The storm continued on for a week, which meant the crew got not nearly enough sleep.

"Cliff what is it with us and fleets? We fought one in South Blue and now one in West Blue too." Cassy said as her and Cliff sat on the deck watching the sun rise, with a bottle in hand.

Cliff took a gulp of rum before speaking, "Honestly? I don't know. In South Blue we killed their Admiral, so them attacking us was justified. But here, all we stole was a devil fruit. I did not think he would bring an entire fleet after us trying to take the devil fruit back. Moreover, even he himself acknowledged that just a devil fruit was not enough for a fleet to come after us. So, he just made up lies about us planning to attack and rob Chinjao himself!"

"Even then, the entire fleet? We're not strong enough to handle the entire fleet. Did he think we were that strong?" (Cassy)

"The entire fleet? What gave you that idea? I'm more than sure that was merely a quarter of the fleet or perhaps half if we really want to be optimistic. Of those, only 30 something ships followed us into the storm, and even then, some survived nearly unscathed.

And I am very sure that Chinjao doesn't station his entire fleet in the West Blue only. A lot of them have to be in Grandline as well.

We're not strong enough to survive an assault of that level yet. We would have run out of steam even before we managed to deal with all of the ones that followed us into the storm." (Cliff)

Cassy nodded thinking back to the fight. The storm made sure that the entire fleet, or whatever percentage had shown up, didn't follow them, and those that did constantly slipped and fell becoming easy prey.

While she knew that her crew would have survived and even won, she also knew that the win would have come with serious exhaustion partly due to the fact they were already exhausted by the weeklong chase. They would have been easily picked off by the remnants of the fleet had they chosen to follow them into the storm as well.

As she was busy thinking, Cliff saw a News Coo hovering above them. He hollered it down where it perched upon the railing of the ship. Once Cliff had paid it it's dues, it gave them a copy of the newspaper before flying off.

Cliff let Cassy be as he started tom read the newspaper, but nearly instantly he cheered out loud, causing Cassy to snap out of her thoughts.

She saw the newspaper fall off but a few pages in Cliff's hands. He cheered when he read them all then thrust them to her.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, CLIFF 'BLUE COAT' CALLOWAY, 100 MILLION BERI, with a picture of Cliff standing with his cutlass drawn still wearing his blue Captains' coat.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, 'RED SWORDWOMAN' CASSY, 60 MILLION BERI, with a picture of Cassy from when she stabbed the marine she had shot. Her sword was still stabbed in the marine's chest in the picture.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, HIDETAKE 'THE TIGER' TAIGA, 45 MILLION BERI, with a picture of Taiga swinging his kanabo with blood being splashed on him.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, MAY D. WILD, 5 MILLION BERI, with a picture of May slashing through someone with her dagger and their blood splashing outward onto May.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, 'TRIPLE CLAW' MIO KAZUE, 25 MILLION BERI, with a picture of Mio just standing with her claws out ready to battle.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, 'FATAL TWINS' JOSHUA & JAMES, 25 MILLION BERI, with a picture of both Joshua and James holding their guns on their shoulders and grinning.

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, MARK, 5 MILLION BERI, with a picture of Mark as he ate a sandwich.

Seeing the bounties for the crew she too got excited. She cheered when she saw her bounty had increased and then started reading the rest.

"The Marines must have an impressive information collection department. They even have Mark named and pictured here despite the fact we haven't fought with the marines since before he joined us!" Cassy exclaimed once she saw Mark's bounty. She looked up towards Cliff but did not find him there. She was confused for less than a second before, she knew what happened. She could hear Cliff shouting that the bounties were here and make a ruckus. The ruckus escalated when she heard the rest of the crew scramble about and rushing up to the deck.

She sighed and shook her head at what her captain just did and keeps on doing, before she readied herself for the frenzy the rest of the crew will be in.

And she was proven right within seconds. As soon as the first crewmate reached the deck, which was Taiga by the way, "What's my bounty?" a bellow was heard.

Cassy just handed the bounty posters to her crewmates and continued drinking while watching her crewmates cheer at the increase in their bounty or the first appearance of it, in Mark's case.

'He really has mellowed out fast once he joined us. At the start he was always so serious, now look at him, cheering alongside us.' Cassy though once she saw Mark cheering alongside the crew at their bounties.

…

…

…

A month later and the crew was still celebrating. Though now they were anchored near an uninhabited island merely a week's sail away from Ohara.

The island was not shown as inhabited on any map, so they set up a party at beach.

Well, they were celebrating this morning, but right now, they were running from a huge tiger they had tried to kill for dinner.

Only Cliff & Cassy were running as the rest of the crew was a little too far from too even know that these were being chased.

The tiger had taken offense to being attacked by Cliff and Cassy, so he began to chase them.

"RAHAHAHAHAHAHA…" Cliff laughed as he ran from the tiger while Cassy had a small smile as ran.

