Chapter Five is finally here! It was kind of rushed, but I plan on fixing it soon enough. Promise! I'm also sorry that it's a bit short. I split the reuniting into two chapters because the one chapter would be extremely long if I hadn't.

Chapter Updated: Sunday, July 22, 2012

Chapter 5 – Reunited, Part 1

The escape from Captain Ramius's office was strenuous, but now Nami and Luffy were finally on their way to be reunited with their friends; at least, some of them. The other Devil Fruit Users were still off the radar. Nami was worried about Robin's state of mind. Robin was probably in pretty bad mental shape, having been an enemy of the marines for nearly twice as long as everyone else, plus the traumatic experience at Enies Lobby. Robin was the only person who really kept her cool in times to severe distress, and Nami couldn't deal with the morons in the crew alone.

They passed the kitchen again. Luffy was all for stopping in for a bite, but after some… convincing… from Nami, he agreed to pass. Nami tried desperately to remember the route they had taken from the prison stairs. The entire base looked the exact same, and Nami was getting angry.

Finally, probably by sheer luck alone, Nami recognized the entrance to the underground cells she and Luffy had emerged from about two hours ago. "This way, Luffy!" she instructed.

"Right!"

The smell was awful. Compared to the cleanliness of the upstairs stronghold, the prison was a rats hovel. The prisoners down here were used to it, so they probably didn't notice. Nami wrinkled her nose as the two Straw Hats raced down staircase after staircase, each holding an armful of belongings. Nami hugged Usopp's slingshot, Brook's violin case and Sanji's shoes close to her chest. Her Climatact was tucked safely under her shirt. Luffy lugged all three of Zoro's katana, a fresh bottle of cola, and Brook's cane on his arm. The weapons in their arms clacked and made loud noises with every step. They passed the floor where Nami had been imprisoned. The door was still hanging on loose hinges, the result of Luffy's attack. No marines lay on the floor, but Nami could still see them lying there, seemingly dead.

Down the next staircase. Nami and Luffy stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking down the long cobbled corridor lined with barred cells on either side. This was the floor where their perverted cook, cowardly sniper, and overconfident and self-absorbed shipwright were imprisoned.

"Oi! Sanji! Usopp! Franky!" Luffy called. His voice echoed off the walls, bouncing all the way down the hall.

"Shut up, moron, they'll hear you!" Nami hissed.

"Isn't that the point?"

"I'm talking about the marines hearing you, dumbass!"

"But what if there aren't any on this floor?"

"Think about it Luffy," Nami said, exasperated. "They know you and I have escaped. And the most obviously logical thing we would do next is break the rest of the crew out. So they would post tighter security outside their cells to make it harder or possibly impossible for us to do so. Get it?"

"Well, I guess that makes sense…" Luffy shrugged.

"So we go slowly," Nami continued. "We'll use the element of surprise – wait, Luffy!"

Luffy had already taken off running, his footsteps reverberating against the echoing hallway.

"That dumbass," Nami shook her head and sprinted after her captain.

The corridor was long. Longer than the others, at least, to Nami it was. Dark figures could be seen in the other cells, some slumped over, others standing straight against the wall. Some moaned, or made no sound at all, making Nami wonder if they were dead. That would be nasty.

"Wait!" Luffy suddenly stopped running, causing Nami to run into him. Her face was buried in his back, the momentum of the rest of her body slamming into him forced Luffy to take a step forward, rolling his shoulders again. Nami flushed and stepped back again, remembering the wounds were still sensitive. The clacking of the weapons faded, and all the two could hear was the faint drip of a leaky ceiling, though all Nami could hear the blood pounding in her ears.

Luffy looked around for a second. "I must have imag – "

"Oi!" The call came again. It was faint, echoing off the walls, but the source was close by.

"That was Usopp!" Nami said happily, shaking the embarrassment from her face and replacing it with a wide grin. However, the grin was wiped from her face as a gunshot blasted through the air, followed by a faint squeak. Nami and Luffy exchanged nervous glances.

"Let's hurry!" Luffy began running again, Nami following in hot pursuit. They sprinted past maybe ten more cells before spotting a group of about twenty marine soldiers, standing at the ready in front of a cell door. All the marines made it impossible to see the prisoner, or prisoners, but Nami suspected it to be fairly obvious. From what the orange-haired navigator could see, no blood was visible, but it didn't still her quaking fears.

Nami grabbed Luffy's vest and pulled him into the shadows, out of sight of the marines. "Okay, here's the plan. Luffy, give me those weapons. Yeah, like that. Good. Okay, now leave no ass unkicked. I'll check on the boys."

Luffy cracked his knuckles. "Don't have to tell me twice."

He stepped from the shadows and wasted no time. He raced toward the marines, his eyebrows furrowed. They immediately turned on him, their guns trained on him. They fired simoultaniously, some of them sprouting nets in midair, but Luffy simply dodged and quickly released a Gatling Gun, completely destroying the guard patrol.

It's probably just me, Nami thought to herself, moving out of the shadows and joining her captain. But the marines are getting weaker and weaker. Or we're getting stronger.

Luffy pressed his face against the cell bars, a crazy grin spreading over his face. "Hey!"

Nami looked to her crewmates. Franky had sustained little damage, his body being mostly metal, but he was still scraped up and malnourished. She was relieved his loincloth was still in place. Sanji had a scab on his cheek, and his feet were red and bleeding, but he was otherwise unharmed. Usopp's nose was broken again, and he was bleeding from a small cut on his temple, but was still alright. All three were chained against the far wall with their wrists above their heads. None of the three were sporting bullet holes; not even Usopp, though he looked a bit shaken up.

