The next morning, Chopper had found himself sitting near the front of the ship with Luffy, his face filled with wonder at the sea that lay before him. "Amazing! The sea is huge!"
"Of course! And the ones who go on adventures on that huge sea are pirates!" Luffy proclaimed cheerfully, rocking slightly back and forth where he sat.
Toffee smiled and approached the delighted reindeer-who was practically bouncing where he stood-showing him a drawing she had just completed of him. "What do you think, Chopper-kun? Does it look like you?"
Chopper blinked his large eyes innocently, his cheeks turning lightly pink when he realized no one had drawn him in such a detailed manner before. And Toffee had captured him when he was surrounded by the other Straw Hats the previous night, his features brimming with happiness.
"St-stupid! I'm not happy that you drew me at all!" Chopper cried out, laughing while swaying from side to side.
"I think he likes it," Nami mused with a small chuckle; Toffee letting out a giggle herself. When a large shadow abruptly covered the vessel, Nami peered upwards where her eyes grew wide from terror when seeing a bird hovering above them. "Wh-what is that?!"
"It's a seagull!" Luffy exclaimed despite the fact that seagulls normally didn't grow to that size-which Nami pointed out to him.
"That looks more like a condor than a seagull..." Toffee brought up, placing a hand on her cheek and tilting her head to the left a bit.
"Who cares what it is! It's flying right toward us!" Nami shouted out with a panicked look. No thanks in part to their big mouthed captain who had called the giant bird over to them!
"Amazing! It's a great adventure!" Chopper voiced, clapping his hooves. Though the glee he felt quickly faded when he realized Luffy had been snatched up and was now dangling in the creatures mouth high above them, and he took off screaming at the top of his lungs. "Ahh! It's terrible! A bird ate Luffy!"
Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji were engaged in a game of cards on the upper deck, not even looking fazed by their newest member who circled around them, shouting about how this wasn't the time to be playing around.
"Did he say he wanted our help?" Zoro asked, not taking his eyes off the deck he held.
"No, he didn't..."
"Then there's no problem. Don't worry about it."
Chopper was confused to why Zoro was brushing off something that seemed pretty serious, and he glanced up at the sky when hearing Luffy yelling out, "Gum Gum...Propeller!", this causing Chopper's eyes to nearly bulge out of his head as he watched Luffy twist up his arms, sending himself and the condor crashing onto the ship in the form of a mini tornado.
"Oi, Sanji! I've got some meat!" Luffy announced. He rubbed at his head confused seeing Chopper, Sanji, Zoro, and Usopp sprawled out on the upper deck, their forms lightly twitching. "What? Are you guys sleeping?"
Toffee smiled sheepishly when everyone except Chopper shot up from their splayed positions to yell at their captain who seemed more perplexed by their sudden 'unusual' anger. "Poor Chopper. He's already getting dragged into the chaos..."
"I suppose that happens to everyone if they're around Luffy long enough," Nami sighed out with a shake of her head. "Hey, you guys! This ship is arriving at Alabasta soon. We don't have time to play around! Move it!"
"So, what's Alabasta?" Chopper asked curiously, hopping down the stairs while following after the others.
"It's the country that Vivi's father governs," Nami answered.
"A rouge named Crocodile is trying to take over Alabasta right now," Usopp added.
"I hear that Crocodile is one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea," Sanji chimed in.
When Chopper didn't seem to know what that meant, Nami explained to him, "They're the pirates authorized by the World Government."
"I remember my oldest brother getting this dark look in his eyes whenever the Warlords were mentioned. The idea of dangerous pirates working under the government never set well with him..." Toffee admitted with a deep frown.
"Does your brother hate pirates or something?" Usopp asked curiously.
"Theo's never cared for them...He said it only proved how barbaric pirates truly were that they would kill their own kind to suit their own agendas...I'm sure if he ever got the chance, he'd track down every Warlord and murder them himself if he could..." she trailed off, her words causing Nami and Usopp's faces to turn a little blue.
Zoro scoffed at this, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm sure he's going to take it well when he learns his little sister is working alongside us pirates, then."
Toffee smiled awkwardly at this, honestly hoping Theo never found out if that were possible. She didn't want to even picture how the most quiet, yet deadliest of her brothers would react. Luffy however didn't seem bothered, turning his hand into a fist and hitting his palm while declaring, "I can't wait to get a kick at Crocodile!"
"Crocodile is a hero in Alabasta because he crushes the pirates that attack towns," Vivi voiced with a hard frown. "But that's only his public face. Behind the scenes, he is pulling strings to cause a civil war in Alabasta...in order to take over Alabasta...No one has noticed it. The citizens...my father...no one..."