She finally got to explore an island while not having to fight some pirates or marines for it. And so, another adventure had begun, even if Cliff would insist, and rightly so, that her adventure began as soon as she joined him in exploring the jungles of their home island, Trickster Island and had not ended since.

"How long are we going to run?" She asked him as they continued to run from the tiger.

"However long it takes for him to stop chasing us!" Cliff replied as he looked back and made a face to tease the tiger further. The stretched tongue was enough to anger the tiger further as he roared before increasing his speed.

Cliff in return laughed even louder as he ran faster too. Alongside him, Cassy sighed as she continued to run just as fast a Cliff.

…

An hour later, the tiger just gave one final roar before he turned around and disappeared in the greenery, leaving a panting Cliff and Cassy behind.

They looked around for some fruits and luckily found some mango trees. Taking some mangoes, they started to walk once again.

While eating the mangoes they came across, James & Joshua. Cliff took one look at the situation and fell down laughing. Cassy too couldn't control herself and started to chuckle.

Both James and Joshua were high up on the trees, continuously climbing, trying to outclimb a humongous bear. Their guns were on the ground as well as some knives that they probably threw at the bear.

Both looked down at the bear merely feet below them and let out a whimper before increasing their climbing speed. They looked around when they heard their Captain laughing and put on a pleading expression spoke in a similar tone, "Captain! Help us Please! We're too young to die by bear!" They somehow spoke in a synchronised pattern that rarely ever happened with them.

"Why're your guns down there?" Cassy asked as she moved to retrieve the fallen weapons.

"We forgot to take ammo with us. We ran out of bullets when this bear started chasing us. AHHH!" They answered once again in sync, but screamed as they noticed the bear was almost upon them because they had stopped climbing to plead with their captain. They began climbing at once, reaching as high as they could.

When the bear climbed up near them, the tree started to bend dangerously towards one side. The twins jumped to a near by branch, just moments before the branch they were previously on snapped and the bear fell.

At the same time the tree snapped back to its vertical position, sending the twins hurling away with a final, "AAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Cassy quickly dragged a still laughing Cliff out of there before the bear got back to its senses. She ran towards where the twins had been flung, dragging Cliff alongside who ran of his own volition once he calmed down a little.

They found the twins stuck headfirst in 2 different trees, with their heads having somehow gone though the trunks and gotten them stuck inside.

Seeing this Cliff once again fell laughing and they continued to watch the twins try to extricate themselves and fail to do so.

Nearly half an hour later, they climbed up beside them and cut their heads out of the trunk, leaving behind a huge gaping hole in the trunk which some small bird will probably use as a nesting area later.

…

Taiga, on the other hand was sitting in some clearing talking to some… tigers.

He was in his hybrid form & drinking as he talked but he was definitely talking to the tigers and the tigers responded in growls. One of them even purred when Taiga pet their head and scratched just behind the ear.

Surrounding him were 4 tigers just as large as the one that chased Cliff and Cassy, while one had its face on Taiga's lap.

Mio and May came across this scene but were met with a laughing Taiga and a 4 growling tigers whose eyes were locked onto them. They slowly backed away until the tigers were not visible nor audible before they relaxed somewhat.

They exchanged a glance and wordlessly decided to not question it and move on.

Mio had been practising her devil fruit ever since the storm ended. While she could by now very easily sharpen her metal claws, she also found she could sharpen her own nails (both hands and feet) & create natural claws and also bring them back to the normal look.

Now she was trying out her devil fruit on different objects. Such as a wooden branch, stone, sand, etc.

A wooden branch just became a sword and close to it once sharpened. She couldn't s]do anything to stone and sand yet and so she continued to practice.

May, not to be outdone, also practiced her devil fruit powers regularly. She could now keep up her devil fruit made disguise for nearly 10 hours when nothing distracts her. In a fight she could probably keep her disguise up for an hour before she loses control.

She's also tried to disguise herself as a male for up till now she had either disguised herself as a female or as wood that one time against the Sea King that had nearly swallowed Cliff and Taiga.

She tried to replicate that, but no progress was visible, so she started to focus on trying to disguise herself as a man effectively. For now, she could do the basic shape but not actually succeed much.

Both the girls, when they believed enough distance had been put between the tigers and themselves, started looking around where they had found themselves in.

It was a beautiful scene. With a river flowing through, the green trees flowing softly with the breeze, animal calls sounding out and some animals drinking water at the river.

Both women smiled and sat under a tree and watched the scene with a content smile.

…

Mark was closest to the ship having not gone far for he was too busy studying the trees here. The wood seemed strong, obviously not as strong as the Adam Wood, but still decently strong.

He briefly looked up with furrowed eyebrows when he faintly heard 2 people shouting and saw some small silhouettes flying in the air in arc but dismissed it as nothing and continued on with his work.

…

…

…