"Captain, I apprehended a bunch of people who were dressed as marines near the port", Lex reported through the Den Den Mushi.

"Likewise, I found another group near the eateries," Karl responded as she secured the men she had knocked out with handcuffs and ropes.

"Were there that many when we were here before?" Not that she remembered. Shrugging it off, she assumed that they simply recruited more after they left.

"…Hey! What are you doing?!" One of the men had woken up to realise that he was now cuffed and immobilised.

"Arresting you lot for impersonating marines. Now tell me what is your objective?" she demanded after cutting off the call with Lex.

"I have no idea what you're talking about! We're actually marines!" He cried and tried to break free from the ropes.

"Who do you work for." Ignoring his defence she continued to interrogate. People often told her that she had a selective hearing during interrogations – she would admit that it wasn't her forte. The process of milking information out of handicapped men appeared awfully dull and dishonourable to her.

This lasted for almost an hour before she decided to take a break. Her captives were almost bored out of their minds by her mind-numbing form of interrogation. Questions asked repetitively in a monotoned voice. Should she incorporate some violence and intimidation and take it to the next level? But whenever she did that her interrogatees would always end up dead before she could ask her first question. Lex often mentioned that she could not control her strength, that interrogations were meant to be drawn out as painfully and as long as possible. She never understood the technicalities surrounding the art of interrogation.

"What is going on here?" A gruff voice demanded while she pondered over the methods of interrogation.

"Who the hell are you." The muscular man spat out while biting down on two cigars, storming towards her. Was he their ringleader? Eyeing the marine cloak on his back, Karl met his glare and voiced out her thoughts.

"You do know that impersonating marine officials is considered a first-degree crime?"

"I could say the same thing. On top of that, you are unlawfully detaining marine officials." He pointed towards the men she was interrogating previously.

"Hm? I was under the assumption that they were fakes. There was a precedent case here after all." A short interval of examining the man before her gave her a good idea of his identity. It wasn't every day that a white-haired man who wielded a Jitte happened to have 2 cigars in his mouth. Just like the rumours, the white hunter was not a man to be taken lightly.

"You're Captain Smoker." She asked, phrasing it as more of a statement than a question.

"I am." He answered as they sized up each other.

"I'm not going to let you off for capturing my men." He stated after a long silence, his gaze cold and piercing.

"How do you want to settle it then?" She raised her defences and asked coolly while fingering the hilt of her blade. She had acquired the katana from the weaponry room back in the base. It was a little unpolished for her liking, but it'll do for now.

"Take off your mask. And give yourself up. State your purpose and why you're impersonating a marine." He demanded and jabbed his Jitte towards her and then to his men. Oh, there seemed to be a misunderstanding. Oh boy, this was going to take a while.

"I might scare your men if I took off my mask. So I refuse your first request." Karl kept her voice level while underneath the mask her eyes twitched. She would rather die than look disgraced in front of another Marine Captain due to her idiocy.

"As for your other requests. It's a bit difficult to explain." Smoker's eyes narrowed at her words. He looked like he was ready to strike her down. In defence, she tightened her grip on her katana, ready to draw it if the negotiation turned sour.

"As you can tell… I was under the impression that your men were the ones who were impersonating marines. I was not informed that your crew would be landing in Nanohana today." Karl explained while closely watching Smoker for any hostile movements. It won't look good if she got into a fight with a fellow Marine Captain just a few days after she reported to duty at Alabasta.

"You see interrogations aren't exactly one of my strengths so I didn't realise that they were indeed genuine marines." She went on, but Smoker looked like he wasn't buying her story – when it was indeed the truth. The men who were now untied by other members of Smoker's crew gawked at her explanation. They didn't look like they bought her explanation either. To her defence, she just wasn't the best at differentiating between truths and lies in her interrogatees' confessions. That was Lex's job.

"Anyhow. It was all a misunderstanding." She summed up and awaited Smoker's response.

