Finally, a new chapter! Yay! I've been really busy and have been working on bits of it when I have time. So, enjoy chapter 8!

Zoro

"Huh? Did I just hear Luffy shout something?" Zoro mumbled to himself, "Nah can't be. I'm already half way across the island."

Zoro dismissed the thought and kept running to where he thought was Nami's house... but was actually the opposite direction to it...

Hardy

Hardy and Nezumi both looked up at the roof.

What the heck is Luffy doing?, Hardy wondered. They both looked back down and continued their previous discussion.

"All right," Nezumi said, "Shall we get this started?"

Nezumi smiled smugly at him, but his smile was immediately wiped off his face when he saw Hardy casually staring at his wristwatch.

Nezumi's jaw dropped a little before he asked "What... do you think you're doing?"

Hardy looked up from his watch "I already told you. You won't even last five minutes against me. Five minutes on the clock starting... now!"

Luffy

Luffy patiently watched as Arlong laughed his butt off.

"SHAHAHAHA! Handle anything we throw at you? What a joke!" Arlong laughed as he wiped a tear from his eye.

Luffy frowned "That wasn't a joke. We are marines, so we're here to give you what you deserve!"

Arlong kept on laughing. After a while, Luffy finally got annoyed and charged forward, punching Arlong in the face.

Arlong quickly recovered and smiled at Luffy before he mockingly said "Ouch, that hurt."

"Why the hell were you laughing?" Luffy demanded, ignoring Arlong's last sentence.

"Handle anything we throw at you? We are marines, so we're here to give you what you deserve? You're ignorance makes me laugh, kid! Why don't you wake up already and face the real world? What a fantasy you're living in! Not everything is sunshine and lollipops! One day, you're going to lose something important to you and face reality in the face!" He predicted.

This made Luffy mad. He rushed forward again and tackled Arlong to the floor.

"It's true that I haven't lost anyone or anything important to me yet." Luffy hissed, "But I'm strong enough to make sure that doesn't happen!"

Arlong laughed in his face "Whatever you say, kid."

Luffy gave him one more punch, but again, Arlong immediately recovered.

"And," Luffy continued, "This IS reality. Marines are here to stop scum like you. We're here to give evil pirates like you, what you deserve!" He repeated.

"Just what DO we deserve, oh so mighty marine?" Arlong mocked, amused now.

"Justice."

Nami

"You sound like you really trust that marine if you're willing to tell him about Arlong." Nojiko noted.

Having fled from Arlong park, Nami is back in her house with her older sister, Nokjiko.

"It's kind of hard not to." Nami admitted, "Luffy makes anything seem possible and he's not afraid of anything. Him fighting Arlong as we speak is living proof of that."

"Speaking of Arlong... Shouldn't you be with Luffy and those other guys you mentioned? Don't you want to support them while they fight?" She asked.

"I'm sure they're fine. I've seen how well Luffy fights; he's like a monster." She waved her hand to dismiss the thought.

Nojiko was just about to reply, but there was a sudden loud bang on the front door.

"This is the marine, let us in now!" a gruff voice shouted.

They both frowned. Were they Luffy's subordinates, checking on the citizens? No, they sounded too hostile to be Luffy's subordinates. So that must mean...

Before they could do anything, the door exploded into tiny pieces, only leaving enough time for Nami and Nojiko to duck down.

"Surrender now or else we'll use force!" a group of 20 marines surrounded the front entrance of the house. The one who seemed to be the leader, stepped forward.

"What's going on?!" Nojiko demanded. They both stood back up to face the marines.

"Under orders of Captain Nezumi, we are to capture the women named Nami." Their leader announced.

"What?!" Nami hissed, "How can you still call a weasel like him, Captain?! He's working for a PIRATE, for crying out loud!"

"Enough!" He barked at her, "An order is an order. We will not listen to your false proclamations! Come with us quietly or else!"

