A/N: This chapter is a little longer than the previous few, it was good fun to write, and I hope that you enjoy it!
"I WANT TO LIVE! TAKE ME OUT TO SEA WITH YOU!"
The words had left her mouth before she could even realise that her mouth had finally caught up to her heart.
Robin wanted to go out to sea with this crew, she wanted to live.
For the first time in almost two decades, she actually wanted to do something other than survive. She wanted to live. She wanted to thrive.
Franky thought that this was the greatest thing ever apparently, and burst into tears, the tough guy persona melting away.
"These guys are great!"
That they were, but now every single one of them was in a significant amount of danger and it was because of her.
"They seem pretty strong."
Kalifa was adjusting her gloves, seemingly sizing up her opponents from across the way.
"They're not even scared of the flag!"
Jabra was cackling, and sounded almost proud of the fact that the pirate crew had no fear of them nor the World Government.
"It's absolutely useless to try and match us."
Kaku was pragmatic, but there was a grin that was ever-growing, stretch across his face.
"Don't come any closer!"
Spandam was the only one who was not going to enjoy this, underlying nervousness seeping through his words.
CP9 was in their element, Robin could tell. They were absolutely readying for a fight, and they were going to enjoy it.
It happened suddenly, but the drawbridge stopped moving, postponing the eventual fighting, and the nervousness displayed by Spandam disappeared entirely.
"Good work everyone! Let's go ahead to the Gate of Justice before they can make it over here!"
Robin could hear Zoro and Luffy cursing from where she sat confined.
Spandam grabbed her by the hair, and began to drag her. As painful as it was, she was determined to not give him the satisfaction of hearing her in pain.
"Someone else take Cutty Flam!"
Robin was resisting being led away as much as she could, and it was clearly making it difficult for Spandam who had now resorted to taunting the Straw Hats.
"You lot don't stand a chance! We've got the might of CP9, the last survivor of Ohara,., whose people sought to revive Ancient Weapons and the man who has the very blueprints for that weapon!"
Spandam went to say something more, when Franky stood slowly, face encased in shadows. They watched as he pulled out a set of papers, papers that could only be the very blueprints that Spandam and CP9 were after.
"It can't be! Those are the blueprints for Pluton!"
Franky grinned savagely, "Exactly, these are the real deal."
"Lucci, Kaku. You know what to do."
Kaku, someone that was apparently used to keeping his cool was trembling with rage, "You absolute bastard! You were keeping it inside your body this whole time?"
Robin stopped paying full attention to the noise that was going on around her, fiddling with a lock pick that Ebony had pressed into her hands on the off chance that something like this was going to happen. (Spandam hadn't ordered her to be searched either, apparently thinking that the moment she was in cuffs that she would be helpless. Nico Robin was never helpless.) She was thankful for the forethought, and the noise, as she felt the seastone cuffs click behind her. She kept that around her wrists, as it wouldn't do for those around her to realise that she had set herself free. She knew that each member of CP9 had a copy of the key, but the vast majority of cuffs were able to be lock picked, and she had seen enough seastone ones to get a feel for how they actually worked. And whilst it wouldn't get the cuffs off entirely and the amount of time that she had spent in the cuffs would limit her ability to fight, it would give her a little bit of leeway in accessing her powers enough to at least inconvenience a man.
And if that man was Spandam? Even better.
"If this ancient weapon fell into the hands of an utter moron like you, and things began to get violent…" Franky's words were almost quiet, but the rage was present.
Robin was not expecting for Franky to set the blueprints on fire with his breath. CP9 went still with shock, all the energy from before disappearing, as though the will to fight had been taken from them.
"I'm betting on the Straw Hats, they'll win! They'll take back their friend! You've lost any hope now of getting the ancient weapons!"
The others that had come along with the Straw Hats on the other sea train had taken out a vast amount of both manpower, and infrastructure.
Jesper sighed, this was turning into an even bigger mess than what it would have been iff Lucci had just let her kill both Nico Robin and Franky to begin with. What was wrong with a clean, simple, albeit a bit of a bloody assassination?
She couldn't work out why the World Government loved to put on a show, when silent and generally unseen operations worked even better than showy, flashy ones. The blueprints that they'd spent so damn long looking for were burnt to a crisp?
And now the Straw Hats were there to take Robin back? And Franky was going to be an ever pain in their arses?
Unacceptable.
And the braided blonde from that crew hadn't even gotten slightly beat up for her supposed attempted assassination of a beloved Mayor?
