A/N: It's been suuuuuuch a long time. And I'm sooooo sorrry. Between school ending, and going on a small vacation at the beginning of the summer, to getting a large increase of hours at work, it's just so hard to sit down and just... write. But I'm doing it now. And I really plan on keeping it up. Fingers crossed that I follow through! Thank you so much for waiting so kindly :)

So here it is. The second last chapter. I think one more should just about do it. I was going to finish it all in one go, but this chapter ended at such a suspenseful place. I had to decide to stop and slap another chapter together instead -which I will begin writing immediately. Who knows, maybe it'll be up tomorrow after work (though that I can't promise indefinitely. Soon though, I'm sure!)

And then, once this is completed, we leap into Freak Show! Needless to say, I'm pretty damn excited. The idea behind it enthuses me to no end, but I didn't want to start writing it while I was still writing this story. One big project at a time!

Well, I'll let you leap right into the story!
Here's my half-birthday present. But instead of receiving, I'm giving ;)

Enjoy~

Chapter 13

Zoro

"You messed up, Mari," a gruff looking man paced back and forth. "Just admit it."

"We got Zoro –"

"And now we have the rest of the Straw-hat Crew running around on this ship. You. Messed. Up." he emphasized each word, stopping in front of her and nearly spitting the words in her face. He scowled and began pacing. "Big time."

Silence.

"We had that damned Straw-hat!" he shouted angrily. "In the palm of our hands!" he turned to her, his hand open and palm up. He clasped it closed, clenching it into a tight fist and pounding the nearest wall. "And he's gone!"

"We can get them all," she took a tentative step forward. "I will –"

"You will do nothing," he turned on his heel to face her. "You will never do a thing again unless it involves following proper protocol. You will do what I say, and there will never be any room for negotiations. Is that understood?"

She was silent, staring at the ground in front of her. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes.

If I could smirk, I would have. But I was still paralyzed.

"Is it, or is it not, understood?" he barked.

"Yes, sir," she shouted, lifting her head and staring straight ahead, any self-pity she felt a moment ago being covered by her Marine upbringing.

"You are dismissed," he waved her away.

She sent one last evil glare my way before leaving the room. Slowly, the man walked over to me. His shoulders were wide, his arms buff. But he didn't threaten me. And his breath stunk. In this sense he kind of reminded me of Luffy. What was that? Meat?

"We'll be using you," he began slowly, "to capture the other pirates. If what Mari says is true, then we can optimize the part where you're the father of the demonic offspring."

Somehow, a growl escaped my throat. His reaction was to punch me in the gut. A grunt uncontrollably flew from my lips.

"I can't even begin to comprehend how this must all be for you. Do you want to know what we'll do the moment we get your precious pirate-spawn-carrier?" he leaned in close, his breath hot on my ear. "Well, let's just leave it at the fact that we could never let such horrible offspring be born to this world." I glared at him as he backed away, but he just laughed. "What? I'll be doing you a favor. Children are horrible things. They stink, they cry, they're absolutely disgusting. A man such as you should appreciate something like this. You might even come to thank me one day."

He turned and left the room, and a dozen Marines filed in, surrounding me –though keeping their distance. I may have been paralyzed, but I was still a threat, after all.

A tingling sensation danced across my fingertips. I closed my eyes and imagined them moving ever so slightly. The corner of my mouth twitched with success.

Yes, I was still a dangerous man.

Mari

I couldn't believe my world was crashing around me. Going into there, I'd had so much confidence being able to portray Robin. I studied her for years! Then suddenly, not only is she within reach, but she's pregnant. It was the devil's spawn that had complicated things. Women change when they're pregnant. Little things, but they change.

It was because of this, I'm sure, that things fell through. Why Straw-hat Luffy saw straight through me…

My fist made hard contact with the wall.

How long had it taken for me to get to the position I stood at less than two hours ago? How much trust had once been on my shoulders? How much rested on them now?

Mind you, there were other complications as well. Who on earth had expected the skeleton to be able to move around, or that he would be able to scare the Marine who had guided me in, snatch his swords and make a mess of things.