"Nami-swan!" Sanji sang as she and Luffy entered their field of vision.

"Luffy, I missed you so much!" Usopp cried.

"Suuuuper nice job escaping," Franky praised them. "We could hear the commotion. How'd you pull it off?"

"We'll explain later," Nami said, standing back to allow her captain space. Luffy entered Gear Second. His skin turned the signature bright red, shining like newly polished silver. The smoke curled off his body. He threw his arms back, and performed the same Gum Gum Bazooka he had on Nami's cell door. The doors popped right off their hinges.

After the cuffs had been removed, Nami handed Franky, Sanji, and Usopp their respective weapons of choice.

"This feels super refreshing," Franky grinned after placing the fresh bottles of cola inside his abdomen compartment. It still sort of freaked Nami out.

Sanji slipped his feet into his shoes, grimacing slightly as the wounds rubbed against the hard leather of the soles. "So what next?"

"We go find the others," Nami said, immediately taking control of the situation. "Zoro is a floor below us; Luffy and Sanji, go get him. Usopp, Franky, and I will find Chopper, Robin, and Brook. Luffy, do you remember where the kitchen is?"

Luffy nodded, his mouth watering slightly. Nami was still doubtful as she handed Luffy Zoro's katanas.

"Meet us back there."

"Why do I have to rescue the marimo?" Sanji complained.

Nami bowed her head, and lowered her voice to a whisper. "You'd be my hero, Sanji-kun," she said sweetly, scratching her chest suggestively. When she looked up again, Sanji and Luffy were already halfway down the hall, Sanji dragging Luffy by the ear and yelling at him to hurry up.

Nami giggled. That will cost him twenty thousand belis.

She turned to Franky and Usopp. "Let's go!"

XXX

Luffy

Luffy and Sanji ran as hard as their legs would allow them down to the next floor below. They met only two groups of patrolmen, but the two skilled pirates disposed of them easily. Luffy allowed Sanji to do most of the fighting, mostly in order to exercise his body after weeks of being chained up, but the captain still threw in a punch or two. By the time they reached the ground floor, Sanji was wheezing, desperately receiving oxygen into his lungs.

"We should – find marimo – " Sanji gasped.

Luffy stood taller. "Right."

Walking slowly, the two maneuvered their way down the hallway, glancing into each cell as they passed, looking for a tell tale sign of green.

"Zoro!" Luffy would yell occasionally, but he received no answer.

"We should have interrogated those marines we beat up," Sanji thought aloud to himself. "They must have been the marimo's guard, just like we had."

"Eh?" A deep voice suddenly said. Metal clanked against metal as a prisoner a few cells away moved forward into the light. "I'm trying to take a nap, you dartboard-eyebrow! Don't you have any respect at all?"

Luffy immediately recognized the light green hair, high eyebrows, and the three identical earrings dangling from the left ear. "Zoro!" Luffy ran forward, grinning wildly at his first mate.

Zoro's shirt was in tatters again; he had put up a fight. The scar stretching from his right shoulder to the left hip was plainly visible. His pants were slightly slashed as well. Zoro wore no shoes; his feet were cut and bleeding. A black cuff was clamped around his left ankle, connecting with the farthest left corner of the cell. His hands were chained in an uncomfortable position behind his back; otherwise, he would have easily been able to break his bonds. Even for having a bounty over one hundred million, he had still suffered slightly less damage on Luffy's three hundred million scale.

Sanji followed, his face twisted. "Oh yeah, snot-hair? Taking a nap while we're working our asses off trying to save you?"

"Better than being stuck with you losers upstairs," Zoro retorted. "I'm so special that I got a cell all to myself. Better luck next time."

"You're not worthy enough to be with anyone else," Sanji shot back. "Your stink would kill us all."

"If I'm underneath you, then that means I'm a higher danger, mister seventy-seven million," the swordsman chuckled. "I'm more dangerous."

"Why you little–!"

Sanji jumped at the bars, but Luffy put a hand out to stop him. "So you were here," the rubber man spoke to Zoro.

"Where else would I be?" Zoro replied haughtily, crossing his arms. "Hurry up and get me out of here!"

A few minutes later, after being handed Yubashiri through the bars, Zoro had cut himself free with ease and was examining each katana thoroughly before buckling them back into his waistband. "What the hell happened to Shuusui!" He said angrily as he ran his fingers across a scratch on the black blade. "Someone was dragging it! When I get my hands on him…"

"Lets go. Nami-san and the others are waiting for us upstairs," Sanji began running in the direction they came from, Luffy a few steps behind. After several feet, the cook stopped and said without turning around, "This way, you snot-haired moron."

Zoro grunted and turned, jogging back to where he had started. "Right. Knew that."

"Honestly, I point this way and you go that way," Sanji muttered to himself, and the three pirates began their ascent to the upper levels of the marine stronghold.

So, that's it. Please read and reveiw!
You want to know a secret? The first time I wrote and published this, I was reading the chapter to check for mistakes and such. The comment Sanji made about Zoro's stink... well, somehow "stink" got changed to "stick" so the line went: "Your stick would kill us all." I was like, Oh damn! And raced to fix it. There's a fun fact.

Better than this one story I read once though, the council members were shitting down instead of sitting. XD

Coming Up: Chapter 6 - Reunited, Part 2