Unacceptable .
It wouldn't take long, with how the straw brat was flinging his crew across the gap for a fight to begin.
And she'd already selected her target.
The crow bitch wouldn't know what had hit her.
After Luffy had used Zoro's resistance to slingshot himself off after Lucci, the crew divided themselves up, pointless now to stick in pairs when we all knew the enemy ahead of us.
Following the stairs up the building, a door swung wide open.
I knew for sure then that whoever had decided that they would fight me was waiting behind that very door. Taking in a deep breath, and equipping my gloves, before robbing my weapons, I stepped into the room.
The room itself was grand, with glistening mirrors and equally shiny furniture, with immaculate table settings and extravagant, luxurious fabrics spread across what looked to be a triclinium. Sitting atop the triclinium was a petite brunette wearing a neat, black suit and holding a crossbow across her lap, with two daggers resting at her sides.
"Hello, Crow Bitch."
Oh, so that's how this was going to go.
"It's rude to not introduce yourself first, you know. Call me Crow at the very least, bitch is such a strong word, don't you think?" I shook my head, as though I was scolding a small child for doing something naughty, and not a grown adult woman for calling me a bitch. It didn't bother me all too much, but it was the principle of the matter. "I'd at least like to have a name to go with the shape changing face."
She laughed, a high tinkling sound that made me want to cover my ears. Whatever her power happened to be, it definitely had something to do with sound.
"Oh, aren't you quaint? You may call me Jesper. Jesper Nightingale."
At least now I had a name to the face, however often that face probably changed. I could see her eyes switching between green, purple and red. It seemed that she either couldn't decide on a colour, or there was a reason for that constant mood change.
"I'd say it was a pleasure, but you tried to frame me for murder."
Her eyes flashed bright red and stayed that way.
Jesper's eyes were an indication of her mood it seemed, and I had made her angry.
"Yes, that. How on earth did you know that you were going to be framed?"
How could anyone know that they were going to be framed?
"Coincidence, I just happened to be out shopping. Aren't these boots nice?"
I tapped my foot against the ground, not even slightly hard, but the noise that they made was loud enough to make her wince. The seastone in them covered the toe box, as well as the sole and it could get very loud if moved in a certain way.
"Yes, they are. But you're not here to talk about your new boots, you're here to get that Nico woman back. Too bad for you, it's not likely that you'll survive long enough to take back the key that you'll need."
I couldn't help it, throwing back my head in laughter.
"Why would I need your key? Surely you didn't forget to search Robin before you put her in cuffs? You do realise that lock picks are a thing, don't you?"
There was a momentary pause, before her face went from stark white to a bright, cherry red she was that angry. And apparently she wasn't used to things not going her way, as she let out a scream and came barreling towards me.
I had no other choice.
Blade, against blade, sparks began to fly.
"There's a lot more Outliers arriving here for the first time in thirty years."
Shanks had not expecting for Newgate to start a conversation about Outliers in the least, particularly not after Shanks had made his thoughts and opinions clear on how stupid he thought letting Ace go after Teach was.
"Oh? You've met an Outlier recently?"
Of course Shanks had noticed, it was hard not to when a person appeared out of nowhere in a shower of gold and fell into the ocean right in front of the Red Force. That person was now on one of the islands that he and his crew protected, and they made some fantastic beer.
"I have, one that I know of has joined with that brat in the Revolutionary Army."
'That brat' had to have been Dragon, but to be fair to Newgate, anyone younger than him was a brat and considering that was the vast majority of the current generation it wasn't all that surprising.
"Glad that they've found a place then, it's not easy to survive here when you haven't the knowledge of this world."
Newgate gave a chuckle, "Not that easy to survive even when you do."
Shanks raised his mug at that, knowing damn well how true that comment was.
"So about Ace…"
Newgate rolled his eyes, "I know how you feel, you've made your opinions perfectly clear. He's apparently not going alone, not sure what Crow Queen and his brother managed to say to him to convince him to finally call backup, but he's not going off by himself."
"You should still call him back, even if he has backup…" Shanks finally took in exactly what Newgate had said, "What, Crow Queen? Ebony?"
That piqued the interest of Whitebeard, "Do you know her? Ace was supposed to introduce us, but never got around to it."
Well, wasn't that interesting, "I know of her at least, from my brother."
"How is that blue-haired brat?"
"Doing well, staying low. Buggy has always preferred it that way."
Although that had always been the case, he had a feeling that Buggy wasn't going to stay quietly in the East Blue for much longer.
