A/n: Writer's block is a bitch. And so are exams. But now, I'm finally back! With quite a long, twisted chapter too! Yay! So, I've labeled the different scenes in the chapter as the timeline keeps jumping from past events to present time. Just to avoid confusion. That's all for now!

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Chapter 21

Luffy and Nami – Before the blast

"Hmm… I wonder where the others went~"

Luffy sat cross-legged on the roof of the tallest building he could find. He crossed his arms and tilted his head, rotating it a full 360˚ before snapping it back to its original position. He whined and bent over, craning his neck to see if they were hiding in an alley. When his stomach grumbled loudly, he moaned and fell back, clutching his abdomen and rolling around. Finally deciding that food came first, he went in search of a restaurant or the like, that he could sneak into and steal from.

He found a small café and snuck in through the back. Stretching his neck out, he inspected the kitchen and sniffed. Satisfied with the mouth-watering smell, he crept to the back, where the large refrigerator was, slowly opened it, grabbed everything in sight and stuffed it into his mouth. There was some commotion up-front and taking the opportunity, he ran out the back door.

Swallowing the food, he sighed in content and patted his now swollen tummy. He was humming and walking toward the main street, when there were several shouts and frightened screams. People began pouring out of buildings and running toward the red-light district. Luffy watched them for a moment, then turning around, promptly made his way in the opposite direction.

Finding that having to push his way through a swarm of frightened people running at him wasn't getting him anywhere, he stretched his arm out, caught a ledge and swung himself to the top of the building. He then continued to jump across roofs, his eyes following the tide of people, looking for the source. Before he noticed though, most of the town had emptied itself out and he was left standing on another rooftop scratching his head.

Luffy hummed to himself and tapped his foot impatiently, as he surveyed the far buildings. From where he was standing - which was approximately at the outskirts of town – to his left were rows of large warehouses and to his right the buildings dwindled out to a pair of gigantic wrought iron gates. The main street led past the gates and up the slope of the hillock, to a lavish mansion. Luffy hummed in thought and debated between the warehouses and the mansion. Then shrugging, he decided that the disembodied voice definitely came from the mansion and made his way towards the gates.

Just as he reached the last few buildings, a tremor ran through the ground and even on top of the roof, Luffy could feel the building vibrating under his feet. He snapped his neck to the left, eyes darting from warehouse to warehouse, his instincts sensing something was wrong. He spread his knees and bent low, one arm reaching down in between them, his fingertips pressing against the roof. He hunched down, waiting for whatever it was he knew was coming.

And just as his eyes skimmed past one of the farthest warehouses, the whole structure exploded into flames, with a huge boom. Luffy grit his teeth and bent lower down, moving towards the roof's edge and crouching behind the raised parapet. It took barely a few seconds for the blast of heat to reach him. The force of it caused the entire foundation to tremble and groan, like an old man bracing himself against a fierce gust of wind.

Luffy squinted against the whirlwind of heat and dust swirling around him and once the tremors stopped, he latched himself onto the ledge, stretched back and shot himself towards the mansion. He landed in a tree with a huff and fell down through the branches, crashing into someone who broke his fall with a startled yelp. He sat up and rubbed his head, examining himself for any serious injuries.

"Luffy?!"

the raven head looked up and blinked, his face splitting into a grin.

"Nami! Why are you here?!"

Nami had a dumbfounded expression on her face and turned to look from the tree Luffy had fallen out of, to her grinning captain covered in leaves and twigs. Nami pulled Luffy off the poor man he was still sitting on and patted him down. Finally, planting her hands on her hips, she frowned at him and waited for an explanation.

But of course, all Luffy did was chortle happily and bounce on his heels. Nami sighed and shook her head, guessing as to what exactly he was doing here. He would probably say something about coming to the biggest looking house because that's where the bad guys usually are. Rolling her eyes, she walked towards the rest of the group – who had formed a small circle around the man Luffy had landed on and were glancing toward them wearily – and cleared her throat.

"Well, he's on our side. So how much longer do you think Freddy-san will take?"

While some murmurs and strained looks passed through the group, Nami looked back to make sure Luffy hadn't wandered off somewhere. She tensed when she noted he was speaking to Diara, but from the animated way he was moving his arms and the way she was laughing, Nami relaxed and rubbed her arms. She looked off into the distance, toward where the no-longer-warehouse would be.

"Atleast I found him.. right?"

