Valentine's Personal Log 21: No Perfect Moment
I set myself up in the shadows outside the wreckage that used to be the Franky House. I increased my reverse Haki up as far as I could reasonably maintain it. Any barely conscious eye that passed over me barely registered that I was there, and if they did, soon forgot. Zoro was right. They destroyed this place and everyone in it. I don't care about them anymore. I'm not after the small fries.
My patience was rewarded. I've finally put a name to the face. This Franky guy is an utter creep. He walks around in nothing but a speedo, an unbuttoned tropical shirt, and hair product. I wonder what he uses to make it stand up like that. I had my finger on the release for an aerosolized deadbolt grenade that I made last night, but he had two girls with him. I'm going to have to wait until he's alone. I wouldn't have been able to attack him then anyway. He saw the destruction and instantly took off after Luffy. He knows these streets way better than I do and he has some killer climbing skills. I wasn't able to follow him thanks to my still injured ankle.
Something else caught my eye and ear. Mr. Iceberg was nearly killed and we're being blamed for it. The man claims Robin and a masked man were in his room when he was shot five times. Was I wrong about her? I thought she was just trying to keep her distance because she was afraid of hurting the crew. How could I have been so wrong? Was I blinded by the fact that I wanted her to be a good person, or is something else going on? I don't know what to think anymore. If things go south here and something happens to the crew, I may have to use my status to help them, granted daddy isn't too upset with me to let me use it. Maybe it would be best for me to see things out here and then make myself scarce as well.
I heard Luffy and Franky fought at Dock 1, so I went to see if either of them were still around. I missed them of course. They destroyed the place, which is to be expected where the captain's involved. With the Aqua Laguna coming I have to use my time wisely. If I get caught away from the crew when that massive annual tidal wave hits then I'll be in trouble. The streets are easier to travel with everyone evacuating.
Chopper tracked me down with a stricken look on his face. They found Robin for a brief moment. She confirmed what the town is saying about her and that she is leaving. One thing strikes me oddly, though. Her last words were "Thanks for being nice to someone like me." You don't thank people you want to throw under the ship. I'm too confused and tired to make sense of any of it right now. I sent him ahead to find the rest of the crew, saying I'd meet up with them when I was ready.
I've been wandering town ever since then, writing in my log because it makes me look inconspicuous. I haven't even heard the name "Franky" in hours and it's gotten dark. I was bored so I started practicing more of my observation Haki. Thinking of party tricks I could use later I decided to try mixing my reverse and synchronization techniques to pull a disappearing act. I noticed that I was able to slip through whole crowds while staying in people's blind spots. There are groups of 40-50 people that I slipped through and not one of them saw me. I can't do it for very long right now, but if I practice it, maybe I'll be able to keep it up for longer than 10 seconds.
As for this group of weirdly dressed men saying they're holding Usopp in some warehouse, ten seconds and a bit of sunblade are just enough.
Still bodies line the street in a path through district 6. Karmen walks in the back entrance of the warehouse, heels clicking across the stone floor. "How did you get in here?" One of the square-afro sisters says.
"Karmen?" Usopp looks up in shock.
"I'm sorry," Karmen croons like a viper. "Was that entrance supposed to be a secret? One of your boys was all too willing to tell me about it."
"What did you do to our brothers?" The other woman yells.
"Not nearly as much as I'm going to do to that one." Karmen's eyes are cold and narrow above her veil. They soften as they pass over Usopp and flare as they see the latest damage done to the ship. "Usopp and Merry." She points a dripping quill at Franky. "Stop attacking my family!"
Karmen starts to run towards Franky and his sisters jump in the way. "Hold on, Karmen," Usopp stammers. "Which one is that?"
"Synchronize: Blind spot." Karmen slips by the women with ease and throws the quill at Franky. He dodges it and grits his teeth as two more come flying by him. Dual wielding, Karmen slashes fiercely, forcing Franky to lift his tattooed arms to defend himself. She sees an opening and slams the quill into his chest only to have the blade ricochet and slice her palm through her glove. The fear registers before the pain. After one quick gasp of air, Karmen crumples to the ground releasing a torrent of blood-curdling screams. Franky drops his raised fist in confusion.
