The promised date of the Straw Hat's reunion.
"Ehhhhh?! Robin?! But I saw you get kidnapped by world government agents?!" Chopper cried out in confusion when he ran into Robin, Nami, and Usopp.
"Did you now?" Robin giggled.
"That wasn't Robin, Chopper. That was one of the fake Straw Hats that have been impersonating us," Nami explained patiently.
"Really?!" Chopper felt very flustered. "I suppose she didn't really smell like Robin…"
"Oh, what do I smell like?" Robin asked curiously.
"Like old books and coffee," Chopper said, sniffing at Robin's shoulder.
"Now do me! Do me next!" Usopp exclaimed.
Chopper sniffed at him. "You used to smell like rubber and gunpowder, but now you mostly spell like strange plants."
"That makes sense, I've mostly shifted away from gunpowder ammunition in favor of my pop greens," Usopp nodded his head.
Chopper sniffed at Nami. "Nami smells like oranges and… Nami do you have a problem you'd like to tell me about? There are many ways to curb addictions to illicit substances that I can help you with."
"What?! No I don't!" Nami denied.
Robin giggled before speaking up to explain. "It's the money, Nami. People use Beri bills to snort… stuff. The Beri bills we get a hold of are even worse given how often they're in the hands of pirates."
"I guess I do spend a little too much time counting it… but Chopper, you shouldn't be saying stuff like this in public. What about doctor / patient confidentiality?" Nami complained with a pout.
"It's okay because I knew you weren't on anything. There's no way Nami would waste money like that, ehehe." Chopper laughed.
"Hahaha, Chopper has you all figured out, Nami!" Usopp mocked.
By the time the four of them had reached the ship, Usopp sported a new red bump on his head.
Chopper greeted Cabernet and Merry joyfully. They had a unique relationship amongst the crew, with Cabernet and Merry both being ships, Chopper and Merry being animals, and Cabernet and chopper being human zoan fruits.
Cherry had previously said that Luffy's fruit was a Zoan, but they weren't really sure if he had a human zoan fruit or something else. After all, none of them had ever heard of people with rubbery flesh that were immune to bullets.
"So where is everyone else?" Chopper asked.
"Luffy has yet to arrive as far as we know. Brook is doing some kind of concert. Zoro wandered off somewhere as always and Sanji went looking for him," Franky answered, coming above deck.
Usopp and Chopper squealed in delight at the sight of his "magnificent" cyborg form.
"Luffy has, in fact, arrived on the archipelago." Rayleigh said, walking over with Shakky behind him. "As for Cherry, she's up to no good I expect. She was drawing up some sort of blueprint for a contraption in the bar yesterday, and giggling menacingly all the while."
A shiver went down their spines and they asked nothing more about Cherry.
…
"I'm so disappointed in you boys. Don't you know it's rude to try to spoil a lady's fun?" Cherry asked rhetorically.
The marines she had caught spying on the meeting place of the fake Straw Hats couldn't respond through the gags in their mouths. They couldn't put up much of a fight either given that they were buried in the tree up to their necks, and quite firmly so.
One of the den den mushis that they had on their persons started to ring, so Cherry answered it.
"Report." A familiar voice commanded.
"Oh, it's Sentomaru! How nice to hear your voice again!" Cherry answered delightfully.
"Harpin D. Cherry." Sentomaru's voice said, the den den mushi frowning. "What did you do to my marine?"
"All 7 of your marines are just fine," Cherry said, causing the den den mushi's frown to deepen. "I'm sure you were planning to crash the fake Straw Hats' party, same as me, but if your men run in too soon they might get caught up in my surprise. That would be bad for both of us, so you should hang back and swoop in once I'm done, yeah?"
The den den mushi was silent.
"No sending in the pacifistas either. I know you brought a bunch of them with you. They're pretty expensive aren't they? It'd be a shame if I had to crush them all like tin cans," Cherry threatened with glee.
After having a good look at Bartholomew Kuma, Cherry came to the conclusion that only Kuma had any semblance of humanity left. The other pacifistas were basically robots wearing corpse suits so she had no qualms at all in annihilating them if necessary, just like Moria's zombies.
"My men and I will do as I see fit." Sentomaru answered sternly and hung up.
Cherry smiled victoriously. She was pretty sure Sentomaru would do as she asked, he just couldn't say that out loud. It didn't mean that Sentomaru would leave the real Straw Hats alone, but at least for now there was a ceasefire of sorts.
A gunshot and cheering was heard from the clearing the meeting was being held in.
