Deep within the caverns of the cliff, where Navarone holds their prisoners, Lieutenant Drake is growing more furious by the minute as his prisoner refuses to give him the information he desires.
"For the last time, tell me how your crew got here!" Drake demands as he rubs both his fists on the opposite sides of Zoro's head as hard as he can.
The swordsman groans at the annoying technique, and stays seated on the floor in front of the marine. With his hands cuffed behind his back and his swords locked in a different prison cell, he can't do a lot without making his situation worse, so he only stares up at the man in irritation. "Are you hard of hearing or something? I already told you how our crew got here."
Drake growls at the unbelievable tale as he stops giving him a noogie and glares down at him. "You expect us to believe that your ship fell from the sky, thanks to an octopus balloon?"
Zoro shrugs his shoulders with a small smirk as he leans his back against the rock wall behind him. "Think what you want, but it won't change the truth."
Drake clenches his fists as tight as possible before he decides to change his tactic. "You know, you don't need to protect them anymore."
Zoro loses his smile at the statement and furrows his eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"
"The taboo user studying hell's comet. You made up this pathetic excuse to protect them, right? I hate to break it to you, but that pirate is long gone."
Zoro is vaguely familiar with Rose's research in that he knows that it's a taboo about other worlds, but she never got into detail about it with any of them. He saw her sneeze off the ship, so he knows that this marine is lying to him. However, he doesn't need to tell that to the guard, so he plays along by narrowing his eyes at the man defiantly. "How do you know?"
Drake begins to smirk, when he feels like he's making progress, and kneels down to be at his eye level. "We found the crystal, that's still holding the comet's power, in your ship's bathroom. You ship wound up here because the astronomer's experiment went wrong, am I right? If you give me full detail about who the taboo user is, and how your ship wound up at our base, I'll talk to the commander about going easy on you."
The swordsman remains frozen in place when he remembers the weird glowing items that Rose freaked out about in the bathroom just before the ship fell. With the way that those items vanished, he now knows that Rose was using those gems to experiment with the comet's power. What he doesn't understand though is why did she keep this a secret from him and the others? If she had been more careless, it could've been the ship, along with the crew that disappeared instead.
"Well Roronoa, what's your answer?"
Zoro snaps out of his trance when he remembers his situation, then smirks at Drake as he un-crosses his legs. "You know something? You talk too much."
Drake looks at him in confusion before Zoro kicks him straight in the gut so hard that it sends him flying backwards until his back hits the sea stone bars behind him.
"Lieutenant Drake!" The seven men, who are guarding the outside of Zoro's cell, call out to their leader worriedly as they go to unlock the door.
However, Drake doesn't care as he gets up and glares at the smug pirate. "Why you!"
"Sir, we have a report of a strange man, with a long nose, at the docks where the pirate ship is!" Another marine calls out as he runs to the scene.
Drake stops himself from beating the crap out of Zoro thanks to the news, and turns to the rest of his men. "Don't let this man out of your sight until I return with the next prisoner!"
"Yes sir!" The small squadron salutes their leader as they watch him leave the cell, then one of them immediately locks the door as if Zoro could easily escape.
Zoro scowls at how the men are just staring at him while they stand guard of his cell, before he relaxes against the wall. He knows that he can't do anything in this cell, so until Luffy causes some chaos he's going to let himself catch up on some shut eye.
As soon as Luffy and Sanji know they're safe in an empty hall, they stop running to catch their breaths. Luffy sets Lilly down to get his disguise off while the marine steps back to get a better view of the pirates.
She's never seen the chef in any of the posters, but one look at Luffy's hat and she immediately recognizes the captain from his poster. *This guy has a hundred million beli bounty?!*
Luffy looks to the brunette and sees the slightly surprised look on her face. "What's the matter?"
The marine quickly looks away to glance past the corner as if she's on the lookout. "I'm just worried about how we're getting out of here. What's the plan?"
Luffy hesitates to answer, because he still feels that something's off with her.
However, Sanji doesn't think anything's wrong with the fake pirate as he looks out the window. "We need to get moss head out of prison and find Nami and Robin."
Luffy finally looks away from Lily when he remembers that he found out Zoro's been caught by the Vice Admiral and starts to run in a random direction. "ZOR- HEY!"
Sanji stops him from running off by grabbing him by the back of his shirt. "Shut up already! We don't know where to look!"
Lily widens her eyes when she realizes that guards will be surrounding their imprisoned crew mate, so helping the pirates go there will be the best way to trap them. "I know where to go!"
The boys look at her in confusion as she looks through the window and points to metal building that's built on a cliff. "I read through the base's blueprints. They keep their prisoners locked up in there. We should find the others to come up with a plan to rescue him."
"There's no time, we gotta go!" Luffy says as he runs off without them.
"You should let Rose-chan lead you idiot!" Sanji says as he follows him.
Lily sweat drops at the weird pirates before she goes after them. She lightly pants from running fast enough to catch up to them, and points to the end of the hall. "We need to make a left to get to the stairs. Any idea where the others are?"
"Not a clue." Luffy bluntly says as they take the left turn and keep running.
The marine couldn't believe this captain's simple nature as she looks around for the quickest path. "Then what are we going to do when we break moss head out?"
Luffy looks to the imposter in confusion, for Rose has never called Zoro 'moss head' before. "What are you talking about? You should know, we're gonna find the others, find Merry and get out of here."
"Oh, right!" Lily looks ahead to avoid his stare that's making her more uncomfortable with the situation. Still, his answers are just confusing her more by the minute. If this man is really the hundred million bounty pirate, then wouldn't he be more menacing?
Also, with him not knowing where his crew is, she has no idea on what they're trying to accomplish in this base. Even though more questions are growing in her mind, she can feel Luffy's eyes still on her so she keeps her mouth shut to avoid suspicion.
Sanji, who's running in the back, stares at the two crew mates in confusion. Not so much at the cute girl, as he is at Luffy, because his captain is just staring at Rose while he runs. With a closer look, he can see that Luffy's scowling with his forehead getting red, like he's thinking hard on something but can't figure it out. He starts getting uncomfortable with the weird look Luffy's making, so runs in between his crew mates. "Quit staring at her! You're weirding us out!"
