Italics indicate thinking

Bold is for attacks

Steve's POV

With us currently in a mini hostage crisis we had to fall back and figure out a plan, lucky for us Nami knew the lavender haired girl that had been working with Tesoro, so we had someone to help us out. While we formulated our plan, we stopped at ate at a restaurant so Luffy would stop complaining about being hungry. Carina, Nami's friend, was already planning to rob Tesoro so we had mutual goals now and she was willing to assist and she had a key to the vault.

"There's 500 billion there?" Chopper said "you could buy a big house with all that."

"And a whole country to go with it." Robin said.

"One would never see the end of money like that." Monet hummed.

"Tesoro passes a good portion of it off to the Celestial Dragons." Carina explained "Like a tribute."

"So no one bothers him so long as he keeps the cash moving." I said.

"So wanna help me?" Carina asked "We can do it tonight and have your friend free by morning."

"That sounds like trouble." Franky said.

"And we wouldn't even get to make him suffer." Rose twirled a steak knife on her metal fingers.

"You saw it yourselves; everyone here has the gold dust on them." Carina said "If you tried to fight him you'd just lose like your friend."

"Alright fine, we'll do it the hard way." I shrugged "I'm a smash and grab kinda guy myself but Carina is right."

"Wait hold on!" Usopp yelled.

"Can we even trust her?" Wyper asked.

"You two got a better idea?" I leaned on my wrapped arm "Luffy?"

"We can save Zoro this way right?" he asked "Then sure."

"Then we beat the cheat." I clenched my fist "Even precious gold, will melt before my hellfire."

"Oh but we take seventy percent." Nami said "Carina you can have thirty."

"What?!" the other girl yelled "Is that some sad attempt at a joke?! I have the key and all the intel!"

"Our crew's gotta split it!" Nami yelled "And we make up the bulk of the team so of course we'd get more."

"How's that my problem?!"

"Who cares." I tapped my fingers "You're both bothering me."

I grumbled a bit till Robin touched my shoulder.

"Let's just go." I stood up "The sooner we start planning the better."

Later

"You seem exceptionally agitated as of late." Robin commented.

"What else is new." I said looking at my hands.

"What wrong?" she leaned on my back.

"This Fruit…I understand why no one else could handle it." I said "It's scary, the way it scratches at the darkness, the emotions it makes me feel, it's not like others, it's like it's alive. It doesn't help that it's right at home in this den of debauchery, greed and a host of other sinful indulgences."

"Is that all, seems par for the course with you as of late, always agitated or depressed." She sighed.

"Sorry." I brushed her hand "I know I'm bringing you down."

"No, I understand you're going through something that I can't understand." She hugged me "But I'll be here for you, until you return to how you used to be."

"You being right here helps." I smiled at her.

"So to the problem at hand, you really think it will work?" she asked.

"Why not." I shrugged "So long as Luffy, Franky, Rose and Wyper shut off the video feed we'll be fine, and since Rose is basically a fricken Ninja Thief Assassin thing who specializes in covertly breaking in and doing things we should be fine. We've got the hard part but…"

"But what?" she gave me a questioning look.

"I don't know I just gotta weird feeling is all, like we're not gonna be fighting with just Tesoro."

AN

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Till Next Time!