"You expect me to buy that bullshit." He deadpanned and smoke formed around his figure. Not good. The White Hunter has the power of a logia fruit in his hands whereas she only had the makeshift katana around her hips and no breakthrough in her skills. Her shoulders deflated as she resigned herself for a long, drawn-out one-sided battle.

Blocking yet another blow from Smoker, Karl jumped backwards and drafted up counter strategies in her head. His right arm and upper body had transformed into smoke making it extra hard for her to disarm him. Using his left arm, he was launching attacks with his Jitte. Logia types – physical attacks wouldn't work against them. However… Her eyes caught sight of the Jitte in Smoker's hands. He was being extra careful in the way he's handling his weapon. Holding it by the hilt which was wrapped in cloth and away from his body. She waited until his Jitte was about to connect before sidestepping and reappearing on his other side. Again he avoided cutting the Jitte through his own body which had evaporated into smoke, and instead span around to reattack.

Her eyes glinted as she formulated her plan. If her theory proved correct, his Jitte was most likely coated in sea prison stone. A weapon which could be counterproductive for its logia user. A small smirk tugged on her lips and for the first time in this faceoff, she went on the attacking side. Aiming faints at his side and neck, she sliced through his smoke form and waited for a chance.

"It's futile. I'm made of smoke. Someone of your calibre can never hit me." His voice was low and full of confidence.

Now. With three consecutive fast movements, her swings cut through the air and headed straight towards Smoker's left arms, separating his limbs. Her attack seemed to have taken him by surprise as he was one second too slow to regenerate his arms. And in that second, Karl sprinted towards the Jitte which was suspended mid-air after Smoker lost his grip. Snatching it by the hilt, she replaced her katana with her opponent's weapon instead.

It was the first time she used a Jitte, but she would think of it as an unpolished sword and utilise it in the same way. She lunged it at Smoker's torso and was satisfied to see that it managed to make direct contact, proving her theory correct. So it was coated in sea stone after all.

"A good strategy. But that's as far as you go." As soon as the words left his lips he let out bursts of smoke from his body, creating a shield which obscured her vision. Where was he, where was he. Her eyes darted around the smoggy space and braced herself for any incoming attacks.

Barely dodging out of the way as Smoker's fist materialised in one of her blind spots and swung at her from behind, she scouted the area for any places which could serve as cover. Before she could make out any visible places amongst all the smoke, a hand clasped around her wrist. Swinging the Jitte towards the intruder, a familiar leather plaited bracelet fell into her sight.

"Lex?"

Familiar olive skin, ash blonde hair, and silver eyes which always twinkled with mischief appeared in front of her.

"What are you doing?" He questioned her and eyed the Jitte which belonged to a certain smoky captain.

"You see…" She was not good at explaining things. Where should she start?

"You do realise that you were mistaken right? The ones you captured were genuine marines that docked today."

"Yeah."

"Then why are you fighting him right now?" He mused. Was he finding the situation amusing?

"I tried to explain but he wouldn't listen." Lex raised a brow at her defence and she could tell that he wasn't buying it.

"I'll take over. Unlike you, I actually have a way with words. Not everything can be solved with brute strength in this world." He chided and raised his hand asking her to hand him the other captain's weapon which she confiscated. How ironic. She was scolded for being a brute and not being delicate enough with words by a guy. Well not that she minded.

As they headed back, the sight of a marine swordswoman who stood beside the fuming captain stopped the two in their tracks.

"Looks like someone else beat us to it," Lex commented and turned to face his own captain.

"I only realised something was wrong when you told me you also captured a dozen or so marines. The numbers didn't match. So when I ran into her, I realised that maybe one of us captured genuine marines."

"She's a marine through and through. That girl memorised all the marine codes we were forced to recite. She testified that the ones I apprehended were not part of her crew so I assumed that you held the rest of her crew. I've already explained the situation to her so she could fill her captain in instead."

