The loud reverberating gong noise entered the ears of the three women waiting far above the marine base.
They only had a minute to ponder what could have caused such a sound before an explosion blew away part of the side of the main building. Shortly afterwards, a large golden buddha rushed out of the hole seemingly chasing after something.
"Was that..." Perona spoke quietly, trailing off.
"Sengoku? Yes, it was. It would seem that Cherry isn't interested in converting to Buddhism, but Sengoku is awfully persistent." Robin joked, though on the inside she was worried.
Cabernet transformed after receiving the signal from Cherry, sending the three of them into free fall. She grabbed onto Perona as she couldn't fly in her physical body, while Robin was capable of short term flight.
The marines in the base were scrambling to their battle stations and searching for additional intruders. For better or worse, none of them appeared to have any desire to follow after Sengoku and Cherry.
They glided down and landed in a somewhat secluded spot outside the main building and prepared to infiltrate it and find Betty.
Cabernet took point while Perona and Robin followed behind. Cabernet's absurd toughness meant she could tank most attacks without even flinching, all while Robin and Perona used their devil fruit powers to disable any foes they encountered from the safety that Cabernet provided.
All the marines in their path were subjected to bouts of extreme depression or got choked unconscious by mysterious arms that spontaneously sprouted from their own bodies.
They already knew where to look for Betty thanks to Cherry. The layout of the building was intentionally like a maze to prevent would-be intruders from easily navigating the building, such as right now. Cherry had thankfully given basic instructions in that regard as well.
"Stop right there, criminal scum." A man stepped around a corner into their path, followed by two other men.
The man who spoke was the Rear Admiral who was normally in charge of this marine base. The man to his left was Vice Admiral Momonga and the man to his left was an older Vice Admiral they didn't know of.
"Nico Robin, huh? Should have known you'd join up with the rebels. I suppose it is fate that we should meet here. Now I can finish what we started twenty years ago and finish off the last of the demons of Ohara." The unknown older Vice Admiral said stoically, his voice practically dripping with hypocrisy.
Robin clenched her teeth and her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
She didn't know which Vice Admirals were in charge of the buster call that destroyed Ohara, except for Aokiji who had spared her life of course. There were times during which she would have liked to find out who was involved with the intent of taking revenge one day, but such information wasn't recorded and only those who were present or the upper ranked marines knew. Needless to say, such people would rarely volunteer that information and asking such people would expose her to unnecessary danger.
It was possible that he was merely lying to destabilize her emotional state so that he might take advantage of it to create an opening. Robin didn't think so, though. She is very good at reading people and her insight was telling her he spoke the truth.
She asked herself if she even wanted revenge against the man. He may not be ashamed of his actions, but ultimately he was following orders from higher up. She knows that she doesn't want to hunt down every marine that was there that day, so should she bother with the vice admirals that led them either?
Robin didn't have the time to decide as the three marines drew their weapons. Momonga drew his sword, the Rear Admiral pointed his rifle, and the older Vice Admiral put on a pair of brass knuckles.
"Enough chit chat, Touma. Let's get this over with." Momonga said sternly, not seeming to be on good terms with the old Vice Admiral.
The two Vice Admirals rushed forward as the Rear Admiral did as his rank would imply and hung back to take shots from afar.
They jumped into the air as Perona's hollows attempted to grab at them by phasing up from the floor, but were unable to do so.
Meanwhile Robin bloomed arms on the Rear Admiral, bending his limbs at awkward angles until a sickening crunch was heard from each one. He yelped in pain and disbelief that he was overpowered by a woman.
As Robin had thought, him being the Rear Admiral of East Blue meant he wasn't all that strong, only having decent strength with leadership qualities.
As the two Vice Admirals were getting close to melee range, Cabernet let out a roar as flames spilled from her mouth and filled the hallway.
This made the two marines hesitate briefly in their approach. These flames were not strong enough to hurt them seriously however, as it was a bluff of sorts from Cabernet to stall them.
Momonga sent a flying sword slash through the torrent of lames whilst Touma bashed away at Perona's hollows that tried to reach them from all directions.
Cabernet met the flying slash head on. Her armament haki wasn't as strong as Cherry's, but combined with her Lunarian toughness and overall boost from being one of Cherry's blood bound weapons, she had a defense that was simply outrageous.
*CLANG*
Cabernet shattered the flying slash with a punch without even a scratch to show for it.
"Gah!" Touma shouted, as a dagger was plunged into his stomach by an arm attached to his own body.
He tried to grab the arm, but it vanished into pink flower petals along with the dagger. The damage was just a flesh wound, but the implication that he could be stabbed from anywhere at any time was frightening.
Both Momonga and Touma were concerned now. They hadn't anticipated that this fight would be difficult for them. Still they didn't back down.
Cabernet breathed a torrent of flames towards them once more, but this time they pushed through and ignored the weak flames licking at their skin and clothes.
Cabernet smiled dangerously at them as her arms were engulfed in flames and she charged straight for them as well.
They thought her a fool for thinking she could handle them both in a melee just because she could tank a flying sword slash, but she proved that she knew exactly what she was doing when she directly grabbed Momonga's sword.
Momonga sensed that he was the one at the disadvantage here and swiftly withdrew the sword from her hand before she had a chance to grip it properly. Even so, the blade was letting off steam that indicated just how hot those flames were. He then realized if he hadn't pulled the sword so decisively, she would have heated the blade until it was weak enough to snap it like a twig.
Touma took the chance to slam her brass knuckles into Cabernet's face with a mean right hook. Her head jerked to the side as expected, but she seemed mostly unfazed by the attack.
Touma felt a familiar dagger slice through the Achilles tendon of his right foot, nearly causing him to fall to his knee from the pain. Robin had taken advantage of his brief bewilderment to take another stab at him.
*BANG*
A rifle bullet struck Cabernet in the face tilting her head backward.
The Rear Admiral looked excited as he had managed to not only take a shot in his poor condition, but even land a head shot!
His excitement turned to horror as Cabernet returned her head and spit out the bullet.
"Oh! Lead tastes kind of sweet!" Cabernet happily reported.
'We're so fucked.' Momonga and Touma concluded silently.