"Gluhh!...Koff!...I mustn't fall here...I have a duty towards pri-" Igaram coughed up blood and struggled to his knees. The poor man barely able to remove the debris and dust off his body.

"Oh the shame...beaten by a lone swordsman."

"Mr. 5?! and Ms. Valentine!" the old man was surprised by their appearances. A dark-skinned man with spiky dreadlocks in a maroon trench coat came with a blonde girl with a yellow and blue parasol in a lemon themed dress. The very contrasting duo both looked down on Igaram on their own way.

"What are you fooling around for?" Mr. 5 said in a harsh voice.

"Kyahahahaha! What did you expect from these low ranks?" Ms. Valentine said in a grating high-pitched voice.

"Did you merely come to mock us?!" Igaram shouted them.

"No, that's just a bonus."

"Kyahaha! We're here for official business, of course."

"That's great! We're glad to hear it. With your help, we could-" Mr 9., who was just recently gaining consciousness, was cut off.

"Help? You? You must be joking." Mr. 5 immediately dashed Mr. 9's hopes into the rocks.

"You think we came all this way through the Grand Line...to pick up your slack? Kyahahahaha!"

"Then...Why are your here?"

"The Boss' exact words were "My secret is out.". Of course, I don't know what the secret is, but...Baroque Works' motto is "Mystery". We never reveal the identity of any of our people, specially not the Boss'."

"In our investigation, we discovered that agents of a certain monarchy have infiltrated Baroque Works." Ms. Valentine ominously revealed, and the night sky darkened.

'Our cover's been blown.' Igaram instantly thought while looking at Vivi's unconscious body. His eyes then went to another person near her. 'In that case...' he immediately shot at the two before they finished their exposition. An explosion then happened after he fired. "Mr. Bushido! You're incredibly strong! We might've had our difference, but please grant my request. Please protect princess Vivi! Escort her to Alabasta, and the kingdom shall reward you handsomely."

"Just how handsomely are we talkin'?" ever the great opportunist, Nami immediately joined in the conversation. She knew the town was too good to be true and faked passing out to go ahead and rob the entire town blind. After discovering that the entire town's valuables was barely worth half a million, she then passed her time watching Zoro clean house. But when the talk of princesses, kingdoms and rewards popped up, she had to join in. "How does a billion sound?"

"A-a billion...I am but a humble soldier, madam. I cannot guarantee such a sum."

"Are you saying she isn't worth it?"

"Stop blackmailing him Nami." Zoro told her.

"Well? Will you pay up or not, chief? Because if not, because without us, your princess might die." she said, completely ignoring Zoro.

From the smoke of the explosion, Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine were revealed to be unharmed. Mr. 5 blocked the attack with his explosion and Ms. Valentine hid behind him. "Kyahaha! It's no use." "The enemy agents are the commander of the Royal Guard of Alabasta, Igaram, and the princess and heir of Alabasta, Nefertari Vivi."

"Well...if you deliver her back safely to her kingdom...and negotiate an acceptable fee with her...There should be no problems!" Igaram hurriedly replied.

"You expect us to save her before getting our payment?" Nami simply replied, despite everything happening around her.

"They may kill her highness right this instant if you do not do so!" he hurried her.

"Are you people seriously ignoring us?! Kyahaha...I've never been infuriated like this in quite a while." Ms. Valentine said as she started floating upward.

"Ok fine, whatever." she nonchalantly replied, before blasting the two assailants with the wrath of the sky itself.


"Mmmm...Gotta pee." Luffy woke up and immediately felt the call of nature. He half consciously heard Zoro and Nami arguing somewhere, but he ignored them. He found an alley to pee on, and after feeling the euphoria of an empty bladder did he finally realize that the people lying on the ground around him weren't just passed out drunk, the townspeople were cut up and heavily wounded.

"Hey! What happened?! Who did this to you guys?!" he asked one of the people who looked more conscious and less injured than others.

"It was...one of your crewmates...demon with three swords...bleh" the man was barely able to blurt out a few words before he croaked.

Angered, Luffy immediately ran back where Zoro and Nami was and shouted at him. "Zoro!"

"Here he comes." Zoro muttered.

"I'll never forgive you. Fight me!" Luffy challenged him.

"Have you even taken a breath and stopped to properly assed the situation?" Zoro told Luffy, but even he knows that they'll have to go to blows for Luffy to calm down.

"Shut up! An ungrateful bastard like you needs to get his ass kicked! How dare you cut down those town people after they welcomed us so well and gave us so much yummy food!"

"Have you ever considered that maybe, people that give you food aren't necessarily good people."

"Stop making excuses!" Luffy ignorantly shouted as he threw a punch towards Zoro. Zoro deftly dodged the first punch, then the second, third, fourth, and the few dozen other subsequent punches. Luffy's fists were so fast that everyone watching only saw blur instead of Luffy's fists, and every single one was dodged by an even faster Zoro. In order to halt Luffy for a moment, Zoro stepped around Luffy's side, hooked his foot around Luffy's leg, and tripped him using his own momentum against him. After Luffy fell flat on his face, he immediately bounced back using his still round belly.

"Have you actually examined them for even a moment? Did you see that all of them were armed?" Zoro told the rampaging rubber ball while blindfolding himself. Instead of listening, Luffy kept attacking Zoro in a blind fit of rage, and Zoro also just kept avoiding Luffy's assault.