I felt myself gradually getting slower and slower, and the nonstop sound of chimes were the cause of it. That could be the only explanation, as every time I clashed with Jesper, I would get more and more disorientated, but apparently my disorientation wasn't fast enough for Jesper as she screamed out in frustration.
"Why won't you bleed?!"
Her frustration was palpable; Jesper, having away her daggers at some point during the fight as they were apparently not working, having been blunt apparently from the very beginning. Fists, pinpoint sharp nails and a form of magic that allowed her to control sound were what she was using against me. I was trying desperately to not allow her to get a single nail near any part of exposed skin, because if I bleed then this wouldn't be a fight, she would immediately go on to kill me and I could not allow that to happen.
My clumsy dodging was clearly frustrating my opponent as her actions were getting increasingly sloppier in her anger. She was apparently used to shorter, less drawn out fights that ended with her absolute victory.
That didn't stop me from getting hit though. I wanted to stop getting hit, I was tired of getting pummelled by an assassin who was using cheat codes to win.
Left.
Whatever instinct that was, I followed it, reactions slower than I would have liked but dodging towards the left worked, and left Jesper off balance, her tipping over and landing on her back.
I wasn't sure who was more surprised, her or myself at the fact that somehow I had successfully dodged an attack that would have caused permanent damage.
"How did you do that?"
Not answering her, I dove towards her, dagger in hand and used her surprise against her.
I swiped upwards with a backhand, cutting through her suit sleeve and into her arm. I wasn't aiming to kill, just to injure.
To be honest, I wasn't entirely expecting what happened next. But I really should have.
She let out a guttural scream, one that made me cover my ears in shock, the whole room shaking, or that could have just been my vision. Whatever power allowed her to do so was making it easy for me to actually see sound waves affecting the room around us.
The wound began to ooze and blood began to pour, and a hint of gold fell with it.
Blood tinged with gold hit the floor, and Jesper could see that Ebony wasn't able to contain her shock. Jesper, in her haze of fear and anger, her screams blinding even herself, could not see the growing rage flitting across Ebony's face, nor her momentary sadness.
She knew.
Jesper's mind went blank, except for one word.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
The angrier Jesper got, the harder she fought, the less accurate she was. She knew this, Lucci knew this, the entirety of Cipher Pol knew this, which was why she would only go on missions with another person, and very rarely fought by herself if it wasn't an all out assassination, but in that moment her calm persona was long gone, and nothing in that moment would bring it back.
If she didn't kill Crow Queen Ebony, then who knows who she was going to tell? How long would the secret Outlier of CP9 stay a secret? How long before she took the fall for every single failure that she was sure was taking place in Enies Lobby at that very moment?
The World Government would kill her, the Five Elder Stars would kill her, and the only way she could stop that from happening was to kill the woman in front of her.
Her screaming didn't stop, as she stood, staggering to her feet.
The bitch in front of her had made her bleed, knew her secret and for that she had to go.
I couldn't help it.
All I could feel was rage.
This other Outlier, this otherworldly was working for the World Government, for the very people that would kill her for her very existence. They had to have known whom they were training, and that was probably the very reason as to why she wasn't dead. They wanted her abilities, the sound waves and the shape changing. They wanted her to kill for them, and I bet that if she failed then her status would be to take the fall for everything that went wrong.
The Outlier in front of me was a traitor to all those Outliers who had been hunted, and murdered for something that they couldn't control.
That strange feeling was back again, right, duck, left, behind you. It spoke and I followed it.
Whilst Jesper had stopped screaming, the sound itself was ringing in my ears and almost impossible to block out all the sound, but I knew that if I could only just vaguely ignore it, I would be better off.
Using the dagger once again, I swung around and managed to hit the back of her leg, causing her to go down and hit the floor.
My head at this point was pounding, a migraine beginning to form. I for sure had a concussion from the amount of hits that I had taken earlier on in the fight and I made a mental note that if I got out of this fight unscathed for the most part, then that would be the first thing that I told Chopper.
He'd worry otherwise.
Bend, left, front of you, now.
Following the instincts hadn't led me astray so far, so I kept it up.
Several more times this happened, and it wasn't consistent, but whatever it was internally was incredibly helpful and was certainly more than a little bit useful.
Before I knew it, Jesper was lying face down on the floor once again, bleeding profusely red and gold everywhere and struggling feebly to get my weight off of her back.