Somewhere On The Island – Present Time

"Hmmm—"

He leaned back in his chair and scratched the stubble on his chin with a ruddy finger. He watched the large glass orb in front of him as a slideshow of different scenes misted through it. He twisted the chunky ruby ring around his large finger and watched the young man with a strawhat on his head laugh without a care in the world. He tutted and found that the young man's ear-splitting grin pissed him off a little too much.

And the fact that his lovely little assistant had changed sides didn't help much either.

He stretched his arm out and clicked open a square cap that was next to the glass sphere. His fingers hovered over the large red button for a moment, as his eyes skimmed through the slideshow again. With a final grunt, he smashed the button with his fist and sat back, a sneer contorting his face.

"Looks like play time is over, children."

Luffy and Nami - Present Time

"They're fine Luffy. This is Zoro and Sanji we're talking about."

"Shishishishi, you're right! Those two can do—"

Luffy broke off abruptly, his head snapping up, like he was trying to listen to something. Nami's eyebrows knitted together at the strange look on her captain's face. She knew he could sense things that most people couldn't with his Haki, but that didn't necessarily mean they could do anything to avoid whatever was going to happen either.

Especially since his feeling was just that, an arbitrary intuition of sorts that didn't give even the slightest explanation as to what was to happen or how it could be dealt with.

So Nami generally found herself having to mentally and physically prepare for any sort of danger. She never got too worried by his sense of danger, as most times than not, it was something fleeting or far off that he either dismissed a minute later or chased after without any warning. But this time, Luffy's face seemed to grow graver and graver, even as he stood up straighter and clenched his fists, his eyes darting around, as though looking for something he wasn't able to see.

Concerned, Nami turned toward Diara, wanting some sort of reassurance that Luffy's strange behavior wasn't anything to be too worried about. But the way the silver-haired girl's eyes grew wide, the way her lips parted into a gasp and the way she clutched the strap of her bag so tightly that her knuckles turned white, caused warning bells to go off in Nami's head.

Not knowing what the two were sensing, she looked toward the sky, her otherwise keen senses trying to pick up the unknown danger that was drawing imminently closer. All of a sudden, Diara shrieked - a loud, ear-splitting screech that caused everyone to jump out of their skins in horror and turn to her in bewilderment, their hearts pounding in their chest.

Diara was crouched on the ground, her hands clasped tightly against her ears, her lips moving continuously in a hysterical chant – that Nami figured out was her saying No over and over again. Nami spun toward Luffy, desperate on doing whatever they could to get away from whatever was causing Diara to act the way she was.

But before she could take a step towards him, he was in front of her, grabbing her wrist and yanking her close behind him, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Nami held her breath and stared at everything around her, not knowing where the attack would come from. There was a low buzzing sound that seemed to surround her and the initially thought she heard it in her head, but from the confused looks around her, figured she wasn't the only one hearing it. She winced when Luffy's grip on her grew tighter and she wanted to tell him he was hurting her, but her captain's lips moved ever so slightly, and he said in an eerily low voice,

"It's here."

Robin and Franky – After Robin Fell

Robin opened her eyes slowly and winced at the black spots that clouded her vision. She swallowed and eased herself onto her elbow, blinking rapidly to clear her sight. It took her a moment to remember where she was and a moment more to remember she wasn't alone. She turned toward the hole she had fallen through, only to find that it was completely boarded up. She sighed and examined herself, patting and poking to make sure she hadn't any broken bones. Satisfied that she had only suffered from a couple of bruises, she rose shakily to her feet, reaching out to one of the broken pipes for support.

There was some scuffling to her right and her neck snapped towards the noise, eyes searching for the source and arms crossing together in defense.

"Oi Oi! Don't attack me again!"

Robin frowned as her disoriented brain slowly recognized the familiar voice.

"Franky?"

The Cyborg stepped out of the shadows and Robin drew in a slow breath at the sight of him. Franky's state was beyond hopeless. He looked like what a metal robot would look like after surviving through an explosion at close range. His chest was ripped open and the spheres on his shoulders were crushed and bent out of shape. His hair hung limply around his charred face, the ends frayed and singed. The top right of his face had been seared right off, exposing the cyborg interior. Even his large arms had been badly beaten up and damaged. But from the grin on his face, Robin could tell none of that mattered as compared to the fact that he was still alive.

She leaned back against the thick pipe and hugged herself, running her eyes over Franky again, taking in all the damage and injury he had to suffer.