Luffy stops thinking about why Rose is acting so strange and frowns at Sanji. "Rose is the one weirding me out!"
"What?!" Lily turns to him in shock, and starts believing that she underestimated this man.
Sanji however, takes it as an insult as he kicks Luffy on the back of the head. "Rose-chan isn't weird you idiot!"
The marine blinks at how the pirate didn't hesitate to hit his captain as she watches Luffy grumble as he rubs his head.
Sanji ignores his captain as he gives the brunette a caring smile. "Don't worry Rose-chan, if he bothers you again, I'll set him straight."
The brunette only nods with a smile, to keep her facade, as she looks to the stairs up ahead. "T-thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Let's just keep going."
She brings them down the stairs, and continues to lead them through the base while understanding these pirates less by the minute.
The sounds of punches and kicks fill the air in the weapon unit's training hall as the cadets give it their all in training. At this point no one is participating with muscle training for the soldiers are either sparring or taking a break.
Rose is participating in the former and having the time of her life in her natural habitat. Ever since she's been in this world, she's either had to fight with her powers or with a sword to survive. While she definitely enjoys those kinds of battles, she loves the nostalgic adrenaline that she gets from fighting hand to hand combat, like when she fought both in and out of her High School fight club. The only true difference between the past and now, is that the opponents aren't afraid to fight her, but are welcoming the challenge she's giving them.
She couldn't peel off the gleeful smile she's wearing even if she tried as she gives a double kick to the female officer, that she's fighting with for her 49th victory.
The curvy, teenage, marine with her straight blonde hair in a ponytail, blocks the kick with her knee and throws a roundhouse kick at her to give her some distance. The cadet keeps her narrow brown eyes on Rose as she throws a barrage of punches at her. "What's going on with you, Lily?"
Rose immediately recognizes the voice to be the one her doppelganger was speaking to last night, and dodges her punches. To avoid causing an argument with Lily and her friend later, the wind girl feigns a look of confusion as she matches her pace to return her punches, then throws a step behind side kick. "What are you talking about?"
The girl grits her teeth as she dodges the kick and throws another punch. "Don't give me that! You haven't lost once today!"
Rose tilts her torso to the side to avoid the blow, then grabs her wrist with one hand to pull her forward before she turns her other hand into a fist and lightly taps her nose with it.
The marine drops her jaw at the gentle hit, because if her opponent was serious, she would've received a broken nose.
While she was distracted, Rose turns around and with the arm she's still holding, flips her over her shoulder. However, she keeps her other hand on her back to make sure that she doesn't get hurt from the fall.
The marine is speechless at the strong flip as Rose lets go of her opponent and gives her a shy smile. "Hehe, sorry, I didn't mean to worry you. Lieutenant Noah said that I couldn't leave until I won fifty matches. I wanted to get them done quick so I can go see the ghost ship."
The blonde didn't know what to say about the explanation that sounded completely in character with Lily's personality. When she saw 'Lily' fighting like a totally different person, she was worried that something bad happened to her friend. Now that she knows that it's just because of new motivations, she snorts in amusement. "So you're finally getting serious because of a ghost ship?! You're nuts Lily!"
She laughs at her friend's antics with Rose laughing along with her.
As both girls are laughing, neither of them are aware that the lieutenant has been watching them the whole time. Ever since Vice Admiral Jonathan found out that he accidentally dragged a pirate into his training session, he kept an eye on the girl to study her moves.
He was impressed with the amount of control that the brunette had in all of her matches. Even though she's trying to play the part of a marine, she could still injure her opponents with the openings that she used. However, she only hits hard enough to give her the win.
The marine finds it a shame that such a good fighter chose the wrong side of the law, but the choices were her own. He needs to capture her or he can't face his subordinates proudly. He takes off his marine coat to reveal his short sleeve shirt that's showing off this muscular human arm and the metal arm that's all the way up to his shoulder.
He looks down at the new right arm, that's been his replacement for a month since his fight with a powerful pirate destroyed his original one. When the World Government gave him this new limb, they also implanted prototype features for the weapons expert to test for them. While he's mastered how to use them, he's yet to test his cyborg abilities in real combat. Until today…
Rose doesn't notice the danger that she's about to get in as she wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She starts going to her sweaty cheeks, but stops when she remembers the makeup that's covering her freckles. *Crap, is this waterproof?*
She keeps her hands away from her face before she turns to get to her backpack, that's been sitting on the sidelines this whole time.
Her former opponent touches her shoulder to stop her. "What's the matter Lily? I thought you were eager to finish."
The impostor awkwardly chuckles before she turns to her. "I am, I just need to-"
"ATTENTION!"
The cadets stop what they're doing at the sound of Noah's voice, and rush to stand in front of their leader in a salute position. Rose doesn't hesitate to join them as she salutes the lieutenant.
Once Noah sees that everyone's in line, he lifts his metal arm to them. "I know you've all been curious about this arm. Since you've all done well with today's training, I'm going to demonstrate the features to you."
Almost the entire unit widens their eyes at the announcement, because not once have they seen him use his cyborg arm except to whack them for discipline. While the unit can barely contain their excitement about the news, the pirate has a bad feeling about this.
A smirk begins to grow on Noah's face as he continues. "In order to fully demonstrate my arm, I'm going to have an exhibition match."
The rest of the marines nearly gasped at the news before a few of them begin to whisper.
"He's serious?!"
"I've never seen him fight before!"
"I heard he's strong enough to take on devil fruit users! I can't wait to see him in action!"
Rose widens her eyes at the quiet gossip, but stays silent as she watches him looking through the crowd like he's searching for the right opponent.
When Noah's dark eyes meet Rose's contact covered eyes, he stops moving. "Sarona Lily, I would like you to be my opponent."
The rest of the marines were taken aback by this and look at her with a mix of excitement and envy.
