It was a beautiful warm sunny day. All of the Marine's on the ship were enjoying the calm movements of the water. Kaku had managed to make his way up the mast and fall asleep comfortably with his hat over his face. Astrid, sat along the edge of the ship swinging her feet down. It was at least a week since they had left their base to pursue their mission. She often would think about the other members and what they could be doing at the time. While sitting on the ledge she could see a ship in the distance. As the ship got closer, she could see a group of men walking around on the deck of the ship.

"I see they have arrived," said a Marine.

Astrid continued to sit on the ledge as the two ships met. Three men from the ship docked with bags and began to talk to some Marines. From up on the mast, Kaku woke up, removing his hat from his face. He peered down below and watched as the new men walked around on the deck of the ship. Astrid looked up at him to see if anything could be shared. He responded with a confused shrug and calmly jumped down from the mast. He walked over to Astrid as the two watched the new men walking around on the deck. One of them approached them with a huge smile on his face.

"You must be the new stars!" he said shaking their hands.

"Who are you?" asked Astrid

"You're funny. I'm Vic, the newest instrumentalist to your performing duo! We were approached and given this opportunity to perform with the greatest rising stars."

Astrid and Kaku looked at each other.

"Would you excuse us," Kaku said while grabbing Astrid's shoulder.

The two walked over inside the main kitchen where the captain overseeing their ship was sitting.

"Explain." Kaku demanded.

"You're talking about the new members aren't you? Spandam felt that you weren't good enough to go out on your own so he hired on these jokes to be your back up in this mission," she responded flicking back her pale pink hair from her shoulder.

"We've never needed any backup in any of our missions," Astrid stated.

"I don't know what kind of missions you go on, but I know for certain that this is not an average one now is it?" she said standing up, "Now both of you are going to turn around, march out there, and meet your new members to your band!"

"Wait…" Kaku stammered.

"I SAID MARCH!" she yelled.

The two of them turned around and walked out of the kitchen to peer over the ledge down to the deck where the new members were sitting. They were all enjoying the sunny day with some Marines just as Astrid and Kaku were earlier before their arrival.

That evening, the ship had docked in Alabasta. Kaku and Astrid were in their room sitting in their beds. The tension of the mission had increased once the newest members had arrived as the two of them sat in silence. I quiet tap at the door was their sign that it was time for them to leave. With their bags already packed, they left the room and walked out onto the deck to meet with the new members. A Marine approached them and informed them that they were on their own from this point on. Looking up ahead, they could see the lights coming from the Rain Dinners Casino. As the backup instrumentalists got excited, Astrid and Kaku still stood with a stern expression. Unlike the instrumentalists, the two CP9 members were on a mission. With their bags, all five of them made their way to the shore. Once on the shore, the ship raised their anchor and set their sails.

"Hey wait, they're just going to leave us here?" Vic cried.

"We're going to stay for a while. Now let's make our way to the casino and meet with Crocodile. He should be expecting us by now," Kaku responded solemnly.

"WAIT, you don't mean one of the Seven Warlords do you? The Crocodile?!" Vic said shaking.

"Yes, he is our new boss, and we will be working for him as his performers. The ship is still close enough if you can't handle it," proclaimed Astrid as she started the walk.

Vic looked out at the ship which had pulled away from the dock and shook his head no. The five of them walked up the road and into the town. A few people were walking around and a couple stared at the newcomers. They followed the lights up to the fanciest building in the town, Rain Dinners Casino. Inside, the loud sounds of slot machines and the bustling of people filled the room.

"How are we supposed to find Crocodile in this place, its huge!?" Astrid cried out in amazement.

"Easy. Follow me," replied Kaku.

He walked with determination through the crowds with the others not far behind. In the center of the building there was a clearing. Kaku stood there with a puzzled look on his face. He removed his hat and began to scratch his head while looking around.

"You have no clue where to go," Astrid said putting her guitar on the ground.

A charming voice appeared from behind them. A woman with a white fur coat stood before them with her arms folded across her chest.

"You must me the new performers I've heard so much about," she said. "You're looking for Crocodile, aren't you? Come with me and I will take you to him."

"And who are you, you fine lovely lady?" Vic asked.

"I am his partner," she responded.

She turned around and started walking as the others followed. Her white fur coat waved every time she took a step as her black hair danced at her shoulders. The mysterious woman led them into an office room where a large man sat in a chair. Smoke filled the air while Astrid and Kaku cautiously followed the woman further into the room. The notorious Crocodile sat in the chair, his golden hook on the desk and a glass of sake in his hand. He put his drink down and stood up from his chair.

"Sir, you have company. These are the new performers," the mysterious woman said gesturing to them.

"So, you are the ones. You better be as good as they say," he replied. "I am Crocodile, your boss for the amount of time that you will be staying here. Do you know how to dance?"

"We will in order to make the show better, if that's what you want sir," Kaku replied.

"You should probably dress more appropriately, don't you think sir?" the woman addressed the groups attire and questioned.

"Sure, whatever; just get them out of my sight. Miss All-Sunday will escort you to your suite," proclaimed sitting back down in his chair.

Miss All-Sunday led them back out of the room and shut the large doors behind them. She led them down the hallway to a stairwell. Up the stairwell was a hallway with a series of doors; each leading to a large suite. The instrumentalists were eager to get into their own rooms while Kaku and Astrid made it clear that they were to share a suite. When told, Miss All-Sunday gave a small smirk.

