Disclaimer: I do not own One-Piece nor any of it's characters. Those belong to Oda Eiichiro.

Nunya Bizniz

Chapter Twenty-six: Suck it Up

Once the laughter died down Missy was finally allowed to go and change her clothes. Rachel kept the camera snail on her person. There was no telling what Missy would try to do to get the pictures. Now that they had joined the Heart Pirates there was a lot of people and a lot of noise being made.

Law was currently inside his sub with Jean Bart while Bepo kept watch of the other crew members on shore. "It runs like a dream," Bart was saying. "The solar energy system was the best addition that's been made yet. It hasn't malfunctioned once since we installed it two years ago. It goes to show that the designer really knows her stuff. There's the typical everyday maintenance, but that's all minor stuff."

Law was staring at the control board of the solar energy storage unit. "You've studied the schematics for it completely?" he asked. Jean Bart nodded his head once. "I need you to do me a favor. Don't ask questions about it either. Make it so that the system will only hold half the power it was designed to."

"Why would you..." Jean Bart started to ask. A look from Law out of the corner of his eye caused him to stop. Law had said he wasn't supposed to ask questions. "Aye captain," Bart relented. He bent down and started switching the wires around. "That should just about do it. I just hope whatever you have planned is worth it."

Missy went through the rest of the day not talking to anyone. It was her way of punishing them for putting her in that horrible outfit. What was worse was that Rachel had pictures to memorialize the event. She needed to figure out a plan to get those pictures. It wouldn't due for them to get spread around. Then there was another thing to consider. Did anyone else have a camera snail and take her picture? These were all things she thought of as she started planning out a scheme to save her dignity. Her thoughts were broken by the sound of something being placed in front of her. Missy looked up at the table and stared at the plate in wonder. "Is that?" she asked hesitantly.

"A sort of peace offering," Rachel put in. "I've got Sanji thinking that it's the best thing since sliced bread. Anyway, if you don't want it I'll take it."

Missy's hand whipped out and grabbed the layered dessert. The bottom layer was a pound cake, followed by a layer of mixed berries. The third layer was a vanilla pudding topped with a layer of whipped cream. "You've had all of this prepared for when you pissed me off?"

"First of all, you have no right to be pissed off." Rachel sat down across from Missy. "We didn't do anything that you haven't plotted against us a time or two in the past. Second off, how long have you been out of it? I didn't have any of the ingredients on hand. I had to make another trip into the village, then back, mix and assemble. Girl, it's freaking twilight."

Missy glanced to the horizon to see that Rachel was correct. She had thought that it was getting a little darker, but she blamed that on cloud cover. "Have I really been thinking that long?"

"You must really want to rip us a new one," Rachel teased. "I'll make sure to stay on my guard for a while. Anyway, it's time that you and I had a talk." Missy leaned back in her chair, leery on what Rachel would consider being a 'talk'. "When are you and Law going to get freaky?"

"I knew it," Missy groaned. Her forehead slammed on the table. She put up a finger to keep Rachel from saying anything. "For starters, if we were to get freaky we wouldn't tell anyone and most certainly not you. Second, there's nothing to get freaky over." Missy watched as Rachel picked up her feet and put them on the chair to her right and to Missy's left. "What are you doing?"

"Getting my feet out of the bull shit."

"I'm telling you, there's nothing there." Missy let out a growl when Rachel moved to sit on the table with her legs crossed under her. "Okay, you're taking that joke a little far."

"I'm thinking the woman doth protest too much," Rachel countered. "You just needed to have a visual representation of it." Rachel calmly lowered herself back down into her recently abandoned seat. "You willing to hear me out?"

"Speak your mind," Missy invited. "You were going to anyway."

"You're damn right I was," Rachel cleared her throat. "Suck it up and go give that man a kiss. Don't forget the tongue."

"Rae!"

"I'm telling you Missy, your stupid phobias are causing you to loose your chance at something great. Like I said, suck it up and move on. If you don't you'll become one of those crazy cat ladies we make fun of."

"You have no guarantee on that," Missy argued. "I could very well find someone else that I like that doesn't live in a sub or is a doctor." Missy stopped talking when Rachel raised her eyebrow at her. The two stared at each other in silence.

"Again I'm going to call 'bull shit'," Rachel finally said. "This argument is getting a little old. You keep bringing it around in circles."

"Are you saying that you don't?" Missy challenged.

"I'm saying that you're hurting yourself for no good reason. What would you mom say or do if she saw you now." Rachel smirked when she saw Missy wince. "Now you see my point. Since we only have each other I have to push you. Obviously my words don't have the same effect as your mom's, but I definitely know enough of her personality to tell you when you're being stupid."

