"There you are!" Franky (Usopp) shouted.
"Oh, hi Franky. Were you looking for us?" Cabernet said.
"I'm not Franky, I'm Usopp." Franky (Usopp) corrected.
Cabernet gave him a funny look that said "Sure you are."
"No, really! Trafalgar Law swapped our bodies!" Franky (Usopp) said.
"Prove it!" Cabernet demanded.
"Bah!" Merry concurred.
"How am I supposed to do that?!" Franky (Usopp) asked.
"Show us your nipples!" Cabernet ordered.
"No!" Franky (Usopp) refused instantly.
"I guess he really isn't Franky." Cabernet said to Merry, then turned back to not Franky. "But that doesn't mean you're Usopp!"
Franky (Usopp) was at a loss, but a light bulb lit in his mind and he started to sing. "On the Sniper Island~!"
After finishing the song he stood before the two ships looking very proud of his idea.
"Why is Sniper King pretending to be Usopp?" Cabernet asked Merry.
"Baaah." Merry shook her head, for she didn't understand the mysterious man's motives either.
"Good enough…" Franky (Usopp) muttered with a sigh. "We have to get back to the others! I see you've found the samurai's torso."
"Samurai?" Cabernet inquired.
"I'll explain later! For now let's get-!" Franky (Usopp) hurried.
In the distance, a strange silhouette appeared, halting Franky's (Usopp's) words in their tracks. At first you might think it to be a mountain due to its massive scale, but the translucent pink color and the two giant glowing eyes told a different story.
Franky (Usopp) had no desire to find out what that thing was, so he did his best to get the two ships to pick up the pace.
…
Tashigi (Smoker) and Smoker (Tashigi) had found themselves in a rather annoying dilemma, to say the least.
Not only had Law taken Smoker's heart, but he had swapped the captain and vice admiral's consciousnesses as well. If that wasn't bad enough, they now found themselves in battle with the forces that dwelled in the laboratory here on Punk Hazard. Meanwhile, the facility seems to have entered some sort of lockdown.
Tashigi (Smoker) knew that something bad was going to happen. He'd already guessed that Caesar Clown was the mastermind of this place, and with the sudden lockdown of the facility he was fairly certain they were about to be faced with a poisonous gas of some sort. Caesar's men didn't even have protective gear on, which told him that this was likely to be a test and possibly even a demonstration of a chemical weapon, judging by the den den mushis observing from a distance.
*PLOP*
A mass of pink goo slammed down onto the ground near the battle. Not long after, many more started to fall from the sky. Tashigi (Smoker) ordered his men to stay away from the substance, but realized it may not do them any good as the piles of goo started to move of their own volition.
When the G5 marines on their only remaining ship lit one of the pink things on fire, a massive explosion swallowed the vessel whole leaving nothing more than splintered, burning wood behind in its wake.
That was their only chance to escape out to sea along with a great many rough, but otherwise fine men.
"Break through the door! It's our only chance to survive!" Tashigi (Smoker) ordered.
The fact that the pink slime attacked both his men and Caesar's men indiscriminately had thankfully left the latter in a state of confusion. Some of them had even elected to attack the door as well in a desperate bid to escape.
…
"What are those fools doing?! Don't help them breach my lab's defenses! Just quietly die alongside them like the good little guinea pigs you are!" Caesar complained at the camera feeds showing the front entrance.
"Just lock the inner barriers as well." Monet suggested.
"Oh! Monet, what would I do without you!" Caesar praised, then pressed a button to contact the control center. "Shut the inner barriers between section A and section B!"
"Yes, master!" His subordinate replied and complied dutifully.
"Shurorororo! Now the marines, the Straw Hats, and best of all Law will perish to my ultimate creation!" Caesar laughed to himself.
"Master!" Another of his subordinates radioed in. "There are intruders in section B!"
"What?!" Caesar shouted in disbelief. He swiftly changed the camera feeds to those in section B and saw the Straw Hat pirates wreaking havoc on his men. He also saw the children from the biscuit room that would soon be needing another dosage of their 'medicine'.