Rose looks around and realizes that her doppelganger's surname is Sarona, and that the lieutenant just challenged her to a fight. *Either this is luck or he's on to me…*
While she knows that she'll be exposed regardless of what she does in this situation, she can't help to grow excited at the chance to fight a high ranking officer, so she accepts the challenge. "Sounds good to me sir! Will I be allowed to use weapons for this?"
"Of course, it wouldn't be fair to make you fight me otherwise. This is an all-out fight, so choose whatever you want from the rack." He points to the wall behind them that shows a weapons rack that holds all kinds of swords, kunais, and various other kinds of weapons, but no guns.
Rose happily grins at the chance to get a new sword as she runs to the rack to choose her weapons. While the rest of the unit is getting to the side, Noah stops two of his best men. "I want you both to watch from the door. No matter what happens, don't move from that spot."
"Yes sir!" The men rush to the door without hesitation to stand guard.
Rose looks over her shoulder to see the two new guards and confirms her suspicions that Noah knows the truth about her. She looks around the windowless room, and sees that the best way to escape is either through the door or up in the vents. She knows that she can power through those two guards with her wind, but she wants to test herself.
She wants to see how long she can last in a fight without immediately rushing to her powers, and polish her combat skills. With that in mind, she takes a black katana sheath, that's longer than what she's used to, and pulls out the weapon from the container to examine the silver blade. She lifts it to test the weight and grins at the weight, that's heavier than her old sword but still manageable.
She puts the sword back in the sheath, and turns to get to the match, but stops when her eyes spot the various ninja tools hanging next to the swords. Her eyes begin to beam at the chance to try new techniques as she goes over to them.
The rest of the cadets take a seat at the benches in anticipation of an epic battle from their leader and comrade. The blonde girl that Rose just fought looks to the weapon rack to see Rose surveying her choices like a kid in a candy store.
When the marine looks to the mat to see Noah tinkering with his arm to make sure that all of his features are ready, she can't help but be nervous for her friend. She turns to the lanky boy that Rose first fought and starts speaking to him. "Is it just me Luther, or is the Lieutenant being harsher with Lily than usual?"
The tan boy looks to where the impostor is before he sighs. "I'm not sure Marta. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what's going on with Lily. I mean you know she's always been a good fighter, at least with weapons, but she's never been this much of a…"
He trails off to find the right word for her odd behavior before he comes up with one. "Brawler... It's like she's getting drunk on the adrenaline from the fights and liking it…"
Marta slowly nods because she understands what he means, and doesn't alleviate any of the worries that she has for her friend.
The pirate however, isn't nervous at all about the opportunity as she approaches the mat with the only weapon revealed to the audience is the sword on her belt.
Noah keeps his smirk on the pirate as he stands at least a foot taller than his opponent. "Are you ready Lily?"
The crowd becomes confused as to why he spoke their comrade's name almost sarcastically. However, the pirate doesn't bother with it as she gets in a stance, a few feet away from him. "Ready when you are sir."
The audience widen their eyes at the mirrored tone, before they watch Noah smirk at her and clench his metal hand into a fist.
Before the audience had time to blink, their leader immediately threw a punch with his metal arm, and the arm releases the hand like a grappling hook, with a thick chain connecting the hand with the forearm.
Rose runs to the right to avoid the hit, and widens her eyes to see him retract the arm back slightly, only so that he can release it again and whip the chain around for the hand to go after her. She ducks to avoid the hit, then grabs a kunai from her boot to stab the chain link to the floor. The chain didn't break, but it's now pinned to the thick mat.
As Noah struggles to pull the chain off the floor, Rose runs to him with her fist ready. She jumps at him to punch him in the face, but Noah grabs her arm with his human hand and flips her. She groans as she lands on her back, but rolls to avoid the drop kick that was about to hit.
She jumps up and gives him tornado kick, but he steps back to dodge and gives her a roundhouse kick.
She blocks the kick with her arm then gives him a double kick to the stomach. He stumbles back from the hard kick when Rose gives him a roundhouse kick high enough to kick him in the nose.
The cadets widen their eyes at how their comrade is faring well in the fight while barely using her weapons. The lieutenant however, grew annoyed as he stumbles back from the hard hit until his metal arm reaches the limit of the chain. Rose takes this chance to punch him in the stomach, but when she throws another roundhouse kick, he grabs her leg and throws her across the room.
Rose holds herself back from using her wind to catch herself as she rolls on the mat until she stops on her stomach. She groans at the landing as she gets up to see Noah going to the kunai on the floor to free himself and retracts his hand back to his arm.
The wind girl doesn't give him a lot of time to recover as she unsheathes her sword, charges at the man with the back of her blade, and goes to strike him.
As soon as the attack was about to hit, a blade emerges from the back of Noah's hand and blocks the blow!
*Holy shit, I'm fighting Edward Elric!* Rose almost giggles in excitement of the new development as their fight switches from hand to hand combat to a sword fight.
Noah keeps his regular arm behind his back to keep it from getting in the way as the two warriors fill the air with the sounds of their swords colliding.
The audience couldn't take their eyes off the fight even if they wanted to because of how in sync the warriors are. Where one of them goes to attack the other is ready to block and strike without missing a single step.
The two sides clash their weapons at the same time with neither of them backing down and struggle to push the other off.
Noah looks closely at her weapon and realizes that she's been using the blunt side of the blade this whole time, so he speaks to her in a whisper. "Either you're toying with me or have no idea how to use that weapon, pirate."
Rose clicks her tongue as she matches his quiet tone. "What gave me away?"
He kicks her in the gut to push her back, and strikes, but she blocks and gives him a kick that he jumps back from to dodge.
He charges at her with his sword and keeps trying to slash her as she blocks his blows. "Besides the fact that your fighting style is completely different from my subordinate's, the real Lily was interrogated by my colleagues."
She furrows her eyebrows in anger at herself for causing trouble for her doppelganger as they manage to hit each other at the same time.
Noah receives a hard hit on his side from her sword, but Rose receives a horizontal cut an inch under her right eye.
