An awkward silence filled the air in the room.
Cherry couldn't take it anymore and decided to change the subject.
She looked Robin up and down. Though she could appreciate her beauty, there was something that she just couldn't stand for.
Cherry squinted her eyes at Robin in mock anger, placing her hands on her hips.
"You've been slacking off!" Cherry pointed at her accusingly.
Robin was caught off guard and wasn't sure what she meant, but then it dawned on her. She quickly thought up a plausible excuse. "I- I just don't have the time to train everyday. I'm a busy woman, you know?"
"Oh, I see. That makes sense." Cherry said, earning a secret sigh of relief from Robin. Her relief was short lived however.
She saw Cherry took a martial arts stance. "Unfortunately for you, I don't care for excuses, regardless of how much sense they make. We'll have to make up for the time you let yourself waste away, so you'd better prepare yourself. We'll start with a quick sparring match!"
Cherry launch towards the flustered Robin who, up until that instant, hadn't been sure whether Cherry was being serious. And she was dead serious.
Robin sprouted arms on Cherry's body, but they were swiftly detached via Cherry's devil fruit ability, though Robin didn't know that she had one yet.
Cherry arrived in front of Robin before she could react any further and sent a fist flying towards her. Robin raised her arms to block, but the attack didn't land. Instead it stopped just before reaching her.
The resulting breeze from the stopped punch sent her hat flying and hair flowing behind her.
"Come on now, you can do better than that, surely!" Cherry said, genuinely a bit disappointed. She felt that if Robin had properly trained for all this time, her devil fruit ability's strength would also have risen dramatically.
Cherry backed off and took a stance again. they repeated this a few times, with Robin attempted different strategies with her devil fruit and even trying a frontal assault. In the end, Cherry trounced her every time.
While Robin was catching her breath from the work out, Cherry spoke up. "You ready to tell me about this stone thing and why you wanted to find it? Based on what I learned and extrapolated about you from 'official' sources, I'm guessing it has something to do with a part of history that the World Government wants to censor, right?"
"Yes, this is a Poneglyph. It's an indestructible record of the past. This one is also said to bear the location of the ancient weapon, Pluton." Robin said, feeling much more relaxed.
"Pluton? I'm guessing Crocodile wants this ancient weapon then? Why though? It can't be worth all this trouble can it?" Cherry asked.
Robin gave a patient smile. "Pluton is a weapon capable of mass destruction, even erasing whole islands in one fell swoop." She stated grimly.
Cherry was surprised at that and didn't even admonish herself for it. 'Mortal hands made a weapon that powerful?! That's about the same level of power as a top quality immortal weapon! I imagine it's a lot bigger in scale than a sword, axe, or spear, but that's besides the point!'
Seeing that Cherry was properly astonished, Robin continued. "Naturally, regardless of whether or not this Poneglyph had that information inscribed upon it, I had no intentions of giving it to Crocodile. I only joined him to get access to the history written here."
Cherry looked at the stone block more closely. It was certainly pretty tough, but not indestructible. In fact, with her devil fruit she reckoned she could-
"Ah. I broke it."
-snap a piece off.
Robin and King Cobra's jaws dropped seeing Cherry casually break off a piece of the Poneglyph's edge. Cherry stuck it back on and fused it back together, good as new.
"Could you teach me to read the Poneglyphs, Robin? I'm pretty interested in this ancient history stuff." Cherry asked.
"It's not because you want to see the ancient weapon?" Robin asked in turn.
"No?" Cherry averted her gaze from her pointed look.
"I won't teach you." Robin said, leaving no room for negotiation. Not that it stopped Cherry from trying.
"I... think I'm going to go now..." King Cobra said.
The ground trembled slightly and the distant sound of an explosion was heard. It had to have been quite the bomb for it be heard down here.
"It would seem that the others took care of the bomb." Cherry remarked. King Cobra sighed a breath of relief.
"You're done reading that aren't you?" Cherry asked Robin, pointing at the Poneglyph.
"Yes." She replied, with clear disappointment in her voice. "Though it wasn't what I was looking for."
"What are you looking for then?" Cherry asked.
Robin looked at King Cobra, but decided it was fine to just say it. "I want to know what happened in the Void Century. To find the truth that the archeologists of Ohara died searching for. That's my dream."
They walked the rest of the way down the corridor in silence. When they came out it was raining and when they reached the square the fighting had already been stopped.
The marines rounded up Crocodile, who at some point got thrown off the palace walls and made a nice little crater for himself on the ground. The marines were also kind enough, or perhaps embarrassed enough, to leave the exhausted Straw Hats alone.
...
"Just give some to me, will you?!" Cherry demanded.
"Absolutely not! Anything but the Hero Water! It's a dangerous substance! I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if something I gave to one of Alabasta's saviors got her killed!" King Cobra insisted.
"I'm not planning on killing myself with it! I want to use it in my experiments is all, figure out it's properties!" Cherry shouted, unrelenting.
"Can you be quieter, please. My ears are hurting from all the shouting." Cabernet muttered.
"Who told you to stand so close to the explosion?!" Cherry reprimanded her.
"But I had to find something interesting to blow up. It's not my fault it ran out of time before I was far enough." Cabernet mumbled.
"Cherry, Vivi and I are going to the baths to wash up before dinner. Are you coming?" Nami asked.
"Oh, wait just a moment. I need to get something first..." Cherry left the room and came back shortly pulling along a disgruntled Miss Spa Day on a dog leash. "Ready to go!"
Once everything had calmed down, Cherry went back to get Miss Spa Day. She brought her into the palace and performed the sealing procedure on her before waking her up.
She was glad to see it was a resounding success. Miss Spa Day couldn't use her powers in the slightest. Unfortunately this couldn't be done in the middle of battle as it needed a few undisturbed hours to set in place.
More over, the devil fruit couldn't be activated at all during the procedure. So an always active devil fruit like Luffy's couldn't be suppressed with this technique at the moment.
As for why she was bringing her to the bath, aside from the fact she literally smelled like garbage, it was to see if the devil fruit curse still activated with the seal in place.
Cherry was delighted to find that it does NOT, in fact, still activate. At least with pure water it doesn't. She would still need to try sea water and sea stone for better results.
Where was Nico Robin? She slipped away while King Cobra was giving a speech to his people after the fighting ended. It made sense, she was one of the perpetrators so she couldn't just come gallivanting around the palace like she was one of the "heroes" too.
"Alright, masseuse, wash our backs. Oh, and give us massages after the bath!" Cherry commanded.
"My name is Serene..." Miss Spa Day weakly protested.
"I'll call you whatever I want to call you, masseuse. Complain again and you'll be 'dumpster' instead." Cherry threatened.
"Yes." Serene muttered.
"Yes, what?" Cherry asked.
She bit her lip in frustration. "Yes, mistress..."