"It's not..."

"Knock it off," Rachel cut Missy off. "You've only given me the same argument. If you quit looking at Law like a dehydrated woman in the desert I would leave you alone. But you keeping giving him 'ga-ga' eyes." At this point Nami, Robin and Shakky had gotten closer to the debating women.

"You just need to shut up," Missy snapped. She turned her head away from Rachel, as if putting an end to the conversation. She missed the evil glint that appeared in Rachel's eyes. It caused the other three women to exchange glances.

"You know," at Rachel's words a horrified look crossed Missy's features.

"Don't you dare!" Missy snapped.

"Somepeopledon'tshutupwhenthey'retoldtoshutupbutmeIalwaysshutupwhensomeonetellsmetoshutupbecauseshuttingupisthepolitethingtodowhensomeonetells
youtoshutupsoI'llshutupjustforyou."

(What Rachel said: Some people don't shut up when they're told to shut up, but me I always shut up when someone tells me to shut up because shutting up is the polite thing to do when someone tells you to shut up. I'll shut up just for you,)

Missy stood to her feet and faced Rachel. "I'm seriously going to hurt you."

A serious look on her face, Rachel slowly stood up and face Missy head on. Missy was slightly taller than her, by less than an inch, but it didn't bother Rachel. The look on Missy's face went from angered to uncertain. "Take that swing," Rachel suggested. "You know that you want to." Missy sat back down in a huff. "That's what I thought. You ready to listen seriously?" When she was met with silence Rachel continued. "You're only angry with a short fuse right now because you know I'm right and you're wrong. You hate being wrong and you lash out. Take some time and think things through. How many lives do doctors save on a everyday basis? Just because you're mad you had to go through weekly shots as a kid you're holding it against every doctor. What did Law ever do to you? Then the thing with the sub. I'll admit your dad scaring you on the bridge was a pretty crappy thing to do to his own kid, but how many years ago was that? Has a bridge ever fallen out from under you? Have you ever fallen into water from a great height? How many times and how far has Law traveled in his sub? Your fears have no foundation to stand on. Think on this seriously or the next time I won't wait for you to swing." Rachel calmly started walking away.

Nami slid into a seat next to Missy. "So," she started quietly. "That was quite the personality change from Rachel."

"Personality change my ass," Missy sighed. She looked at the other three shocked women in the area. "Ladies, you just witnessed what Rachel's own siblings and older cousins have turned her into."

"What do you mean?" Robin asked.

"She hides it pretty well," Missy added. "Myself and Rachel's own sister are the only ones she gets along with now. She tolerates her brother for their mom's sake. The rest of our cousins, my own brothers included, can't get her to tell them the time of day. She hasn't seen any of them in years. Rachel won't allow anyone to put her down or demean her since being a teenager. She's usually playful and jokes a lot. But if she feels threatened, like I just did without thinking, she turns to stone. If I had gone to hit her, like I wanted to, not only would I have missed, but I would have had my face in the sand faster than I could blink."

"But we see you hit her all the time," Nami pointed out. "Especially when she mentions something about crabs."

"She expects it," Missy added. "She knows the things to say that would make me hit her like that. She does it on purpose, usually to lighten the mood. Honestly, I don't why she ducked earlier. She knew what I was going to do. Maybe she was expecting me to hit Nami instead and wanted to see what happened. It's doubtful though, she's not that malicious."

"She let's you hit her?" Shakky asked. She let out a puff of smoke from her cigarette. "Does she enjoy the pain?"

"I don't hit her that hard," Missy defended. "Besides, it's not for either of our benefit. I have a question to ask you three. Out of the two of us, which would you say was the stronger?"

"Until recently I would have said you," Nami said. "You're quick to act agressively, more so than Rachel."

"What would you say if I told you she's faster to loose her temper than I am?" Missy asked. "We don't have the same parents, remember? We both have violent tempers, that goes without question. She got that from her mom's side and I did from my dad's. They are siblings after all. However, I have a long tolerance limit before my temper snaps. Rachel, hers is considerably far less than normal. Her limit she got from her dad. He's not violent, he's just quick to anger. Combine the two of them and you get Rachel. I don't want to speak ill of her, but it's the way it is. She acknowledges this in herself and considers it one of her greatest flaws."

"Is that why she lets you hit her?" Robin asked.

"She lets me hit her to mislead everyone," Missy continued. "She works really hard not to let her temper snap. She walked away just now, not because she won the argument. She walked away because she knows she's about to snap." The women watched as Zoro approached Rachel, his scowl deeper than usual. He said a few words to Rachel, glanced up at Missy then back to Rachel. He paused, possibly listening to Rachel. Then he moved his left arm around her waist and started walking away with her.