Seeming to sense Vivi's anger rising, Luffy chirped out, "All right then! In any case, all we have to do is beat up that Crocodile, right?"
"Yes. If we can first stop the civil war and expel Baroque Works..."
Hearing Chopper's curiosity about the new group that had been brought up, Usopp sighed out, "Ahh...Yeah, you don't know about them either, do you? To be honest, I can't quite understand, either. Baroque Works has a complicated system."
"The system itself is simple." Vivi spoke up. She then went on to explain about each of the members that served under Mr. 0. There were twelve agents and one animal who worked directly under Crocodile in all. They had already met Mr. 3 and Miss Golden Week along with Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine. Not to mention Miss All Sunday who worked beside Crocodile. Yet the others were still a mystery.
Even when learning they would be dealing with a total of 2000 agents in all, Luffy wasn't deterred. Taking out Crocodile was the main objective he had set his mind onto.
"If Baroque Works' last big job is to take over Alabasta..." Zoro started off with a smirk.
"the rest of those 'officer agents' will all..." Sanji continued for the green haired male, unleashing a puff of smoke from his cigarette.
"gather in Alabasta." Nami finished off with a solemn gaze.
In other words this is going to be an extremely difficult battle Toffee thought, placing her hand on her purple bag. I need to train...It's been a long time since I used my dagger, but this fight might call for it...I can't just rely on long distance attacks...I have to overcome my fear and be ready to face what's to come! Even if that means killing once again...
"We're connected now. Any pain you feel I'll feel, so don't hold back. I want you to attack me with everything you have."
Neoshadow nodded his head, moving into a fighting stance where he waited on Toffee to make the first move. Flipping open her medium sized satchel, Toffee took in a shaky breath before gripping onto her dagger. The cool metal upon her palm almost felt foreign, and she gripped onto her wrist to make her hand cease in its quivering.
Holding the dagger in a comfortable outward position with her thumb on top and the fingers underneath, Toffee took in another breath of air before rushing at her shadow, swinging the unique jagged blue blade upwards.
Neoshadow leaned back to dodge the strike, twisting his body to grab hold of Toffee's arm. The gray haired girl let out a small cry when Neoshadow flipped her, forcing Toffee to land a bit painfully on her back. Seeing his leg coming down to connect with her stomach, she quickly rolled to the left in order to avoid it. Back on her feet in a matter of seconds, Toffee lunged at her companion where she tried to hit him with a flurry of swings.
Deimos had truly trained her shadow well when it came to martial arts as he was swiftly dodging her fast, close range, attacks. If he wasn't using his clawed hand or legs to block the strikes, that was. His leg soon came in for a side kick, which Toffee blocked with her own leg; the shadow monster not reacting in time when Toffee had disappeared, only to reappear directly behind him where she made a nice clean cut across his back.
"Remember! I said don't hesitate!" Toffee called out sharply when seeing her shadow frozen to the spot. He had turned to see the slight pain in her eyes, but more so the blood now dripping onto the deck.
Neoshadow closed its large solid yellow eyes, only for them to narrow once they had shot open, and he came at Toffee as she did him with even faster attacks. The two now whizzing around the ship, almost looking like blurs, Toffee was grateful none of the Straw Hats were awakening to the noise the two of them were no doubt making. Plus the state she was in most definitely would have startled them.
Falling to her knees as the sight of blood had finally gotten to her, Toffee's shadow looked at her sadly as he watched the girl wrap her arms around her trembling form while unleashing haggard breaths of air. The connection between them had broken, but he could still feel her pain even if his own form had no marks to show the intense training they had just gone through.
He was about to wrap his arms around Toffee and hold her close-the same way he recalled her brothers would do when she got into a state like this-his antenna's twitching madly instead when seeing a sleepy eyed Chopper coming out from the cabins.
Chopper had just been heading for the kitchen to get a glass of water, but he froze in place when noticing Toffee sitting in the middle of the floor covered in a multitude of wounds. A hand had slapped over his mouth before Chopper could unleash the scream that had been building-Neoshadow having quickly reverted back into his smaller form so he wouldn't startle the reindeer further-and Chopper stared at the shadow monster with big eyes when he was rapidly shaking his head.
Slowly taking his hand away from Chopper's mouth, Heartless started to point to areas of his form where Toffee was injured before moving his arm in a winding motion as if he was wrapping something.
A teary eyed Chopper looked at his fellow monster in confusion, soon realizing what he meant and Chopper scurried off to get his medical bag. Knowing he forgot to try and tell Chopper not to awaken anyone, Heartless ran a hand across his head as if he had hair, moving over to Toffee where his smaller frame latched onto the girl in a hug.