"Captain?" Karl's steel eyes were fixed on the fellow swordswoman. Something about the blue-haired girl disturbed her greatly. She was familiar in a sense, but Karl was certain they had never met before. It felt wrong, the situation felt amiss. The feeling continued to nag her as she was overwhelmed with nausea.

"Captain what's wrong?" Lex's worried voice rang in her ears. Before she could reply, the other female marine spotted them. Ocean blue eyes clashed with coffee black ones as Karl sucked in a deep breath. Small black dots began swimming in her vision and her world erupted into darkness.

She was falling. Down, down, into an abyss of shadows which engulfed her figure. She wanted to run but her body was paralysed. Looking around frantically, she searched for a spark of light, a ray of hope. A fleeting flash of bright brilliance appeared before her. She twitched her arms, desperately trying to grasp that light and escape this void of emptiness. She was too late. It was going to escape her again. No! Her eyes snapped open and she turned to face the gleam of light which had filled the room from the door which was left ajar.

"You're finally awake!" A familiar deep voice exclaimed. Lex pushed open the door and upon seeing that she was awake, he stepped in, greeting her.

"What's with you, it's the second time now since we arrived that I had to haul your unconscious ass back here." Sitting up and ignoring the throbbing ache in her head, Karl found herself in the Captain's room back in the marine base at Alabasta.

"How long has passed since I was out." She massaged her temples and asked with a frown.

"Three days. If you were still unconscious by today I was ready to sue the doctors here for fraud," there was a certain candidness in his witty remarks.

"Seriously, is there something wrong with your body?" He asked, looking at her straight in the eyes.

"No." She disclaimed it as soon as the question left his lips. Nothing was wrong with her body she was sure. If anything, something was wrong inside her head. It's been happening more frequently lately. That eerie feeling she couldn't put into words.

"How did you explain the situation to my men." She shrugged it off and got up, walking to her desk to check the amount of work she missed while she was out cold.

"Said you got a heat stroke. They bought it since it's not the first time now isn't it." He walked to her desk and passed her the files sitting on the top pile.

"Just look over these for now. I compiled all the important tasks here." She hummed in response and scanned over the tasks awaiting her.

"The ones who impersonated marines are locked up in the basement. I already interrogated them and it appears they're working with a crime syndicate. Baroque works is what they call it. They also function as a bounty hunting organisation. They said they were billions or something." He passed her another report once she finished with the major paperwork regarding supplies and officer assignments.

"What would an organisation like that want with the marines?" They were working to delay her arrival at the base. But what for?

"Who knows. I did get another piece of intel from one of the weaker-minded members. They apparently operate the most near Rainbase." He had separated the captured individuals in isolated cells and worked on them one by one. After incorporating a mixture of physical, mental and psychological tactics, all of them relented and confessed. There was a reason he was the better interrogator between the two of them.

"Hm. Isn't that where the Shichibukai is supposed to be?" How interesting. Things were already starting to fall together and she's only assumed post a week ago.

"We'll head there once we finish up on this end." She concluded and gone over some of the other reports piled on her desk.

"Also, what happened with Smoker?" Remembering the last encounter she wondered how it ended.

"Well, he got the idea of the situation from his subordinate. He looked like he was about to throw a fuss but there wasn't much he could do since you were unconscious and all." He chuckled and continued,

"I gave him back his Jitte and told him that you were suffering from a heat stroke and I'd bring you back."

"Well it could've been worse," she offered and returned to doing the paperwork.

"Yeah, at least he didn't felt the need to sabotage a senseless body." He added enthusiastically. Taking in a deep breath, she demanded,

"If you have nothing better to do, go and grab me another katana. I'm pretty sure you didn't bother retrieving the one I left behind during my confrontation with Smoker." She deadpanned and pointed towards the door, signalling for him to leave her in peace. She didn't need to be reminded that if the fight continued the chances of her beating Smoker were thin even if she got hold of a sea prison stone coated weapon. She still had a long way to go…