Another Nakama Omakes

Disclaimer: One Piece is owned by Funimation, Toei Animation, Fuji TV, Shueisha, Shonen Jump Manga and Eiichiro Oda. No money is being made from this story.

Ms. Goldenweek's Operation: Free Baroque Works V

-x-

'Black Cage' Hina walked across the deck of her ship en route to her Marine Base which was known as Black Cage Prison. While her prison wasn't as infamous as Impel Down it was nothing to scoff at and Hina would be damned if she let even one criminal escape from it.

Hina stopped halfway across the deck and saw Jango and Fullbody once again goofing off and dancing together as they stood guard outside the prison hold which held their two captive Baroque Works Agents.

"No, no, you've got to push up with your toes, like this," Fullbody instructed Jango as they attempted to learn some new dance that was somehow supposed to impress her. "Now all your weight is on the ball of your foot and you can spin faster and for longer. Watch..." Swwiiisshh! Fullbody pushed up onto his toes then did a three-rotation spin before he struck a pose. "YEAH!"

"Woooww!" Jango exclaimed, "Okay, okay, let me try!" Swwiish! Jango did a less impressive double-spin before he stopped and swayed on the spot.

"You're not pushing off right," Fullbody corrected him, "If you're going to spin on your right foot then you've got to push off even harder with your left. Use the ball of your foot to spin."

"Okay... one more time," Jango decided as he pushed himself back up onto his toe. Swwiiissshh! Hina's eyes widened slightly as Jango did an impressive quadruple spin. "Aheehee! I did it!"

"Yeah you did!" Fullbody cheered as he struck a pose which Jango quickly copied.

Hina shook her head and moved along, nothing out of the ordinary for those two.

She completely missed the wide grin that Fullbody wore as she walked away.

-x-

Ayako sat in the holding cell with her bound and gagged former partner Mr. 3 on the other side. She and Mr. 2 had to ditch her blue backpack along with Fullbody's body but they'd managed to sneak her painting supplies in under their clothing since Mr. 2 had been the one to 'search' her. Ayako sat on the floor and stared at the blank wall in front of her with her paints scattered around her as she tried to solve her latest problem.

Her plan with Mr. 2 was to break into the prison and free the other Officer Agents that were capable of dreaming but dreams were personal and she needed a way to tell whether freeing the other agents would be harmful or not. They were trained assassins so she had to be careful.

Ayako painted a dab of red paint on the wall in front of her, "Bullfight Red is a target..."

Ayako added a blob of yellow downward and to the right, "Laughter Yellow is happiness..."

Ayako mixed her yellow and blue paint to make it green, "Calming Green is serenity..."

Ayako made a blot of blue paint to the left of the green, "Sadness Blue is sorrow..."

Ayako combined her blue paint with red and create a purple spot, "Passion Purple is love..."

Ayako stared at the circle of colored paint that she'd made on the wall. "What color would be the color of dreams?" Ayako sighed and dropped on her back and stared up at the rainbow of colors.

Ayako blinked. Rainbow. "That's it!" she exclaimed as she sat up with a shot. "A dream isn't just one color! It's all of them! A dream is a target, a goal, that someone strives to reach, it's something that a person is passionate about and loves with everything they are, nothing is more depressing than someone who has had their dreams destroyed, just the thought of a person's dream can bring a calm feeling of serenity, and nothing would make anyone happier than to accomplish their dream and to see it realized."

Ayako touched her brush to the wall and swirled the red, yellow, green, blue and purple paint together into her signature Colors Trap C.T. symbol.

Normally, Ayako was immune to her own paint but an artist had to believe in their own work so there were times like this when she would allow herself to be hypnotized by her colors.

Ayako's eyes widened as she found herself in an illusion. She now wore a magenta beret, her hair had been cut into a short bob and had several magenta streaks dyed into it. She wore a baby blue shirt under a yellow vest, a knee length red skirt and magenta sneakers that matched her beret. She was holding a large paintbrush and a pallet of paints. She was free and she was happy. She was a real artist.

