Italics indicate Thinking

Bold is for Attacks

Steve's POV

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked Luffy.

"Vivi I want to beat the snot out of Crocodile." Luffy told the girl "Stopping the rebellion won't stop Crocodile. We can't do anything with them. We're pirates you'd be better off without us."

"He hit the bull's-eye without even thinking." Sanji mumbled.

What are you doing Luffy?

"We are going to war with a Warlord but you don't want anyone from this country or any of us to die." Luffy told the girl "That's naïve."

"Stop it Luffy!" Nami tried to get past but I put my arm out.

"No Nami."

"What's wrong with not wanting people to die?!" Vivi asked

"People die. That's life." Luffy said.

Speaking from experience huh pal.

Vivi punched Luffy in the face "You can't blame the rebels. This whole thing is Crocodile's doing."

Luffy fought back against Vivi "Then why risk your life?!"

Vivi pushed Luffy to the ground but he kept on talking "I've only been here a day and I can tell what this county needs most. One life won't be enough."

"What else do I have?!"

"Try risking our lives too! I thought we were friends!"

Damn punk. Could have gotten the point across without fighting like that.

"You're the one who wants him dead the most, so tell me where is Crocodile?" Luffy asked.

Vivi took out her map and pointed to the city Rainbase. She said it would take a day to reach it.

"If it's going to take a day we should get moving now." I said standing up.

A whole day trekking through the dessert alone with my thoughts. Crap.

We walked through the scorching desert for the second day in a row. Most of the trip was made in silence to conserve energy.

We're getting close. Crocodile is just out of reach. That means she'll probably be there. Ugh Get out of my head.

Vivi was right it took almost the whole day to cross the desert and reach Rainbase. Along the way Nami and Usopp discussed a new tool Usopp had made for the girl. The city was quite a sight, a large casino with a gator on top was situated in the center of town drawing your eyes to it.

"Think Baroque Works knows we're here?" Zoro said.

"Probably we did see Mr.3's ship back in Nanohana and we met Mr.2 not that far off the island." Rose told him.

"We'll have to watch how we act since they know our faces." I told the others.

"How come?" Luffy asked

"Because we don't know where they're hiding. Think Luffy, we don't even know what Mr.4 or Mr.1 and their partners look like. We may walk right past them and get spotted." I told him

"They are assassins." Zoro added.

"While Steve is right we don't have time to think up a plan." Vivi said.

When we got into the town Usopp took Rose and Luffy to go and get a drink and the rest of us wandered around.

Rose's POV

"WATER!" We yelled as we walked into the bar.

We took a seat at the bar and ordered barrels worth of liquid. We each took one and planned to bring the rest back to the others. I looked around the bar and saw two familiar faces sitting next to Luffy and I.

"Oh Crap!" I screamed causing Luffy and Usopp to spit out their water "Smoker, Tashigi!"

Luffy Usopp and I got up and ran from the bar carrying the barrels of water with us.

What the hell are those two doing here!

We found the other and told them to run as well.

"What the hell happened?" Zoro asked.

"It's Tashigi and Smoker. They were in the bar we went to."

"That damn lookalike." Zoro groaned.

All around the street people were staring at us. Some looked more suspicious than others.

"I think we've been spotted." Steve groaned out.

"Which way to Crocodile?!" Luffy screamed.

"There the casino Rain-Dinners." Vivi said pointing ahead.

"We should split up!" Sanji proposed.

"Do it. Meet back up at the casino!" Steve said dispersing.

Steve jumped up to the top of a building with Luffy. Zoro and I went one way with Vivi, and Sanji took Nami and Usopp. Along our path we met up with a large platoon of Marines.

"ROSE!"

Crap

"Oh hi Tashigi." I said trying to break the tension.

I heard Zoro start to mumble "Stop looking like that."

"The two of you need to fight me."

Huh

"Listen our fight is over and Zoro won't fight you. Please just leave." I begged the girl to avoid having to fight my friend.

"We haven't even truly fought yet." Tashigi said.

"I can't do this." Zoro grabbed my arm and ran away from the girl.

"Bye I guess!" I yelled back.

