[Author's Note: This chapter alternates between log and real time. It's a little hard to differentiate, but just remember that the logs are italicized. I felt the line breaks were too disruptive for the constant switching.]
Ship's Log 16: Battle at Alubarna
We formulated our plan on the way to Alubarna. I rode on one with Chopper on the back of a supersonic fighting duck until we got close, slipping off the back so he could go fight and watched the several white cloaks fan out to give Vivi a chance stop the rebels and royal army from fighting. I let them distract the Baroque Works agents and kept my eyes open. I made sure to tell everyone to stay in one piece, giving the men a good glare. They don't know how hard it is to wash blood out of clothing.
Nami and Zoro faced off with Mr. 1 and Miss Doublefinger. Sanji ended up facing Mr. 2. Chopper and Usopp stood against Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas, who had kidnapped the king. Vivi ran to stop the rebels. I hung amongst the rocks and looked for an opening. I'm no use against trained fighters, even if I can dodge.
Seeing that everyone's plans had gotten Vivi into the city, Karmen decides to make her move as well. She begins looking for a way into the city that doesn't ring with the sound of swords and rifles. She moves around the walls to the North. Karmen rounds the city and peers up at the abandoned Northern gate. She is about to go up the stairs when she feels a tap on her shoulder. "Excuse me, miss. I was wondering if you've seen this woman?"
She spins around and sees an old picture of herself. She wears fine silks and expensive jewels and her hair is banded up in a layered braid that's twisted atop her head. She follows the picture to a hand, wearing a family signet ring with a Neptunian eel crushing a cargo ship inside the letter "G", and up the arm to find the man from the casino. He has dark, stringy hair with a silk jacket and a bulbous ascot pinned with a broach engraved with the number 6. She had been right to take precautions. "You shouldn't sneak up on a girl. Who is that?" She asks, much calmer than she feels. "And why are you asking me this now? Can't you see there's a battle going on?" She looks into the man's dark eyes and preps a quill under the guise of a fist on her hip.
"Right. This may not be the best time for it, but it is of utmost importance that she is located. I saw your dress and thought maybe you had been out West and may have some information."
"This?" She lifts her skirt slightly. "I saw it in a magazine and made it myself. I've never been further West than Yuba. I'm just a secretary after all."
"I see. My mistake," the man chuckles. "You wouldn't happen to know where I might find a woman such as this, though, would you?"
"Crocodile has a casino a few towns over. Maybe she's enjoying herself there."
"I just came from there. I didn't see her."
"Have you tried a hairdresser? A woman like that would be the gossip of the town." Karmen smirks under her veil. She hadn't had her hair cut in a year and a half other than when she personally cut her bangs. He wouldn't find any evidence except plenty of meaningless gossip in any salon. "Anyway. I'm looking for someone myself and if I'm going to avoid the fighting I should be on my way. Good luck finding whoever she is."
Karmen turns, making sure to keep the quill out of sight as she slips it into her sleeve and dips it in a bottle of plant extract strapped to her wrist harness. She keeps her hands folded so that the fabric blocks all view of her action. She takes careful steps up to the gate and peeks inside.
The man behind her laughs. "Would the people you're looking for happen to be those pirates you were with earlier? Odd company for someone like you, isn't it, Karmen?" She freezes mid-step. "Your accent gives you away, child."
She senses his approach and slashes her pen behind her, slicing his palm. While he recoils from the pain he lands a few sharp kicks to her back. She darts inside the gate and down an ally. A giant explosion at the South gate gives her cover enough to hide and come up with a plan. Of course her fashion sense and accent would be the things to give her away.
Usopp and Chopper used their combined intellect, trickery, and fighting prowess to defeat the mole woman and the heavy hitter with a devil fruit infused gun. They survived with just a few burns and broken bones. Mr. 2 gave Sanji some trouble since he kept turning into Nami, but he used his cunning to win the fight. He too, suffered broken bones.
"Haven't you been gone long enough? You have things you need to take responsibility for, child." She can hear him walking the streets over the sound of her own heart beating. She chastises herself for not bringing the plant extract that blinds people. "We can't let it be known that you've been running around with such rabble. We'll say they kidnapped you and have them executed quietly."