"Damn it!" Caesar shouted in frustration. This would spoil some of the appeal he would have had for his weapon with such infamous test subjects.
Not all was lost yet, however. He could still make use of the childrens' addiction against them. They would go berserk without it and do anything to get their next fix, including attacking the Straw Hats.
Caesar made up his mind and moved out personally, confident that if anything went wrong he would at least be able to escape himself. After all, he was a nearly invincible logia fruit user, untouchable by conventional weaponry, on top of having all sorts of poison gasses at his disposal.
…
Cherry and Law had split off from the others and from each other. She herself was headed towards the front entrance where the marines had been. Tashigi and Smoker were decent people and it would leave a bad taste in her mouth if she left them to die a horrible poisonous death.
Naturally, since Cabernet was following their connection, this also solved the issue of her people outside in the same action, as she could allow both groups to enter the facility at the same time.
"There certainly are a lot of oddities on this island…" Cherry muttered as she focused on the strange, amorphous entity with a zoan devil fruit. She definitely had to get the secret to Vegapunk's method of giving non living things devil fruit abilities out of Caesar, because she wasn't sure how you would even go about applying a devil fruit to a liquid rather than a solid object.
Cabernet arrived at the entrance of the facility with "Franky", Merry, and a headless, legless torso hanging onto her as she flew. There she found the marines that were trying to bombard their way through the sealed doors with little luck just in time for Cherry to swing open a makeshift door in the frame.
"Hello, friends! You can come inside right over here! Oh hey, if it isn't Tashigi-chan and Mr. Lung Cancer. I must say, Smoker, you're looking very nice today. But Tashigi-chan, on the other hand, seems to have given up her femininity altogether! What a shame, Hehehe~" Cherry called out.
Tashigi (Smoker) didn't have time for Cherry's bullshit and directly lunged at her with his jitte. Cherry casually sidestepped the attack, allowing her (him) to pass through the makeshift doorway unobstructed. Seeing that Cherry was walking away from her (him) without even looking back, she (he) suppressed his anger and ordered her (his) men to use the new entrance to enter the facility and hopefully reach safety.
Smoker (Tashigi), did not leave Cherry to her own devices, though.
*Swish* *Clang!*
Smoker's (Tashigi's) sword was blocked by a sword that appeared in Cherry's hand from seemingly nowhere.
"Couldn't wait until we got inside to have a look at my sword, hm? You're very passionate about swords, aren't you Tashigi-chan~?" Cherry teased.
Electricity crackled along the blade and prickled at his (her) hand, but he (she) held firm.
"I cannot allow such a weapon to remain in the hands of a pirate!" Smoker (Tashigi) said with conviction.
"Sakura Tengoku was made specifically for me and modified by me, darling~ There's no more appropriate place for it to be than in my hands. I don't plan to be a pirate forever, though, so maybe you can just wait a while and you'll achieve your goal without any effort whatsoever?" Cherry smiled.
Smoker (Tashigi) opened his (her) mouth again to speak, but was interrupted by the surprisingly gruff voice of Tashigi (Smoker). "Get your ass over here, Tashigi! Forget about her for now!"
Taking another look around, Smoker (Tashigi) realized that his (her) subordinates had already all gotten inside and the poisonous, explosive slimes were only growing in number. Cabernet, Franky (Usopp), and Merry landed behind Cherry as well, making it clear she was completely out of her depth here and that the wisest course of action was a strategic retreat.
Swallowing his (her) objections, he (she) rushed over to the door and funneled inside, followed soon after by Cherry and her own little group.
Once inside, Cherry resealed the makeshift door and fused it shut. When she turned around she found herself surrounded by rough looking marines at gunpoint.
Cherry shot her hands high into the air above her and shouted "I surrender!"
"What?!" Franky (Usopp) shouted in disbelief, having been rather confident in their chances of breaking through.
""..."" Tashigi (Smoker) and Smoker (Tashigi) were rendered speechless.