"Mmm?" Ayako turned around to find that Mr. 3 had been affected by her rainbow paint too. The '3' in his hair shot up to look like an exclamation point '!' as he was caught in Ayako's Dream Rainbow Colors Trap.

Mr. 3 was suddenly dressed in a fancy blue and white vertically striped suit as he bowed before an adoring crowd while they admired his latest statue. "Thank you, thank you!" Galdino the world-renowned sculptor said as he was applauded. Ayako noted that the actual sculpture was his signature candelabra and it was still hampered by the sculptor's lack of artistic creativity.

Ayako pressed her hand onto the rainbow symbol and dragged it downward which caused the paint to smudge and the illusion to shatter. Mr. 3 turned and glared at her.

"It may have looked like we have similar dreams," Ayako stated, "But your dream isn't really to be a world renowned sculptor but to have people actually admire your work. It must have been hard for you to have people criticize your art and say it wasn't good enough. Eventually you must have reached your breaking point, you captured a bunch of your critics and put them in your candelabra death trap so they would 'finally appreciate your artistic genius'. But that tiny slice of revenge wasn't enough for you... you wanted more people to truly appreciate your work so you became a criminal assassin. Your dream led you to hurting and killing people."

"MMmmmm…" Mr. 3 let out a muffled growl.

"But do you know what the real crime is?" Ayako continued, "You almost made me… like you. I actually have artistic talent. My sense of color is so complete that people fall into hypnotized trances just from looking at my work. I'm not like you. For me, it isn't about people appreciating my paintings. It was about seeing amazing things and then capturing their majesty on canvas. That's what being a true artist is about. That's my dream. And you almost made me forget it. That's why we're going to leave you behind in the prison."

Ayako coated her paintbrush in the rainbow paint then walked over to the front of the cell and spotted Fullbody and Jango dancing through the bars of the main door.

"Psst! Fullbody!" the mousy girl called out to her new partner in crime. "I need you."

"Time to check on the prisoners!" Fullbody exclaimed.

"Right," Jango agreed, "Lead the way, good buddy."

The duo entered and Fullbody was quick to close the door behind them. Klank!

"Hey, why isn't she tied up?" Jango wondered.

"Colors Trap: Rainbow Dream!" The rainbow symbol splattered on Jango's chest and easily hypnotized the highly susceptible hypnotist.

Since the illusion was on Jango and not a wall, he and the artist were the only ones to see it. "Oooh! I know Hina, I'm a lovely dancer. I'm so glad you agreed to go out with me and my bestest buddy Captain Fullbody. Aheehee! Oh, you're too kind! Really, it's my pleasure."

"I found a way to find out what our fellow agents' dreams are," Ayako explained to Fullbody, "Wanna try it?" Ayako held up her brush.

"Very well," Mr. 2 agreed, "Hit me, baby!" Swish! Ayako slashed her rainbow coated paintbrush and the symbol connected with Fullbody's chest. The illusion began but once again because it was on a person and not a wall it was seen only by the Okama it was on and the artist I was created by. Fullbody was replaced by Mr. 2 only he was wearing a fancy white swan-like dress. He still had his original swan-themed ballet slippers but they had decorative wings on their sides.

"Okay... I don't get this one," Ayako admitted.

"My dream is to meet the Omaka Queen Ivankov and to train under him," Bon Kurei explained. "My Okama Way will finally reach its full potential and this swan will finally be able to fly!"

"Wow, I hope your dream comes true, Mr. 2," Ayako replied. "Mine's to be a real artist. I want to travel the world, see incredible things and then immortalize them on canvas."

"Bentham," Mr. 2 said to Ayako's sudden confusion. "That's my name."

"Oh… I'm Ayako," she introduced herself.

"We just shared something deep and personal," Bentham told her, "That means we are no longer partners in the scheme together. We're friends."

"Friends?" Ayako repeated, "Awww!" Ayako reached out and hugged her new friend through the bars and he happily returned it. Ayako smiled. She'd set off to break her boredom and to pay a favor forward by giving some lost souls a second chance to achieve their dreams. She never imaged that she'd make such an incredible – albeit very quirky – friend.

But you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men… the oft go astray.

-x-

'Till Next Time...

Peace!