"This is Stratios!" shouted a fishman soldier into his baby transponder snail. "There's a human at Coral Hill! He's killing the soldiers! He just emerged from the-"

"TEMPEST KICK!"

Stratios was cut down by a razor sharp compressed blast of air fired from Setzer's leg. As he lay bleeding to death on the ground, gasping for air, the baby transponder snail talked back.

"Stratios! STRATIOS! Come in!"

As Setzer landed on the dock, he was promptly surrounded by soldiers with guns drawn.

"Put your hands up, human!" one of the soldiers ordered. Setzer did what he was told, and the soldiers drew closer.

"Who are you?!" another soldier shouted.

"Someone who doesn't have time for this," said Setzer. "I'm just looking for a transponder snail right now."

"What's your relationship to Shaska the Greedy?!" shouted yet another soldier. "She's infamously chummy with humans, and now you just killed three of our men!"

"I'm…" Setzer began. "Y'know what? Just start shooting. You'll see just how outclassed you are."

The soldiers were confused, but cocked their guns anyway.

"IRON BODY!"

The soldiers started shooting, but their bullets ricocheted off Setzer's body as he stood there, hands in his pockets.

"What is this?!" shouted a soldier.

"I'm a former agent of the World Government. Now I'm an agent for equality. You fish freaks belong to Minus World now. You will see the light of equality. All shall be made equal before Balthasar von-"

They started shooting again, but to no avail.

"Y'know what? This is pointless," Setzer said. He Shaved away, faster than the soldiers could track, and into an alley. He assumed his cat form and hid in the shadows, unbeknownst to the soldiers.

"HQ! This is Commander Axio! We have a situation at Coral Hill! Shaska the Greedy was harboring a violent human who just disappeared!" shouted a fishman soldier into a baby transponder snail.

"What?! I knew that race traitor was up to no good!" shouted the commanding officer on the other line. "Head to the dojo and bring her in!"

"At once!"

Setzer sat quietly in the shadows of the alley, casually washing himself with a smug smile on his face as the soldiers took off toward the dojo.

"Hm. Maybe I don't have to kill her myself. I can just spread the good word of equality to the masses of fish freaks here while they do it for me."

—-

The Mercury Collective survivors finished their lunch, and were soon back to training with the officers. Unfortunately, the dojo was quickly surrounded by dozens of fishman soldiers.

"Shaska the Greedy and Worldwide Smoke!" called the commanding soldier on a transponder snail. "Come out with your hands up! We know you're in there!"

Shaska puffed on her cigar and blew some smoke nonchalantly.

"Dammit, Shaska! What did you do this time?!" Funagyoshi shouted at her.

"Honestly, I don't know," Shaska responded. "We got the okay from the king and queen to be here."

Shaska stepped out of the dojo, flanked by Funagyoshi and Lulupo. The rest of the crew stayed inside and continued their training.

The soldiers raised their guns at Shaska, who simply stood there and flicked ash off her cigar.

"You guys act like it's not my first time staring down a firing squad before," she said, calmly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"A human emerged from your ship and started killing soldiers left and right!" Axio, the commanding officer shouted.

"What? But, all the humans that were on the Robinson are… in the… dojo…" Shaska explained, trailing off as the gears turned in her head.

She turned to Lulupo and flicked ash off her cigar. "You… You remembered to get rid of that cat guy, right, pretty boy?"

Lulupo began to sweat, then said "to… to tell you the truth, darling, I don't recall letting him out of his carrier."

Shaska turned back to the soldiers, puffed on her cigar, and blew smoke. Then, after a moment's pause, she screamed an expletive skyward at the top of her lungs.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FORGOT TO LET HIM OUT?!" Shaska shouted, grabbing Lulupo by the collar of his gi and lifting him up.

"I… I think I speak for all of us when I say 'it wasn't a top priority', darling…"

"NOT A TOP PRIORITY?! HE WAS OUR DAMN ENEMY!" Shaska shouted further, her cigar burning completely to ash.

"But… he said-"

"DAMN IT ALL! WE SHOULD HAVE JUST KILLED HIM! NOW WE HAVE TO PUT OUR TRAINING ON HOLD TO GO CATCH THIS STUPID CAT SO HE DOESN'T KILL ANYONE ELSE!"

The soldiers didn't relax their guns.

"And put down your guns, dammit! I'm gonna fix the problem!" Shaska ordered.

