last pieces of Marine chopped down. The street was otherwise empty, except for the middle aged patron who had given the most shit to Captain Marina the day before, according to Saki, and he looked positively impressed.

Penguin waved at Law from his hiding place, hoping to catch his attention to no avail.

His conundrum was promptly solved when the ground beneath his feet rose.

"What the—!?"

—

A sudden movement-slash-high pitched yelp at Law's right caught his attention. He saw Bepo poking out of a sewer, raising a manhole cover with one hand, and Penguin pulling a balancing act on top of it.

…Are they having fun?

Seeing as the street was basically empty, he sheathed Kikoku and, with a nod to Ron, calmly walked up to his crewmates.

Bepo was having a hard time getting out of the hole with just one paw. "Captain, can you hold him for me for a second?"

Law had been opening his mouth to ask why he had left the sub and why he was doing acrobatics with Penguin, but he had to close it to keep himself from laughing in his face.

Penguin had another idea. "Go back inside and let me get down, you idiot!"

"So-sorry…"

With Penguin back on solid ground and Bepo outside of the hole, it was time to decide what to do. They couldn't dally much as long the dismembered Marines kept screaming.

"We should move." Law saw the box in Penguin's hands and looked around. "Where are the others?"

"Uh, yes, about that… We ran into some trouble."

The sound of hurried footsteps put Law on alert again.

"Bepo, how are the sewers?"

"All clear."

"Perfect, we can catch up there."

—

"Do you realize how incredibly stupid heading back to the inn is? She'll be there!" Saki complained, but she made no effort to run in another direction.

"And where else do you want to meet up with the others?"

"I don't know, I'm just saying that this is dumb!"

"As long as Captain's there we'll be fine!"

After jumping on several rooftops, slipping on a few broken roof tiles and maybe knocking down a clothes line or two during their descent ('I SWEAR I DIDN'T LOOK UNDER YOUR SKIRT'), Shachi and Saki managed to get to the inn. Captain was not there, though a bunch of chopped up Marines hinted that he had.

"Good morning, youngsters," Ron said. He was standing under a balcony, waiting for the rain to slow down. "Your friends went through the manhole on the other side just now."

"Thanks, mister."

"No, thank you for showing up. We like having Mari around."

The pirates, on the other hand, weren't particularly eager to cross paths with her again.

Shachi looked at both sides of the street. "Do you think we can cross the street without being seen?"

"There doesn't seem to be anyone around, so if we're fast…"

"We sprint to the alley on the count of three."

"Who died and made you boss?"

"Do you always have to be so—"

"THERE YOU ARE!"

The Marine captain had appeared, as expected, and there was no point in running towards the other alley if she would see them going into the sewers.

Still, there was something they could do. Wondering at which point exactly her life had taken this bizarre turn, Saki unsheathed her sword and used Ron as a shield, putting the blade against his neck.

"I'm so sorry mister I just want to get her off my back," she mumbled so fast only Ron could understand.

The man seemed to take the situation spectacularly well. He also reeked of whiskey when he spoke. It probably had something to do it. "Oh don't worry, it's not every day one gets taken hostage by a young lady—Hey, Mari-chan! Doing your best, I see!" He wave at the other woman.

Marina stopped in her tracks at a healthy distance from the pirates. "Ron, don't move! I'll take care of them!"

Shachi seemed as alarmed by the turn of events as Marina. "What do you think you're doing!? Have you gone crazy!?" He said, trying to keep his voice down.

"Take this chance and run!" She hissed back.

"I'm the one who came to save your ass, not the other way around!"

"Who the hell cares!?"

"I do!"

"Don't you understand we need a bait to—"

"Well, bait gets eaten! Is that what you want!?"

"Let him go, you, you—clover—something—pirate!" Marina pointed a chisel menacingly in their direction.

"Fuck, Shachi, stop being a bleeding heart and leave!"

"You stop trying to go on suicide runs! We're a team!"

And Saki watched with incredulity how Shachi unsheathed his own sword and held it against the hostage as well.

Still, Ron seemed unfazed by all this. "Mari-chan, why can't we all be friends? You're so young, she's so young too—tell me, cutie, how old are you?"

"…I-I just turned twenty-three."

"See, Mari-chan? She's almost your age! Let her leave, go home and have a quiet dinner with your parents—"

"Mom and dad have nothing to do with this!"

"Why not? They're always worrying about you, you know how much they miss Mack and still—"

"Don't mention my brother!"

"Are you still mad about that? I know you miss him too, you were always so close—!"

"I AM HERE TO ARREST THOSE CRIMINALS!" Marina tried her hardest to assert her authority in the last way she had left: yelling louder than everybody else.

"And we have a hostage if I may remind you!" Saki said, who was feeling somewhat left out of the situation.

"You'll be punished for harming civilians!"

"They're not harming me, it's actually pretty comfortable."

"We'll let him go if you let us go!" Shachi shouted.

"Not a chance in hell!"

"Mari-chan, it's raining—!"

"Shut u—AAAAAAAAAHH!"

The pirates saw in slow motion how two furry balls, grey tabby and calico, respectively, flew from a balcony and latched onto Marina's curls with panicked meows. Saki felt a brief pang of sympathy.

"Raining cats, I was about to say," Ron finished. "Mister Pirate, Miss Clover, the inn's right around the corner."

They partly ran, partly slid on the wet ground to the alley where their friends had gone, foregoing the ladder and simply jumping down the hole before Marina could notice what had happened.

"Shit, we need to close that thing!"

"No time for that, keep running!"

"Are you nuts, we don't have a light and we don't know where—"

"Guys," a voice cut their bickering short and they turned to see Penguin waving at them, "we're right here."

"…That's one less problem."

Bepo told them how he had docked the sub inside of the sewer while Shachi climbed the ladder to close the manhole, grumbling all the way.

"I'll show you back to the sub," Bepo said, happy that his rescue plan was working. "It's this way."

They walked for what seemed like hours as the water level went up and down, at one point nearly reaching up to Saki's knees. To say that she was missing the pants she had been wearing the night before would be the understatement of the century.

There was a slight problem with the group's guide. Bepo had had the right idea when he decided to follow the wall at first, but he had stopped paying attention to all the twists of the sewer when he had to skip a few turns to follow the sound of the footsteps.

He still had that animal instinct he could rely on that told him exactly were home was, but they came across a small difficulty when instinct pointed directly into a solid wall. He was sure the sub was that way. He just didn't know how to get around the stone. He, obviously, didn't inform his companions right away of their situation, because Bepo was nothing if not optimistic, and also because he didn't want to look bad in front of his new subordinates.

It took another good half hour for someone to voice everybody's concerns out loud.

"Are we lost?" Law asked cautiously, though he knew there was no way to point that out and not hurt Bepo's feelings in the process.

Bepo went stiff, let a few seconds pass in silence, which he employed on trying to find a good excuse with no success, and suddenly bowed low. "I'M SO SORRY!"