"Don't get too rowdy, Crocodile wouldn't appreciate it."

"Oh, we're not…"Kaku said while being interrupted by a closing door.

Behind the door you could hear her call out, "I'll be by in the morning with a new wardrobe."

Kaku turned around, his face as red as a tomato. With a smile Astrid approached him and touched his shoulder as she walked past him. She picked up her bag and threw it on top of the only bed that was in the room. The two of them shared an awkward eye contact with each other, realizing what it meant. After a long shower, Astrid got dressed for the night and made her way over to the bedroom portion of the suit. In the bed was Kaku reading a pamphlet on the casino. She stopped at the side of the bed and snatched the pamphlet out of his hands.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm getting ready for bed," he replied.

"Oi Kaku, you know very well what this means," she said pulling the blankets off of him.

"Is this necessary?"

"It's only polite to let the lady sleep in the bed."

"I'm not sleeping on the couch my feet will hang over the edge! Besides, we both need the best rest we can get in order to properly observe this mission."

"Admit it, you just wanted to share the bed with me," she replied jumping over him to the other side.

His face once again went bright red as she made herself comfortable. She laughed at Kaku and reached into her bag to pull out the page on Nico Robin.

"Miss All-Sunday looked familiar," Astrid stated.

"A little too familiar," Kaku replied, "We can't get too far ahead of ourselves, and you know the rules. Let's make sure that it is her and then we will report. Let's just wait for a few more days and make the final report."

That night Astrid had the nightmare filled with fire and lightning. The same phoenix appeared to rise out of the flames, however there was something different this time. In the middle of the flames was a figure. The figure was shorter in stature, fairly thin, but something about it was intimidating. This mysterious shadow was something that Astrid didn't want to mess with. As the figure got closer, she felt pain in her chest. The flames grew and consumed her as the lightning disappeared. She felt trapped, unable to escape the flames. The figure disappeared but the flames grew stronger. She woke up from the dream from a force shaking her body.

"Astrid, wake up!" Kaku yelled.

She shot straight up catching her breath.

"Are you ok, you've been yelling and saying no in your sleep," he said with a concerned look on his face.

"I'm fine just a normal nightmare."

"Normal, that didn't sound normal to me."

"It's normal, I've had these dreams before. This one was just different," she replied as Kaku got out of the bed.

He went into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water, "Get some rest. I'll even sleep on the couch if you want."

Astrid shook her head and drank the glass as Kaku got back into the bed. Once they were asleep again, it wasn't long before they heard a loud knock on the door. Kaku answered, and on the other side was Miss All-Sunday with a large rack of clothes. She proclaimed that it was time to get dressed and to show Crocodile what they were capable of.

Once dressed, they made their way down to a large empty room with a stage where their backups were rehearsing.

"Hey, you're up!" Vic shouted. He jumped down from the stage and handed them each a couple of pages. "Songs for the show. Learn and love them!"

They looked at the pages and read the music. Knowing that they had to memorize each page for their performance tonight, they immediately jumped on the stage and stood in their appropriate positions. Miss All-Sunday sat in one of the chairs and crossed her arms one on top of the other. She said something, but it wasn't audible to the others on stage. The housing lights dimmed and colored lights brightened the stage. With a nod to each other, they began rehearsing. Astrid had noticed up in the podium that nobody was present. With nobody in the podium there was no way that the lights could have dimmed on their own. After they rehearsed their last song, Miss All-Sunday stood up from her chair and clapped. Without a word, she left the room. Astrid had pointed out her suspicion of the podium to Kaku. She wanted to check things out.

The two of them made their way up into the room. The only entrance was within the theater. There was no way anybody could have entered or left the room without them noticing. Kaku remembered the Flower-Flower fruits capabilities that Nico Robin supposedly has. His theory was that Miss All-Sunday must have used this ability to dim the lights. This furthered the possibilities that she was in fact Nico Robin. As soon as they made their deduction an unnoticed trap door was opened on the floor and a man appeared. He was upset by their presence and ordered them out. With the new knowledge of the trap door, there was still no hard proof that Miss All-Sunday was in fact Nico Robin.

That evening before the show, the man from the podium was helping them work out the last kinks of the performance for lights and sounds. Crocodile showed up with Miss All-Sunday unannounced and sat in the very back of the room. The dim light of his cigar was the only thing that could be seen from the stage. It wasn't soon after Crocodile's arrival that more and more people began to fill the theater. As more people came in, Astrid got more nervous.

"You aren't getting stage fright on me are you?" Kaku asked while peering out from the alcove of the stage.

"A little bit. So far out of all the things I have worked on, this one is the most nerve racking," she replied adjusting the short skirt of her dress.

"If you can manage to kick Lucci in the face like you did when we were kids, then you can do anything," Kaku replied with a grin as he adjusted the red tie that matched her dress.

She smiled as the announcements began. The crowd began to cheer which was their queue to run up on the stage. While looking out across the theater, seeing how many people were present made Astrid weak in the knees. Kaku looked over and put his hand on his shoulder. She looked up at him as he handed her, her guitar. He took in a deep breath which enabled her to do the same. The simple deep breath made her feel better as she looked across once again. With the guitar in their hands they began to perform in their strangest mission yet.