"But they're not false!" She yelled, "It's the cold truth!"

"I said that's enough!" He snapped. He took a step forward to grab her, but Nojiko got in the way.

"You marines are almost as bad as pirates." Nojiko sneered, "You should listen to my sister when she's telling you the truth!"

The marines frowned at the insult. He nodded at one of his subordinates who nodded back. A second later, a gunshot was heard.

Zoro

"Damn it, was that a gun?!" exclaimed Zoro, "AND DAMN IT, HOW DID I END UP LIKE THIS?!"

He thrashed around, trying to get free from the giant bird that had a steel like grip on his shoulders. He let out a frustrated groan when the bird kept flying off to who knew where.

Hardy

"Well, if you're so excited to die..." Nezumi sneered, before he threw one of his prws (prws= poisoned rat whiskers) at Hardy.

Surprised by his sudden attack, Hardy felt a sharp sting on his chest. He let out a surprised cry.

"Never let your guard down." Nezumi warned.

"Tch, I was just surprised, that's all." Hardy growled at him, "Did I mention that I hate needles?"

Nezumi's eyebrow twitched "They're not needles! They're rat whiskers!"

He shrugged his shoulder "Isn't that worse?"

Nezumi's face turned red from anger before he took a deep breath to calm himself. He gave an evil smile. Before Hardy could ask him what he was smiling about, he saw Nezumi whip another prw at him. Too slow to dodge it, Hardy felt another sharp sting on his chest. He could feel the searing hot pain spreading in his body.

"Did I mention that if you get hit with about ten of these in a short period of time... you'll die?" Nezumi asked him. Before Hardy could respond, he felt another sting from a prw. He let out another small cry before another one hit him. One by one the prws hit him straight in the chest.

"That's 21 times that you've been hit." Nezumi informed him, "You'll be dead in less than two minutes. What was it you told me? That I won't be able to last five minutes against you? Was that just talk?"

Hardy grit his teeth before his knees gave way and hit the floor. He could hear Nezumi's sadistic laugh while he looked at his watch. It's been three minutes. Two minutes left.

Luffy

Arlong sneered at him "Justice? In this world, there is no justice."

"You're lying." Luffy said stubbornly, "Of course there's justice."

"You're really starting to tick me off, kid." He growled, "Humans are disgusting creatures who betray fishmen just because we're different. They capture us and sell us off for slavery. Tell me; where's the justice in that?"

Luffy was shocked. This was the first time that he's heard of this. Were people really being sold off to become slaves? Who else knew about this?

"And you know what the worst part about this is, kid? The World Government are being bribed to ignore what's right in front of them. Which means that the marines aren't going to do a thing about it. So in a way, you marines are as bad as us pirates!"

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Slavery still exists, even though it's been forbidden for over 200 years now. And even worse, the people who forbade it in the first place, are the same people who are being bribed to ignore it. Luffy could feel his breathing quicken. Did Gramps know about this? Why didn't he tell him? Was what he was taught all his life about justice, just a lie? Wait, why was he listening to Arlong? He had no real proof, he could be lying. He took a calming breath as he made up his mind. As soon as he was done here, he going to go back to Marine HQ and demand for an answer from his Gramps.

He took another calming breath before he looked at Arlong's taunting face and said "If what you say is true, that still doesn't change the fact that you've committed terrible things that you must be punished for."

"Where's the punishment for you humans?!" He demanded, "Aren't you going to do anything about it?! Was all that justice talk you were spouting, just a bunch of nonsense?!"

Luffy gritted his teeth. He knew that Arlong was just taunting him to make him angry, but he couldn't take it anymore. He pulled back his fist before shouting "I'll do what I want to, so stop twisting my words!" Then, he sent his fist flying forward, straight at Arlong's face.

That seemed to have been a signal for his crew, because a second later, they were all charging at Luffy with their weapons raised.