But if she weren't pregnant, I'm certain that I would have been able to think rationally as Robin. I'd be able to convince everyone that it was for the better to stay there, even if it just meant waiting for the remaining Straw-Hats to storm in, attempting rescue.

It was her fault.

Why did she have to be pregnant?

The devil's spawn.

If only the thing didn't exist…

Robin

"This way," I grabbed Luffy's arm as he turned down the hallway in the opposite direction.

"Shishishi, of course!" he grinned as if he knew it all along.

"Halt! Stop right there!" a group of Marine's ran towards us, in the direction we needed to go.

"Luffy."

I didn't need to say anything to begin with –my captain was already there, taking them all on. He grinned as if it were a friendly brawl, even if it were anything but. But most things did seem to take the form of a game to him.

"That ended too soon," Luffy sighed as we ran away from the mess of Marines, bruised and battered on the ground.

"I'm sure more will come," I reassured him.

"Mm," he agreed. As we ran past another linking hallway, Luffy pulled me to a stop –"Wait!"

"What is it?" I turned, getting slightly frustrated with him. We needed to move. Find Zoro. Rescue Zoro.

"I know her," Luffy had his neck stretched back and looking around the corner. "Imposter Robin!"

"What?"

"She was the one we left with Zoro –I'm sure she'll know where he is!"

"I still can't believe you left him with an imposter," outrage built inside of me.

"So? You do it all the time?" he shrugged, already racing ahead to get to the little bitch that they'd left the father of my child with. But the anger inside of me disappeared. He was right –in the long run, I had betrayed Zoro as much as this imposter had betrayed Zoro.

"You!" A shrill voice echoed down the long hallway –"This is all your fault."

"My fault?" Luffy repeated, tilting his head to the side, not comprehending the situation at hand.

"Not you –you," it took both Luffy and I to realize she was talking about me.

"I beg your pardon?" I crossed my arms in front of me, resting them lightly atop of my ever-growing stomach.

She shoved Luffy aside, approaching me with a venomous look in her eye. "If you hadn't thrown unforeseen circumstances into the mix, all these years wouldn't have been for nothing."

"Unforeseen circumstances?" I questioned.

"The spawn! Your demonic offspring!" she shrieked.

"Mari." I looked up to see a big man standing behind Luffy. Luffy glanced up, just as surprised as I was to see him.

"L-lieutenant," Mari stumbled.

"I told you to only do as I say," the gruff man said.

"Yes'ir," she murmured, cowering slightly, a complete one-eighty of the woman she'd been moments ago.

"This is your final chance to redeem yourself," he spoke again.

The crazed woman perked up.

"Do not let these two escape."

Nami

"That was easier than I thought it'd be," Franky said, holding all three of Zoro's swords. He gave them a little practice swing, two in one hand, one in the other. The blades, even though they were sheathed, came too close for comfort to a thick metal table.

"Give those to me before you break them," I scowled, pulling them from his grip. "We got everything?"

"Yes, yes and yes," Usopp grinned happily.

"Yohoho," Brooke laughed, holding his own precious cane against his thin body. "It's so wonderful to feel –"

"Stop," Usopp's smile faded instantly. "I do not want to hear any skull jokes while we are still on this ship."

As Brooke opened his mouth to retort, I interrupted the two of them, "Let's get going. We'll go help Luffy."

"We can't all go," Franky said suddenly.

"What?"

"We need to prepare the Thousand Sunny to leave –Harumi can't do that all on her own. I didn't even think of that when I came down to meet up with you guys," Franky shook his head.

"So go," I told him. "Usopp, you too." I hesitated before adding, "And you, Brooke."

"And Robin," Chopper chipped in.

"And Robin," I nodded, nearly forgetting she was 'there.' She'd been so quiet as of late.

"Yohoho," Brooke chuckled to himself.

"What's so funny?" Chopper asked him.

"I'm about to get off this ship," Brooke's grin bore down on Usopp.

"Dammit," Usopp muttered under his breath. "Why can't I catch a break?"

"Just go," I pushed them ahead. "Chopper, Sanji and I will meet up with Luffy and Zoro. As soon as we have them, we'll head back right away to Sunny."