However, when the blade made contact on the wind girl's skin, she instantly felt weak while she stumbled away from her opponent. She stops a few feet from the marine as she remembered feeling that way once when she was treated as Eneru's hostage in Skypiea. *Crap, his sword has a sea stone tip…*
Rose mutters a curse as she glares at her opponent, who is clenching his side from her hit. Luckily, she no longer feels weak as she gives herself some more distance and wipes the blood, that's seeping from the cut on her cheek, with the back of her hand. When she wipes off the blood though, the makeup that's been covering her freckles comes off with it.
When the cadets see freckles on the brunette's cheek just under the cut, they begin to grow curious as they whisper to one another.
"Did she always have freckles?"
"I know she uses makeup to make them sometimes. Maybe she wanted to cover them?"
Marta remembers talking to Lily about the fake freckles she made last night, but it wouldn't make sense for her to cover them up instead of washing them off. "Something's not right..."
Noah notices his unit's muttering to one another and knows that if this goes on any further, it'll cause more problems. He decides that this match is over as the blade retracts itself and a machine gun barrel pops out of his wrist.
The cadets widen their eyes at the new feature as they watch him aim the machine gun at Rose. Before they can voice their concerns though, Noah speaks out to them.
"Everyone, this girl is not Sarona Lily! She's a pirate in disguise! Lily's safe, Drake made sure the real one wasn't arrested!"
The rest of the unit were completely taken aback by the announcement, but when they think back on how she fought so well with them in hand to hand, this makes perfect sense.
Rose doesn't say anything in her defense as she sheathes her sword. Instead, the impostor puts on a smirk as she takes off her blue neck scarf to wipe off the rest of the makeup, along with the new blood seeping from her cut. Once she's confident that the makeup is off, except for the green contacts, she tosses the scarf then turns to face her audience. "Your leader is telling the truth! My name is Rose, and I'm a proud member of the Straw Hat pirates!"
The unit grows furious at how she easily deceived them and get up to block the doorway.
Noah however, becomes suspicious on what the girl's planning before he calls out to two subordinates. "Marta and Luther, cuff her!"
The two officers don't hesitate in the order as they start approaching her, but stop when Rose laughs in amusement.
The unit looks at the crazy girl in confusion as she smirks at them. "Before you guys arrest me, let me give you some advice as thanks for the fun fights. When you're battling a pirate, you need to expect the unexpected. Before or even during the fight, try to learn all you can about their strengths, their weaknesses, but most importantly..."
The girl starts floating on a gust of wind, which causes every marine in the room to drop their jaws. "Try to find out if they have a devil fruit!"
Noah shoots at the wind girl, but instead of bullets, small green energy blasts are shot from his machine gun. She keeps flying up to avoid the blasts, and create a gust of wind for her backpack.
Some of the marines try to grab it, but they weren't quick enough to retrieve it.
Rose continues to fly around the high ceiling to avoid the shots, while she grabs her backpack and straps it on.
The rest of the unit goes to grab the kunai, throwing stars, and spears that all have sea stone tips on them from the weapon rack. Rose widens her eyes at the projectile weapons that are being thrown at her from twenty feet below her before she creates a wind barrier to block the weapons and let them fall.
Noah keeps shooting at the ceiling, regardless of the damage, until he hears screaming from the door. He and the others stop and look in horror to see that the two men Noah placed at the door are being lifted in their own wind.
"Sorry about this, but I need to go." Rose throws the men at their leader, who catches them in both arms, and makes him fall to the floor. Rose turns her arms into wind to get the marines flying to the wall to keep them distracted while she flies out the door.
As the cadets are recovering from the crazy fight, Noah growls in anger of how he underestimated his prey. He immediately gets up and runs to the door to find no signs of the wind girl.
"DAMMIT!" He punches a hole in the wall with his metal arm before he turns to the unit. "We need to split up and go after her! Arm yourselves with sea stone weapons, and contact me on a baby den den mushi once you've spotted her!"
"SIR, YES SIR!" The cadets rush to do as they're told while their leader runs off on his own. He grabs his blue baby den den mushi from his pocket and contacts Jonathan.
The small snail suddenly grows a thick black mustache, just like the one Jonathan wears, and grins at the lieutenant. "Hello Noah, how's your progress?"
Noah lowers his head in shame before he answers him. "I'm sorry sir, I underestimated her. She used her devil fruit to escape me and my unit. I managed to cut her cheek, so we can tell her apart from Lily now. By the way, where is she?"
Jonathan widens his eyes at the question because he has no idea where she is. "I'm not sure. When Drake told me about the interrogation he had with her, she ran off once she was cleared of suspicion."
Noah widens his eyes at this and begins to grow worried for his subordinate. After all, he was easily able to mix the pirate with Lily. If she made contact with the rest of the crew, they could also mistake her for one of their own…
"I know what you're thinking Noah and I wouldn't worry." Noah snaps out of it to his commander's voice to see the snail smiling at him. "If the pirates did mistake Lily for their crew mate, they won't harm her. If I'm right, she's probably leading them to where our prison is right now."
Noah furrows his eyebrows at the explanation as he stops running. "What makes you think they would let her bring them there?"
"So they can try rescuing the crew mates we captured. I already have Drake and his men setting up a trap there. I'll notify them that Lily will be leading them."
Noah furrows his eyebrows of the situation before he scowls at the leader. "Sir, I'd like to go there as well. I already have my unit searching the base for the wind pirate. I want to make sure Lily doesn't get dragged into any more of this chaos."
Jonathan grins at how his lieutenant truly cares for his unit's wellbeing and nods in agreement. "I understand, get to the prison and stand guard."
"Thank you sir!" He hangs up on his leader and puts the snail in his pocket before he runs off to the brig.
Meanwhile, Rose catches her breath in an empty bathroom in the floor below the training room. Once she's recovered a little, she chuckles to herself from the crazy stunt she pulled. *Man, the look on their faces was priceless! Good thing my bounty's not that big yet or I wouldn't have pulled it off!*
She chuckles to herself before she looks in the wall mirror to see that all of the cover up is completely removed. She touches the new cut on her cheek and giggles at how similar it looks to the scar on Luffy's face. "It doesn't look like it'll leave the same scar, but I'll have doc check when we get out of here."