"How," she breathed, her voice so low and breathy, she was surprised Franky had even heard her. He simply shrugged – or atleast tried to, considering his shoulders were misshapen and awkward – and shot her a lopsided grin. Robin noted how it wavered just a bit, when he turned away and thought she couldn't see.

He eased himself to the ground and knocked his head against the wall behind him, causing a dull thud to resound through the compact space.

"Honestly," Franky began unscrewing the distorted lump on his shoulder and seemed mighty pleased that his small robot hands still functioned perfectly fine, "I'm not very sure myself. I was inside the generator when the explosion occurred and the whole thing should have burned up, but instead all it did was melt. That's pretty much how all the metal on me got bent out of shape. And I expected this whole factory to collapse with the explosion, but other than the corridors and outer rooms, the inner rooms, including this one, seem to be perfectly fine."

Robin turned to eye the large clump of metal at the back of the room with some distaste. Her dislike for it continued to grow, when she began to understand what Franky was trying to tell her. Her eyes grew wide and her back straightened as she slid to the floor and ran through all the information she had acquired.

"That's—"

Franky nodded and let out a long, tired sigh of resignation. "We were pretty stupid to think that guy* was letting us do whatever we wanted and we could somehow get away with it."

Robin shook her head and rested her forehead against her knees, tears stinging her eyes.

"We were played like fools. There is no such thing as a generator. Whatever these machines are, they're not the ones controlling the force fields—"

"That's not it though," Franky huffed and groaned as he eyed the amount of damage his shoulder had received. "These generators may control the force fields," he twirled his fingers, like he was trying to find the right words to explain what he wanted to say, "but more than control, I'd say their main function is to sustain them. Make sure they don't fall apart because some moron accidentally broke the actual source that creates the fields."

Robin sat up sharply, and winced when her back cracked painfully. "So what you're saying is, these are back-up generators? Destroying them won't actually stop the force fields since all they do is act as support?"

Franky nodded distractedly while trying to see if the disfigured metal could be bent back into shape. "Let me put it this way, these generators are like substitute players in a team. They may use the substitutes to let the actual players rest or take a break, but if the subs get injured or are incapacitated, it wouldn't make much of a difference to the team, since they were substitutes in the first place. Their role is just to support the team and maybe replace an injured player. But when the main members are all present, injuring a sub would make little to no difference to the team's chances in the match."

Robin heaved a dejected sigh and tucked her hair behind a ear. "So basically, all our efforts were for nothing."

Franky made a face like he wanted to disagree, but then just rolled a shoulder and slumped back against the wall. "Well, we didn't realize we were played because the sources of information itself were corrupted."

"Are you saying we were betrayed before we even decided to trust?"

Franky grumbled and threw the piece of metal to the side. Robin flinched at the sharp clang and shifted uncomfortably.

"No, maybe they were all deceived as well—"

"But?"

"But, they may have intended to deceive us from the very beginning. But now, none of it matters does it? I mean, we have no way of preventing the force fields from closing and no way of stopping our memories from getting wiped."

The two sat in silence for a long time, neither wanting to break the ice as nothing they had to say could console the other. Robin stood up suddenly, a small spark igniting in her eyes. She walked up to Franky, broke off a piece of metal the cyborg had thrown aside and began carving into the wall behind him.

Franky looked on with a frown, not knowing what she was up to, but his eyes widened soon enough, as he caught on to what she was doing.

"Robin! That's brilliant!"

Robin shot him a sideward smile and continued what she was doing. Franky stripped a piece of metal from his other shoulder and joined her in her carving. It wasn't long before a slow buzz sounded in their heads and the duo looked up, their brows crinkling from trepidation of what was to come.

"This is not good," Franky murmured, as Robin began to furiously attack the wall. "Nope. Not good at all."

The slow buzz was soon replaced by a shrill ringing and the two covered their ears, screaming to try and nullify the sound. But that didn't seem to work, as soon the ringing became unbelievably loud and knocked them out.

It was several hours later that they slowly woke up, disoriented and confused. Robin seemed to be the first to regain her senses. She looked at the awkwardly carved writing on the wall and then eyed the groaning cyborg sprawled beside her suspiciously. She waited till Franky looked up and saw the confusion in his eyes, before questioning slowly,

"I'm sorry but, have we met before?"

A/n: And done! Yes, yes I decided it would be fun to wipe their memories and see how they react to each other. It's like the Strwhats having to meet and get to know each other all over again. But, either ways this was just a continuation chapter to make up for lost time. The next chapter will have ZoSan without a doubt. I miss torturing those two precious babies. So laters~

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