Much to the shadow creatures relief, Chopper came rushing back onto the deck with his medical bag in hand alone. Heartless released Toffee where the small reindeer could tend to her wounds, going to grab a rag and bucket of water where he then started to clean any traces of blood from the deck. Toffee would calm down if she could no longer see it. Not to mention, a lot of questions would be thrown about if the Straw Hats woke up to see blood spots splattered about.
"Wh-why would you do something like this to yourself?" Chopper sniffled out after wrapping some gauze around a rather nasty gash that had been made on Toffee's side.
"Training," Toffee spoke up in a quiet voice. Placing a hand over her heart and taking in calm, steadying breaths, Toffee sent Chopper a small weak smile. "We don't know who or what we'll face in Alabasta, so I need to make sure I'm ready to handle it...I was able to fight for ten minutes before my hemophobia got the better of me. That's better than I thought I'd do..."
Feeling Chopper placing a band-aid over the cut on her cheek, Toffee gave a gentle pat to the top of the still teary eyed animals pink hat and stood up. Her body ached all over, but she did her best to ignore the pain and smiled reassuringly down at Chopper.
"Thank you, Chopper-kun. I'll be alright now...Just promise you won't tell any of the Straw Hats about my injuries, okay? Something tells me they wouldn't be so happy if they knew I was cutting myself up in the middle of the night..."
"But..."
"Please, Chopper...?"
"O-okay. I won't let Luffy and the others know..."
"You should go and get some more sleep. I'll turn in here in a bit."
Chopper hesitated in leaving the gray haired woman, but he soon slowly started to back away; his attention remaining on Toffee as if he expected her to collapse at any moment. Waving at Chopper before he disappeared into the cabins, Toffee sighed and moved to lean against the mast.
"Just one step at a time, and I'll get there..." Toffee encouraged herself, placing a hand on top of Heartlesses head when she felt his cheek resting against her leg.
Tugging the long sleeved purple shirt with a smiley face on the front down over her form, Toffee stared at herself in the full length mirror to make sure every inch of her body was covered. She could at least just say she scratched her cheek in the middle of the night if anyone wondered what had happened, but the other bandages on her body would be hard to explain.
It sounded like the rest of the group were already awake and active, making Toffee smile tiredly as she headed up into the bright sunshine. Normally it was Nami scolding the crew when they became too rowdy, so Toffee was a bit surprised to come upon the sight of a livid Vivi slamming Luffy and Usopp's heads together.
"Did something happen?" Toffee asked meekly, peering over at an indifferent faced Nami.
"Those idiots ate all of the food last night, and now they're using Carue as bait," Nami huffed out, not noticing Toffee lightly stiffen beside her. The pink eyed girl must have only just missed Luffy and the others sneaking out for a midnight snack. "But anyways, you sure slept late. You feeling okay?"
"Yes. I was just feeling a little tired is all," Toffee alleged, placing her arms behind her back. Nami was giving her a light suspicious look, so seeing something strange rising up out of the waters, Toffee was glad to take the focus off of her. "I wonder what that is?"
"Do you suppose it's something dangerous?" Vivi spoke up, staring at the gas like substance with worry.
"Ah, don't worry. That's just steam," Nami assured with a smile. "It's a hot spot. It's an area where magma is produced. There's an undersea volcano underneath that area."
"A volcano even though it's undersea?" Chopper inquired.
"That's right. There're more undersea volcano's than above ground ones."
"I don't really care...since it's not food," Luffy mumbled out, unlike Chopper, Vivi, Usopp, and Toffee who were intrigued. Especially when Nami explained a new island would be born in the area after many years had passed by.
"You're so cool, Nami-san~" Sanji chirped, swaying from side to side with hearts in his eyes; his words making the orange haired female smile a tad proudly.
Some time had passed by, and seeing that Usopp and Luffy weren't having any luck catching their lunch, Sanji left to see if there was anything in the storage that he might have overlooked. The steam had gotten thicker, making it more difficult to see. Having no idea that a ship had just sailed past them, Luffy and Usopp could only gawk when snagging a rather peculiar looking man.
"I thought I'd die..." the man wheezed out, having fallen into the ocean after his hold on Carue failed him, and he ended up having to be rescued by Usopp. Though all of the crew was eyeing him suspiciously. "Well...I'm really swanny! To think that I was saved by pirates who are total strangers...I will never forget your kindness for the rest of my life! Also, may I have a cup of warm soup?"
"We don't have it! We're the ones hungry!" Zoro snapped.
Not seeming perturbed by the green haired male's temper, the cross-dressing ballet donned male glanced upwards where Vivi stood, his features seeming to brighten. "Oh, hey you! What a cutie! You're my type! I wanna eat you! Smooch~"
"Such a weirdo..." Vivi uttered out with a look mixed with disturbance and disgust.