"Karmen!" Usopp runs to where she writhes in pain, clutching her wrist. "Which one is it? Where's the antidote?" He's not sure she even knows he's talking. He forces her arm-length glove off and finds bright red tracks traveling up her arm like roots. He can barely hear himself over her screams. The three members of the Franky family watch in horror. He pulls her bag off her shoulder and digs through it, finding her emergency syringe collection. He pushes her veil up and forces the handle of his slingshot into her mouth. It muffles her screams slightly and gives her back some control as she bites into it. The veins start a steady procession up her shoulder. "Karmen, you've gotta help me out here."
Taking a deep breath, Karmen draws a sun on the floor with her own blood.
"Sunblade. Ok. Which bottle is the antidote in?"
She draws three shaky lines and an arrow pointing towards her.
Usopp lifts her left sleeve and grabs the third bottle from her hand. "How much?" She holds up her index finger and thumb to indicate two inches of liquid. The veins have reached her neck and start spreading across her face. She knows that if the toxin reaches her brain or her heart, she might as well be dead. Usopp fills the syringe and hesitates. "Where do I-?" Karmen forcefully snatches the needle and plunges it into her neck. The women behind her gasp. Within a span of thirty seconds, the veins stop spreading just before reaching her eye and the screams subside to labored breathing. Usopp cradles her head in his lap until she recovers.
While they watch, Franky moves over to his sisters. "Why didn't you fight back?" One of them asks quietly.
"I recognized that look in her eye," he replies in the same hushed tone. "I think that woman's been through something. She's got the look of someone who'd break if she lost just one more thing. She's only protecting what she has left."
When she can breathe evenly again, however shakily, Karmen reaches up with her good hand and pries her teeth out of the handle. "Sorry about your slingshot."
"You think I care about a few teeth marks? Don't scare me like that!" He yells. "What were you thinking?"
"Probably something similar to what you were when you challenged Luffy," she says weakly. "You said you felt that the whole crew thought you were weak. I can't even protect you, Usopp. How's that supposed to make me feel?" The sisters tear up and cover their mouths.
He grits his teeth and looks away, only to catch sight of her leg. "Your ankle is swelling again."
"Just in that spot where the burn was really deep. It's not as bad as it looks. It's just been healing slowly because I haven't let up on my immunities training. I started another training while running around town all day trying to find that guy. After the others brought you back from their house like that I…" She lays her forehead against his abdomen, unable to say more.
"You and your crazy trainings." Usopp picks up the quill carefully. "Is this what you were making last night? Since when does the sunblade do that?" He watches the veins slowly recede down her shoulder.
She shakes her head. "I was making gas canisters. I concentrated the sunblade while you were unconscious yesterday after Zoro stopped me from using the super Plucharon. Remind me to thank him for that later." She looks down to the cut on her hand. "I made it 100x the lethal dose. It was my contingency plan. My first plan was to go for a long ranged attack with the gas, but he always had those girls with him. They're not the ones who hurt you, right?"
"You idiot," he says tearfully. "If you didn't have a resistance to it you'd be dead right now. If I have to take care of myself while we're apart then so do you!" Usopp closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Listen, Franky, I know she just tried to kill you and all, but is there any way we could-" Usopp looks up and sees the three onlookers bawling their eyes out.
"She's just like you, big bro!" wails one of the women.
Karmen cocks an eyebrow at the strange man in front of her. "We're the exact opposite," she mutters, but is too weak to argue the statement any further.
"I'm really moved right now, but I gotta know," Franky says, getting ahold of himself. "Did you use that stuff on my brothers?"
"Not in that dosage. I was saving that for you. I only used sunblade on the guys I got directions from and they've been given the antidote already. I gave the others deadbolt. They're paralyzed right now, but they'll be fine for another few hours. That was my other contingency plan. We walked out of here unharmed or they didn't get the antidote and slowly suffocate. I guess I'm in no position to be making demands right now though. I really suck at frontal attacks. They never work out well for me." She sighs and flexes her right hand. "Maybe I'm only suited to be a secretary after all."