When we found our way to the casino despite Zoro terrible directional skills we found Nami and Usopp being held up by some agents from Baroque Works. Zoro and I took care of them and it wasn't too much longer before Luffy and Steve showed up still being chased by Smoker.

"Go! Get inside!" Steve yelled out.

"I'm coming Crocodile!" Luffy added charging past us.

We burst into the fancy establishment and Luffy yelled out for Crocodile, of course he got no response. It wasn't much longer before Smoker burst in and forced us to run deeper into the casino. There was a group of men pointing us towards the VIP room.

"He's inviting us in?" I wondered.

We ran towards this VIP room and fell through a trap door and got trapped in a cage.

Steve's POV

I can't believe we got caught like that, all we had to do was go down a different path. I was leaning on the cage with Luffy who looked really tired.

"You feeling alright bud?" I asked the rubber boy.

"I'm really tired. Like all my strengths gone." Luffy said with his tongue hanging out.

Out of nowhere Luffy was struck by Smoker's weapon. Smoker held Luffy down with his Jitte. He explained that his weapon was tipped with a substance called 'Sea stone' that gives off similar energy to the sea thereby preventing the use of Devil Fruit abilities. Apparently, the cage we were in was made of the same substance which is why the marine was trapped with us. Zoro wanted to fight the man but Rose managed to get him to back.

"Why can't you all be friends?" Said a man in a nearby chair.

The man had greasy slicked back black hair, a scar on his face and a hook for a hand, he also wore a large fur coat. Smoker said that this man was Crocodile, the warlord we were looking for.

"HEY YOU!" Luffy jumped up and grabbed the cage immediately losing his strength.

"Don't touch the bars moron." I told him picking his jelly like body up from the floor.

"I do applaud you for making it this far. I never thought I'd meet you in person." Crocodile told us "But we can't start without the guest of honor. I just sent my partner to pick her up."

His partner. Miss All-Sunday! I feel like I might explode.

I turned to the side and grabbed my sister by the shoulders "How's my hair?! Do I look presentable?! My breath fresh?!"

"What are you talking about? Focus on what's going on." Rose berated me.

Right focus.

I kept mumbling to myself about my appearance and Luffy was doing lame impressions when Nami came up and bashed us over the head telling us to focus.

"Crocodile!" we all looked to the stairs and saw Vivi being escorted in by Miss All-Sunday.

It's her. She sure is pretty. Gah Focus.

"Thank you for coming Miss Wednesday."

"I'd come from anywhere to see you die." Vivi told the warlord.

"It's your country that will be dying." The man said.

Vivi charged at the man screaming about how he ruined her country, she swung at him with her chain like slicing weapon and his whole head burst and disappeared.

"Nope…" Smoker mumbled.

What's he talking about?

The man's body reformed and he appeared behind the princess "You should know about my Sand-Sand Fruit powers. Would you like to be a mummy?"

"Don't touch her!" Luffy screamed.

The entire time this was happening I couldn't take my eyes off Miss All-Sunday. She was gorgeous. I felt it now, that felling Dad had talked about. Inside that cage was when I realized.

I'm in love.

I felt her staring back at me. At one point our eyes met and she turned away immediately when Crocodile called her.

"Yes, the operation should be starting now."

Crocodile took the time to explain to us his master plan. He was going to fool the people using Mr.2's Clone-Clone fruit powers and convince them the king was evil, that way the rebels would attack.

"How can you be so cruel?" Vivi yelled at the man "I will stop you!"

"If you want to get to Alubarna and stop the rebellion you can come with us." Crocodile told Vivi and then threw a key down a hole "If you left right now you might make it in time but then you'd be leaving your friends to die. You could let them out but, oh no I threw the key into the Banana-Gator pit."

"Look there's a gator growing out of that banana" Luffy pointed out the windows into the fish tank.

"I think it's the other way around pal."

"Oh no one of the gators just ate the key!" Vivi yelled.

"We'll be taking our leave now but just so you know this room will collapse on itself in one hour, water will flood in and make this room part of the lake outside." Crocodile said walking out of the room.

Miss All-Sunday was still near the cage before getting ready to go with Crocodile who was gloating about how he kept plaguing Yuba with sandstorms.