"Hurry," Robin murmured in my ear as she passed. I watched her for a long second before nodding.

"Of course."

Robin

A slow grin spread across Mari's face. Almost simultaneously, she and the lieutenant attacked me and Luffy respectively. Thank goodness for fast reflexes though, as Luffy pushed off the wall, barreled towards me and wrapped me protectively in his rubber body.

"You will not harm my nakama," he said sternly. "Your battle's with me. Both of you."

"We won't let either of you get away," the lieutenant cracked his knuckles, the sound loud in the otherwise silent hallway.

"Oh, we'll get away," Luffy licked his lips, his eyes darting from side to side, trying to figure out what to do to keep the two of us safe.

If we split up, Mari will chase after me. If we stay together, either one of them could direct an attack my way. And it's not that I didn't think I could handle myself, but I did have to wonder how well the vest Franky made would actually work in the end. I didn't have the liberty to fight freely –and if that weren't apparent in the first place, it was when I suddenly felt it move, catching me off guard. Both Mari and the lieutenant noticed, seizing the opportunity to pounce.

Unsure of what else to do quite yet, Luffy swung me up in his arms, dodging both of their attacks with relative ease. He shot past them, aiming in the direction the two of them had come.

"I can fight," I told him, glancing behind us as they pursued.

"I'm not putting you in danger," he said, skidding to a halt at the next split in the hall.

"Watch out," I exclaimed, as a shot rang through the air.

"This way it is," Luffy said, taking off at random. He didn't pay attention as he chose a random route through the ship's maze-like layout. He put me down suddenly around a corner, thinking we'd put a safe distance between them and us, then took off back in the direction we'd come.

Despite not having done the running myself, my heart was racing. The baby moved again, seeming to be restless. I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. Repeated.

Gunshots were heard down the hall. I swallowed. Another deep breath. Crossing my arms, I put an eye on the wall in front of me, so I could see clearly down the hall without revealing my position, just in time to see Luffy be thrown back from a large explosion. Smoke filled the hall, smelling awful and acidic and masking the scene from my view –I no longer could see what was going on. Being pregnant, my senses seemed more sensitive, and the smell left by the smoke made me want to throw up.

"Robin, run," Luffy called out, coughing.

But there was a battle of pride within me. Did I run, and prove everybody right? That I needed protection; that I needed to be constantly watched over? Or did I stay, and help, and prove that I could hold my own?

So instead of running or fighting, I stood there, surrounded in smoke, unsure of what was right, what I should do. All the while, the smoke burned my eyes and lungs. Unable to help myself, I coughed.

"There you are," Mari came out of the smoke, appearing right in front of me. She raised her gun, aiming it straight for my stomach. "Sorry, Nico Robin, but this is where your reign ends."

"Her reigns just beginning," an all-too-familiar voice said from behind her. The smoke cleared a little, revealing the speaker. Mari swung around to face Zoro, who looked extremely pissed. Nami stood just behind him.

"You were paralyzed," Mari said dumbly, unable to completely grasp what was going on.

Zoro ignored her, his gaze not leaving hers as the smoke continued to disappear. I could still feel it there in the air though. It churned my stomach, and my eyes were still watery. "You're going to wish you never even heard the names of the Straw-Hat Pirates."

From behind her, I could see Mari's movements clearly, including the moment she reached into her back pocket to retrieve a small dagger. I almost laughed –if she thought that would be able to stand against Zoro's blades, she had another thing coming to her. But in a swift motion, she kicked Zoro square in the chest, then turned to me, shoving the knife into my chest.

Zoro roared angrily, picking up Mari and throwing her down the hallway. Luffy –done with the lieutenant, ran towards us.

"Robin!" Chopper rushed forward, Nami following closely behind. I coughed, this time blood spraying from my lips.

I saw Sanji round the corner, how he paused to take in the situation, the anger that washed over his face. I saw Nami's face distort as she grabbed her clima-tact, ready to attack Mari. I saw Zoro drop to his knees beside me.

That was the last thing I saw.

Zoro.