She looks to her eyes, that still have the green color contacts on them, and gently pulls the contacts off of each eye. She groans at the pain from touching them before she blinks away the irritation. Once she opens them again, her eyes return to their natural purple color.
"Where is she?!"
"That wind bitch has gotta be here somewhere!"
Rose snaps out of it from the soldiers' voices in the hall when she hears the locked door knob starting to jiggle.
The two men at the opposite side of the door immediately suspect that the fake marine is inside, so they work together to break down the door. Once they're inside, they only find an empty room with an open wind.
One of the men look outside, but he couldn't find any signs of their target. He doesn't notice at all that right below the window, his prey is floating below it to hide. He still doesn't notice as he turns to his comrade. "She's not here, let's go!"
He leaves the room with his friend without not once spotting the girl that was under his nose.
When she knows that they're gone, she sighs in relief before she puts the green contacts that are in her hands in her pocket. She doesn't move from her spot as she looks around the island. "If I remember right, Luffy and Sanji should've left the kitchen and are…"
She trails off when she spots a familiar straw hat in the distance. She flies behind a nearby boulder, and sees Luffy and Sanji scaling down a cliff to get to the path that leads to the cliffside building. However, when she sees a familiar marine clinging to Luffy's back like a koala, she drops her jaw in horror. *ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! WHY DIDN'T THE MARINES KEEP LILY CLOSE AFTER THEY INTERROGATED HER?!*
The wind girl scrambles her hair in frustration, because if she goes there while her doppelganger is with them then a whole new can of worms will be opened!
She groans to herself before she decides that the best course of action would be to watch from afar and wait for the right moment to switch back with Lily. It's not the best plan, but it's all that she can think up at the moment, so she stays in her hiding spot to watch over her friends.
Minutes before having to scale the outside cliff, Lily is struggling to keep her sanity from travelling with the weirdest criminals that she's ever met. That's actually saying a lot too, because of all the weird and evil outlaws that she's seen in Water Seven.
For what felt like hours she's tried to lead Luffy and Sanji to the base without getting caught by her comrades and mistaken for one of them again. However, with the captain's loud shouting and the chef's obnoxious flirting, they had to run for their lives at least three times.
This time not being any different as she runs with Luffy and Sanji to avoid behind arrested by the angry mob of marines after them.
The brunette looks back in fear to see that some members of her unit are in the crowd, and are mad as hell. She gulps at the scary glares that are aimed directly at her before she looks away. *They must've found out that Rose wasn't me! But why aren't they saying anything?!*
She keeps looking ahead for a way out of this mess when they turn a corner.
As soon as they're about to go past a door, Luffy grabs her and Sanji by the arm, drags them inside, and jumps out the window with them.
Lily looks down at the tremendously long height in terror, for she has a fear of heights, so she closes her eyes and clings onto the captain's back for dear life.
Luffy doesn't care about Lily's clinging, as he grabs onto the rock wall to stop them from falling.
Sanji grabs onto the rock to get off his captain, then glares at him. "Have you lost your mind?! You could've killed us!"
Luffy awkwardly chuckles as he looks down to see that they have about thirty feet to climb down to. "Sorry, but this is easier."
He looks back to see Lily still holding onto him with her eyes closed. "Hey, you ok?"
Lily forces herself to open her eyes and nervously nods. "Y-yea, I'm fine. What's the plan now captain?"
Luffy tilts his head in confusion, because even though they're so close her face isn't getting red. Before he can voice his concerns, Sanji speaks up.
"We need to get down from here. That building is where the prison is right Rose-chan?" He points to the tiny grey building, about half a mile from them with the marine nervously nodding.
"Y-yea, we need to get there, but we're too open out here. We should go inside and try going from there."
"No way, it's faster this way!" Luffy says as he keeps facing the impostor. "Can you get us flying there? It'll be a lot faster with your wind."
Lily knits her eyebrows at the demand, because she has no idea what he's talking about. To keep her cover from getting blown, she covers her fear with a look of anger as she grabs onto the cliffside and gets off of Luffy. "Forget it!"
The boys both look at her in confusion as she starts climbing down with trembling arms and legs while her eyes stay glued to the rocks, so she can keep herself from getting too scared. "I'm more than just an airbag! We'd be even more noticeable if we fly anyway, so we should-!"
She stops talking when her right foot slips, and she loses her balance. The poor girl stares at the boys in horror as she starts falling with the boys calling out to her.
The marine doesn't even scream, because of how petrified she is and only stares at the sky. *This is it, I'm going to die here… I'm sorry-*
She snaps out of it when she feels a strong breeze under her until she's no longer falling and looks down to find herself floating on a gust of wind. "W-what?"
She scans the area for her savior, but couldn't find anyone. She keeps searching until she nearly loses her balance, but the gust keeps her from falling as she keeps tilting until she finally manages to stand herself upright.
Luffy grins in relief that she's ok as he stretches his arms down until he's at her level. "You almost scared me there Rose."
"We shouldn't relax Luffy. We have a problem." Sanji says as he climbs down to them.
Lily grows nervous about what he means while Luffy looks at him in confusion. "We do?"
"Of course we do. Rose-chan thinks that we only like her for her devil fruit."
Luffy widens his eyes at this when he remembers her comment and narrows his eyes at the girl. "What, that's crazy! We like you for tons of more stuff than that!"
Lily tenses up at their stares then rubs her arm nervously and plays along. "S-sorry, I shouldn't have said that..."
Sanji sighs before he pats her on the head. "We should be the ones apologizing, we didn't know you felt that way."
Luffy nods with a grin. "Yea, you should've said something. If you don't want to use your wind, you don't have to."
He grabs Lily by the waist, which earns a surprised squeak from the marine as the wind holding her fades. She keeps her face away from the captain, so Luffy doesn't notice that her face isn't blushing as he keeps her at his side with one arm and starts stretching his other arm the rest of the way down.