"What did you do?" Ace's sudden appearance in front of Missy nearly caused her to fall out of her chair. Sabo, Shanks and Rayleigh weren't too far behind.

"I may have looked like I was going to lash out at her," Missy demured.

Ace slapped a hand to his forehead. "You're such an idiot," he said.

"Hey now," Missy poked him. "How would you feel if people kept pushing you into a relationship?"

"If it was one I didn't want then I would hit them," Ace answered. He continued when Missy opened her mouth. "You can't use that as a defense since we all know that you want to get together with Law."

"You can't be serious," Missy rolled her eyes. "What makes any of you think that?" She looked around at everyone that was giving her the 'are you serious' look. Missy stood up in a huff. "I'm going to go out for a bit. I don't know when I'll be back." Missy then left to take a spin on BB.

"Don't worry about her," Ace said. "We've been waiting for this. She'll go to a place where no one can reach her and center her thoughts. She'll eventually come to the conclusion we've all made. Then she'll work her way through it and figure out her own solution."

Law came up to the gathered people, Jean Bart at his side. "Where's the engineer going?" he asked.

"Missy left to clear her head," Ace answered.

Law let out a dramatic sigh. "I need her help," he said. "The power on the sub hasn't been working right. She needs to come over and fix it. It is her design after all." Jean Bart straightened as if he had come to a realization. He looked down at Law and stared at him for a long time. When Law gave him no acknowledgement Bart simply went back to his normal stance. He figured out what was going on, now if only to get the rest of the Heart crew to behave normally. 'Nope,' Bart thought to himself. 'That will never happen.'

Rachel stormed away from the table. If she stayed any longer she would do something that both she and Missy would regret. "If you look up 'mule' her picture would be in the dictionary," she muttered. She was stopped by Zoro coming up to her.

"What happened between you and Missy?" he asked.

"What makes you think that something happened?" Rachel watched as he looked behind her and back down to meet her eyes. Not giving a response, Zoro put his arm around Rachel's waist and started leading her away. Rachel gave no move to step away or a sound of protest.

The two of them walked for a little while. The main group were still in sight, but the two were alone. Zoro stopped and sat down in the sand. He pulled Rachel down with him to sit in his lap. "Are you going to keep evading my question?" he asked.

"It's just bad memories," Rachel sighed. "Missy brought them up. I can't handle the reminder very well. Can we just not talk about it?"

"Will you tell me eventually?"

"I will, when Missy hasn't royally pissed me off with her pig-headedness." Rachel leaned her head against Zoro's chest. She smiled when she felt it give a small laugh. The noise wasn't there, she was also sure she would only see the faintest hint of a smirk. Zoro had a reputation to keep after all. The two sat in silence for a little while.

Rachel watched as BB sped past the area they were sitting. 'She must finally have had reality hit her over the head with a large neon-sign,' she thought. 'What the hell was she thinking about crushing on a guy that embodied everything that she was scared of anyway?'

"What's Missy doing?" Zoro wondered out loud.

"She probably just got a big dose of reality and doesn't know how to deal," Rachel responded. "Going somewhere to be alone is how she copes. She'll come back around once she comes to her own conclusions. For her sake, she better pray to God that they're the right ones."

"Why is that?" Zoro asked.

"Because if she puts me through this bull shit again Ima gonna kill her." Zoro laughed out loud at that, not to a volume anyone could hear. It was loud enough for Rachel and it caused her to snuggle up to him more.

As Rachel was getting comfortable she felt Zoro stiffen. She picked her head up and looked up at him. "Is something wrong?" she asked. Zoro didn't answer, he just stared out to sea. Rachel followed his gaze to see what he was staring at. A ship was approaching the island. "Who is that?" Rachel asked. The two of the stood and headed back to the 'party beach'.

Rachel wasted no time getting a set of binoculars from her supply bag. She focused in on the ship as Zoro told everyone about the approaching vessel. Rachel looked closely for any identifying markers. Sails or a jolly rodger, for example. She finally found what she was looking for and froze.

Slowly, Rachel lowered the binoculars and faced everyone. "We have a big problem," she said. "That ship's bearing Kaido's flag."

Law's eyes widened as everyone else made various noises of disbelief. Shanks took a hold of Luffy's hand. "We'll see ya later Luffy," he said. "We'll distract Kaido so that you can make a get away."

"See ya Shanks," Luffy grinned.

"We need to go too," Zoro announced. "We should put as much distance between us and that Yonko as possible. We've just got out of a major battle." He then stared directly at Sanji. "Some of the weaker ones are still injured."

"What was that moss-head?" Sanji demanded.