"Time to go, the show is getting started. Oh, I'll be stealing this. You don't mind right?" Cherry said, picking up a camera den den mushi that one of the marines had in addition to the communicator. "I need pictures of the fakes to show the others later."
Cherry bounded up the tree into the branches, leaving the poor marines embedded sideways halfway up the massive tree.
Doing a quick Life Sense scan, Cherry discovered another interloper. One that was much more annoying to deal with than marines.
"Damn it, Luffy. Last I checked you were a couple of groves away. Why did you come here now?!" Cherry muttered angrily. "You know what? Screw it, it's your fault for ignorantly wandering into the strike zone of my evil machinations. Don't blame me."
Luffy was standing on stage with a massive backpack and a fake mustache, looking around in confusion. He asked "Zoro" and "Sanji" what was going on which made Cherry plant her face into her palms.
Cherry swiftly snapped her pictures of each fake Straw Hat that was present. Sadly there was no fake Robin, but the rest were here in their full glory.
The fake Cabernet was the most amusing, being a big burly man with bleached hair and fake black wings. The fact that he couldn't be bothered to shave was especially funny.
The fake Cherry was actually pretty good, easily the best look-a-like among the fakes. She was supermodel level smoking hot with a bodacious bod and curves in all the right places. Her sensual gaze caused men and women alike to faint when she met their eyes.
Clearly identical to her real self in the looks department. A shame that she was rotten on the inside, Cherry knew the type.
"Show time." Cherry pulled a rope.
…
Far below the canopy, the pirates excitedly shouted "Kill him!" towards the stage after the fake Luffy announced that he would punish the disguised real Luffy for offending him earlier.
"Huh?" The real Luffy stepped out of the way as a fist sized ball of sparkly goop fell where he was just standing.
His observation haki had warned him that something "dangerous" was about to hit him, so he was a bit perplexed to find that it was seemingly something harmless.
He looked up and his eyes widened. He didn't know what was dangerous about it, but it couldn't be good that so much of it was falling down from the trees. Luffy immediately booked it, intending to get far away from this nonsense.
Not a moment later the crowd and the fake Straw Hats were doused in a mixture of Bubble soap and glitter. There was a brief panic at the unknown substance, but seeing that it didn't hurt them, their fear turned to anger.
It would only be some time later that they would realize that the glitter was fusing to their skin. Cherry had worked very hard to make objects retain her devil fruit's fusing property for a short period after she was no longer in physical contact. Smaller objects, such as this glitter, retained it longer than larger ones.
"Who the hell thinks they can joke around with Straw Hat Luffy?!" The fake Luffy shouted angrily.
"Me?" Cherry dropped down directly in front of him.
"*PSSSSSSSSS* The sound of sizzling flesh.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Fake Luffy screeched in agony, clutching his chest as he doubled over to the ground.
Cherry turned to look at the other fakes with the visage of a laughing devil.
The custom made brand in her hand was then clearly seen by them and the crowd. A white hot claw mark, the very same that the celestial dragon's put on their slaves.
"That's Cheapshot Cherry!" A voice shouted from the crowd.
The silence was palpable. At least it was until Cherry vanished from her place and another scream, this time from fake Zoro, cried out.
Pandemonium was unleashed. It was very clear to everyone but the dullest of fools what was going on here. These Straw Hats were fake, and now the real Harpin D. Cherry had come to punish them with a damned celestial dragon slave brand.
They all had the same thought. 'Don't fuck with Cheapshot Cherry.'
Cherry managed to brand about half of the fakes when the marines stormed the clearing along with the pacifistas. That made it a bit more difficult, but Cherry was persistent and managed to get them all in the end.
Thankfully Luffy had run off instead of sticking around. Otherwise he might have even attacked Cherry for 'hurting their friends'.
As Cherry turned to make a retreat, a pacifista blocked her path.
"You aren't going anywhere, Cheapshot!" Sentomaru's voice carried across the battlefield as he charged towards her.
Cherry didn't stop, slow down, or even change directions in the slightest.
*Crunch!* *BOOM!!!*
Instead, she directly ran THROUGH the pacifista, leaving a Cherry sized hole in her wake before it exploded.
Between her Hasshoken, armament haki, and devil fruit, these mechanical soldiers weren't even worth the scrap they made them from in front of her now. If they could use haki, they might have proven to be a challenge, but these were only corpses without wills of their own.
As Sentomaru lamented the loss of a battleship's worth of funding destroyed just like that, Cherry shouted to him. "Sorry, I don't have the time to catch up! I hope we meet again, sumo guy!"
With that, Cherry accelerated to full speed and disappeared.