The soldiers still didn't lower their guns.

Shaska explained the situation with Minus World, and how Setzer claimed to be reformed after the battle at the Mercury Collective.

"…but now he's killing fishman soldiers left and right. And I'd bet my bottom berry that he's gonna start spewing that poisonous ideology of his."

"And you brought him here intentionally?!" shouted Axio.

"No, not intentionally! We were just too merciful with him!" Lulupo exclaimed.

"Hmph. Well, the king and queen are going to love hearing about this," said Axio.

"Give us until the end of the day. We'll catch him," said Shaska.

"Why should I trust you, race traitor?"

"Because if we don't stop him, he'll turn the populace into equality and god-obsessed drones who'll overthrow the king," Shaska explained.

"The king and queen are some of the most beloved royals our kingdom's ever seen!" Axio said. "Even if the queen has some… odd ideas about our relationship with humans. Besides, it's not like our people will listen to the insane ramblings of some human!"

"Thing is… he's not always a human…" Shaska explained. "Gotta be on the lookout for a talking cat."

"A cat?!" shouted a nonplussed Axio.

"Yeah, a surface cat. Not one of the normal sea cats we have around Fishman Island. He'll be a decently sized gray cat. Covered in fur, not scales," said Shaska.

"And how in King Neptune's name are we supposed to find a surface cat in all of Coral Hill?! It's the biggest city on Fishman Island!" Axio exclaimed, raising his transponder snail. "You've messed up big, race traitor! I'm calling the palace!"

"Stop calling her a race traitor, darling. It's quite rude," said Lulupo. He extended his hair and snatched the transponder snail out of Axio's hand. "Luckily for all of us, my Devil Fruit has quite a large range."

Lulupo sat down and began extending his hair along the ground, inch by inch, including all his facial and body hair.

"What… what are you doing?" Shaska and Axio asked in unison.

"I'm using my Hair Hair Net technique, darlings. I can sense the weight of whatever steps on my hair. If our feline friend steps on one of my hairs, and I will know, considering I've held him before, I'll bring him back here and let the authorities deal with him properly."

Lulupo's hairs eventually covered the city, with the average citizens going about their day not noticing the hairs because they were so thin. The hairs stretched throughout all of Coral Hill, going everywhere outside, including into the alleys. Lulupo sat on the ground with his fingers tented, resting against his chin.

—-

A solid five minutes passed, and eventually Setzer stepped on one of Lulupo's numerous hairs, which then sprung to life, and all the nearby hairs wrapped around his paw.

"Dammit, not again!" Setzer shouted as he was dragged back toward Lulupo. Setzer struggled as hard as he could, but to no avail. He even turned back to his human form and tried to cut the hairs with a Tempest Kick, but when the hairs were cut, they just came back to life and wrapped around his ankle. More and more hairs wrapped around his other ankle, wrists, and neck, and he was dragged back even faster, much to the shock of the fishmen and merfolk roaming around Coral Hill, who were not expecting to see a human being dragged through the streets.

"Any of you fish freaks wanna help me?!" Setzer shouted. "I'm being kidnapped!"

The citizens said and did nothing, not too keen on being called "fish freaks" or helping out a human, and continued going about their days as Setzer was dragged away kicking and screaming.

—-

Setzer was soon brought before the dojo, being dragged through the perimeter of soldiers. He stood up and turned to face Lulupo, who sat there with a smile on his face.

"You've been a very naughty kitty," Lulupo said.

"You think you're cute?" Setzer asked, seething.

"Adorable, actually," Lulupo replied with a wink.

"Well, this was a fun little detour," Shaska said, cracking her knuckles. "But we got some training to get to, and if you're running around causing trouble, we'll get kicked out."

"Wait! I can help y-" Setzer tried to say, before he was interrupted by Shaska's fist meeting his face.

"Nuh-uh. We let you live last time, and it turned out you were lying to us about going straight. From what I hear, you started killing people the second you got off the Robinson."

"Well, you lied to me about letting me go at the Sabaody Archipelago," Setzer retorted. "Now I'm surrounded by fish freaks."

Lulupo got up and smacked him in the face. "I have heard enough racism for one day," he said.

"Why didn't you let me go?" Setzer growled.