"Why are you working with a nut like him?" I asked the woman.

"That's none of your business."

"I can stop him. You just gotta let me out of this cage. Come on gorgeous." I tried to charm the woman into freeing me.

"Even if I wanted to help you, I don't have a key." She said hiding her face by lowering her hat.

Is she blushing?

"Let's go Miss All-Sunday!" Crocodile yelled and she went to his side.

Bastard.

"Vivi get us out of here! If you don't who's gonna stop him!" Luffy yelled.

One of the gators came out of the tank and into the main room. The thing was massive. It looked ten times bigger up close like it was now. The creature was close to Vivi and looked hungry. I heard Rose squeak in the corner when the gator bit into the stairs and crushed them like Arlong crushed that pillar.

"We have a phone call." The lady pointed out to Crocodile as he picked up the receiver.

"Hello this thing on. Never used one of these before." A familiar voice said over the snail.

"That voice."

"Hi this is the Crap Café. "

"SAN…"

I grabbed Luffy and covered his mouth "Keep your trap shut.

"I'm Mr. Prince."

"Save us Mr. Prince." The others started yelling.

There was a crashing sound from the other side of the phone and men came on telling Crocodile they were outside and had taken care of Sanji.

You got beat that easily.

Crocodile and Miss All-Sunday left to go and look outside for Sanji leaving us trapped in the cage. He turned around one last time to pull Vivi off the stairs and prevent her escape. Vivi was in bad shape, she had been attacked by Crocodile and was dodging the reptiles back and fourth.

"Just hang on I'll get help!" Vivi said running out of the room.

While Vivi was gone Nami tried to get it to break the cage with its teeth but when it bit down it only hurt itself.

"How much do you know about those two?" Smoker asked us.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"That woman you were flirting with has a bounty of over 70,000,000. If the two of them team up it will be bad for the whole world." The marine explained

"What do you mean?! My little brother was flirting with an older woman!" Rose said getting in the man's face "how could you do this Steve, we're in a life or death situation here!"

"I just wanted out of the cage I swear."

"Yeah right." I heard Zoro mumble

"Shut it you green haired freak!"

"You wanna go."

Zoro and I got into an argument about a bunch of random crap when a voice interrupted us "Will you two savages act civilized."

"Anti-Matter Kick Course!"

The Gator in the center got sent flying and Sanji appeared underneath it. Dozens of gators came into the room to fight Sanji. Smoker deduced that the third one to enter the room had the key. When Sanji kicked the gator it spit out a huge ball of gunk and when the ball melted it revealed that Mr.3 was inside. The man tried to bargain but Sanji just beat the crap out of him and got him to make a new key for the cell, since he destroyed the last one.

Once out of the cage we took care of the remaining Gators. We must have gone a little too hard because the room started to collapse and water rushed in. I grabbed the passed out Luffy and swam to the surface.

"You still alive. Your damn powers are a pain in the ass." I said throwing Luffy onto the shore.

Not too far behind us the others surfaced, include Zoro and Rose who pulled Smoker up with them.

Smoker thrust his sword at Zoro "why'd you save me?'

"Just following orders. Don't thank me, it was just Luffy being weird." The swordsman told the marine.

"Glad you're not dead!" Rose cheered

"Go. This is the only time I'm letting you get away."

The others took the chance to run and after a short stare down I dragged Luffy along with them. We followed Sanji to the outside of town where we found Chopper riding a giant crab.

"Hey everybody! Get on! This is Eyelash's friend." the reindeer yelled.

We all hopped on. Rose had to be carried onto the beast by Zoro but we all managed to get onboard. We didn't get very far before Vivi was yanked off the crab.

"Chopper stop the crab!" Zoro yelled.

"Let's go Luffy!" I yelled.

Luffy grabbed me and threw us towards the hook holding Vivi.

I grabbed the girl and threw her to the others. Luffy grabbed onto me and latched onto the hook.

"Go ahead we'll be fine." Luffy yelled

"You guys get Vivi to Alubarna. Leave this to us!" I instructed "Don't stop no matter what!"

AN

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Till Next Time!