After Luffy saw how easily Zoro dodged his punches, Luffy started using whipping arm strikes as an alternative. Even without Kuro's footwork or eyesight, Zoro's speed and observation haki still allowed him to dodge Luffy's chaotic strikes, like a matador that's mastered a rampaging bull.

Changing strategies, Luffy sweeps the ground around Zoro with a kick. Zoro dodges the kick, but was pleasantly surprised when, taking advantage of him being mid air, Luffy sent another barrage of punches towards Zoro. Luffy thought that without a footing, it would be impossible for Zoro to dodge, and in that thought, he was mostly right. Zoro didn't dodge a large majority of those punches. The problem is, Luffy forgot that Zoro still has another option of mitigating Luffy's punches, and that's blocking.

'At least in this situation, you're thinking.' Zoro thought as he blocked most of Luffy's blows and dodged the rest. As Luffy's fist met Zoro's forearms and shin, he did no damage to the man except for push him around. A second later, Zoro finally landed and regained his footing. Luffy tried again for another sweep kick, but Zoro dug his heel in and checked the kick, his shin deflecting Luffy's leg. Luffy looked around him to think of a way to actually land on Zoro. He then started throwing random items at Zoro. Crates, barrels, chests, fences, hay, ladders, even roofing, doors and columns were chucked at Zoro.

Again, Zoro dodged Luffy's unorthodox attacks with ease, despite non living beings being harder to predict. While Zoro was in the middle of the barrage, Luffy sent another sweep kick against him, and he again readied to check the kick. But instead of a solid blow, Luffy made his leg even more elastic than normal, causing his leg to wrap around Zoro's, instead of being deflected away.

'I could just cut Luffy's leg, just a little bit to scare the fucker off, or pull back against him...but, I wanna see how he'll play this.' he thought as he let Luffy's new game plan play out. Luffy then hangs the binding leg, like a pulley, to a wooden viga on one of the taller buildings, then yanked on it strongly. Zoro was then thrown upwards like a slingshot. 'He's already tried this earlier, so what's your angle now captain?' Luffy then loosened his leg off once Zoro rose above the buidlings.

While in mid air, Zoro felt Luffy attacking with a whipping blow. When Zoro tried to block the blows, it wrapped around his guard, giving his back a strong whack, finally giving Luffy his first clean hit. It might not have been strong enough to significantly hurt Zoro even without his Armament Haki deploying on the point of attack, Luffy still flashed Zoro an arrogant smirk, very happy from his small win. That was the only win Zoro was willing to give his captain that night, as he then proceeded to deploy a spherical haki barrier around him, preventing anymore from bending towards any weak spots.

Even though his attacks are now failing to get through, Luffy still kept throwing attacks at Zoro mid air. It's not only because of Luffy's stubborn refusal to give up, but also a tactical decision to keep him mid air, to prevent him from gaining footing and increasing his ability to move and dodge Luffy's attacks.

"You underestimate me Luffy. I might not be the most aerially mobile, I am not completely invalid either." Zoro told Luffy as he then proceeded use his superhuman strength to slam the air around him, using his legs and arms, to maneuver around Luffy's whips. 'This is far harder to control than it looked.' he thought as he barely had enough control of not only where he goes, but also how much spin he gets. Though in return for the lack of control, he's not being juggled by Luffy mid air. Luckily he managed to grab unto one of Luffy's arms to pull himself downwards, towards one of the rooftops.

"Bloody Fireworks!"

To the surprise of everybody watching the fight, Mr. 5 managed to get up and attacked Zoro and Luffy by detonating his blood. His high resistance to the effects of explosions allowed him to recover from getting hit by lightning much faster than Ms. Valentine.

After landing, Zoro immediately sprinted down towards Luffy and threw him off to the side while getting in front of the blast.

In order to prevent the explosion from hurting the crew, Zoro hurriedly tried to incorporate what little Fishman Karate he learned into the Foxfire Style to catch and redirect the explosion upwards. Coating his arms in a particularly thick layer of armament haki, Zoro reached out with his palms and 'catched' the blast. Similar to Fishman Karate practitioners with water, Zoro 'molded' and 'controlled' the explosion long enough to 'flow' it upwards, the resulting explosion being big enough to engulf the entire town itself, an incandescent flower of destruction on the Cactus Rocks.

"Raghghghghghgh!"

Nami came up behind Mr. 5 and shocked him with her electrically charged staff, and then proceeded to beat his collapsed body, making sure he doesn't stand back up anytime soon.


AN: Hey guys. I know that I haven't uploaded anything new, I've just been making small edits, but this fic is not dead yet, and I do have plans for it till at least Enies Lobby. I just haven't had much motivation to write that much, and also I kinda want to finish Egghead first before committing to anything too much in the long run so that this fic remains lore accurate. I say that when I plan to change some things in the next chapters :b

Though not anything major, just an in-universe explanation that would patch-up a pretty small plot hole that most people probably missed when they were reading/watching anyways.

And if anyone has any criticism, feel free to comment. I don't even care all that much if it's mean, as long as it's factual and you write actually HOW I could fix it, in a concise manner.

PS: Pretty excited for all the news on the Monster movie and the remake by Wit. Also expect a chap or 2 for the holidays.