"You complete and utter bitch. You're going to tell everyone, aren't you? You're going to tell the world that CP9 has an Outlier amongst them, that the World Government is breaking their own laws. They won't believe you, the stupid, weak little sheep of the world will never believe a criminal pirate over a law-abiding agent."
I scoffed, "Yes, law abiding. Framing a person for murder is law abiding? Killing people is law abiding? Existing whilst being an Outlier is law-abiding? I know damn well that the World Government breaks its own laws, they do it fucking constantly. Don't lecture me on that, you stupid, prideful changeling. I don't give a shit."
"So you're not going to tell anyone?"
The struggling had stopped at this point, but I could be sure that it was just to get me to lower my guard, so I sat on her even more, pressing my entire weight down on her legs and back. She would have to throw me a considerable distance to get me off of her at that point.
"Oh no, I'll tell people. But what I'll tell them isn't that they've been secretly harbouring their own Outlier, no I'll tell them that CP9 weren't even going to give my friends a chance at a trial, that they were going to torture them for information, before killing them. That the World Government allowed for this to happen, and that there is no justice in the world unless we make and take it for ourselves."
"They still won't believe a pirate."
I grinned down at her, though it wasn't as though she saw it for herself, "No, but they'll believe the whatever is written in a newspaper."
That made her laugh, "Morgans won't print that! He won't risk his job or money just to print some nonsense like that!"
It became very clear to me that she had absolutely no idea what Morgans would or wouldn't do, but I thought it best to let her keep her delusions.
"I didn't say anything about Morgans now, did I? Surely you've heard whispers of a newspaper outside of the World Governments control? They're not the only one out there that can produce newspapers, you know. Local news exists, as does the rumour mill."
"We can kill a rumour mill."
You couldn't, not really. News and rumours could be passed around with a frightening speed that could and probably would never be able to be slowed or stopped, even with the best of intentions.
Ignoring her, I pulled out a rope from the satchel attached to my leg that I somehow hadn't damaged throughout the fight and began to tie her up with it, starting with her arms and torso, removing weapons as I went. The last thing I, or anyone else needed was for her to have access to something that she could use to try and kill me again.
Her voice was quiet, contemplative, "Why wouldn't you expose me as an Outlier? Surely it would work out in your favour?"
"I'm not in the business of exposing personal secrets that don't actively harm anyone. But know this, I am criticising your decision to standby and continue to perpetuate the harm caused by the World Government towards Outliers as a whole."
Jesper scoffed, "You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, you're not in my position, so you don't have any right to judge."
I was in her position, but I wasn't going to tell a government stooge that.
"Each to their own, I'm only telling you my thoughts. You can take all of them with a grain of salt, you're still going to be tied up here."
It didn't take long to find the key that would help free Robin, nor for Usopp to arrive to pick it up. He, like in canon, had decided that he'd be the best option to pick up all the keys that were being held captive once they'd been freed.
"Usopp! Take this!"
I threw the key at him, continuing to tie up Jesper and taking off every single weapon that I could find that she would have had access to.
"Are you okay?"
His concern was welcomed, particularly as he took in the scene that was bloody red and golden. He probably thought that I was bleeding, and that it was my own blood surrounding the room.
"It's not mine."
I didn't say the words out loud, but even by mouthing them he got the gist.
He froze, staring Jesper down, jaw tight and eyes flashing. "I see."
I thought that he might.
There was something incredibly disappointing about the whole situation; what could make an Outlier work for the very organisation that persecuted and executed their own people on the daily?
"Get that to Robin, and we'll be out of here even sooner than expected."
"Everyone! Please leave the island! A Buster Call is aimed at Enies Lobby, if you stay here you will not survive!"
Robin's voice echoed throughout the entirety of Enies Lobby.
Crap, he'd actually done it.
"Jesper, is your chief a moron or something? Who willingly calls a buster call on an island, let alone one that they're currently inhabiting?"
Jesper deflated ever further, "I have no idea. Where did this all go so wrong?"
I snorted, "Starting with appointing a nepotism baby as your chief? Or maybe when you all decided to take someone who is precious to the future Pirate Kings crew? You'll learn, the whole world will. No one takes someone away from the Straw Hat's without consequences for their actions."
No one.
A/N: I hope that you enjoyed the chapter; it's been sitting in the drafts since late December and I hadn't gotten around to actually uploading it. Sorry about that.
I'm not great at writing fight scenes, but I am trying and I'm hoping that each one I write will help me improve.
Stay safe and hydrate everyone!