"We–I mean, my employees–completely forgot, to tell you the truth," said Shaska. "But quite frankly, I don't really care. The first thing you did upon freeing yourself was start killing people; that alone makes you untrustworthy. Tell me, why should I trust you now, of all times? For all I know, you're gonna try and brainwash Fishman Island into your Minus World cult."

Setzer said nothing, and instead transformed into his cat form, escaping Lulupo's grip. He lunged at Shaska with his claws out, but she snatched him out of the air by the scruff of his neck.

"Don't forget, I beat your Dear Leader. You're nothing compared to me," Shaska growled. Setzer responded with a hiss.

"So, here's what you're going to do. Normally, I'd give you options, but you've pissed me off. You're lucky you're a cute cat right now, or I'd snap your neck. No, what you're gonna do is turn yourself in for the murders of those soldiers!"

"Pfft. Yeah, right. And incriminate yourself in the process?" Setzer scoffed. "You're the one who brought me here."

"I can pay for the funerals. I'm pretty freaking rich," Shaska said. "More to the point, though, I don't believe in forcing you to work for me, and you'd probably just be a detriment anyway. We've already wrung out every drop of information we can get from you, so might as well just throw you in the clink. You seem to be kind of an idiot, anyway. It looks like you could've broken out of your cat carrier at any time, but you forgot you could do that in the same way we forgot to release you at Sabaody. And you also didn't think to just turn yourself into a cat while Lulupo was dragging you back here. So, even if you're not gonna hurt us, you're too stupid to be of any use to me."

Setzer just hissed again.

"Funagyoshi, I'm gonna take this guy to the palace so he can spend the rest of his days in jail. I'll be back," Shaska said.

"Hm…" was all Funagyoshi could say.

"Let's go, fellas," Shaska said to the soldiers. "I promise I won't beat you guys up either for calling me a race traitor."

The soldiers began to sweat, but they followed her.

—-

Shaska and the fishman soldiers arrived at Ryugu Palace, Setzer in tow. She explained the situation to King Neptune.

"I see-jamon…" said King Neptune.

"Yeah, so, throw this cat in jail so my crew and I can get back to our training," Shaska said.

"I can't say I'm too pleased by this turn of events-jamon," said the king, stroking his beard. "Several of my valuable soldiers died because of your negligence, Shaska. I feel like this calls for some punishment on your end, too."

"Punishment?"

"Yes, punishment-jamon."

"Well, I can pay for their funer-" Shaska tried to say, but the king interrupted her.

"That's hardly a punishment for you-jamon. You're the richest non-Celestial Dragon in the world. No, Shaska, you deserve hard time as well."

"Whoa, what?! But I got training to do! The fate of the world is at stake!" Shaska exclaimed. If she had a cigar right now, it would have fallen out of her mouth.

"I concur with my husband," said Otohime. "The fate of the world may be at stake, but inadvertently releasing a dangerous human onto the island could have gotten out of hand very quickly."

Otohime's eyes started welling up with tears. "*sniff* Those poor soldiers' families! All because we trusted you with the future of fishman-human relations!"

"Look, it was a mistake!" Shaska exclaimed.

"A mistake that got people killed-jamon!" Neptune rebutted. "I told you your ass would be grass if a civilian got hurt! Now, since it was soldiers who died, the situation is somewhat different-jamon. But those men would still be alive if you had paid attention! So, in accordance with your quest and our previous agreement, you will spend three months in jail-jamon!"

"And pay for the funerals," Otohime added, sobering up. "Your crew will be free to train, but you yourself will be imprisoned for half the duration of your stay on Fishman Island."

"But! But!" Shaska stammered.

"No 'buts', Shaska-jamon," said King Neptune. "Guards, arrest her."

Shaska stood there with mouth agape as the guards handcuffed her. Even though she was strong enough to easily break the handcuffs due to them not being made of sea-prism stone, she was too stunned to do it.

"Shaska-jamon," Neptune said, "the nature of your crime is quite severe. Three months and a million berries for each dead soldier is basically a slap on the wrist-jamon. You will be required to come back here and serve at least another year after you defeat this Balthasar von Esens you speak of."

"Ugh… fine…" Shaska said, defeated. "Could you at least send a message to Funagyoshi to tell them to train without me?"

"That will be arranged," said Otohime. "As for now, Shaska, you will serve your time. Be grateful for our mercy."

Shaska hung her head as the guards began to escort her to the dungeon.

"It's gonna be a long three months," she muttered.

TO BE CONTINUED