"So, you can't swim, huh?" Luffy brought up with his usual friendly smile.
"That's right. I ate a devil fruit."
"Really? What kind of fruit?" Usopp asked curiously.
Placing a hand on his hip after standing up from his seated position, the unknown male replied, "Well...since there's no need to rush until my ship comes to pick me up...In lieu of entertainment, I'll show you...This is my power!"
The crew went on guard when the stranger hit Luffy in the face, Zoro even drawing his blades. The dark haired male quickly told the swordsman to wait in a voice that sounded strangely familiar to Luffy, and much to everyone's shock, his face looked just like the captains.
"Ah! That's me?!"
"Surprised?! Surprised?! Surprised?! If I touch my face with my left hand...See?! I'm back to myself! This is the power of the Clone-Clone Fruit I ate!" Giving a small twirl at all of the shocked and awed reactions he received, the man continued, "Well, for that matter. I don't have to knock you down..."
"That's both amazing and strangely horrifying..." Toffee whispered out when he displayed all of their faces with just a wave of his hand. The most bizarre part was that he could mimic body parts along with the face, which he showed by giving a blatant display of Nami's chest to the guys who's mouths dropped in unison at the sight.
"Stop it!" Nami snarled out, pummeling the weirdo with a flushed face.
"Hey, are you alright?" Luffy asked, crouching down with Usopp and Chopper to check on the twitching swan man.
Nami huffed seeing Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper completely enamored with the mystery man's power-the three of them encouraging him to show them more faces-moving to stand by Zoro where she grumbled out, "Gee, the guy's way to into showing off..."
"Guess they've made a new friend..." Toffee said with a shake of her head as the dark haired male continued to show off various faces despite previously claiming he couldn't.
"How stupid." Zoro scoffed out, not the least bit impressed.
Seeing a ship with a swan figurehead coming into view, the stranger jumped away from Luffy and the other-the four of them having been locked in a odd dance-where he declared, "It's already time to say goodbye...? What a shame..."
"Please don't go!" Usopp begged with tears in his eyes.
"Don't be sad! Journeys are always accompanied by farewells...But don't ever forget this. Friendship...has nothing to do with how long we've known each other," he claimed coolly with tears in his own eyes. "Don't cry!"
"See you again!" Luffy cried out.
"Now, let's go, guys!"
"Yes, Mr. 2 Bon Clay-sama!"
This line greatly startled the crew, and Usopp shouted out with a small stammer, "Mr. 2?!"
"So he is...Mr. 2 Bon Clay...?" Vivi gasped, her hands gripping at the railing of the upper deck.
"Vivi! You didn't know his face?!" Luffy cried out, glancing back at the princess in surprise.
"No...I've never met Mr. 2 and Mr. 1 as well as his partner," Vivi explained troubled. "I don't know their powers, either...though I've heard of rumors...Mr. 2 is...a ballerina with a large frame...who talks like a woman...He always wears a swan coat that has 'Bon Clay' on the back..."
"You should have noticed," Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp said together with bland expressions. It had been pretty obvious the guy had a perfect appearance to that detailed description.
"What's the matter, Vivi?" Luffy asked seeing the blue haired female sinking to the floor.
"Among the faces he showed from his past memory...I saw my father's face...the face of Alabasta's king, Nefertari Cobra..."
Zoro frowned at this. "If for example, you could mimic a king...you'd be able to do quite bad things, too..."
"We let a troublesome guy slip away, huh?" Usopp murmured, folding his arms with a deep frown of his own.
"Then he's our enemy?" Chopper gasped out.
"He's certainly quite a problem if he's on our enemy's side," Nami mentioned. "If he realizes we're his enemy...if he transforms into one of us using his memory from earlier...we won't be able to trust our own friends."
"Really? Huh?" Luffy voiced, not appearing bothered at all."
"Listen, Luffy..."
"Hang on. It's true that his opinion doesn't have any basis, but he's right about us not having to be scared of him," Zoro spoke up with a grin, placing a hand on Luffy's shoulder. "We should consider ourselves lucky that we got to see him now...because we can figure out countermeasures."
"And luckily we didn't display any of our abilities to him," Toffee mused, her shadow appearing beside her. "If it comes to that, we'll be able to take him down easier with that advantage."
"Take him down, huh?" Usopp couldn't help but flinch since he had thought of Bon Clay as a friend only a moment ago. "You can say some pretty scary things like Zoro sometimes, Toffee..."
"Huh? Wait, so I'm scary like Zoro?!" Toffee squeaked out with beads of sweat bouncing off her head.
An anger vein appeared on Zoro's head where he felt slightly insulted by the conversation that was going on right now, but he kept this to himself.