Sanji twitches an eyebrow at the pair's closeness as he follows them down. "Dammit Luffy, don't take advantage of the situation!"
Luffy looks up at Sanji in confusion as he keeps descending. "What am I taking advantage of?"
As Sanji grumbles something along the lines of a "clueless bastard", Lily couldn't believe the scene that she just experienced. She doesn't know how that wind saved her life, but she's more surprised by the kindness she received from these pirates. For as long as she can remember, she's seen all outlaws as monsters who take and destroy whatever they want.
When she made that complaint about her nonexistent power, she half expected them to threaten her or even force her. However, they treat their crew mates like close friends, just as how her unit normally treats her.
Still, nothing's changed, she's a marine and these boys are pirates. It's her duty to bring them to justice no matter what.
She keeps herself from looking at Luffy and Sanji for the whole ride down until their feet touch the ground. She immediately pulls herself free from Luffy's grasp and starts storming ahead. "If we keep quiet, we won't have any more problems. Let's go bust some heads."
The boys don't hesitate to follow her and continue on their trek to the prison, without realizing that they've been watched this whole time.
Behind the boulder, Rose sighs in relief that she was able to catch Lily before she could get hurt. If anything had happened to her doppelganger in this situation, she doesn't know if she could forgive herself. *I gotta make the switch with her quick…*
She continues to silently trail the group, while keeping herself hidden from plain sight along the journey. When the group is running on the path that leads to the prison isle, Rose stays hidden behind a nearby boulder and watches them go towards the cliffside prison.
Sanji stops walking and looks around the surroundings suspiciously. Lily and Luffy stop walking when they see Sanji not moving and look at him in confusion.
"What's the matter Sanji?" Luffy asks, with the chef lighting his cigarette.
When Sanji puffs a smoke, he looks at the building with narrow eyes. "Isn't this too easy? It's like they're waiting for us."
Lily grows tense at the accurate guess, but Luffy brushes it off. "If they are, then we kick their asses and get Zoro back!"
Lily hastily nods with a big smile in hopes of convincing them to go in. "Yea, we have nothing to worry about! We're all strong pirates after all!"
Luffy grins at the fake's optimism as he turns to get inside. "Exactly, let's go!" He runs ahead with Sanji groaning.
As Sanji and Lily go after him, the marine gives the flirt a cute smile. "If you're that worried, I can put this uniform to use and stand guard outside. I'll make sure no one interferes with the rescue while you get moss head out."
Sanji loves the idea as he smiles at her with hearts in his eyes. "What a wonderful idea Rose-chan! Yell out if anything happens!"
"I will, good luck!" She stops at the doorway and waves the two pirates goodbye.
Luffy looks back to see the brunette not going with them, so he looks at Sanji in confusion. "Why isn't Rose coming?"
"She's standing guard for us." Sanji says with Luffy getting a bad feeling about this.
He slows down his pace as he scowls at the path behind them. "Something isn't right about her…"
Sanji raises a curly eyebrow at the assumption as he slows down. "What are you talking about?"
"I don't know, it just feels weird! I mean she's Rose, but it's like she's not her somehow..." Luffy says in frustration of not knowing how to explain it.
Sanji doesn't know much about what it means either, because from what he can see the brunette looks, sounds, and almost acts exactly the same as usual. He shakes his head at his captain's weird attitude. "I don't know what your problem is, but we can figure it out after we get out of here."
Luffy hesitantly nods before he speeds up and goes deeper into the cavern building to rescue his crew mate.
Meanwhile, Lily is grinning in satisfaction of her plan working out as she stands outside. She goes into her pocket and takes out a small, yellow snail before she calls her lieutenant.
As soon as it's answered the snail grows a head of red hair and a goatee to match it before he looks at Lily worriedly. "Lily, are you alright?! Where are you?!"
She nods to him with a small smile, while feeling grateful for him to be worried about her. "I'm alright Lieutenant Noah. I'm sorry for worrying you, some pirates kidnapped me and thought I was one of them. I led them to the brig and standing watch outside."
Noah hums in amusement of how Jonathan was right on the mark about her plans. "Good work. Stay there for the time being. I'm on my way over to make sure you don't get mistaken for a pirate again."
When it looks like he's about to hang up, she stops him. "Wait sir, what happened to the girl you dragged to training?!"
He freezes at the question before he narrows his eyes at his subordinate. "How did you know I dragged someone into training?"
Lily tenses up and shifts her eyes everywhere, like it can help her avoid telling him that she saw him drag Rose out of the library. "Umm, well…"
Noah groans at his cadet's carelessness, and will decide on a punishment for her later. "Never mind, that girl was-"
"A pirate in disguise." Lily and Noah tense up at the new voice, before Lily turns to see the wind girl floating beside her.
Rose ignores the tension as she takes the snail from the marine with an amused smile. "Glad to see you're ok Lily."
"LILY, GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT-!" Rose hangs up on the lieutenant before he could finish and sets the snail on the ground.
Lily could only stare in disbelief of seeing the girl from the wanted poster floating right in front of her. She unconsciously steps back in fear and hits her back against the building. "T-that wind that saved me…"
Rose softly frowns at Lily's fear for her, but knew that this will happen so she doesn't act upset, as she lands in front of her. "Yes, that was me. I didn't want to see my new friend get hurt."
"What are you talking about?! We're not friends!" Lily exclaims as she unsheathes the sword on her belt and goes to strike, but Rose quickly blocks it with her katana.
Rose quietly sighs at her childishness as she pushes her off. "Have you still not figured it out?"
"Figured what out?!" She goes to slash her again, but Rose continues to block her blows.
Rose doesn't try to attack the marine once as she stays on the defensive. "Maybe you can figure it out with this!"
The wind girl thinks of some of the angriest memories that she can remember as she keeps blocking until a hot mood breeze flies out of her.
As soon as the hot air landed on the marine, Lily froze in horror because she remembered feeling this last night. While this wind makes her feel more irritated than the other one felt, there's no denying that this is the same power that her ghost friend had.