How much longer? Though she'd performed scratch tests on herself she hadn't tested the delay on a moving person. Just a little longer. She might as well get information while she waits. Karmen steps out into the street, quill poised. "Executed, you say? Don't make me laugh." Another explosion sounds from somewhere in the city. "Do you understand what's happening here? That crew is spread throughout the city, taking on people a lot scarier than you."
The man chuckles at her. "It's not me you should worry about. It's the owner of this ring."
"That ring means nothing to me," she spits. "The captain said he would take out Crocodile, and Vivi said she would save this country. I believe in them and they've been good to me while I've been with them. Do you hear me? What do you really know about me? I have friends who can take down warlords and have other warlords on my side. I've made friends in neighboring countries who would die to protect what they care about. I can't just sit around while they put everything on the line. The least I can do is make sure they never have to see your face."
"That's big talk for a child like you. Your father made sure you never had to fight and you never had to work too hard. What good are you against someone with my level of training?" The man cocks a gun and points it at her. "Now be a good girl and go to sleep for a while. We have a long ways to go before I get my paycheck."
He shoots at her and she attempts to spin out of the way. A sharp needle grazes her cheek and rips the bottom half of her veil. "Tranquilizers?!" Her cheek goes numb almost immediately and the vision in her right eye goes blurry. She throws a quill at him and it grazes his shoulder. "Can't we just talk this out over some tea?"
Zoro was able to finish the man who ate the Dice-Dice devil fruit and could turn any part of his body into a blade, despite having a building dropped on him and being slashed all to pieces. He proudly reported that he was now strong enough to cut steel. I think it might be a form of Haki. Nami used her clima-tact, a three part climate changing staff made by Usopp, to defeat the woman with Spike-Spike powers. She came off the battlefield pierced in several places.
Two darts land in Karmen's right shoulder blade before she can dodge the next attack. Three. Four.
"Why isn't this working on you?" the man growls.
"I think that's what I'm supposed to be asking," she says, breathing hard. It has been what, ten, fifteen minutes since the first slash? She'd hit him twice since then and nothing was working. She had diluted the extract so it wouldn't be lethal, but perhaps she had diluted it too well. "It's got to work." Otherwise she would be in trouble. "You'd better hope it takes a long time to get back. Daddy will kill you if he sees me punched full of holes."
"Ah, so you've resigned to your fate?"
She grips three fresh quills in her teeth as her right arm goes numb. "Not in the slightest. I have a promise to keep."
"Oh? A promise to who exactly?"
"Myself." Karmen uses her teeth to dip two of the three quill pens into deadbolt and grasps them in her left hand. "I can't let myself get caught here." Already she can't feel her right side. "I'm going to end this."
"Works for me. My arm is stiff from holding the reins all the way over here." He aims his pistol at her again as she gives half a smirk. There it is.
"Let's see who can dodge, better, eh?" Her words are starting to slur and she's bitten her tongue at some point, probably when her shoulder was shot so many times, but she can't feel it. She just notices a thin stream of blood dripping from her chin. She leaps and he shoots. She hears fabric ripping and there's a shock of pain, but she ignores it. Her shoulder makes contact with the ground and she rolls up and stabs all three quills into the man's stomach. "Burning Cage!" She adjusts her hold and pushes them in deeper. She feels him stiffen and he falls to his knees.
"What did you do?"
"Do you know what I've been doing since I left, bounty hunter? I've been studying poisons. Two of those were a rare paralytic. The other was the sunblade root. You can feel it already, can't you? Like you're on fire? I'm probably the only person in this country who has the antidote to it. So while your jaw still moves and we can both form coherent words, why don't you tell me your orders and everything that's happened since I've been gone?"
Everyone met up at the palace where Crocodile was putting the finishing touches on his plan. Vivi had fought valiantly and the king and his men suffered greatly. Luffy had received a horrible wound in his first fight with Crocodile, but by covering himself in water he could finally land some punches. The crew was notified that a bomb would be shot into the square and split up to search for it. Nico Robin, Miss All Sunday, forced the king to show her to an ancient stone called a poneglyph. Luffy's dumb luck came into play again. Crocodile dried him out but the captain shot off some water right before. It came down and allowed him to recover.
