Naturally, there was no rebel army at Yuba. Just an old man digging for water. This old man happened to be the rebel leader's father, and there was a somewhat tearful reunion between him and the princess. The rebel leader, Kohza, had long moved on.
Locks transformed and statted digging like a dog while the others talked. A snort and a jerk of the head brought Ace to help, flames turning the walls of the hole to glass to keep them from collapsing.
It was nice to know that her older brother still understood her non-verbal gestures even after three years.
It took half the night to reach water. The old man was astonished at how much one dragon (though Luffy helped dig too) could accomplish . . . of course, he'd never actually seen a dragon before, only heard stories. Locks wasn't surprised. It had been a long time since any dragons had bothered to descend to earth.
oOo
They were walking the next day when Luffy abruptly flopped on the ground for no apparent reason.
"Can't do this!" the young captain declared, "It's impossible!"
For a moment, everyone just stared in confusion. Locks and Ace then sat on the ground beside their sibling with stony expressions as Princess Vivi exclaimed "But you promised!"
"So?" Locks said, "He's a pirate. But he's right, this is impossible. Even Ace knows that, and he doesn't actually know what's going on." (Ace opened, then shut his mouth as he realised that no one had actually explained the situation to him.)
Vivi made incoherent sounds as she looked between the dragon and the rubber man. Locks sighed, and cuffed her younger brother (was he snoring? No, that was Ace. But there was definitely a snot bubble.) "Explain to the lady before the cook does something drastic." (Indeed, Sanji was looking positively murderous at the idea of abandoning the princess and her goal)
Luffy said something vaguely inspiring about how they were Vivi's friends and didn't mind getting hurt for her, and that she couldn't just risk herself. Locks wasn't paying attention, more focused on getting Ace awake before they started moving again. She succeeded just as Luffy jumped to his feet and shouted "Let's go beat up Crocodile."
A pause.
"Where is he anyway?"
There was a collective facepalm, and Vivi told them that the croc ran a casino at Rainbase.
"Great! Let's go to Rainbase and kick his ass!"
A pause.
"Where's Rainbase?"
oOo
oOo
Locks wanted to facepalm so, so bad. But she didn't since the sound would probably give away her position on the ceiling. Below her, both her idiot brothers, most of the crew, and a marine captain were trapped in a Sea Stone cage. Why were they in a cage? Because they'd (literally) fallen for one of the most obvious traps ever (Pirates this way. Really?) and gotten themselves dumped there. Locks had avoided the same fate by virtue of her half-form having wings.
Luffy grabbed the bars and sort of . . . melted? into a puddle of rubberboy on the floor. The marine captain (isn't that the same guy who tried to arrest them in that restaurant?) said something scathing that Locks didn't really listen to, as a door opened and the villain walked in.