"That's not true," Usopp says. "That new move of yours is great. How many guys did you take down on the way here?"
"Maybe thirty."
"Who else came with you?"
"No one."
"You left one of your notes again, didn't you?" he says disapprovingly.
"I didn't have anywhere to leave one," she admits. "We're being hunted down because Robin shot a local hero and the rest of the crew are out chasing her. She said she was leaving us too." She holds his wrist gently. "When I heard those guys saying you'd been kidnapped I kind of snapped… again. I can't lose two of you in the same week." Franky grits his teeth around his tears. She sits up and looks at him for a moment, swaying slightly. "Thanks for not interrupting our conversation. How about a compromise, metal-man. I go give your boys that antidote and we sit down and talk this out peacefully over a cup of tea."
"Not the lemon caapi," Usopp says flatly.
"Stop showing them my cards," she grumbles, elbowing him softly.
"Sis, despite your actions, I'm not much into hitting women if it can be helped. You seem reasonable now and I like your protective instincts," Franky says. "How about some cola when you get back?"
Karmen nods and stands up, gathering her scattered supplies on the way. "By the way, I know a thing or two about battle-wear." She gives Franky one last once-over. "If anything happens to him while I'm gone, I'll be sure to aim lower or go for your back. I may not be good at frontal attacks, but I can be deadly in the shadows."
"Woman, I find it hard to believe you're just a secretary." She simply tucks her quill into her belt, sliding her glove back on as she walks to the back door.
"She's a pirate secretary," Usopp says proudly. Karmen smiles and exits the way she came as the men fall back into the conversation she had interrupted.
Karmen returns a while later with the straggling members of the Franky family to find the warehouse destroyed, the ship gone, and the men missing. Mozu and Kiwi, the square-fro sisters, fill them in on CP9's attack. Karmen turns to the guys she had recently treated. "I know you guys probably hate my guts right now, but I may have just saved your lives. I can't really explain right now, but I'm going to need some rope."
Not long after, in a separate part of town, Karmen rides up to Nami standing on the back of a fish. "What's going on?" Nami fills her in on everything that's happened with Robin and CP9. "I'll go help Chopper look for the others. Aqua Laguna is coming. We need to move quickly."
The pull of the tide drains the water canals and her fish with it, so Karmen jumps onto the sidewalk and makes her way to the shipbuilding yard on foot. When she gets there, Nami and Chopper are jumping across rooftops. "Hey," a blonde, smoking shipwright says. "You're that girl who was talking to Nami earlier."
Karmen watches Nami's progress. "So we've found them, then?"
"I'm not sure. They're after something." The wind picks up and lifts her skirts. "Cover your legs you shameless woman!"
She cocks her head at him. "Everything except my legs is covered and you're making a fuss about that? Besides, I'm wearing shorts. Haven't you stepped foot in a ballroom before? Who are you, anyway?"
"Paulie. You?"
"The secretary."
"Are those guys going to be ok?"
Karmen assesses the situation as the first wave approaches. "They'll be fine. You may want to stand back a ways though."
They watch Nami, Luffy, Chopper, and Zoro make it to the bridge. "I think I'll stand over there."
Karmen stands quietly while negotiations for transportation are arranged. "You had to go and get yourself taken to Enies Lobby, and by CP9 no less," she sighs to herself. She observes the crew as they make passionate speeches about rescuing their fellow crewmember who was planning to sacrifice herself in their stead. "You've given me one message, though. They never would have let me trade myself for them either, would they, Robin?" An image of a mirrored queen card forms in her mind. Her face is on one side and Robin's is on the other. "We're in this together, you idiot. Girls like us have to keep each other from getting captured. You didn't let me keep my side of the agreement."
"Are you ok, lady? It's not exactly normal for a woman to stand around talking to herself," Paulie says.
"Tell the crew I'll catch up to them in a bit, even if I have to ride a fish to get there. There are some people who I think need to be informed on the situation."