Lily only stares at the pirate with a mix of fear, and hatred as she clenches onto her weapon. "It's not true! The ghost has green eyes and she doesn't have freckles!"
Rose sadly sighs as her mood breeze fades, then digs into her pocket to take out the contacts and the envelopes that she stole from her room. "Funny what some makeup and color contacts can do for you. You should know all about it since you did the same thing to copy my features. Even if it was by mistake."
The marine couldn't believe what she's hearing as she snatches her envelopes from her. When she looks down at her stolen letter and photos though, the facts won't let her deny the truth about what happened anymore. She's forced to accept that this girl found out that a marine who looks like her is here, stole her appearance, tricked her into leading her to the library, and took the research material on Hell's Comet for herself. The thought of how she was so easily fooled by this pirate because of her love for the paranormal, makes her sick to her stomach.
Rose stares at the frozen doppelganger in guilt for a moment before she lowers her head in shame. "I'm sorry, I never meant for this to happen. Please, just forget that we ever met..."
She starts heading to the building before Lily speaks up. "Where do you think you're going?"
The wind girl almost cringes at the rage in her voice before she turns to see her glaring at her, while she stuffs the envelopes in her pocket. "To rejoin my crew mates."
"The only way you're doing that is in cuffs, you filthy, two-faced, pirate!" She clenches her sword with both hands as she attacks her while Rose continues to block the blows.
Rose low sweeps her with her leg to knock her down before she flies into the cave.
Lily's fury grows to the point where she forgets her sword on the ground while she gets up and runs after the pirate.
As Rose puts sword back in its sheath, she looks back to see that the pissed off marine is running after her. She has no intention on fighting her, so she keeps on flying, but becomes shocked when she sees Lily grab hidden hand-sized shuriken from her clothes, and start to throw them at her!
"What the crap?!" The wind girl dodges every throwing star coming her way as she flies deeper in the caves with her new enemy in pursuit.
As soon as Luffy and Sanji made it down to depths of the caves, with only the lanterns on the walls to light their paths, they notice Usopp pressing himself against the bars on his cell.
"There you are! Be careful!" Usopp would wave to them if his hands weren't cuffed behind his back like Zoro's so he sticks to calling out to them.
Luffy keeps on running until he skids to a stop just in front of the cell. "Hey guys! Don't worry, we'll get you right-!"
He stops talking as soon as he touches the metal bars, and feels his strength fade away to the point where he falls to his knees. Usopp yells out in anguish as Sanji catches up to the group.
Zoro immediately becomes wary of the development while Usopp looks to his prison bars. "These bars are sea stone?!"
"That's right!" Drake calls out as he, and two dozen men come out of the shadows to block the entrance way that they came from.
The lieutenant scowls at the two criminals as he allows his men to draw their swords. "Surrender now and we won't kill you."
Sanji scoffs at the demand as he smirks at the soldiers. "Do you really think that threat will stop us?"
"How about this?" Sanji and Luffy widen their eyes at the new voice and turn to see a marine captain blocking their only other path with another dozen of his men aiming rifles at them.
Sanji scowls at the reinforcements as he looks to the bars. If he wants to get all of them out of this alive, there's one thing he has to do first. Kick down Usopp and Zoro's prison door!
The marines from both sides look at the well-dressed pirate in confusion as they watch him try to kick it down, but to no avail.
The captain chuckles at the attempt as he keeps watching Sanji try to kick it down. "You can try all you want, but it'll take a cannon to tear down those bars."
After the fifth kick, Sanji stops and groans to himself for not even leaving a dent in the bars. "Damn, these things are tough…"
*A cannon…* The wheels in Usopp's head start turning until he comes up with an idea to help get them out of here.
He grins at Sanji before he speaks under his breath. "Sanji, I know what can help! I have an impact dial in my pocket!"
Sanji widens his eyes at the idea before he looks at him suspiciously. "Isn't that supposed to hurt whoever's using it?"
"Yea, but no time to be a wimp!" Usopp leans his right pocket as close to the bars as possible so Sanji can reach for it.
The chef hesitates for a moment, but he doesn't see any other way around it so he goes into the sniper's overall pockets.
Drake raises an eyebrow at the pirate's odd behavior before he glares at them. "This is your last warning!"
Sanji ignores the warning as he takes a blue dial from Usopp's pocks and shows it to the marines. "Shut up gorilla man. I'm gonna show you something that's blow your minds."
"A shell?" Drake and the others look at him in confusion, but are growing curious so they watch him push the shell against the door.
"You might want to step back." Sanji says to Usopp, so the Sniper runs backwards until he's beside Zoro in the back of the cell.
Sanji ignores Luffy, who's still lying on the ground from touching the sea stone, before he activates the dial. He braces himself for an explosion, but it never came.
Instead, the sound of Usopp's voice comes out of the shell. "I'm captain Usopp!"
The line repeats itself on a loop, and confuses every marine in the area.
Sanji however, grows completely embarrassed by the epic fail as his face grows red enough to match a tomato.
Even Zoro becomes embarrassed by the lame attempt to rescue him. "You moron…"
The marine captain snickers at the false alarm while he looks at the talking shell. "That was supposed to 'blow our minds'? Doesn't look frightening to me."
Sanji's bangs shadow over his eyes before he turns to the loudmouth and gives him a glare that could kill him. "Shut the hell up before I gut you like a fish…"
The marines have no doubt in that he would do it and keep their mouths shut in fear.
Usopp awkwardly chuckles in embarrassment as he shuffles back towards the door and leans his left pocket to the bars. "S-silly me, it was in this one…"
Sanji's glare doesn't waver as he snatches the new dial from his pocket.
As the pirate gets to work on getting the next one activated, Drake and his group freeze at the sound of metal clashing behind them.
They look behind them to see two similar looking girls coming in from the entrance with one of them flying towards them while avoiding flying shuriken. They immediately duck to avoid the ninja tool before Rose lands beside them with the soldiers keeping her from being seen by her crew mates.
