Shock
It took Fox almost no time at all to find the keys, so she immediately set about freeing all the slaves in the building and incapacitating any guards still running around.
"If this the first time you've ever been caught, feel free to rob the unconscious would-be buyers blind and get the hell out of here," she said shortly. "Anyone marked by the Dragon's Hoof, stick around and I'll deal with it."
The slaves passed the keys amongst themselves as the pretty dancing girl with lilac hair sat down on the floor, a length of chain in gripped her teeth and a blanket clutched to her chest, as Fox produced a short and very sharp knife from her belt and set about the bloody task of quick and dirty cosmetic surgery. The Hoof of the Dragon was branded onto every slave by their owner, but if the victim could stand it then it was possible to flay the mark off. Every last former slave Fox had ever met had considered the pain well worth it.
The assassin neatly carved lines in her patient's back around the ugly brand, loosened the skin at the top and applied a faint pulse of her Devil Fruit Ability to loosen the epidermis. Then she put the knife down, made sure she had a good grip on the loose skin and pulled hard.
The agonised scream from offstage drew everyone's attention away from the wily old man Trafalgar Law recognised as being Silvers Rayleigh, the Dark King and former first mate of Gol D. Roger's crew.
"What was that?" asked Cyborg Franky, shifting nervously.
"It's just Lisska," Pirate Hunter Roronoa said calmly, not moving from his spot behind his captain.
Rayleigh shook his head as he hopped off the stage and headed up the steps towards the injured octopus fishman, who had been bandaged by the surprisingly competent reindeer. "Believes in tough love, does little Lisska; gets it from her father I suppose." There was another rending scream as the aging pirate knelt on the stairs. "You're not going to die on me, right Hachi? You always used to be so careful about wandering around on this island."
Law ignored that conversation, being more interested in the whispering among the Straw Hats.
"What's she doing?" the Cat-Burglar hissed at the Pirate Hunter, who glanced sideways with a distinctly amused grin.
"Her good deed for the day, apparently."
Another shriek of concentrated agony assaulted the Surgeon of Death's ears.
"Good deed?" Black Leg repeated, sounding slightly nauseated. "What's going on back there?!"
The swordsman paused, head tilted briefly to one side as if listening to something. "Oi," he said loudly. "Lisska wants to know if anyone here's got experience at flaying people; she could use a second pair of hands."
There was an abrupt, shocked silence.
"She's flaying people?!" the long-nose squeaked in horror.
"It's not something I've actually tried before," Law admitted, rather intrigued by the woman the Dark King had claimed as his granddaughter who clearly had some kind of connection to the Straw Hat Pirates.
"Too fiddly," Eustass grunted, nonetheless looking slightly impressed.
Roronoa nodded. "Anyone interested in learning? She's got six more people to do and the Marines have blocked us in, so time's getting critical."
"Why is she skinning people?" Straw Hat asked curiously, glancing over his shoulder at the Pirate Hunter as another scream ripped through the Auction House.
"Slaves get branded so that everyone knows they're property," the swordsman told his captain shortly. "She's taking the marks off."
"Oh. Okay," Straw Hat accepted, turning back to Rayleigh as a loud announcement from the gathered forces outside revealed that both Law and Kid were being treated as accomplices to the short pirate captain's insanity.
The Pirate Hunter headed down the steps towards the stage with a sigh. Law heard the swordsman mutter, "I'm coming, I'm coming," as he hurried past where the Deadly Surgeon was sitting; it led the doctor to wonder exactly what Devil Fruit this Lisska had that enabled her to speak into a person's head like that. His curiosity was piqued now; he'd have to investigate for himself what exactly was involved in flaying people at some point.
Well, after he'd taken out some of the Marines besieging them; like hell he'd leave it all to that cocky bastard Eustass. Nobody told Trafalgar Law what to do!
With Zoro's assistance it took Fox barely any time at all to finish, at which point she was happy to hand over her patients to the giant and make her escape. As her lover pointed out, she had promised to run away if it came to a fight. With this in mind, rather than join the rest of the fighters out front she sat on one of the benches, quietly attacking the building's load bearing walls with highly focussed blasts of Haki. Fox had learnt you could cause physical damage with the Colour of the Conquering King –or her own variant of it– after noticing that, when using it on people, her target's surroundings were faintly affected. A certain amount of careful experimentation later and Fox could attack inorganic things and damage them through sheer willpower. She'd not done anything this big before, but the Human Auction House was a perfect test subject.
She allowed the Marines to escort her outside, graciously accepted their apologies and hurried away towards the Thousand Sunny. She had agreed to run because Dracule Lisska had no place fighting alongside pirates. Angel of Death Fox on the other hand had no such excuse. As she headed across the archipelago she took note of the odd living shells that had arrived with Admiral Kizaru; Pacifistas like Kuma, but without free will. They didn't even have the echoes of souls that the zombies on Thriller Bark did, leaving them wholly empty of will. Fox instinctively loathed them, promising herself that if she ever met one she would rip it apart without delay. They were even more of a mockery of the living than the zombies had been: at least those animated corpses hadn't actually been alive.
On returning to the Sunny Fox immediately changed her clothes, fishing the fast-asleep form of Calla out of her bodice as she did so. Fifteen minutes later her hair was hidden tidily under a loud pink, green and acid blue floral bandanna while another slightly less loud red, orange and grey one disguised her jawline. Rather than her favoured skimpy tops Fox had instead selected a yellow, white and blue dress shirt to wear, the garment's looser fit allowing her to hide body armour beneath it. Fox did not usually bother with armour of any kind, but considering her condition a reinforced stomach protector was a sensible precaution. Not that she would be slowing down any time soon, but it would help Zoro to keep his head.
Fastening her double sword harness, snatching a selection of knives and throwing on a duster coat over the top, Fox grabbed a pair of green-tinted sunglasses that had caught her eye in St. Poplar and rammed the black cowboy hat on her head. She was about to leave the ship when her Colour of Observation rang a bell deep in her hindbrain, down where it met her fighting instincts, analytical abilities and experience of dealing with the World Government to fuse into something approaching precognition.
Fox suddenly had a Very Bad Feeling about the rest of the day. The last time she'd had this particular shiver run down her spine her father had murdered her current lover shortly afterwards. Apparently by accident, but dead was dead. Fox turned around and walked calmly back into her cabin, removed all her weapons from the walls and slotted them into the weapons' chest she'd used to bring them on board from Swift Hunter. Then she dragged it out on deck and activated it.
The sea crocodile slid quietly overboard as the assassin went back inside to activate the bookshelf as well; no-one on board had realised yet that she made a point of animating all her furniture as a security feature. The manta ray had little difficulty getting itself out of the cabin and into the water, leaving the bedroom barren of everything save a handful of unused letter cases, Cho and Calla, who had just woken up, the bed itself and Cho's perch.
"Cho, I'm not sure what's going to happen but could you please stay behind and guard the ship until everyone gets back? I have a bad feeling," Fox told the South Bird. Cho bobbed his head, flying out of the open door to perch on the yardarm.
Fox then activated the letter cases so they could make their own way on board Swift Hunter, who was lurking under the mangroves. No matter what happened her ship would follow her, so she didn't need to worry about losing it. Draping Calla around her neck once more, Fox dropped over the rail onto moderately dry land and headed off towards Shakky's Rip-off Bar and her crew. Hopefully things wouldn't go too badly, no matter what her instincts were telling her.
So one, maybe two more chapters before the diaspora. I wish I was less feverish so my brain worked better...