"Not now you guys," Usopp cried. He was hurriedly gathering up the supplies they had brought to shore. "We've got to get out of here."

"I have to get LB," Rachel announced. "I need to find Missy and bring her back here."

"There's no time," Zoro refused.

"What?"

"We'll get her," Law announced. He and the rest of the Heart Pirates were already boarding the sub. "We're ready to leave now. We'll get her and meet up with the rest of you later."

"That's not going to go over well," Rachel warned. She did nothing else to sway his decision though. "When she's on board give her a message for me." Rachel ran up and whispered something in Law's ear. She then rushed back over and helped the others load the Sunny and Nunya back up. Law entered his sub with a smirk on his face.

The four ships set sail. Two split off in separate directions. The Sunny and Nunya started heading off in the same direction. On board the Nunya was Sabo, Ace, Hack, Zoro and Rachel. Rachel was on the bridge, operating the large ship in Missy's absence. They had all agreed to come back to Zou when things had cooled down. Zoro stood on the bridge with Rachel. "What I want to know is how he found us," Rachel voiced.

"It was most likely luck," Zoro answered. "He could have been heading in the general direction of Dressrosa and was hoping to come across Luffy and Law. It was our mistake for taking as long as we did to get there."

"I blame Shanks and Rayleigh," Rachel pointed out. "If they hadn't shown up then we would have been long gone by now." Nothing else was said as they concentrated on leaving the area. The sound of cannon fire was left in their wake. Just in case, Ace and Sabo were waiting at the turrets. Ace was explaining to Sabo how to work one and pointing to a few things on the large guns.

Zoro's baby snail started ringing at that point. He answered it without speaking. "Hey guys, we're going to have to split again," Nami's voice came over. "Blackbeard is directly ahead of us."

"Say what?" Rachel asked in a panic. Zoro was already looking for the ship with the binoculars that were laying on the bridge.

"I see them," Zoro said. He was pointing forward and slightly to the right. "How are we going to do this captain?"

"We don't want to risk a fight right now," Luffy said. You could tell by the strain in his voice that he was grinding his teeth. He really wanted to confront Blackbeard on his actions of the past. "We'll stick with the plan of meeting Law again. For now, our ships should split up as well."

"You have time to jump across and join the others," Rachel said. She was looking at Zoro at this time.

"You stay on the Nunya Zoro," Luffy ordered. "It's now officially the secondary ship of the Straw Hat Pirates."

"You can't just decide that," Rachel started to argue. She stopped and thought for a few seconds. "Nevermind," she relented.

Zoro was smirking at her as he answered. "Understood captain," he said. "We'll see you at the designated time." He then hung up the snail. He looked at Rachel, smirk still in place. "Realized it won't do you any good to argue with him?"

"Are you teasing me?" When Zoro didn't answer Rachel knew. "Just you wait buddy," she started. "You won't get off so easy teasing me."

"I look forward to it." Rachel rolled her eyes as she steered the ship. They veered away from the Sunny and the two ships split up.

Missy was sitting on the hood of BB when the Heart Pirates sub floated up to her. She stood up as Law came out. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Is BB anchored?" Law asked instead.

"Yeeeeaaaaaah," Missy answered slowly.

"Do you have the key to it on you?" Missy held up her hand to show the key. "Then it should be safe for awhile."

"What are talking about?"

Instead of answering, Law made a 'room'. He then used his technique to switch Missy's postition with some random item he had on hand. Missy was slightly disoriented when she appeared in front of Law. He didn't wait for her to gain her bearings. Law took Missy by the hand and dragged her inside. "Bart, let's get out of here," he ordered.

"Aye, aye captain." Once the hatch was closed the sub started to move.

"Wait a minute," Missy started panicking. "You've got to let me out."

Law took her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. "What do you think is going to happen?" he demanded. "This ship has proven herself sturdy enough. We'll be fine, there's nothing to worry about."

"But..." Missy's protest was cut off by Law kissing her.

When he pulled away his grey eyes met her hazel ones. "Just one breath at a time," he soothed. "Give it a few minutes. Let us prove that you have nothing to fear." Missy started to take a few deep breaths as she was ordered. "There's a seat over there. Sit down and I'll explain what happened." Once she was seated Law told her about the approaching Yonko ship.

"That really sucks," Missy groaned. She had been hoping to approach her fears at a slower pace than what happened. "It's really cramped in here." Missy started fidgeting in her seat.

"I have a message for you from Rachel," Law said. "She told me to give it to you if you were still having a hard time after awhile." He knelt down so that he was looking right into Missy's eyes without her having to crane her neck to look at him. "Rachel's exact words were: Put up or shut up."

Missy let out a small chuckle. "That little brat."