Nami

"Nojiko!" Nami cried as she saw the bullet hit Nojiko. Not only that, but the marine who had shot her, gave her a harsh kick to her stomach, the same place that she had got shot at.

Clutching her stomach, Nojiko stumbled backwards before falling on her knees. Not thinking of anything but the anger that was overwhelming her, Nami brought out her bo staff and ran forward, blindly trying to attack the marine who had harmed her sister. He easily sidestepped it while grabbing the bo staff with his left hand. He pulled the bo staff back, causing Nami to lose her footing and fall to the ground.

She laid helplessly on the ground, not bothering to even get back up. Her eyes wandered over to Nojiko, who was barely whispering her name while trying to stay conscious. Tears spilled down Nami's face as the leader slowly walked toward her. His tall silhouette blocking her eyes from seeing anything else.

It was over. Everything that she's done up until now will all go down the drain. All that hard work that she put to saving her village will have been for nothing. For the rest of her life, she will work for Arlong, with no hope of saving her or her village.

Out of desperation, Nami took out a pocket knife that she had kept in her pocket. Surprised, the marines prepared themselves for another attack, but Nami surprised them all by thrusting the pocket knife into her Arlong tattoo. She continuously stabbed the pocket knife into her arm over and over again as blood gushed out. Finally, the leader had had enough and kicked her hand just before she was about to stab herself again. The pocket knife went flying away, far from her reach. A new wave of tears fell down her face as a small look of pity shown from the leader's face.

"Pass me the handcuffs." He told one of his subordinates, "We should-"

"NAMI!" a voice shouted.

"What the...?" the leader turned his body to look behind him. As he turned, Nami could get a perfect view of what was happening in front of her eyes.

In the setting sun, Nami could see the silhouettes of about a hundred people, all of whom appeared to be equipped with weapons. A single figure stepped forward and with the setting sun no longer obstructing her view, Nami's face brightened after realizing who it was.

"Genzo!" She cried.

"Hang in there, Nami, Nojiko! We're all here to save you!" Genzo called to her. Everyone else stepped forward and Nami recognized them as all the citizens from her village. All of them carrying weapons with angry looks on their faces.

"But why?!" She demanded, "Why are you all here?! Just go back before you all get hurt!"

They all marched forward as Genzo said "I'm afraid we can't do that. You've been fighting this battle alone for all these years, just to save us from Arlong. It's time that we repaid you for that."

"You knew?" She asked quietly.

He nodded his head, "Yes, years ago, when I became suspicious to why you joined Arlong, I got Nojiko to tell me the truth. All these years, we pretended to not know about your motives, so that you would not feel pressured to continue with your plan, so you could escape if you ever wanted to."

"Genzo..." She could feel new tears start to appear, but she shook her head, "No! You can't fight these marines. You'll all become wanted criminals for going against them, or worse, you could be..." She didn't have to finish her sentence for everyone to realize what she was going to say; dead.

"We all agreed that we would risk our lives here if need be. After eight years of being under Arlong's control, we've had enough. We all want our freedom!"

"Sir, what do we do? We weren't ordered to harm the citizens if they rebelled against us. And even if we were, I don't think I'm up for it..." one of the marines whispered to his leader.

"We have no choice. They're ready to fight to save this girl, and we can't let them do that. We have to fight back, but don't kill anyone." He warned. He raised his hand to signal to his subordinates. Suddenly, both sides charged forward; one side fighting for freedom, and the other side fighting for what they believed to be justice.

"NO! STOP!" Nami screamed, but her words became useless as battle cries roared and blood splattered everywhere. "Stop..." A sob came over her as she crawled to where Nojiko was. Nojiko was breathing heavily, now unconscious. "Nojiko... I don't know what to do..." She sobbed.

"GOD DAMN IT, LET ME DOWN ALREADY, YOU STUPID BIRD!" Nami looked up to see a familiar figure flying in the sky.

Hope you enjoyed it, and don't forget to review! Until next time, later!