"I see." The man in front of her lets himself scream painfully, no longer able to speak for long. Karmen sits back and takes two bottles off her wrist with her teeth. "As promised, here's the antidote. Keep that big mouth of yours open so I don't waste it." She drops some of each onto the man's tongue. "This isn't easy to do with one hand, you know. That should start to work within thirty minutes. Try not to deafen anyone until then."
He gains control of himself long enough to call her a nasty name.
Standing shakily, she makes her way to a crate to inspect her leg. Her skirt is torn and there is a fresh gash running the length of her thigh. Sighing, she tears her skirt the rest of the way down to the bottom and rips off some fabric to bind her leg. This was going to be a difficult walk to the palace.
Already losing function of the other side of her mouth, she writes a careful note with her left hand which ends up hard to read. Finding an abandoned broom, she flips it upside down and uses it as a crutch. For not being able to feel them, the guy's attacks could be such a pain.
Luffy followed Crocodile and Robin to the poneglyph chamber and finished off the warlord, saving both Cobra and Robin. Crocodile used a poisoned hook but Robin had the antidote and gave it to the captain. The bombers, Mr. 7 and Miss Father's Day, were in the clock tower. Vivi was thrown to the top and she was able to cut the fuse. There was a second detonator and Pell flew away with the bomb to save everyone. The sudden explosion blew the sand away and caused a change in the atmosphere that allowed it to rain and quell the fighting once Crocodile was gone.
When everything had settled, the uninjured Igaram strode through the carrying a boy who saw the misconducts of Baroque Works. Both sides were explained. The crew was found passed out in the streets and taken to the palace to be treated.
A man in a royal guard's uniform carries an unconscious woman through the palace gates. The skirt of her red dress is badly torn and some of it has been used as bandages for her bloody leg. The man carries four tranquilizer darts in his hand that he had pulled from her shoulder. Her hood is still in place, but her veil is nearly nonexistent on the right side of her face where she was recently bleeding. Her left arm hangs loosely, but her hand is clenched and dripping with liquid from open bottles strapped to her wrist. Vivi runs up to the guard. "What happened?"
He adjusts his grip to hold up a piece of paper. "Some of the men found her passed out in the street. We thought she was a citizen who got caught in the crossfire at first because there was a broom next to her, but then we found this."
Vivi unfolds the note and reads:
Name: Secretary.
Fought Baroque Agent, Mr. 6.
If found, please return me to Princess Vivi.
Tranked. Just need to sleep it off.
Tell the crew I won.
PS: Don't touch my left hand.
Vivi tears off the hood of her own cloak and ties it carefully around Karmen's left hand. "Get her inside right away."
As the guard lays her on a bed in the medical ward a reindeer flies out of another. "Karmen! What happened to her? Someone get a doctor!"
"Aren't you a doctor?" Vivi asks.
"Oh. Right."
"She left a note saying she'd been tranquilized by a numbered agent. I'm told these were in her shoulder."
Vivi hands Chopper the darts. He sniffs and tastes them carefully, then examines them under a microscope. "She should wake up in a few hours," he finally decides. Examining her closely, he makes his way to her hand. He carefully removes the binding and harness with forceps before soaking her hand in water to remove the toxins. That's when he notices a sharp, thin gash just below her knuckles. He tries to open her hand to treat it, but her fingers don't budge. "This wound was self-inflicted. She used the deadbolt to make sure she didn't let go of something. I'll find the antidotes."
"Wait, Chopper." Vivi shows him the note. "Do you think she meant we shouldn't get rid of the poison?"
"But the sunblade got into her wound too! She'll be in terrible pain when she wakes up."
"The soldiers said she walked halfway here using a broom as a crutch. She had time to use the antidotes if she had wanted to." Vivi holds Choppers shoulders and looks him in the eye. "Whatever's in her hand is so important to her that she'd rather suffer than let anyone see what it is, do you understand?" Chopper's lip quivers, but he nods. Vivi straightens. "Doctors! Help Chopper treat this woman's wounds, but do not, under any circumstances, touch her left hand."
Across the room a swordsman and a cook exchange a look.