The wind girl deflects the last of the throwing stars by blowing a gust out of her hands before she finds herself blocked by both Drake's unit and her doppelganger. She narrows her eyes at the marine version of herself as she gets in a stance. *Damn, I don't want to fight her…*
Lily shares the same glare as she holds the last two throwing stars in her hands. "Surrender now or-!"
She stops talking when the sound of someone farting fills the air, and a putrid smell fills the area.
It turns out that instead of an impact dial, Usopp gave Sanji an odor dial that was loaded with farts and is now torturing everyone in the cave. Most of the marines, including Lily, had to drop their weapons to cover their noses from the terrible smell.
"Who the fork did that?!" Lily asks in disgust as she tears up from the smell.
Rose looks at her copy in shock for a moment before she giggles and covers her nose. "I don't know what's funnier: the odor dial or you saying 'fork' instead of 'fuck'."
Lily growls at the pirate, but the horrible smell is making it too hard for her to focus on arresting her.
Usopp tears up in agony because he can't protect his long nose from the scent. "Who stored a fart in my odor dial?!"
"I thought it would be funny…" Luffy weakly says as he still holds onto the sea stone bars.
"Why am I not surprised?" Zoro mumbles as he wrinkles his nose in disgust.
Sanji groans at the smell, but stops when he hears the sound of crackling above him. He looks up in fear to see that the fire lit lanterns are starting to react to the gas from Luffy's farts. "GET DOWN! IT'S GONNA BLOW!"
The marines look at him in confusion, but Rose immediately knows what he's talking about.
Rose uses her wind to get Lily and two nearby marines flying back up the stairs just before the explosions begun to take place. One after another, the lanterns blew up the nearby carve walls with both the walls caving in and burying both pirate and marine alike!
The wind carrying Lily and the marines drops them halfway up the stairs, but it was enough distance to keep them from getting hurt from the blast.
Just as they were about to go down, Noah rushes in to approach them. "What happened?!"
"The brig blew up!" One of the marines says with Lily running back down to see that the entrance way is almost completely caved in.
"We need to get the others out!" She says as she starts digging through the new wall with her hands.
Noah uses his metal arm to create a large, round, shield on the back of his arm before he turns to the others. "Go gather some men to collect the wounded!"
"Yes sir!" They run off to get help while the lieutenant goes to the new dirt wall.
He uses the edges on his steel shield to start digging before he talks to Lily. "The wind pirate was the one who hung up on me right? What happened to her?"
"She threw me and the other marines up the stairs just before the explosion hit…" Lily grits her teeth in frustration of not understanding anything. She and Rose are supposed to be enemies, yet the pirate made sure that she didn't get hurt while she took the hit from the explosion…
Noah looks at her softly for a moment before he stops digging. "What exactly is your relationship with her? Are you two sisters?"
She shakes her head. "No, last night was the first time I met her…"
Noah understands the situation less by that, but doesn't push her on the subject and gets back to work. Lily continues to do the same before she finds a gap between the original cave wall and the collapsed dirt, so she looks through the hole to see that the pirates are recovering first.
Sanji coughs up a storm as he digs himself out and looks around. "Is everyone alright?"
Usopp barely moves as the rocks that landed on him fall off of him. "Mission… Accomplished…"
"I guess you can say that…" Zoro says as he breaks the broken wooden cuffs off of himself, then goes to break off Usopp's.
Rose groans from being sent flying from the explosion as she weakly pushes the debris off of her. "How the hell did Luffy's farts cause this?"
"I have no idea." Sanji says before he realizes that Rose is here and looks at her in shock. "Wait, when did you get here?!"
The wind girl casually shrugs before she slowly stands herself up. "I got chased down here by a marine before the explosion came in."
"Help me…" They all look to see their captain still collapsed on the ground with a sea prism bar on top of him.
"What are we gonna do with you?" Sanji asks as he and Usopp pull their captain free of the sea stone while Rose and Zoro dig around until they found Zoro's swords and Usopp's sniper bag.
Lily narrows her eyes at the pirates, when she becomes determined to get some answers, and rushes to dig a hole big enough for her to crawl through. Just when the pirates are making a run for it, she climbs through the hole to go after them.
"What are you doing?! Come back!" Noah orders, but instead of obeying she gets up and goes after them. He tries to go through his hole to go after her but he's too big. He manages to get his metal arm to go through and propels his metal hand after her, but she dodges the hand and continues to run after them.
"WAIT, DON'T LET ZORO LEAD! HE'LL GET US LOST!" Usopp calls out as the pirates make a run for it with Zoro in front.
Rose couldn't help but smile at being back with her crew mates again as she looks to Zoro. "As long as he doesn't lead us back to the brig, he can get us as lost as he wants!"
"SHUT UP!" Zoro yells back as he runs in every direction he can think of. The pirates run from one hallway to another with no idea on where they're going.
Luffy laughs at the craziness before he looks to the wind girl. He doesn't feel anything amiss with her like when he was with the marine before, so he happily smiles and brushes off the bad feeling he felt before.
After what felt like the twentieth turn, they reach a dead end and stop running.
Usopp groans in frustration before he looks to Zoro in disdain. "I told you he would get us lost!"
"Yea, where are we?" Sanji asks as he looks to the nearby window to find them on a high level of the base.
Rose hums in thought of what she can do as she looks outside. "Do you guys know where the docks are? I might be able to…"
She trails off when she looks to her crew mates and sees them all staring at her like she grew a couple of heads. "What the hell's with you guys?"
All four of them point to something behind her, so she turns around and drops her jaw in pure shock to find her doppelganger there.
The poor girl looks like she just ran a marathon as she slumps against the wall while she catches her breath. Even while she's panting, she doesn't waver in her mission as she glares at the pirates. "I… Finally… Found you…"
Rose covers her face with her hands in hopes that this is some kind of sick joke. "You gotta be shitting me…"
The boys are still trying to recover from the shock as they look from one girl to the other until Luffy finally voices their thoughts. "THERE ARE TWO ROSES?!"
TO BE CONTINUED